Ed Greenwood - The Herald

Elminster started to pace in his agitation, waving his arms like an exasperated tutor. “Without any protection at all, order cannot hold! The raging chaos of magic will strike all the Art stored in items-paltry sparks, but there are thousands upon thousands of them! — and all that unbridled energy must go somewhere ! If the Srinshee is right-and I believe she is-both worlds will most likely collapse into uncounted shards, with all life on them swept away in tumult and agony. Do ye not care about our world, and everyone in it? What price victory, if we all die-and the Realms with us? What sort of triumph is that?”

“That will not happen, Old Mage,” Alustriel snapped, “if we do as Khelben saw we must. You conjure dire fantasies, when you should face the truth. The Blackstaff studied this for centuries , and at first thought as you do, but then-”

“Made another of his misjudgments? The Lady knows I’ve made a generous share of grave mistakes, but Khelben made more of them, and stubbornly stood by what he’d decided, even after his folly became clear to all, longer than any mage not green and young I ever met. His stubbornness was his hallmark-”

“And his strength .” Laeral’s voice was as firm as a forge hammer striking iron. “Nor is this a contest of who’s more worthy or more ‘right.’ In this case, this most important case of all, Khelben studied longer and harder than any of us, and reluctantly came to this one conclusion, and we agree with him. And you yourself have spoken of how the Srinshee promised to return in Myth Drannor’s hour of need-so where is she, if that gravest hour of need is truly upon us?”

Alustriel spoke again, before Elminster could. “El, hear me: we have spent more than a century confined here, constraining our lives down to reading and writing and praying, to silence and holding back, to acting roles that chafe us, because we love the Realms too much to fail it. We will not be turned from this. The wards of Candlekeep and the mythal of Myth Drannor must be destroyed. Whether you stand with us or against us, this must be done.”

There were tears in Alustriel’s eyes now, and running down Laeral’s cheeks, but their lips were firm lines of determination.

He found his own throat closing in grief, as he asked roughly, “And if I stand against ye both, what then, old friends? Foster daughters?”

Laeral lifted her chin. “Choose wisely, El. If you are not with the Moonstars, you are against the Moonstars.”

El looked from one tear-wet face to the other, his face as sad as theirs as he used the Weave to spin down streamers of power from the mighty wards of Candlekeep, spiraling eel-like tongues of energy that became two cocoons of force to imprison Alustriel and Laeral.

He saw surprise in their faces-that became astonishment as they tried to command the wards against him, and discovered that his control overrode theirs.

He didn’t wait to see more. Not that he’d ever seen the sense of wasting time in gloating, when there was something very needful that had to be done very swiftly if all this wasn’t to end in disaster. He had to work a difficult spell of his own, and very quickly.

He got the incantation off, and the gestures, and it began. Half-seen movement in the air in front of him, the edges of fingers, darting and interweaving like a great school of fish swarming in the air. Ghostly hands, scores of them, disembodied and swirling in front of him in a shield of sorts.

The moment they were a little more tangible, he sent them racing at Alustriel and Laeral in their whirling, now tightening cocoons. Those streams of slapping, clutching, clawing hands should hamper any spellcastings they might attempt-and hold the two women fast if they managed to banish the cocoons.

They didn’t try. Trading glances, they chanted the same spell in unison.

And shattered the ceiling of the cavern so it plummeted with a thunderous roar.

Elminster didn’t bother to stare upward. He knew what he’d see. Tons of rock, hurtling to crash down on him.

The power of the Baelnorn’s spell was enough to force Helgore’s body back, arching in the throes of a violent shuddering, but his wards wrestled with the emerald flames, holding them at a standstill. Should they reach him, they would consume flesh and tissue, and send burning magic racing through his veins; the wards told him that much as they roiled and recoiled a few finger thicknesses from his skin.

And then the spent spell fell away.

Leaving Helgore smirking at Thurauvyn Nathalanorn, Guardian Undying of House Nathalanorn.

Time for a little goading. Fun, but more importantly, this baelnorn might be made to reveal useful things ere he destroyed it.

He could see the arch-topped stone double doors it guarded beyond it- through it, actually-and could just make out the House symbol sculpted in relief upon them. A salamander wreathed in flames, entwined around a great fish with long, whiplike barbels and a jutting, many-toothed lower jaw. All wreathed and overlaid with sinuous vines whose many tiny leaves looked like ivy. So, fire and water? Pah, it could signify anything.

“So tell me, unworthy guardian,” Helgore drawled, “why the world should remember House Nathalanorn? A few forgotten elves who comported themselves with great pride, no doubt, as all elves do. But had House Nathalanorn any real grounds for such hauteur? Who were they, and what did they achieve?”

“Nothing one who comes to destroy and despoil cares about,” the baelnorn replied coldly. “I’ll tell you nothing that will aid you in finding other crypts or making any good use of anything you find here. I am sworn, beyond death itself. So much is, I grant, obvious, but I am speaking with a human.”

“And we hairy, grasping, reeking barbarians are beneath you oh-so-superior Tel’Quess , is that it?”

“Race is not the major part of this. Youth and ignorance are. Grasping thieves and vandals of all shapes and natures are beneath the regard of House Nathalanorn,” said the baelnorn, drifting a little nearer.

Helgore retreated a step in the face of its chill.

“There is no more House Nathalanorn, old fool,” he told the undead guardian harshly. “You and your kin were forgotten an age ago, before the elves abandoned Myth Drannor to the forest, the roving beasts, and fell fiends. They remain forgotten now. I doubt if the precious coronal could name your family or recognize your blazon, if they were put before her now. You are not even memories-outside these few feet of passage and your own failing wits.”

“I have little doubt we are as nothing in your regard, creature of Telamont. Nothing more than a stronger arcanist of your own benighted city is-and your interest is spent on such powerful beings as targets to be undermined and thrown down in time, to your own advancement. If that is a life you find worthy, revel in it. You will not find much company of worth, however, swimming with you in those waters.”

Helgore shrugged. “I have no need of the adulation of others, dead elf. I know my place and my powers.”

“Knowledge born of a self-delusion so mighty is sure and certain indeed,” the baelnorn agreed caustically, drifting forward again.

This time, Helgore did not retreat, but took a deliberate step forward into the chill, his wards crackling and flaring purple in warning.

“It is past time I shattered your grating superiority, ancient fool,” he said, showing his teeth to the translucent skull face. “So let it begin between us.”

He drew back one arm as if to free it from sticky mud-and thrust it forward with crackling lines of purple-white lightning snarling from its fingertips.