Ed Greenwood - The Herald

“It might bear on what’s befalling right now. All I can recall of it, here and now, is the last half of it: ‘That when two cities fall together, nobles across Faerûn must and shall renew the realms they serve.’ So I find myself wondering if the prophecied time is nigh.”

“Renew Cormyr?”

“ If it’s time. And if that be the case, and Myth Drannor is one of the cities that will fall, what’s the other?”

Rune shrugged to indicate she hadn’t the faintest. “Elminster has shown me that prophecies are put into the minds and mouths of mortals by the gods. They are what they want mortals to believe-wishful thinking, if you will-not firm destinies that can be fully understood beforehand, and counted on. That prophecy may be so many empty words, or-”

The front door of the kitchen swung open, and a man in worn leathers and homespun confronted them, drawn sword in hand.

“Who are you?” he growled. “And what’re you up to?”

“Making soup,” Arclath replied, bending to add some of Storm’s split kindling to the fire, and wincing at how damp it was. “I hope.”

The sword leveled at him didn’t waver. “Neither of you are the Lady Storm-”

“No,” Amarune replied calmly, “but she brought us here, and asked that we stay and await her.”

“Oh? And what did she say might depend on your obedience?”

Rune and Arclath blinked at their gruff interrogator … and then Rune remembered Storm’s words. “The future of the Realms,” she replied triumphantly.

The man stared at her for a moment, then-very slowly-smiled, and his sword went down.

“Well met,” he said. “I’m Braerogan, of Shadowdale. Next farm up. Heard your voices.”

Arclath bowed. “I am Lord Arclath Delcastle, of Cormyr, and this is Lady Amarune Delcastle, my wife. We are … friends of the Lady Storm.”

Braerogan lifted a bristling brow. “Lords and ladies, is it? Well, carry on. Didn’t know nobility knew how to make their own soup, but … live and learn, live and learn. Any friend of the Lady Storm is a friend to all Shadowdale. And we need friends, what with all this fighting and tumult from one end of Faerûn to the other, and portents and priests muttering about Chosen, and I don’t know what all.”

He nodded, sheathed his sword, waved an uncertain salute in their direction, and went out, pulling the door closed behind him.

Rune stared at it in statuelike silence for long enough that Arclath had all the parsnips washed and chopped and into the tureen and was starting on the leeks before she exploded into pacing. Across the kitchen and back, across and back, whirling hard at each turn, and growling under her breath.

“Salt?” Arclath asked. “And share what you’re snarling?”

His lady halted at the far end of the kitchen, hands on hips, and snapped, “We shouldn’t be cowering here, when the Realms- literally, this time, not mere bardic overblown claims-hangs on the brink of utter destruction. Why should I keep myself safe to carry on tomorrow, when there won’t be any tomorrow if Elminster, Storm, and the others fail?”

She marched across the kitchen to fetch up against Arclath’s chest.

“Well, Lord Delcastle? Answer me that! Why are we languishing here when every blade and spell is needed? Why ?”

“Because if they fall, you are their only hope. They can fight better knowing that, knowing you are out of harm’s way.”

“But I’m not , Arclath, and neither are you. The two of us can’t even defend every door and window of this kitchen ! We’re safe only so long as none of the Shadovar or their hirelings and beasts notice us! The moment one of them so much as looks in this direction, or happens to blunder up yon path and through that door …”

Arclath stared at her, looking grim.

Rune put her arms around him, drew him so close that their noses touched, and stared into his eyes. “You haven’t any answer for that, do you?” she asked softly.

Slowly, very slowly, Arclath shook his head.

Blue lightning stabbed briefly out into the passage as the last rubble fell away. Mattick and Vattick regarded each other across it, smiled, and when the lancing death was done, stepped through the archway with one accord, boots crunching on the rubble where Mattick had breached and shattered the crypt doors.

House Velanralyn had died out a long time ago, by the looks of things. Corpses sighed into dust at the most delicate of touches, and Vattick swiftly gave up on trying to see what sort of dead elf was wearing or holding what-he just started snatching things of magic as fast as his brother was, and draining them.

Briefly flaring blue glow after silent blue glow, they worked their way across the crypt. It was larger and dimmer than most, and they went to the highest, grandest biers and catafalques, one after another, leaving the lesser interments until later. The two arcanists watched uncertainly for a moment, and then one took up a guard’s stance at the shattered entrance, and the other-the one afflicted with scales migrating around his body-joining the harvesting of magic items, collecting them rather than draining them as the two Tanthuls were.

As the draining went on, Mattick felt more powerful than ever in his life before, swollen and tingling and itching to hurl spells and blast screaming elf faces to nothingness. Then a stealthy movement seen out of the corner of his eye made him turn, in time to see the scaly arcanist slip a glowing blue ring into a belt pouch.

A moment later, the kneeling arcanist gasped and swayed forward-as the point of Vattick’s sword burst out of his breast.

Mattick’s brother had run the Shadovar through from behind. He twisted his blade to make the sobbing, convulsing arcanist feel more pain. Then pulled it out-and slid it back into the shade’s body at a different angle and twisted it again.

The raw shrieks and gurglings were impressive.

The other arcanist came from the crypt entrance to watch, reluctant and white faced, as his scaly fellow Shadovar died slowly and horribly on Prince Vattick’s magical sword.

When the thieving Thultanthan was still and silent at last, Vattick kicked the body off his steel, wiped the blade clean on the dead, staring face, and drawled, “I knew we’d have to make a lesson of someone. It was just a matter of who.”

He slashed open the dead arcanist’s pouch, hooked the ring on the tip of his sword, flung it into the air, and caught and drained it, letting the dust the ring crumbled into trickle out of his palm onto the dead man’s face.

Mattick looked at the sole surviving arcanist. The man’s face was the color of old bone, and he was swallowing repeatedly, as if something was caught in his throat.

A curse, probably.

“Next crypt,” Mattick ordered him briskly, and followed his words with an impish smile.

The last arcanist shuddered and swallowed again. Hard.

“Beloved teacher,” Elminster said gently, “we are indeed going somewhere. Up out of here, to the heart of Myth Drannor. I think ye know why.”

The Srinshee nodded.

“The hour of need is come,” she said sadly. “Being as some are contemplating destroying the mythal.”

“Olue,” El asked gravely, “ye aren’t going to resist us, are ye?”

“No. What you are attempting is needful. It tears at my heart to lose this bright city again-oh, how it hurts-but I would lose a thousand Myth Drannors if the loss could save Faerûn. We elves can go to Semberholme, or find trees elsewhere. If the dwarves can abandon all their homes and travel far and do whatever is needful to endure, so can we. So shall we. Yes, El, I’m with you.”