Ed Greenwood - The Herald

“Oh, thank Mystra !” El exclaimed in relief as he rushed to her, arms flung wide.

The Srinshee smiled, and burst into a rush of her own. They ended up in each other’s arms, and El swept the small guardian off her feet in a fierce embrace.

Laeral gave her sister a sardonic look. “ This is why he never gets any work done!”

“Oh, I’d not say that, Sister,” Alustriel countered, watching El and the Srinshee weeping softly and murmuring to each other, rocking back and forth in each other’s arms. “We all have our talents. I’ve accomplished much, doing that and more.”

“This one yet lives,” one Moonstar announced to another, who hastened across the high-vaulted and now blood-spattered room in Candlekeep, slipping on the rubble underfoot.

On all sides, glum-faced Moonstars were tending injured monks or moving the bodies of the dead.

“The wards gone …,” one muttered in head-shaking disbelief.

More than a few of his fellows peered at the stone walls soaring up into dimness above them, as if expecting Candlekeep to collapse on their heads without warning. Soon.

“I,” said another quietly, “find myself wondering what we should all do, after these needs have been seen to … for what is to be done, now that we’ve failed?”

“Much,” a new voice said firmly, from beyond a dark archway. A woman’s voice, but deep and rich as many a man’s. Moonstars all over the littered room looked up sharply, and more than one hand sought a sword hilt.

The speaker strode into the room, and they beheld a warrior woman, tall and broad shouldered and clad in silvery coat of plate. Her close-cropped hair was of the same hue. “If you would serve Khelben’s vision still,” she said, “and do great service to all the world, come with me now. There’s still vital work to be done.”

“And who, exactly, are you?” a Moonstar asked warily.

“I am Dove Falconhand. Of the Seven. Chosen of Mystra.”

Several Moonstars stirred, and some of their faces darkened, but before any spoke, Dove added as sternly as any battle commander, “If we are to defeat the Three Who Wait in Darkness-the very purpose for which the Moonstars were formed-we must go to Myth Drannor and fight the Shadovar there. I understand there’s no shortage of them there right now; there’ll be foes enough for each of you.”

“I lack the spells to take more than a handful of us there,” another Moonstar objected.

Dove gave that man a smile. “Portals will serve us. I know three within the keep, all of them an easy stroll from here.”

Another Moonstar frowned at her. “I’ve lived and worked in this monastery for more than thirty years, and have never seen nor heard of any working portals.”

Dove winked. “That’s what ‘secret’ means. Trust me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then stay behind. I might well be going to my death, and would rather not have someone at my shoulder who believes not in what we must do now.”

“And what’s that?”

“Die cheerfully, fighting hard, so our world may survive,” Dove replied. “I know bards talk like that all the time, but I don’t. I mean every word. And I’m not waiting. So stay, or come.” And she turned and strode back through the archway.

Moonstars looked at each other doubtfully. Then one of them rose, drew his sword, and hurried after Dove.

Then another.

And another.

Then two in unison, swiftly followed by another pair, and then by the rest, in a sudden rush.

Leaving just one Moonstar, who gazed around the room surveying the corpses and the wounded monks, sighed, and announced to the empty air, “I’ll miss this place.”

He walked through the archway, following his fellow Moonstars. “Will the bards sing songs about us, I wonder?” he asked himself.

A few slow, faltering paces later, he stopped long enough to ask, “And if I’m dead, how will I ever get to hear them?”

Another pair of grand and firmly closed crypt doors, and another baelnorn standing in grim guardianship before them, bared longsword in hand. The long, slender blade was studded with clear-cut gems that winked as the baelnorn lifted the war steel, facing the three Netherese as they strolled up to it.

“I am Prince Mattick, and this is my brother, Prince Vattick. We are Tanthuls of Thultanthar,” Mattick announced almost jovially. “You won’t have heard of us, but that matters not. Surrender or be destroyed.”

He didn’t bother to mention the lone surviving arcanist with them, but neither that Shadovar nor the baelnorn seemed to mind.

“I am the guardian of House Hualarydnym,” it announced calmly. “I shall not surrender.”

“You surprise me not,” Vattick drawled, and lifted a finger, unleashing a roaring spell that howled around the doors of the Hualarydnym crypt like two talon-headed emerald serpents, then plunged through the seams around them-and exploded with a last ear-clawing bellow.

The doors shattered and burst outward, huge stony shards stabbing right through the baelnorn from behind. The other shards, large and small, hurtled past the guardian for a moment or two, then curved around in the air, every one of them, to race back at the baelnorn, impaling it from all sides.

Vattick’s catlike smirk widened into a broad smile of delight as they watched the sharp stone fragments speed right through the glowing guardian, but leave their glows behind.

The baelnorn gasped and reeled, the magical auras the stone shards had borne now protruding from it in an ungainly, bristling array. It looked like a fitfully glowing, stumbling parody of a porcupine.

The guardian took several shuddering steps toward them, hissing in pain … and then darkened, gasping out puffs of glowing unlife as it sank into crouching, trembling agony.

And died, falling into a collapse of fading nothingness.

“Down after the first blow,” Mattick remarked approvingly. “Nicely done.”

“It’s all this tomb magic we’ve been drinking,” Vattick replied, beaming. “They crafted magic well; I’ll give them that, these ancient elves.”

He looked down at the stretch of scorched but empty smooth stone where the baelnorn had been, shook his head, and strode through the ravaged entrance of the crypt.

House Hualarydnym had not been a fertile family. Either that, or most of its fallen had been interred elsewhere. There was magic, right enough, but not much of it.

Mattick scowled. “Hardly worth the spell you spent on the door guard,” he said to Vattick.

Who shrugged, still smiling, and replied, “That was one baelnorn-reaping I enjoyed .”

“Hunh,” was Mattick’s eloquent reply to that, as he led the way back out into the passage. Vattick chuckled, but the lone arcanist left carefully said nothing at all, even when Mattick turned and glowered at him.

The passage wound its way around massive tree roots that protruded from the ceiling and descended into the floor like the sloping, half-buried bodies of gigantic snakes. Then the tunnel-like way started to ascend, until Mattick could see leaf-dappled daylight and hear the distant din of battle. Its walls held no more doors.

“Damned longears,” the prince growled. “They can’t have built a city this big with just the families we’ve found so far; there have to be more crypts-but the passages that lead to them could be anywhere . And if we follow this one to the light, we’ll soon be up to our necks in squalling elves trying to lash us with spells we’ve never learned any counters to! While we blunder about in the heart of a battle searching for ways back down again! Shar spit !”

“She does, I’ll grant,” Vattick agreed, “and a trifle too often for my pleasure, but as it happens, we don’t face the doom you fear. Father didn’t want us to run out of crypts so soon.”