Ed Greenwood - The Herald

His three fellow mages turned to obey commands she’d given earlier, resealing the crypt of House Alavalae.

Ilsevele Miritar, the Coronal of Myth Drannor, watched them, and sighed. How long would it be before the next tomb robbers came down this passage, bent on taking what they could and destroying all that was left of a proud elf family?

They had won this battle, but it didn’t feel like any sort of victory.

The mages all looked to her, their castings done.

“Come,” she commanded softly, and led the way along the passage. There was another crypt, around two bends of the way ahead, and these plunderers might have sent others …

They found its doors intact, but the door warden of House Felaeraun was a flickering blue flame in the passage before them, weeping inconsolably.

“Gone!” was all they could get out of the baelnorn. “ Gone !”

At a gesture from their coronal, two of the high mages unsealed the doors with careful spells, working gently-and just as gently, opened the doors wide.

Into still darkness.

The last resting place of House Felaeraun had been drained from within . All of its honored dead were now dust, their magic gone.

"I have an idea,” Elminster announced suddenly.

“Of course you do,” the Srinshee, Alustriel, and Laeral all replied in unintentional unison-something that startled them into gales of laughter.

El overrode them all with a firm, “ Heed me !” And then added, “For I’ll be needing aid-mind-steadying-from all of ye.”

“El,” Laeral told him crisply, “you’ve needed that for years .”

That brought a chuckle from the man himself, amid fresh mirth from the others, but then he said, “I’ve magically bound more than a few beings over the years. Some, I’m thinking, could wreak much havoc among the armies of Thultanthar gathered here.”

“ And against the battered few Tel’Quess still fighting for our city,” the Srinshee said sharply.

“Only if they break through all the massed mercenaries I’m thinking of putting them right into the midst of.”

“What sort of bound beings?” Alustriel asked suspiciously.

“Dracoliches, dragons, beholders, and the like. Usually I thrust them into stasis, where they’ve been caught ever since, but in a few cases I bound them to a particular place, so they could no longer wander and maraud at will.”

“Dragons … beholders,” the Srinshee murmured, shaking her head. “And this will help my people how? By sending them to their graves all the sooner?”

“If you help me transform the bindings I’ve laid on them into prohibitions to keep them from translocating or flying,” El explained, “we’ll keep most of them ground ridden. Beholders dragging themselves along, dragons and dracoliches stalking like cats-they’ll be caught in the thick of well-armed hireswords who can hit back, and hit hard. Lots of hireswords. The armies far too numerous for the Tel’Quess of Myth Drannor to stand against. Think of these beasts as our army.”

Laeral winced. “I have some ethical qualms … convince me, El.”

“I bind nothing and no one lightly. These bound creatures are all menaces-and if I fall in battle, they’ll all be loosed anyway, wherever they are on Toril, without heralding nor any watch over where they go and what they do. Which will undoubtedly be to slaughter and despoil and devour. Why not have that havoc be visited on warriors who’ve taken coin to do butchery on others, in a forest-locked city far from what any of them hold dear, whose inhabitants have threatened them not at all? Let them earn their blood-coins for once. And if all this should thin the ranks of mercenaries, so be it. Better they fall, and all lands be somewhat the safer for the lack of so cheap and plentiful means of making war, than Myth Drannor fall and Shar or Larloch or something worse prevail, the Weave crash, and a new Spellplague or worse race like wildfire across the world, and countless beings be plunged into fear and misery and lives of desperate savagery, fighting every day just to stay alive in the face of-”

“ Enough ,” Laeral said firmly. “You’ve slain my qualms, not to mention any more qualms I may entertain for the next season or so. Let’s be loosing your beasts-only with precision.”

“Of course,” Elminster agreed. “ That is what I need the three of ye to help with. I need ye to steady and guide me, so we translocate each beast to the best spot at the right time.”

“Though every moment we spend means more of my people fall,” the Srinshee said firmly, “we are going to begin by taking time enough to swiftly survey the strength of the foe, and just where they’re scattered. Fortunately, this was a survey I was already undertaking when you arrived. Sit down, all of you.”

“I-”

“ Sit down . Or lie down; whatever brings most ease. Linking hands, all of us, in a ring. Attune to me.”

Both Alustriel and Laeral opened their mouths as if to protest, then nodded, sat, and reached out for Elminster- who was grinning at the Srinshee’s sudden fire-and for the Srinshee herself.

It took a moment for their minds to mesh, four so spirited and long-lived individuals, but when the inevitable tugging and surging subsided into a comfortable union, their linked minds flashed out to several pairs of small, darting forest birds, and rode their tiny minds and all-seeing eyes through the trees, sweeping over the Shadovar army ringing Myth Drannor. Everywhere within the city, there were skirmishes and fires and rushing armed bands … but not far off, there were thousands of mercenaries encamped, or waiting orders to advance into the city.

Elminster and the two sisters could feel the Srinshee’s despair growing as she saw just how many hireswords there were-and how few elves were left to stand against them.

“Do it,” she snapped at last. “A good big dragon there , and a dracolich there, and beholders here and here . So anyone fleeing will rush into the fearful running from another peril, not off by themselves to straggle through the forest for days and regroup to do mischief. Hem them in with terror. Then we watch, and unbind more beasts only as some of those fall. Yes?”

“Yes,” three mind-voices agreed, and plunged into Elminster’s memories, following him down to the black elder wyrm Harlotharaur, bound in a deep mountain cavern on the northern edge of Amn after it had gloated to El that nothing and no one could stop it poisoning the wells of human cities and the streams that watered mountain villages, to destroy humans in their tens of thousands, and so rid the land of a pest that endangered all other creatures.

The bindings on the dragon were thus and so … Alustriel and Laeral twisted them, and when the roused Harlotharaur stretched its wings and sat up in fell glee to smite the bindings and win its freedom, the Srinshee smilingly plunged into the dragon’s mind, pinned its every muscle, and held it immobile as she translocated it to precisely the spot she’d chosen-and then flung it into a daze.

When the wyrm recovered, not all that many handfuls of moments later, all trace of the four minds that had so violated it were gone, but it was ringed by angry and fearful humans who were even now assailing it with everything they could swing, hurl, or thrust.

Almost gleefully it gave battle, rearing up and lashing out in one titanic surge. Broken bodies were flung high into the air, or sent spattering off trees all around-and Harlotharaur roared in exulting challenge, and set about harvesting more bodies to hurl. It gathered itself for a bound into the air, and flung out its wings for one great beat-only to feel nothing. The muscles that should coil and let it bound into the air twitched and spasmed instead of obeying, and the wings drooped; they could spread but not beat down with any force at all, nor hold an edge …