Ed Greenwood - The Herald

In baffled rage Harlotharaur tried again and again, throwing back its head and howling its fury. And then it lowered its head and reached out with its claws and jaws, and dug into the armed humans around it, savaging them and scattering them like dried leaves, and then savaging them some more.

By then, the Srinshee was already rooting through Elminster’s deep memories, dismissing the seething pain it caused him with a brisk, “The sooner we’re in and out and done, the sooner you can start mending your mind-something you should have given more thought to long ago.”

Finding the dracolich he wanted her to find, the Srinshee pounced.

Its cold eyes stared around vainly in the lightless, frigid water and swirling mud. El, Srinshee, Laeral, and Alustriel could all feel its puzzlement, and now, as they drifted in more closely to its flashing thoughts, could hear what it was thinking.

Who were these awakeners? They were-they were in its own mind , nowhere to be seen …

Anger and fear blossomed and rose in the bone dragon’s thoughts. It was Tlossarylathaunglar by name, one of the oldest and most fell creations of the Cult of the Dragon, long frozen by El’s will and Art in the silted depths of a frigid Underdark lake after it refused to stop using its spells and undead brawn to cause collapse after collapse in the Realms Below, crushing entire deep gnome cities and flooding a huge network of caverns that were home to drow, duergar, and dwarves alike by shattering lake basins in the bedrock above them. All for the delight of slaying and the goal of opening vast subterranean caverns it could fly through, and rule over …

Now, Tlossaryl was aroused.

It was appalled to find itself in the grip of a mind far mightier than its own, enraged to feel the attentive awareness of that other, hated mind that had bound it, and frightened to discover that two other minds of power were also in contact with it. Its struggles were feeble-or rather, crushed before they could amount to anything-until it was suddenly elsewhere, in the blinding light and warmth, in air instead of water, and surrounded by so many angry and excited minds that the dracolich was overwhelmed anew, and frankly cowered.

Then the four minds that had gripped it so powerfully were gone, and it was free. Attacked by thousands of armed humans rushing at it from all sides, but unhampered at last-at last! — and so, free to give battle. It beat its bony wings, shattering trees and swiftly learning how entangled by the forest it was-and also discovering that it had lost the power to fly; that part of its undeath and magic had been stripped from it.

That plunged it into a darker, deeper rage than it had ever felt in all its life and unlife, and it lost no time in venting that fury. The minds all around it flared up into fresh rages of their own-and fear. Fear that Tlossaryl reveled in, as it slew, maimed, and slew some more.

By then, the Srinshee was thrusting ruthless mental barbs-long black lances of her contempt and revulsion-deep into the mind of the eye tyrant Xoraulkyr, shattering its arrogant confidence that it was superior to all other minds, and had been ensnared by the human Elminster only through luck and deceit. While it was still reeling mentally, too aghast at being so wounded to gather the will to slap down any of the four minds riding it, it was suddenly no longer in the bricked-up Waterdhavian cellar Elminster had put it into stasis in, but-elsewhere.

Specifically, a glade in deep shade, roofed over by the interwoven branches of a thick stand of duskwoods, where shades and arcanists of Thultanthar were arguing over where to send their “idiot troops” to most swiftly smash what elf resistance remained.

“I’ve always hated commanders who led from the rear,” the Srinshee whispered into Xoraulkyr’s mind confidingly, her words carrying into the thoughts of her three companions. “Let them taste unleashed beholder, and learn a little!”

An instant later, Xoraulkyr thudded heavily to the trodden moss of the forest floor, eyestalks writhing in pain. It sought to soar, to lash out at these astonished humans before they could work the magics they were even now frantically calling up-but found, as the Thultanthans scattered, fleeing for the encircling trees, that it couldn’t even rise off the ground. At all. It was what it had always been: a beholder of massive size for its kind, a sphere the size of a small human coach. Which meant it was so heavy that if it rolled without great care, it crushed its own eyestalks under its bulk.

Xoraulkyr painfully rediscovered this very flaw just before the first spells tore into it. Their force awakened agony and flung it away in a clumsy, bouncing roll, to fetch up against the trunk of a large duskwood where the eye tyrant rested, stretching its eyestalks in a swift wild spasm and then unleashing its magic back at those who’d just harmed it.

The glade erupted in magic so ferocious that trees started to topple, or were blasted to shards that were flung far away through the forest.

By then, the Srinshee was dumping another beholder into another group of commanders, a gathering of mercenary war captains who were strolling and chatting idly, pursuing war in far idler fashion than the shades and arcanists. To a man-and they were all men, ruthless louts of veteran killers, every one-they were most interested, at the moment, in emptying wineskins as fast as their servants could pour them into flagons. The war captains were toasting their guests, a dozen hired mages, but the Srinshee made sure none of those wizards would be fleeing with all that much alacrity, by breaking one ankle of each mage she saw.

And then she let go of El’s hand to break the ring and give them all a moment to breathe and collect their own wits, while she called on the mythal she’d helped shape, to let her far scry the four centers of mayhem they’d just kindled.

“Mayhem,” she commented with some satisfaction, after she’d looked for a few moments at each fray, “is certainly spreading. It might just become widespread among the besiegers of Myth Drannor, if you can find us four more champions as powerful as that quartet among your bindings, El.”

“I believe I can,” Elminster replied, managing a slow grin. It felt good to be rid of burdens, and he was carrying so many.

“Good. Do so. Then I’ll leave you three to get on with destroying Weave anchors, and-”

“ Destroying Weave anchors?” El came to his feet in a wild rush, aghast. “We’ve been renewing them, and crafting new ones! Why, the Weave may collapse, and cause all magic to go wild, if we take away its anchors! What-”

“Madness is this? Desperate times, desperate measures, my fire-sword! You’re right about the danger, of course, but Larloch-and Shar-expect you to rush around strengthening anchors. They are depending on it. Only if the Weave holds strong here, around the mythal, can they drain the one and take over the other. They need someone else to hold the Weave steady so they can snatch it all, whereas if you sever it from its local anchors here, it becomes not a target stretched and held taut for their snatching, but a ragged bit of cloth blowing in wild winds that they can scarce see, let alone seize, as they rush past. Trust me.”

El winced.

“Yes,” the Srinshee told him softly, “I know you have just trusted and been betrayed, but I am no Larloch. Trust me . Destroy anchors, just hereabouts, as swiftly as you can-but take care to choose and destroy those that anchor both the mythal and the Weave, first. Wise crafters would have overlapped none, but … elves and humans alike are all too often unwise.”

“And lazy,” said Laeral.

“And in a hurry,” Alustriel added.