Ed Greenwood - The Herald

Mirt chuckled. “No need, when I happen to know yer name. Thanks for coming, Glathra.”

Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle shrugged. “I did it for Cormyr, not for you.” There was an ugly, ungainly spiderlike creature on her shoulder with a human-seeming head that looked far too big for its splayed, segmented legs.

Manshoon peered at the spider-thing’s face, and frowned. “Vangerdahast?”

“The same,” the spider-thing rasped. “You haven’t been keeping up with events, Lord Manshoon. A serious failing in a vampire who desires continued existence, I’d say.”

“Is that a threat?” Manshoon asked silkily.

“I don’t make threats,” Vangerdahast replied. “These days, I deal in promises.”

Power was beginning to flow to the arcanists in Thultanthar, invisible energies dragged up from the besieged city below. Slowly, very slowly those energies came, the mythal seemingly reluctant to yield its shape and anything of its might.

The things the mythal of Myth Drannor could do, and the things it could thwart, were many, and most of them came with intricate commands and contingencies and attunements, a flood of half-seen memories and silent instructions and magical lore, the very things that fascinated most arcanists, that left them lusting for more. A hundred or more minds wavered, craving to know more, to study and see and master … and like a dark-eyed storm front rolling inexorably into their minds with cold patience but a grip like tightening iron, the High Prince of Thultanthar quelled their straying and dragged them back to the shared work of breaking down the resistance of the mythal and draining its energies.

Settling back into the shared concentration, they felt the power flowing, slow but vast, more and more on the move, coming to them, coming …

Stopping cold. There was a moment of chaos, of many minds separately plunging into shocked realization that their mighty shared ritual hadn’t ended, but rather had been abruptly halted by something more powerful.

Then the dark will of the Most High rose through them again, rallying them, turning them to collectively face and examine whatever it was that had stopped the draining-and walled away the energies they’d already sapped from the intricate and many-layered mythal.

The mysterious impediment loomed in their collective regard as a dark wall, but it was a dark wall that seemed to smile, and not nicely-in the brief instant before a barbed and many-clawed energy boiled out of the wall and lashed into their minds in a malicious slap, a bludgeoning blow of mental power that overwhelmed many of them.

All over the courtyard, arcanists toppled, bleeding from mouths and nostrils, unconsciousness as they fell. Others reeled, drooling or keening in dazed mental ruin. One fell to his knees and started trying to eat his own hands, biting and gnawing.

The great collective faltered.

Those who were still standing, mentally, recoiled in involuntary unison when the dark wall became a smiling, nigh skeletal face.

Fools and idiots , the undead being’s voice rolled mockingly into their heads, well met .

Half a hundred minds dared to ask, without any words at all, Who are you?

Some of the others knew, or guessed, and to them came the mental equivalent of a wink, dividing them from their fellows.

Shades of the City of Shadow , the voice echoed in their heads, far deeper and louder than the Most High’s had ever been, I am the Shadow King. I, alone, blocked all of your minds. A trifle, when one is Master of the Weave and Devourer of the Wards of Candlekeep. You prate of your power, and smugly hold yourselves to be mightier than the wizards of this world you have returned to. You preen, arcanists of Thultanthar, and exult in your power. And all the while, you know nothing of real power .

Another mental slap felled more arcanists, and left others clutching their heads and screaming, their minds collapsing into shattered darkness.

That is but a taste of what I can do casually, in an idle moment. As one would slap an irritating insect. As anyone responsible would slap down someone too ignorant and reckless to be trusted with the power you so arrogantly presume to seize. Shadovar, know this: if anyone in this world is going to be so arrogantly presumptuous, it will be me. Because I, Larloch, can-and can gainsay you and all other hollow pretenders .

And then that terrible mind turned from the cowering, gibbering, or droolingly ruined arcanists to bear down on just one mind. The sentience of Telamont Tanthul, High Prince of Thultanthar. What Larloch said to the Most High of the city, he let-nay, forced-every mind in the city to hear. It was a biting rebuke.

If you were a tenth the wielder of the Art you presume to be, you might have succeeded in this. If, that is, I decided not to prevent you .

Larloch ended his address with a contemptuous surge of power that shattered the draining spell and left Telamont Tanthul leaking mental pain into the heads of those arcanists still conscious and sane.

Then, the dark and awful mind was abruptly gone.

Leaving the Most High of Thultanthar aghast, standing in a courtyard littered with ruined arcanists.

Telamont Tanthul stared around wildly, hearing wild babblings, keening, and even doglike barking from some arcanists on their knees.

Then he turned and ran for the doors that would lead most directly to his throne, desperate to get to it and unleash all of the magics in that chamber, to try to destroy Larloch.

Before Larloch decided to destroy him.

Prince Aglarel lay sprawled and senseless in front of the doors.

Telamont kicked desperately at his son’s body, to try to shift it so he could get at least one door far enough open to slip through.

In the courtyard behind him, some of the arcanists started to howl and bay at the sun.

The door banged open.

Manarlume and Lelavdra whirled from their table of maps and tomes and rune tiles, hands rising to hurl dread magic.

The arcanist Gwelt stood panting on the threshold.

“Madness!” he gasped, “sheer madness! And the Most High is paying for it right now!”

“What madness?” Lelavdra snapped.

“T-the draining spell! Of hundreds of arcanists, working in concert with the High Prince, together seeking to draw the power of the elf city’s mythal to us, and so master the Weave, for the greater glory of Shar! He-”

“Yes, yes, we’ve heard the grand and glorious plan,” Manarlume said dismissively. “Mythal down, Weave our servant, hot suppers for everyone with a snap of our fingers, new gowns whenever we turn around, yes . What ‘madness’ is involved, and High Prince Tanthul is ‘paying for it’ how , exactly?”

“The one called Larloch-the archlich served by many liches-got to the mythal first. And blocked the shielding, sending deadly magic along it that’s felled many arcanists, mind-ruining them or worse! He’s calling himself the Shadow King, and he taunted the Most High, and said he prevented us all by himself, and could stop anything we tried. Called us fools, presumptuous fools who know nothing of real power.”

“Oh? And how fared you against Larloch’s attack?”

“I … I was not touched. I was there, but not part of the meshed minds of the spell.”

Manarlume stared at the arcanist coldly. “So you played traitor, when the Most High most needed your loyalty and service.”

“No! No, I am no traitor! I foresaw the folly and tried to warn Prince Aglarel; he told me he’d hear me out when the spell was done.”

“So you are now the judge of folly and best policy in Thultanthar?” Manarlume flung at him, eyes flashing as she strode at him.