Ed Greenwood - The Herald

Gwelt stood his ground. “No! That is to say …”

“Gwelt, I am enraged. I am disgusted. Stand aside! I’m off to report your treachery to the Most High right now!”

“ No ! No, hear me! Whatever you think of me and want to say about me, tarry for a day -please !”

“Why?” Lelavdra asked bluntly. “Why should my sister delay on your say-so, when our city’s safeguarding and bright future are at stake?”

“For her own safety! He suffered mind-wounding and a terrible humiliation; when last I saw him, he was kicking Prince Aglarel! Stay away from him right now, I beg you! It’s not safe !”

“And why do you care what happens to me?” Manarlume flared.

Tense silence fell, as they all stared at each other.

“Well?” she snapped. Lelavdra stepped to her side, folding her arms across her chest and adding her glare to that of her sister’s.

Gwelt flushed a deep crimson under the hard weight of their regard, and muttered, “I … I love you, Ladies Tanthul. Both of you.”

Manarlume and Lelavdra stared at him.

Then, slowly, they both grew the same catlike smile.

Larloch was talking to himself. Again.

“For a long time I contented myself with studying the Art, taking it further than any one entity had done before,” he purred, “and letting Toril attend to itself. I cared for no realm nor ruler nor cabal, and was content to be left alone. And the world grew no better, and petty tyrants meddled ever more recklessly with magic, from the dupes of Shar to those fools in Zhentil Keep and Thay, and now these arrogant returned bumblers of Thultanthar. It is time, and long past time, to intervene. Not to rule the high and the low, trying to make laws and enforce them in matters ever so petty-but to slap down the worst parasites and vandals, and let commoners and oxen alike breathe once more! A city should have a ruler pitted against guilds and street gangs and the wealthiest families-but above that, there should be no one but the gods, and their priesthoods locked ever in opposition. Let there be an end to kings. Let there be only … Larloch.”

Elminster rolled his eyes. Alustriel and Laeral both wagged fingers at him in mock reproof.

The Weave anchor between them hummed on, intact. A mythal anchor had been entwined around it, like a thriving vine, and when they’d trudged up to the Weave anchor, amid the moss-carpeted roots of a thriving duskwood, they’d felt the mythal anchor, and heard Larloch’s voice thrumming along it. He must be somewhere near.

Or perhaps not. He could be anywhere else that the mythal of the city extended. Far beyond the few buildings the elves still held against the tightening ring of Shadovar besiegers.

They could see him through the anchor, as well as hear him; a flickering, translucent, miniature image of the tall, gaunt archlich in his robes. He was gloating, head thrown back, concentration turned inward, bent on drawing the mythal’s power into himself-and as they watched, he was growing larger, and larger, and starting to glow …

Elminster beckoned Alustriel and Laeral close. When they bent their heads to his, he whispered, “Anchor me .”

Frowning-what was the Old Mage up to now? — they nodded and wrapped their arms around him from either side. He sat down, drawing them down with him onto the forest moss, and closed his eyes, waiting for their minds to settle into full and calm contact with his. When that happened, El called on the connection to the mythal Larloch had inadvertently shown him back in Candlekeep when the death of the Guide had wrenched him out of the monks’ minds.

He called on that connection ever so gently, not wanting Larloch to sense him doing so.

The mythal was flowing into the archlich’s vast, dark, and starless mind, slowly but ever faster, draining away from the City of Song.

El didn’t try to fight that flow, nor divert it. Not yet. Not until he had need of its power. First, he called on his command of the Weave, that far greater web of magical might, wrapping himself in all the thrumming power he could stand-his body shuddering and then shaking violently in the firm grip of the sisters-and then reaching up and out with that gathered power.

Power that stretched out like so many soft and unseen tentacles to nestle among the enchantments that knit together the stones of the flying city of Thultanthar, and held it aloft, and controlled the moisture that reached it, and governed the temperature within and around its buildings. Making those contacts into bindings, knitting them into the very fabric of all those thousandfold enchantments; turning them into so many hooks for him to pull on.

Then, tentatively at first, and then insistently, Elminster set about pulling the floating city of Thultanthar down out of the sky.

Alustriel and Laeral, their faces almost touching his, stared at him in dawning awe, feeling what he was doing through their link with him.

Then, each of them accepted what must be, and bolstered him with their will.

And silently, through the clouds, the great floating city started to descend.

Arclath looked up at the great dark bulk of the Netherese city, floating so large overhead. It was blotting out most of the sun, and it was getting larger.

“It’s definitely getting lower,” he reported, and then added inevitably, “Are you sure it was wise to come here?”

“Wise?” His lady’s eyes flashed. “Of course it wasn’t wise, Lord Delcastle!”

Arclath winced. Uh-oh. And me without a shield.

“It was, however,” Rune snapped, “the right thing to do! And the gods take all wisdom and prudence if riding under their banner means a life of renouncing or shirking what is right!”

And perhaps, just perhaps, a life of longer duration.

Arclath was careful to think that, but say no word nor hint of it. If he was going to get killed or maimed this day, let it not be by the lady he loved.

Who was now tugging at his arm and pointing. “There! Elves, more than a dozen of them!”

“With what looks to be several thousand mercenary warriors trying to slaughter them,” Arclath pointed out.

“Yes, those elves!” Rune said fiercely. “We go to reinforce them!”

“Of course we do,” Lord Delcastle replied. Lifting his chin, he hefted his sword and started running, his beloved right beside him.

The flows of power were thunderously obvious, and Larloch looked along them at their commander.

And saw what Elminster was doing.

The archlich smirked, smiled broadly, then burst into laughter. “You amuse me with your strivings, petty meddler!” he told the Old Mage. “Destroy all the architecture you want! Soon you shall have a new master, and your dances will be to my command-you and every last archmage and hedge wizard, from one end of this world to the other!”

“Oooh,” Elminster replied mildly. “Won’t that be nice?”

The lights of Larloch’s eyes blazed up. “Man, do you mock me?”

“Archlich, I mock everyone. Myself, most of all. It’s how I guard my heart against the flailing lashings of life. And you?”

The archlich regarded him in still silence for an uncomfortably long time. And then sighed and said, “You do understand. I need such as you. I have all too few friends.”

Elminster looked steadily back along the flows, into Larloch’s distant face.

“Me too,” he said.

The doors of the audience chamber were barred and spell-sealed, and one man sat alone on that high seat.

All around him, things of beauty and power summoned from all over Thultanthar floated in the air, drifting in slow orbits around the throne. Staves, rods, scepters, crowns, rings, keys, wands, pairs of boots, and many smaller, odder things, from tiny pouch coffers to ornate lamp statuettes, hundreds of them were slowly circling the throne.