Ed Greenwood - The Herald

Alustriel and Laeral were flung away from him, shocked and numbed, and landed hard. They stared at him, aghast, as he rose, standing on nothing, now about the height of a tall man off the ground, trembling. Small blue flames spurted from his stiffly spread fingertips.

The Old Mage hung in the air, helpless, as all of the Srinshee’s magical might and life-force flooded through him-and through the linking flows of power, to stab into Larloch.

Whose shrieks, as he burned, clawed the ears of everyone in Myth Drannor and Thultanthar.

It took a long time for those screams to dwindle as the archlich was whirled away, his hold on power lost.

The mythal collapsed into Elminster, and exploded out of him in all directions, flooding the Weave nearby with its energy.

The air shone brightly, and sang, loud and bright.

As the city of Thultanthar crushed elven spires as if they were made of sand and came inexorably down, down atop Myth Drannor.

The Most High of Thultanthar looked around wildly. The city was heading for the ground, faster and faster, the very stones around and beneath him groaning deep and awful with the strain-and there was nothing, nothing he could do to stop it.

He’d flung all of his gathered power to tug against the downward pull, in utter vain, then turned it to trying to twist what few spells he could see in the minds of nearby Thultanthans-for there was no time at all to craft a new magic-into a severing force, to slice free of that pull … and failed.

His city was doomed.

Telamont snarled a heartfelt curse, and gathered all his newfound power to flee-but the empty air in front of his throne fell away like a curtain, to reveal a bearded and weathered face staring at him with eyes that held no shred of mercy.

Force flooded out of those eyes in a torrent, slamming Telamont Tanthul back on his throne and pinning him there.

They gazed at each other, High Prince and Old Mage, while the tyrant of Thultanthar tried a dozen swift spells of escape or destruction, and Elminster casually shattered them all in the instant of their forming, one after another. Until Telamont Tanthul ran out of ideas and relevant magic. As he racked his wits desperately, trying to think of how to escape, Elminster said flatly, “ Enough , Tanthul. Ye’ve misused thine Art for centuries, and grown more arrogant rather than wiser. The Realms are far better off without ye. Reap now the reward that should have been thine long, long ago.”

And the almighty crash that came then shattered bones and toppled walls and pillars, even before the Most High of Thultanthar was flung up at the ceiling and his upthrust throne pinned him there and then drove him through it, in broken pulped pieces that leaked magic in all directions.

The floating city and hapless Myth Drannor beneath it smashed and ground together and were both destroyed, ancient elven magics exploding here, there, and everywhere amid the roiling field of tumbling stone.

And Telamont Tanthul died, already in bodily agony, shrieking in terror as his mind broke like a toppled wineglass. Elminster Aumar held the shade’s cracking and disintegrating body on his cracking and disintegrating throne throughout, and the Shadovar’s mind clamped tightly with his own, to make very sure.

So it was that he tasted Telamont’s destruction, and very nearly shared it.

Lost in tears, reeling, mentally exposed and exhausted, Elminster swam in and out of consciousness … and lay helpless beneath the coming of the Mistress of the Night.

Shar raged, vast and dark and terrible in the sky above the broken cities, glaring down out of her own nightfall at the floating, slumped Elminster, her darkness rolling down, down, reaching out with great dark tentacles …

That vanished in a flood of silver light, a sloping wall of silver fire like an impossibly tall tidal wave, sweeping up into the sky and growing a face.

Mystra, bright and powerful and whole, smilingly defying the dark goddess.

“Let us, for once, not go too far, Goddess of Night,” Mystra said gently, her eyes two silver flames of understanding, warning, and grim promise.

Shar snarled in rage and turned away in a swirling of shadows, and the day came back again.

One moment the coronal was fighting desperately against too many mercenaries to count, in deepening darkness as the floating city came down on all their heads, fighting to guard Fflar’s back and keep him alive as he worked miracles of deft bladework to hold back hireswords beyond counting, and helping elf knight after wounded elf knight through the portal-

And the next, she was somewhere else.

Somewhere green and forested and familiar, that lacked tall spires and human butchers-for-coin beyond number and fallen Tel’Quess everywhere.

She blinked. Semberholme, that’s where she was.

There were elves everywhere around her, in bloody armor, swords in their hands, weeping and embracing. Her people, the last Myth Drannans who’d fought beside her, she who was now coronal of nowhere.

Through the sobbing, hugging crowd, she saw Fflar, her Fflar, in his hacked and rent armor, sword still in hand, stalking wearily toward her.

“The Srinshee,” he said hoarsely. “She saved every one of us.” And burst into tears.

They plunged into each other’s arms.

The breeze was icy, up on so high a ledge of the Thunder Peaks, but it afforded them the view they needed-once augmented by their spells, of course-and they simply had to see.

It’s not every day you watch your home and most of your kin and people destroyed, all at one stroke.

Gwelt, Manarlume, and Lelavdra stood together in stunned silence as the debacle unfolded.

It was a long time before Gwelt stirred.

“Your grandsire was a mighty man, but a proud one,” he said grimly. “Too proud, in the end.”

“He was a proud fool ,” Lelavdra replied scornfully.

“There are worse things to be,” said Manarlume, “but yes, let us strive not to be so proud.”

“Or foolish,” Gwelt added.

“And keep far from the company of those who are,” Lelavdra said bitterly.

Manarlume sighed. “So shall we shiver on some mountaintop? Shrivel dry at the heart of some vast desert? Or drown on a rock far out in the trackless seas?”

The three Shadovar looked at each other-and then burst into rueful laughter.

It was so late on this night of the thirteenth of Marpenoth that it had really become early on the fourteenth, and outside was chill darkness and glittering stars.

Yet Storm’s kitchen was a warm welter of noise, delightful aromas, and dancing candlelight from a dozen lanterns. It was hot and getting hotter, and Amarune and Arclath were trying their best to help their whirlwind of a host prepare a feast. Storm preferred to stir and sample the soups herself, but there were roasts to be wrestled onto spits and then turned by someone who could kick fresh logs into the hearth beneath them without having all the flaming firewood roll right back out (Arclath’s job, and he was learning mastery of it fast, though his boots would never be the same), and bread to be hauled out of ovens (Amarune’s task).

She blew clinging hair off her forehead with a mighty puff, slid her hands into the padded gloves Storm had tossed her way, and picked up a pry bar to do battle with the bread-oven doors.

“How do you know they’re done?” Arclath asked her.

“See that line of bread dough all around the edge of the door, sealing it?” Rune asked tartly. “It’s done, yes? Well, then, so are the loaves inside.”

“And you became an expert on baking bread when?”

“When Storm told me about that trick, while you were raiding the pantry,” Amarune admitted, and when Arclath looked over his shoulder, he saw Storm watching them with a broad grin.