Ed Greenwood - The Best of the Realms, Book II

When he let the long tongs fall, Brandor found that he was shaking with weariness. He looked across a kitchen that stank with carnage, where Shalara, Druskin, and the other two Buckler mages were on their knees, white-faced and retching, and grim armsmen were clambering about knee-deep in wet, bloody bullywugs. Oh, he was going to catch it now…

Commander Maerlin was wading grimly through the remains toward him. Brandor closed his eyes and waited for the cold words that would end his Buckler career and direct him to a cell.

The hand that came down on his shoulder gripped warmly, and out of a dizzy fog Brandor heard Oldivar Maerlin say, “Well and bravely done, lad. Thanks.”

From his other side came the sound of Druskin clearing his throat. The wizard sounded a little breathless as he said, “You’ll teach us all that spell, I hope. I’ll exchange four of comparable force for it, of course.”

“Moreover, you’ve saved Mintarn,” the Tyrant said from nearby, his voice rolling out to carry to every corner of the lofty room, “and Mintarn is in your debt. I see no reason that Mintarn cannot reward you fittingly in the days ahead.”

Brandor lifted his head, then, to stare at the ruler of Mintarn in astonishment, but somehow his gaze was caught and held by the shining eyes of Shalara. They stared at each other for a long, wordless time, until Brandor became aware that the movement he’d been noticing out of the corner of his eye was a broad and knowing smile growing across the Tyrant’s face.

Brandor’s face flamed and he looked down quickly. Then he bent, fished around in the gore at his feet, and came up with something that was small and bloody, but unmistakably a weapon.

“Hold hard!” said the Tyrant in alarm, stepping back. “What’s that for?”

“The drudge duty of potato peeling,” Brandor replied in a voice that quavered only a little. He waved with his knife at the mound of potatoes. “The true value of a warrior, sir.”

A slow smile grew on the Tyrant’s face. “Really?” he replied, “and here I thought it was doing guard duty snoring at posts.”

Shalara’s high, tinkling laughter rose over the chorus of deep warriors’ chuckles at that. Brandor, who was busily turning all shades of red as the Tyrant dealt him a friendly slap on the back, thought it was the most glorious sound he’d ever heard.

Fear me, oh yes. I am fearsome and awesome. I am Ondruu, and I will live forever.

Once I was tall, spare, and strong, my eyes green flames as I strode Cormanthor cloaked in my power, chuckling silently as I surveyed elven fancy. Ladies of the Fair Folk looked at me sidelong, and again—and when they saw me alone, drifted out of nightshadows to do more than look.

They’d never seen a man so graceful and fine of face and form, nor one who could spin spells as effortlessly as the Srinshee, magics cleverer and stronger than the craftings of the haughtiest Starym archmage.

Oh yes, I was something to behold.

Now you think me a ghost and stare amazed, thrusting your blades at the twinkling of lights I trail … but I am not where you believe me to be.

I am here, in the spell-knotted heart of this fist-sized emerald—see how I sparkle?—in the hilt of Talath Mornyr’s swiftwing sword. Yes, in my favorite place, sliding through the ever-glowing maze of soft-woven dweomers wherein old Eloedar Lyrindralee captured the crowning magic that makes the blade fly like a bird, across half Faerun if need be, to return to its bearer’s home carrying a transfixed message, or a token bound to it, or even a stolen spell.

Ah, but you begin to forget me, and relax.

So now I quit the blade and fly past ears and over heads— hah!

Carve the air if you will, futile swordswingers! See if you can make it bleed, where even gods fail!

Chuckling silently, I alight in this glass flower, amethysts and amber melted and shaped by Sarsaree the Weaver, glowing like kindling flame now as I dance, awakening spell-locked scents that have lasted a thousand years and will prickle noses for another thousand. Nay, strike not at such beauty, or I’ll thrust you through with lightnings and leave your boots full of ashes for the next fools to find!

Away I’ll fly, if your blades are your answers to my every glimmer and shimmerburst!

Away, to make many-pillared Aladaen Hall awaken and sing, the ghosts of elven ladies dancing again in the depths of its huge crystal pillars.

Then to the Harpstones beyond, to send forth tunes through crumbling towers that have not heard such sounds for centuries … and on, ahead of your hurrying boots, to where the armors of Faeravarra drift and float, dark and gleaming and deadly, awaiting but my thoughts to send them swooping into battle! Blood you want so thirstily, intruders?

Blood you shall have, bright rains of it—and all your own!

Yes, I am Ondruu, and you should fear me. You will fear me.

And yet, pause now, a-panting and wild-eyed, and think on this: I am the most noble of those who tarry here, spirits riding the Mythal like breezes.

Oh, yes. I know mercy—and show it to others, as did the Lady Steel whose remembered beauty sears my heart still. The Dark Ones know rather less of mercy.

They ride the Mythal too, more cruel than clever: drow, drained and enslaved here by one who has the gall to tamper with the Mythal.

She. She who thinks herself Queen of Myth Drannor, and makes the Mythal a crude weapon and a spark for her puling spells. She looks only for her own reward and sees all beings as things, tools to be wielded—but sees not beyond tomorrow.

I’ve known many men thus, but few such among women who spin spells. One, I say, is more than enough.

If you meet with her, you’ll know it—even before she drains you. Madness is in her eyes. She must have more, ever more… more power and more souls. With the Mythal she makes greater her fell thralls, not-dragons and once-dragon and all, and casts forth draining radiances in pools far from this greatest city of all, to drive down men like cattle in distant lands and grow ever greater.

Perhaps she thinks to ascend among the gods, a new star blazing up among old. Where else does such power point? And yet I’ve seen stars fall even from those shining heights. And bright though her power blazes, she’s not yet even sensed Ondruu—or any of the other watchful spirits who ride the Mythal.

If she goes too far and calls on her dark vessel to do the wrong thing, we’ll boil up out of cellars, mossy spires, forgotten crypts, suddenly blazing runes, and buried coffers all over this root-split, leaf-choked, proud ruin of a city, and shine forth in our wrath ere we descend on her, in all our chilling, howling glory.

Aye, cower, intruders! We are more than just voices moaning in the wind. Some of us were trapped here, and some embraced the Mythal as it formed. Others sank into it when they wearied of daily deeds, or when fiends came upon them in the Fall and sought to tear Myth-folk limb from limb—there! See? That twinkling of lights in yonder dark arch, across the rubble that was once Alaungaleir House?

Behold another spirit of the Mythal, regarding you now: Amanthala, Dark Lady of the Nornaneir, the darkest sorceresses of Myth Drannor. She bathed in blood—her own, and that of human women who gave it willingly, and in turn tasted blue elven firewine and lived longer. Long ago that was, and she misses it. She hates the soulless dark-ears even more than Ondruu, and the not-dragons, too… and most of all, this upstart not-queen with her overbold spells and her careless graspings at power.

She should have turned to our road long since, to live forever within the Mythal and of the Mythal, glorying in its song. The song of a thousand mages and more, who gave of themselves as they bound powers into it, and played those powers like harpstrings to do new things, keeping the Mythal alive, vital, and growing.