Ed Greenwood - Swords of Eveningstar

Its bubbling, bell-like speech came again.

“Yes,” Horaundoon agreed gravely, “the spell is dangerous-but only if I’m actually caught in the act of using it. It leaves no trace behind, no link to me or to this place.”

Bells cascaded like water, and another scene sprang into brief existence where the first had danced only moments ago. The hargaunt, it seemed, was unimpressed.

One of the earliest slayings, this time, the elder elf who’d raced in vain to reach his ward-spells, and died clawing the air well outside their crackling reach.

The archmage nodded patiently. “No magic is foolproof-with the Art, we steer and shape energies that betimes have intent of their own, in a world full of old, hidden spells that can flare into life without warning. Yet consider how safe, in something as rife with uncertainty as sorcery must needs be, this crafting of mine is. Mages are given to grandiose claims and boasts that far outstrip their true talents, yes, but this is not only my masterwork, but a masterwork by any solemn measure of spellcrafting.”

He strode back through the protective ward, waving a hand to call up a vision of his own, much larger than those the hargaunt emitted.

The air between them was suddenly full of yet another elf mage, this one life-sized and battling something that swirled half-seen around him, dread on his face as he came to know that there was nothing he could do against this attack, and that his doom was come upon him at last.

Horaundoon stepped right through the image even before it began to fade, as he strode to stand over the skull. “My master-spell can detect any mantle and move toward it, drifting across half Faerun if need be. When it impinges upon the mantle, I am made aware of this-and at my command, the spell conquers the mantle and turns it against its user! From the mantle’s focus gem it lashes into the mind of he who wears the mantle, emptying his spells into the gem and feebleminding him as it does so. This, too, I am made aware of, whereupon it sends those spells to me. The weight of that mind-burst can be staggering, yes, but-behold-I’m still standing. I then command my spell, intermingled with the mantle, to immolate itself, gem, mantle, and mantle-wearer-or merely his mind, turning his brain to ash, and ’tis done.”

The hargaunt belled anew.

“Ah, but it has worked every time. I’ve slain elf after elf, though I’m going to have to work very swiftly indeed, now. Word is spreading, and Fair Folk are abandoning use of their mantles from Evereska to the Dragonreach shores. I’ve been stealing the spells of the most powerful mages I can catch alone, avoiding only masters of the High Magic-and with each mind I empty, the spells at my command grow richer.”

The hargaunt made its querying whistle, accompanied by that wisp of pink that meant, as clearly as if it had shouted out the word in Common: “Why?”

Horaundoon shrugged. “The ranks of the Zhentarim grow steadily unfriendlier, the schemes and betrayals and false blamings crowding in hard and fast, one upon the other. If I remain, with the wits and standing all know I have, I continue to be a target. Sooner or later, most probably sooner, some rival or cabal of rivals will inevitably slay me.”

The archmage raised a hand, and the air around him sang, briefly and faintly, reassuring him that his shielding spells-that blocked all scrying, and warned of attempts to intrude, or to shatter or alter them-remained intact.

“So I must grow powerful enough to make myself a way out of the Zhentarim. That’s why I tolerate apprentices. Already my magics have made them my slaves, though they know it not. When the time is right, I’ll force one of them to take my shape and seeming. The others, just as spellbound, will slay this false Horaundoon. Leaving me, in a new guise fashioned by you, to vanish from the notice of the Brotherhood. Free once more.”

The hargaunt trilled, throwing up a scene that flashed briefly blue.

“Already? Haularake, where does the day go?” Horaundoon hurriedly loosened the sash of his robes and shrugged them back off his shoulders, letting them fall to where his arms held them up at his waist. “I know, I know,” he added, before the hargaunt could interrupt him. “Spellcrafting always takes longer than I think it will. Naed, we’ll have to really hurry now.”

He extended his other hand to the skull. It promptly bulged, coiled, and became an ivory-hued, sightless snake, oozing up his arm with purposeful speed, and leaving no sign of the skull it had been.

“Naed, naed, naed, ” the archmage murmured impatiently, the last word muffled by the hargaunt flowing over his lips as it molded itself to his face, giving him quite a different visage. A woman’s face, strikingly beautiful.

Below Horaundoon’s newly pointed chin, the bulk of the hargaunt had molded itself into a pair of decidedly feminine-and decidedly attractive-breasts.

He was breathing hard in his haste by the time he reached the wardrobe mirror, and cast the spell that turned him from a rather gaunt and hairy man with an incongruously smooth and beautiful woman’s face and front, into a shapely and curvaceous woman. Blowing himself a mocking kiss, he whirled into the wardrobe, snatched out a suitable gown, thanked the watching gods (and not for the first time) that the current fashions in footwear were low-heeled and the current jewelry simple, and hurried to pin up his hair.

He was staring into a mirror, three of the pins in his mouth and one in his hand, when a hollow chant arose from whence he’d come. He slammed the hairpins down on the table and hurried back to his study.

“An intruder!” the remaining two skulls chanted in unison, jawbones wagging. They were still rising up from the table as Horaundoon slid to a halt in front of them. “An intruder!”

“Blast him down!” Horaundoon roared, “and trouble me no more with such trifles!”

He was two running strides back toward the mirror when the floor under him shook slightly, there was a long and rolling booming sound, and the skulls ceased their chanting in mid-word.

Duly blasted. Good.

Horaundoon snatched up the pins and grimly set to work again pinning up his hair. With all the war wizards infesting this oh-so-peaceful Forest Kingdom, beautiful and wealthy merchants’ widows could get far closer to king’s lords than archmages widely suspected of being Zhentarim could.

And there was a lord or three in Cormyr he wanted to befriend. They might well come in very useful when the time was right. Soon.

“We… we’re following the stream, aren’t we?” Lady Narantha gasped, clambering up to join Florin beside an overhanging tangle of exposed tree roots and boulders.

The forester gave her a sharp look. “We are. Well spotted. ’Tis the best way not to get lost.”

“Won’t the bears and the… the hunting beasts follow it, too?”

“Yes.”

“But-” Narantha started to scramble up a stairlike tangle of roots, to look over the boulders. Florin’s hand shot out and caught hold of her elbow-and Narantha found herself struggling to climb but not moving one fingersbreadth forward. “What’re you-?” she gasped.

Florin drew her close and murmured sternly, “Never show yourself over the top of a ridge like that. Haven’t you been watching me? Cautious, duck low, show as little head as possible as you take a good look; that’s the way. Now, you just used one of my least favorite words: ‘but.’ What were you going to say after that?”

The noblewoman blinked at him, as they stood nose to nose, then frowned as she remembered. “ But if the beasts follow the stream, they’ll find us-and what then?”

“Ah.” Florin nodded. “Then this.” He held up the sword Narantha had all but forgotten was in his hand.