Ed Greenwood - All Shadows Fled

She knelt on the floor below it and shuddered, gathering all her strength for what she knew she must do. The crystal ball flashed and spun silently above her, but she did not bother to look at it. Whatever befell in that distant battle, she must prevail here and now.

Here, and-now. Grimly she wobbled to her feet, unbalanced by her shriveled arm, and swayed, fighting for calm and stable footing. If she fell back into the web, this would all be for naught.

She wept anew when she stared into the master's sunken face. It was little better than a skull, a skull with staring white eyes, no pupils to be seen in those deep-sunken sockets.

Irendue swallowed. With her good arm, she reached out and tugged at his hair. A good handful of it came away; she flung it aside in revulsion and tried again, twisting her fingers into what little hair was left and shaking him. His scalp began to tear… and no blood welled forth!

"Master! Brave Mortoth! My master! Irendue calls thee!" she cried desperately, her face inches from his own. His lips moved slightly, but no sound came forth. He made no further reaction. She shook him again, and patted at his forehead and shoulder-the only other places in the flowing fire that she dared reach, earning an almost painful tingling in her fingertips as she did so. There was no response at all this time.

Irendue stepped back. Tears fell unheeded to the floor at her feet, and she regarded her master soberly. "Fare better than this, Mortoth," she said formally, once she'd fought down sobs to find a voice. Then, with a last great sigh, she turned away. The great wizard was beyond her help.

His hands were spread, the fingers awash with white fire. There was no way for her to get them free to open the spellbooks that would respond only to his touch. The only spell she knew to banish magic was in one of those books… and without its touch, this web of fire remained a doorway for legions of shapeshifters, and Faerun stood unguarded.

The words seemed to echo in her head, as if declaimed as a doom by a great herald. "Faerun stands unguarded," she whispered aloud, and looked wildly around the room, half-expecting shapeshifters to curl out of the air in all corners.

Nothing happened. The cold fires raged on, humming endlessly, and the crystal ball hung in the air beside her, flashing and flickering. She looked once into its depths, then at her two fellow apprentices, spread-eagled and sightless in the grip of the spell.

Lareth's hair was long enough, and one of Turnold's knees projected out of the streaming fire. She stepped forward, calling their names in a soft but insistent whisper, shaking them until the very flames around them snarled in protest. She was rewarded at last with eyes swimming open, questing dully about for a moment before fixing on her.

"Lareth! Turnold!" she hissed. "I need you!"

Lareth's mouth worked silently, but Turnold licked his lips and said, slowly and carefully, "I have always suspected this."

The words were followed by the faintest of smiles. Irendue would normally have answered such a gibe with stinging words, but now it made her eyes fill with tears. Turnold's wits were still his own… something, at least, was as it should be in the Tower of Mortoth.

"Turnold," she said, ignoring the tremor in her voice, "do you know where the master keeps scrolls or items to dispel magic?"

Turnold's eyes held sorrow. "In his grimoires, only. He didn't want us unweaving his wards and getting into things he wanted undisturbed."

"How can I get you free?"

Turnold managed the smallest of shrugs in his bonds of flame and said, "I know not, but this gate must be destroyed-or all Toril stands in danger."

Irendue nodded and with an impatient hand wiped tears from her cheeks. "But how?" she asked, thinking of all the unusable staves and rods and floating scepters in the rooms around her. Either one of the shapeshifters might step into the room at any moment. She had no time.

"The web," Lareth said haltingly, his voice sharp and high with fear at what he was suggesting, "lives through our life. Slay us, and it will fade."

Turnold's eyes blazed with sudden fire. Irendue looked helplessly from one imprisoned apprentice to the other until her eyes were snared by those of the older, wiser apprentice.

"Do it," Turnold whispered hoarsely, transfixing her with eyes of steel. " 'Tis the only way."

"I can't!" Irendue hissed helplessly, standing nude before him, tears rolling down her cheeks once more. She could not look away from his blazing eyes.

Hanging in the web of fire, Turnold said carefully, "You must. Know, Irendue, that I have always loved you-'tis why I baited you so often."

"I can't harm anyone!" she wailed, clenching her fists.

"Take the sword the master keeps behind the door," Turnold said faintly. "Put it in my mouth-and then push. Please."

Her tears almost blinded her as she found the sword in the study, fumbled its heavy length back through the passage, and came to face Turnold once more.

"I can't do this to you," she whispered. "I just can't."

"You must," he said fiercely, straining forward in the web of flames, "and you will. Put the blade in my mouth."

Irendue shook her head, weeping wildly. The sword point danced and glittered wildly in front of his face until he growled, "I suppose one of my eyes would do as well, but I hardly think taking off my ears will suffice."

His familiar sarcasm steadied her. Irendue slid the steel between his teeth. Resting it there, she asked quietly, "Turnold, are you sure?"

"Of clorse hlyime shlure," he managed to say around the tip. "Do it!"

Irendue swallowed, blew him a kiss, closed her eyes-and thrust the blade forward.

"Gods greet ye, Turnold," she said huskily, giving him the formal farewell. Her stomach heaved, and she almost flung the blade away in her haste to tear it free. When she opened her eyes again, she tried not to look at the limp thing that had been Turnold, but his blood was blazing up around him in flames of orange and red, and the web of white fires was dim, fading as she watched!

Irendue let out a tremulous breath and looked at Lareth. "Can-Can you pull free?" she asked him, and watched his face tighten as he struggled. Cold fire flickered around his trembling limbs, but after a long, silent battle he gave up, sagging forward. His teeth were chattering in fear as he raised a gray face to her and said, "D-Do it."

She did. It was easier the second time… and as the apprentices' bodies slumped, the web of fire faded silently away, gone as if it had never been. Its passing was marked by the hollow clatter of Mortoth's bones bouncing on the floor.

With dull eyes, Irendue stared at his grinning skull. She went to her knees among the dead men, and the dust that had been the skin of her master eddied around her. The bloody sword was cold and heavy in her hands as the world dissolved in tears again…

The voice, when it came, was menacingly quiet. "What have you done?"

Irendue lifted her head and the sword together, glaring up through tangled hair at the other shapeshifter. He wore the form of a handsome, sandy-haired man with a mustache… but his eyes glittered dark and deadly, like those of a hawk.

"Freed us," Irendue gave him her fiercely whispered answer. "Freed us all."

"You shall die for this," Lorgyn said softly.

"I know," the woman replied calmly, embracing the sword as if it was a babe in her arms. "Kill me, then, and have done… monster."

Lorgyn showed his teeth in a smile. "Ah, no," he said in almost friendly tones. "Death need not be so fast and easy as all that. I shall use your sorcery to help me raise another gate… and your body to power it. Of course, that body need not be whole…"

Still wearing that terrible grin, he advanced on her. Elven Court woods, Flamerule 30