Ed Greenwood - All Shadows Fled

She nodded, and Itharr stood back to keep watch on the woods around as Shar bent over her pack. Something had quivered in its depths… at least twice now. Belkram was cautiously turning out the kindling, her candles, her spare boots and undershift, her gloves… "There!"

Two blades flashed down-to hover above a small cloth bundle. "Lhaeo was holding that before we left," Shar said slowly. "What is it? And why would he put it in my pack?"

The tip of Belkram's blade touched it very cautiously. Then the ranger grinned, reached over, and unwrapped it, revealing-a stone.

A ghostly vapor swirled up from it as it said, "Finally! Draw together, all of you, and bide here until I return-I only hope we're not too late!"

Open-mouthed, the three rangers watched Sylune of Shadowdale fly off through the trees.

"She can leave her stone?"

"Storm or Lhaeo must have worked some magic," Belkram said, grunting as he reached beyond comfort's stretch to pluck up Shar's gloves. "Let's get you packed again," he said. "When a mage tells you to stay together, she usually means it's teleport time."

Itharr nodded agreement-then they all gaped again as the air shimmered. The Red Wizard was standing before them again, Sylune's head floating above his open palm. He gave the three a curt nod of greeting.

The Witch of Shadowdale asked crisply, "Have we a bargain, then?"

Orth Lantar nodded again. "We do."

"Right. Know then that the Lost Ring of Blaestarn lies beneath the third flagstone south of the unicorn fountain, in the house where you've been searching; the white dragon Glandananglar is no more, and her treasure lies under her bones in a cave on the east side of Mount Ahaeragh-its mouth is covered by an illusion, but lies below the tallest horn; and the ioun stones of Thavilar Halcontar are buried a long pace to the south of the duskwood tree in the northwestern corner of his garden. I'll tell you where the rest of the treasures lie after you've sent these three safely to Shadowdale."

The Red Wizard bowed. "It will be my pleasure to so serve." He raised his hands and began, and the three rangers saw a blue-white radiance stream from Sylune to surround his head and shoulders, steadying him against the magic twisting wild.

Soberly and carefully the Red Wizard worked a mass teleport spell, and the world began to whirl into blue-white mists.

"Holy Mystra, aid us," the three rangers heard Sylune say as the magic took effect.

Then the floating head of the Witch of Shadowdale gasped, and her ghostly eyes widened. "Wh-Who are you?"

"Midnight," came the reply, echoing in all their heads.

Sudden force flooded into Sylune; her fading spectral form flickered, and then grew strong and bright. "But you can call me Mystra-for so I am, henceforth."

Sylune gaped at a face only she could see-and beside her, the Red Wizard went to his knees, babbling a prayer.

He had not prayed to the Lady of All Mysteries since he'd been a young apprentice, and that had been very long ago.

The world danced, and the three rangers suddenly found themselves standing at the crossroads by the Old Skull Inn in Shadowdale, with startled armsmen and villagers staring at them from all sides.

They peered around, wondering why Sylune had been so suddenly adamant that they be here, now.

"Is that the Blackstaff?" Itharr asked, eyes wide. He pointed toward Elminster's Tower.

Belkram peered. "Aye-I spoke to him once, and to Laeral several times; that's her, too, beside him."

Khelben Arunsun was casting a spell-or rather, miscasting it. A shower of blue furry jungle plants abruptly rained down around him. He cursed loudly, like any merchant who's made a mistake, and strode toward the road. Two laborers, who were walking along it with heavy hods on their shoulders, looked back.

They let the hods fall, and boiled up into things out of nightmare.

A small forest of tentacles reached for folk all around, and the street became a chaos of screaming, fleeing people, with armsmen trying to wade through them. Tentacles grew many-fanged mouths and bit down mercilessly.

"Malaugrym," the three rangers shouted, breaking into a run.

Laeral hurled a spell-and the two monsters were girt with an amber radiance, out of which darted dozens of butterflies.

Laeral stared in disgust at the clouds of insects, unbelted her robe, and let it fall to the turf behind her. Beneath it she wore a short kirtle bristling with daggers. Drawing one in either hand, she raced across the meadow toward the road, Khelben lumbering along beside her.

Horns were ringing out from the Tower of Ashaba, and armored men were streaming from its gates-men who wore the Purple Dragon of Cormyr.

The Malaugrym were undulating along the road toward the three rangers. As the three hefted their blades and eyed reaching tentacles, they heard the deep, bubbling voice of one tentacled monster ask, "Argast, what's that?"

They all stared at what was rising up from the road in front of the tower-a gigantic black dragon, clutching a wagon in its claws!

"By all the blinded, crawling gods…" Shar cursed in disbelief, watching the dragon spread its great wings. One beat sent it over the meadow, where it set the wagon down as tenderly as a newly laid egg. It banked and roared down at the crossroads, jaws gaping…

Jhessail looked up sharply as a roar split the air outside. "What was that?" she snapped.

Illistyl beat her to the window. "Gods!" she gasped. "A dragon!"

Jhessail thrust her head past her apprentice's shoulder and glared out. "Out of nowhere? Impossible!"

She snatched something out of her bodice and tugged. A fine gold chain parted, and Jhessail held up a pendant that was shaped like a sphere, with windows enclosing a smaller windowed sphere-and another, and yet another.

Illistyl stared at it. Elminster had given her that, and she'd never said what it was for…

Jhessail thrust it out the window and whispered a single word-and the pendant was gone in a flash of spreading light that all but blinded them both.

The swooping dragon flashed with that same light, and was suddenly no huge black scaled wyrm at all, but a small, manlike thing trailing tentacles as it fell from the sky.

Laeral leapt desperately out of the way as the twisting, changing thing crashed to earth.

Both Malaugrym hissed, "Lorgyn!"

Around the cursing lord mage of Waterdeep, spells were going awry in a continuous swirl of radiances and odd manifestations. Laeral scrambled through a shower of green lizards, the snapping fangs of Malaugrym tentacles close behind her.

"Gods," Sharantyr said, her face paling as the three rangers charged together, pounding along the road toward the two gigantic snake-things that were writhing and snapping in earnest now, crushing guards and sweeping horses and men into the air with their lashing tails, "Are we really going into that"?"

"Of course," Belkram shouted merrily. "We're reckless, crazed heroes, remember?"

"More than that," Itharr bellowed, "we're the Rangers Three!"

"The Rangers Three!" they shouted in chorus as their blades struck home.

The world rapidly became a place of constant slashing and hacking, with Malaugrym tentacles smashing and slapping from everywhere as armsmen shouted and died.

The lady mage of Waterdeep was stabbing with silver-bladed daggers, and Malaugrym tentacles were shriveling at their touch or cringing away before her. To avoid the bite of silver blades, the monsters began to hurl hapless armsmen and villagers at her, seeking to crush or suffocate her beneath broken bodies. Khelben stood over Laeral, the broken haft of a pike in his hands, trying to protect his lady against too many stabbing tentacles.

An armsman was flung through the air, his broken limbs flailing like smashed twigs. Sharantyr ducked under him, slashed aside one last tentacle, and drew back her blade to plunge it deep into one gigantic yellow Malaugrym eye.