All Shadows Fled

17

Tower of Mortoth, Sembia, Flamerule 30

The fire was so cold, so utterly… cold. Its chill made her limbs tremble, helplessly and endlessly, as it rushed through her and on around the web. Irendue gasped at its icy searing, feeling her teeth chatter uncontrollably as she stared at the all-too-familiar walls and ceiling of the privy chamber… and wished she could die.

The one called Bralatar had promised her death… after he and his companion were finished with her. She could still feel the cold slime of his tentacles slithering into her ear and out her nose, and the casual way in which he'd pointed out, as she gagged and wept, that simply expanding his tentacle at this moment would cause her head to explode like a rotten fruit, giving him his most favorite of meals… still-warm human.

Irendue swallowed, sick at the thought, and almost let her head sink back into the endless white fire. It would be so easy to just surrender…

Aye, surrender and die in slow, screaming agony while the two shapeshifting monsters gloated over her…

Irendue swallowed again, and looked beside her at the master, hanging slack-jawed and unseeing, virtually a skeleton, his hair falling out in clumps from a shriveled scalp. Mortoth had been vigorous and strong, brusque even, but when he took her to his bed, he'd shaken with passion long pent up… She looked again at his shriveled ruin and shuddered at what he'd become.

It was the first time she'd been free to see or think about anything without one of the shapeshifters ordering her about. The one called Bralatar had been careless in his haste, so confident of her trembling fear that he'd thrust her back into the web of fire and simply pushed at her face as he turned away. But her head had passed between two strands of the enchanted everfire, and so remained free.

His eagerness to be ahunting had let Irendue Nuentar, most favored but least powerful of the apprentices of Mortoth the Mighty, keep her wits, but she could take no advantage of that while she trembled in the grip of the spell. She was caught in some sort of gate that took the two monsters to and from their home. Even more chilling than the thoughts that her life-and that of the master and Turnold and Lareth-kept the gate open, that it sucked energy out of them to do its work, was the thought of how many more shapeshifters might dwell at the other end of that gate… free to spill into Faerun at any time, to take the shapes of kings and merchant princes and wizards alike, and ruthlessly rise to rule all.

And what if they disagreed, as men always seem to, and fell to war? They could change shapes like flitting leaves to suit their purposes. The men, so helpless by comparison, would fall in their thousands and stain all Toril dark crimson with their spilled blood… She had to get free.

So much depended on her. She simply must win free of this evil spell, but how?

Even now, one shapeshifter must be tiring of the hangings and statues and little carved things Mortoth had gathered in his long life of sorcery and be turning back through the labyrinthine ring-shaped house, toward this tower. The other must be hunting down the three grim rangers she'd seen him watching on their cautious creepings through an ancient forest.

The ball! The master's scrying crystal! She'd never dared do this for fear of Mortoth's wrath, but… She looked at the thing of bones beside her, then looked away again.

Slowly and carefully, Irendue lifted her head and called, "Buldimer! To me!"

There was a thrumming sound from the unseen doorway behind her, and Irendue's heart leapt. It pleased Mortoth to give names to the items he'd personally enchanted, that he might summon them in need. With this evil spell linking her to the master, it seemed the items would answer her call!

"To me!" she called again, putting all her will behind it this time. The sphere of crystal sailed into view around the fiery web, flying smoothly through the air to come scudding to a stop in the air before her, a little to one side-the master's side.

She could see into its depths, where there was a forest and tiny running figures, and the flash of swords, and… a bear that grew a human face and hands. One of those hands rose from a fold of pelt holding something she knew well: the master's wand of pain.

She'd seen him use it on the cat that prowled the garden, and on Lareth once. She'd even felt its peculiar burning sting herself when she'd disagreed with Mortoth on what beast shape he'd change her into, and what use of her he'd make then. She'd never forgotten its lash, or the softly spoken word the master had used to make it hurt her so.

She spoke that word now. "Anamauthree," she said, softly but clearly, staring into the crystal, and feeling a sudden surge in the white fire around her as the crystal flickered.

The only flesh the wand was touching as she spoke was the grasping hand of the creature called Bralatar-and so, of course, its magic was visited upon him. She saw him stiffen and stagger. From out of the forest beyond, something came roaring. Something blue-white and deadly, which washed across the crystal with blinding fury, sending out a lance of light through the web beside her.

The endless fire faltered for a moment-and with a sob of desperation, Irendue flung herself forward through a moment of twisting, churning agony… and fell free.

She'd never thought falling on her face on the cold, hard privy chamber floor would be such a welcome thing… even with the sick, weak feeling in her right arm. She looked at it, shuddered, and bit her lip as fresh tears came.

Her once smooth, shapely arm was now wrinkles of skin over bones, from forearm to shoulder… a thing of death. She lifted it, and watched it move normally. She flexed the fingers of her unblemished hand, beyond the ruin, and watched them respond as usual. She touched the floor with one… and felt nothing.

Irendue swallowed and looked back up at the web of fire, a thing of stars through the tears on her lashes. The master hung there more dead than alive, and Turnold and Lareth, too.

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

"Die!" Belkram roared in fury, forgetting all thoughts of stealth and nearby wizards as he thrust his blade repeatedly into the shapeshifter's hairy, many-taloned bulk. If only it were still silver, he thought fiercely as he drove his steel home once more and struck something hard within, making the Malaugrym quiver.

It snarled and shrank away, and Belkram lunged after it, catching sight of Sharantyr's blade flashing on its far flank. The lady ranger's blade glistened as it rose and fell with a green-hued, translucent slime that must be the monster's blood.

"Right," Belkram snarled, "let's see all of your blood, beast! All of it!"

His blade thrust down to its hilt into the shifting bulk before him, and the Malaugrym recoiled, drawing flailing tentacles back into itself in struggling spasms of pain.

As it receded, it left Itharr behind, writhing weakly on the ground, his lifeblood drenching the moss and dead leaves around him. The Harper's mouth worked, and his eyes were blood-red; Belkram knew his friend was sorely wounded.

Delude yourself not, Belkram told himself sourly, he's dying.

Frantically he chopped and slashed at the shapeshifter, hearing Sharantyr's sobbing as she did the same thing. Her hair swirling around her, and she leapt high to throw all her weight behind her blade.

Something blazed with sudden fire behind her. A rolling wave of force, like a wave she'd once waded through on the beaches of Sembia, took her behind the knees and flung her forward onto the Shadowmaster.

Gray flesh opened up around her, seeking to suck her down in and smother her. Sharantyr screamed in fear and fury, clawed her way clear, and wriggled off the beasts's far side.

She came up wild-eyed, with blade in hand and breast heaving-and gaped in astonishment at a cold-eyed man in the robes of a Red Wizard, who stood over Itharr with staff in hand, glaring at a rainbow-hued radiance in the air around him.

"Must all spells go wild?" he snarled, leveling his staff in both hands as if it were a lance. Sparks raced down its length, and from its end burst brilliantly blue butterflies.

Belkram was still cutting at the heaving, roiling tentacled mass that was the Malaugrym, but trying at the same time to keep watch on this newcomer. The shapeshifter rose into a pillar of flesh, reached spade-shaped arms toward the Red Wizard, slimmed those arms into needlelike pincers…

The Red Wizard said something soft and brief-and fire seemed to be born within the Malaugrym, hurling its flesh and tentacles apart in an eruption of hissing steam.

The riven body fell back onto scorched moss, dwindling into something that was almost human. Something faceless and sprawled, which blazed with many small fires.

Shar faced the Red Wizard across their smoke and asked in a shaking voice, "Why… why did you aid us?"

The wizard's cold eyes met hers, and Sharantyr was suddenly aware of how easily he could destroy them. Even with magic fraying wild, he bore several wands at his belt, something longer and more impressive sheathed like a sword at his hip, and the staff. Lights winked here and there along its carved length, and were answered by glows from among the many rings on his fingers. The Knight swallowed and stepped back, raising her sword. Belkram moved to her side, his blade also ready.

The Red Wizard smiled thinly. "Another day we might be foes to the death," he said in a voice strong with confidence and power. "But against such a one as this…"

The sorcerer gestured down at the collapsing ashes that had been the Malaugrym, and went on, "Against such a one, all must stand together-or no man in Faerun will know freedom, in the end."

He did something to his staff, and a glass vial appeared in the air above Sharantyr's hand. As it came to rest gently in her palm, he bowed to them both and turned away.

The flash of his departure lit up the rune graven in the glass. "A healing potion of the utmost power," Sharantyr said wonderingly. She went to her knees beside Itharr.

Blood was bubbling at his lips with every breath. She unstoppered the vial with infinite care and tipped it deep within, feeling his teeth tighten on the glass as a sudden spasm racked him.

"May the gods ascend to their rightful places, so that we can pray to them once more," she said feelingly, holding the vial firmly in place as Itharr bucked and writhed in Belkram's arms.

"May these accursed shapeshifters return to their rightful places," Belkram said to her, "so that we don't have to!"

"Gnorlgh," Itharr agreed weakly, from beneath them. "Gut thlisgh out ou my-mouth!" He spat out the vial and struggled to sit up.

"Itharr!" Shar said joyfully, and embraced him, covering his lips with her own.

"Some men," Belkram said, watching her weep and meeting one of Itharr's eyes through her hair, "are far luckier than they have any right to be." Then he discovered something must have gotten into his own eye. The world suddenly glimmered and blurred and a sound large and raw rose in his throat… Tower of Mortoth, Sembia, early Midsummer Day

A crystal ball spun unheeded in a darkened room in the Tower of Mortoth. It flickered fitfully, then came to a sudden halt. As its inner glow died and it crashed to the privy chamber floor, a woman screamed nearby, high and despairing, and drowned out the sound of the crystal shattering… Tilverton, early Midsummer Day

A solitary lantern guttered outside the gates in the gray hour before dawn, but its light was enough to reveal the Purple Dragon emblazoned proudly on the wrinkled surcoat of a yawning sentry. The armsman came alert with a grunt and stepped back to lower the tip of his spear. Something small and sleek and dark slid around the gatepost.

He relaxed and gave it a grin. Surmalkin back from mousing… and irritated at a lack of success, by the look of him.

"How now, little one?" the armsman growled, bending over fondly. The cat gave him a warning, defiant look and minced past. The guard watched him go. Grinning, the man leaned on his spear. It must be a nice, soft life, being a cat…

Something that was strong and swift instead of nice and soft smashed him across the back of the head. He stumbled forward, dazed-and was still gathering wits and breath to shout for aid when the same something took him by the throat. It wrung his neck.

Blood ran from the armsman's nose and mouth as the Malaugrym propped him against the gatepost, hooking the shoulder straps of his armor upon the gate so he seemed to be leaning on it, lost in slumber.

After that, it was the work of a few breaths to scale the crumbling stone walls of the mansion that served the visiting high and mighty of Cormyr as home in Tilverton. From its high site, Lorgyn could see the lamps of the town winking below as his tentacles pulled him onto the balcony. He slid easily into human form… or at least, the appearance of an elegant old Cormyrean courtier he'd once seen, but with hands like large, flexible webbed paddles-akin to the hind feet of a beaver. He glided into the room.

The small blue glimmering of the lady's ward spun her awake in alarm.

But he was already bending low over the bed and whispering, "Good morning, my dear. Alambrara, isn't it?"

With one of those broad hands, he smothered whatever reply she might have made. His iron strength held her down until her sudden struggles subsided.

When she fell limp under him and the tiny lightnings of her collapsing ward had finished jittering through him, Lorgyn checked that she yet breathed. She was alive.

He nodded in satisfaction and set about stripping away the gems she wore at her ears, throat, and ankles. Who knew what sort of tracing magic could be linked to the jewelry of a powerful war wizard?

Her own bedclothes-soft samite sheets, no less-served admirably to gag and bind her, and he was gone from the room before the first light of dawn broke the eastern sky, low beyond the gray walls of Tilverton.

Breaths later, that wan, rosy light fell upon the wagon marked "Pendle's Fine Meats." Lorgyn unlatched its side door and thrust his bundle inside.

It was his wagon now, he thought as he melted into the heavy, grizzled form of Pendle once more and undid the sheet that had covered his prize from the eyes of any overly curious early risers.

Carefully drawing the door closed, he tore the sheet into strips and bound the war wizard Alambrara beside the fat Amnian, Gorluth the Great. He chuckled at the contrast between the shapely limbs of the Cormyrean, the fat and hairy little mage from Amn, and beyond him, Irendue's slim beauty. She was awake, her eyes blazing at him over the gag that was her only garment.

Lorgyn winked at her as he tightened a lashing and stood back to survey the three naked people bound to the meat bars.

The beginnings of a fine collection. If more folk collected wizards thus, there'd be less trouble all over Faerun, to be sure. Still, he'd be needing more if a new gate were to be a truly lasting thing. Two gates, with a hidden one only he knew about, would be even more secure.

Two mages that would be easily found were Jhessail and Illistyl, Knights based in Shadowdale.

Giving Irendue a cheery wave and miming the biting off of a finger (he'd devoured her thumbs thus far, while punishing her, and planned to make of her fingers a long-lasting snack), Lorgyn replaced the padlock that only he had a key for, and went to the next wagon to rouse his men. He wondered briefly how they could sleep through each other's snoring.

"Up, lads," he said, shaking and slapping with brisk enthusiasm. " 'Tis time we set off for Shadowdale. I think we're all due for a little rest… and that's the place."

"Urggh," his cook said, "ye want dawnfry first?"

Lorgyn shook his head. The cook eyed him for a moment, then shrugged. Pendle never refused an early meal, even when it was only cold partridge from the night before-but this was three days now…

Lorgyn gave the man's back a soft smile, and resolved to eliminate him as soon as the wagon was rumbling along the last stretch, between Shadowdale and the Tower of Mortoth. Yes-roasted alive on a spit in his own oversalty brown sauce would be fitting, too.

The gate guards were almost as sleepy and surly as his own grumbling men, but at last they did their work with bars and chains. Pendle's three wagons rumbled out of Tilverton, the first farers forth onto the road.

Even the horses complained as their burdens groaned and bumped along east toward Shadowdale. Pendle's men rode all around them with ready weapons and sleepy faces, wondering what madness had taken their master this time. Pendle smiled back at them all, and more than one man shivered at the soft promise in that smile. The Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome, Midsummer Day

The glimmer of the scrying portal faded as it sank into the shadows, spinning away into nothingness. The face above its dissolution was a mask of wiggling, questing worms, but owned eyes that blazed like two lanterns of raging spellfire. Worms beneath them parted, and a calm voice said to the vast, long-empty chamber of the Castle of Shadows, "It is time to move at last. Let the hunt begin in earnest." Faerun, Shadowdale, Midsummer Day

The horn had cried out peace and parley, so the guards at the bridge over the Ashaba had not roused the folk of the tower in swift earnest. Lord Mourngrym and Lady Shaerl had been in the morning room over a leisurely dawnfry when their heralds brought word of the coming of a special envoy of Cormyr, Sir Tantor Dauntinghorn.

Just as they were, the lord and lady hastened down to the sward outside the tower, intent on welcoming the envoy and seeing to the needs of his large escort of Purple Dragons and war wizards.

With a glint in his eye, Mourngrym assured the stiff and magnificently mustachioed Sir Tantor that he was not now standing in a holding of Zhentil Keep, and that all minds in the dale were free of insidious Zhentarim spells. He thanked Cormyr for its obvious intent to do battle with the Zhent evil, given the handsome array of battle might and ready sorcery, come so long and dusty a way from the Forest Kingdom to Shadowdale-still proudly independent. He added that he hoped there would always be warm friendship between Cormyr and Shadowdale-coupled with mutual respect for each other's views, aims, and continued freedom.

The lord of the dale invited all of Cormyr into the Tower of Ashaba for a highsun meal as he made himself and his lady available to Sir Tantor, to hear the most important of messages and views from the Forest Kingdom.

The invitation was accepted. Bells rang to bring servants flooding into the feast hall just steps ahead of the hard-striding armsmen of Cormyr-and transform the already-bustling kitchens into a frantic whirlwind of steam and rushing folk and shouts.

"Pray come up to my morning room," Lord Mourngrym said to Sir Tantor. He led the way up the stairs. Shaerl followed beside the envoy's personal escort, a senior war wizard, as they ascended from the tumult below.

"If we can speak bald truth for a breath or two-" Mourngrym added as they stepped into a room still aromatic with the odor of buttered bread, sausages, roast pheasant in sauce, melted cheese with mustard on biscuits, and the other dishes of a light dawnfry, and he drew the door firmly closed "-pray tell me plainly why you're here."

Sir Tantor drew himself up to his full height and growled, "My lord, this is most irregular! While a free and open exchange of views is-"

"Mourngrym," said the old, gaunt war wizard standing at Shaerl's side, "I am Luthtor of Suzail, empowered to speak to you with the voice of Azoun and the candor of Vangerdahast. We're here to investigate rumors of Elminster's death, to make sure Zhentil Keep hasn't gained control of, or influence over, this dale-and to strongly put forth the sixtieth or so offer from Azoun that Shadowdale become a protectorate of Cormyr."

"My thanks for your candor," Mouragrym said dryly. "Let us gently refuse Cormyr's kind offer once more, at once, so that no unpleasantness need follow between us. I want to be Azoun's friend-but not his subject. He cannot have me continue as the one if he must insist on the other."

"Well, if we're being quite candid," Sir Tantor growled, "what's to stop us from simply seizing Shadowdale?"

"Me," Shaerl said sweetly. They all turned to stare at her. "I have Azoun's personal promise," she told them, "that I'd have a free hand in Shadowdale, and that no Purple Dragon nor war wizard of fair Cormyr would meddle east of the Ashaba until I gave them leave to do so."

"My lady," Luthtor said sternly, "you know very well that Azoun's word held only so long as you were on your promised mission for the crown… a mission Vangerdahast considers you abandoned on your wedding day, cleaving to this man"-he bowed to Mourngrym-"rather than your sworn duty."

"My lord," Shaerl said, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous light, "you are obviously unaware of the precise wording of Azoun's bidding and my promise, so I'll not argue the point with you. Be assured that if you move against us, Azoun will be foresworn."

"And if we know nothing of these ah, private words, and present the throne of Shadowdale to him anyway?" Sir Tantor huffed.

"It will be my duty to resist you," Mourngrym said, "and that of all the Knights of Myth Drannor."

"Their fame is not inconsiderable," the war wizard Luthtor granted. "But do you seriously think a handful of adventurers, however bold, can stand against the forces accompanying us? More than a dozen war wizards are watching over more than two hundred and sixty veteran armsmen in your feast hall right now."

"And just how long, Lord Luthtor," Shaerl asked sweetly, "do you think all of them would last against the Queen of Aglarond?"

Both Cormyreans paled slightly. The war wizard shrugged and asked, "And what evidence can you give us you can even contact her, let alone command her to battle at your bidding?"

"None," Shaerl said softly. "As with other armed endeavors in life, goodsirs, you'll just have to take that risk and find out the hard way. Or back down, as is far more prudent, and go home wondering for the rest of your lives if we were bluffing." She seemed to think of something, and added calmly, "Of course, the second way, you will have a 'rest of your lives' to wonder in."

"Moreover," Mourngrym said pleasantly, "the second way preserves our friendship, whereas the first loses forever any hope Cormyr may have that Shadowdale will not ally with Hillsfar, say, or Sembia, against the Purple Dragon."

"I…" Sir Tantor seemed unsure of how to proceed. He looked quickly to Luthtor.

The war wizard nodded, smiled, and said, "Perhaps, indeed, we've speculated with extreme imprudence. Permit me to tender our deepest apologies, and pass on to the other matters we mentioned, to whit-"

"What?" The envoy had turned a dangerous shade of purple. He glared at Luthtor, and snarled, "You're just going to-back down? Abandon our mission, just like that? Well, be advised that my first recommendation, upon seeing Vangerdahast at our return, will be to repl-"

"Enough of this," Shaerl snapped in tones that brought the envoy to instant silence. "Why don't we involve Azoun and Vangy in this discussion directly? I'd like to hear just what they intend." She held up one finger, and turned a ring upon it so that its black sapphire caught the light. It winked with a blue-white radiance as she stroked it-and both Cormyreans stared at it in surprise.

Like two coldly leveled spears, Shaerl's eyes caught those of the war wizard. "Shall I speak to them myself, Lord-or will Vangy stop merely listening through you, and have the grace to introduce himself?"

Sir Tantor stared again at the war wizard, and Mourngrym looked as if he were hiding a smile.

Luthtor sat very still, his eyes suddenly older and sadder than they had been. When he spoke, his voice was deeper and rougher than before. "Well played, li-"

Suddenly the scene before them melted away into swirling mists of gold and gray, and left the two Malaugrym staring at the fetid insides of a dungeon.

"By the blood of Malaug!" Argast snarled, "is every spell you cast going to twist wild?"

Amdramnar shrugged. "I've another." He strode across the cavern and muttered an incantation, raising his hands to trace intricate gestures. The golden mists returned. They swirled around him for a moment-and then turned into bunches of grapes and fell.

Argast watched the fruit splatter on the stone floor and cast a quick look behind him. The torch in its sconce blazed as before, and there was no watching helmed head nor shout of alarm. They were alone in the dungeons of the tower, on the worst guard duty one could draw… unless one were really a Malaugrym, and wanted a little privacy for some spell-casting.

That is, if any spell would work. Amdramnar looked up from the grapes and muttered, "We don't have time to study that spell again-half their talking'll be done before we're ready."

Argast growled in slow anger, and said, "Then it's time for you to take the shape of two guards for a while."

Amdramnar lifted a questioning eyebrow. His fellow Malaugrym was already blurring and dwindling… until a rat blinked at him, winked once, and then turned to dash away into the darkness.

Amdramnar sighed, sat down, and stretched into the semblance of two bored guards sitting together on a crate, down here in the storage cavern. He arranged weapons and armor to conceal the place at the thighs where the two bodies were joined, and settled down to wait, hoping Argast wasn't making a fatal mistake.