Swords of Dragonfire

The glow of the scrying crystal cast pale shadows around the dark room, and across Ghoruld Applethorn’s watching face.

A face that was slowly acquiring a look of profound disgust.

“Just kill Laspeera,” he murmured. “Is it really all that difficult?”

“These thicknecks serve a few scheming Cormyrean nobles,” the oldest Zhentarim wizard sneered, his left hand raised so as to keep all nine mages safe from hurled weapons behind his greatshield. He waved contemptuously at the bullyblades with his other hand. “Eliminate them.”

He watched castings unfold around him, and at the right moment dropped his shielding. Spells lashed out from all eight of his fellow mages, howling across the common room in a bright, fell flood to rend men limb from limb, melt their flesh away from their spasming bones, hurl them into tables and pillars with shattering force, and cause their brains to explode bloodily out of their heads.

A few rushed desperately back toward the portal, only to stiffen and fall as they were struck by more than a dozen pursuing bright bolts each. A handful ran the other way and made it down the cellar stairs before they could be slain.

Up out of the foremost of those, arcing back up into the common room as two large, bright streamers of eerily glowing smoke, came Old Ghost and Horaundoon.

“What by the Nine Hells-?” one Zhentarim cursed, the rings on his fingers winking into life as he called up hasty wardings.

“Stop those-” the oldest wizard snapped, but that was as far as he got ere Old Ghost plunged into his chest and Horaundoon slid into the ear of the Zhent mage beside him.

Both men stiffened, rearing back-and then spun around and hurled the swiftest slaying spells they had at their fellow wizards.

Ghoruld leaned forward to peer intently into the crystal, anger and alarm flaring into warfare with each other across his face. “There it is again! What’s happening? Someone’s controlling those fools, yes, but who? And how? ”

Hanging lanterns danced and swung wildly in their chains, and chairs and tables tumbled in slow circles in midair as spells lanced and sizzled, stabbing and flickering across the common room of the Oldcoats Inn.

Zhentarim wizards hurled spells not in power-duels or wary attempts to cow foes with a minimum of destructive Art. Rather, they struck to slay. Two of them did so uncaring of their own safety.

Wherefore Harlammus of Zhentil Keep, heart-high with the excitement of his first real Brotherhood foray, found himself lying dazed and blinking against a wall, with the splintered ruins of the table he’d just been hurled through on top of him, and a welter of broken legs and riven wood that had been its chairs tangled on top of that.

Trapped, barely able to breathe, and just beginning to be aware, through crawling numbness, of agonizing pains in his legs and gut, Harlammus frantically cast the new spell Eirhaun had taught him, the one that would alert his teacher that something had gone badly wrong in Halfhap, and the Zhentarim he’d sent there needed aid. Urgently.

“Master,” he mumbled, when the spell was done, eyes refusing to focus on the splintered table leg standing up out of the bloody ruin of his gut, that rose and fell with his every gasp amid bloody bubblings, “Come swiftly, or…”

Then numbness claimed him. He never finished that thought, as he sank slowly into a nightmare world of racing wraiths and Zhentarim wizards turning on their fellows, of sinister cowled figures turning suddenly to grin at him with cold, ruthlessly gleeful faces out of nightmare, of beholders floating in the distance watching over everything and laughing… always laughing…

The chamber was dark. It was always dark, save for temporary radiances of awakened magic. Magic was awake there now, a robed wizard lounging back in his chair studying spells in a tome.

Glowing runes floated in the air above the open pages of that book, runes that turned slowly and changed hue as he stared at them and murmured, seeking to understand them and shift them to his will. Their power aroused little crackling radiances, that danced and played along the edges of other tomes stacked nearby.

Sarhthor of the Zhentarim slowly rose from his lounging, leaning forward more and more intently as he started to understand this magic at last. Three seasons he’d struggled to master it, understanding four constructions of the Weave at once so they could be shifted and fitted together in combination- thus — and There came a chiming behind him that broke his unfolding glee and collapsed the spell in bright chaos above its pages. Sarhthor murmured a curse-just which one, he never knew-and leaned forward again, fighting to regain that fourfold understanding, that visualization that was just so, with every The chiming came again, shattering all and leaving Sarhthor blinking at the stack of tomes as the one he’d been perusing started to sink down, its floating runes fading. He cursed again, loudly and fervently, and spun his chair around to see what neglected duty of the absent Eirhaun had disturbed him now.

The teacher-wizard’s desk bore a row of crystal balls, each resting on its own black cushion.

Except for one, that had winked into life and risen off its cushion, glowing and pulsing as it spun slowly. As he beheld it, it chimed again.

Sarhthor glared at it. Then his eyes narrowed and he rose suddenly up out of his chair like a storm wind to snatch up his untidy belt of wands. Buckling it briskly around his waist, he strode across the room to firmly shove the errant crystal back down into place-it chimed again, and then went dark-turn, and wink out, leaving the room entirely empty of wizards.

Thus abandoned, the books all went to sleep again.

The floor of the cavern glowed with runes Eirhaun would never have been able to conceive of. He stared at them hungrily as the beholders-tiny monsters, none of them larger than his own head-rose from crafting them to hang in the air and gabble and hiss among themselves, glaring at him from time to time.

He knew how contemptuously the eye tyrants regarded humans in the Brotherhood-all humans, probably even Lord Manshoon himself. These “little manyeyes” were doubtless little different than dogs. The small, yapping sort were always the most aggressive. And the most insecure.

Yet Eirhaun hurried not at all. He’d been invited to work this magic with them so that he could learn, and he had no intention of their rushing things to a conclusion so they could later dismiss him as “deficient of wits” when he couldn’t work this spell himself under their coldly sneering scrutiny.

Ah, so that was how such power was leashed, and then twisted to achieve this rather than that. He nodded, trying to sear the runes into his memory, seeking that mental stillness inside himself wherein he could be certain of remembering all, and A chiming sounded within his head, startling him out of all concentration. No! Not now! Not when he was so close to The chiming rang again, loud and cheerful and insistent. Eirhaun clenched his teeth and growled out wordless anger, trying once more to frame the spell.

Abruptly he became aware that a beholder was hanging in the air right in front of him, glaring at him with its central body-eye. “Go,” it hissed coldly at him. “You are summoned. Shirk not your tasks: Go.”

Eirhaun opened his mouth to protest that another Zhentarim had been left on duty to respond to such a summons-and another chiming sound rolled out of it, loud and bright.

All twelve of the human-head-sized beholders were staring at him now. “ Go, ” they hissed in unison. “If you are loyal to the Brotherhood, go.”

Eirhaun sighed, nodded, and murmured the word that would whisk him away.

Lord Eldroon set down his goblet. “Something’s awry,” he said firmly. “They were to report right back. We’ve been waiting now far too long.”

Lord Yellander glared across the table. “You think I’ve not noticed? What’s taking those dolts?”

Eldroon shrugged, rose, looked at Yellander, and went to the silently flickering portal. Yellander hastened to join him. They looked at each other, then drew their swords.

Together they stepped through the cold blue flames-and together gaped in astonishment at what they saw through the common room door.

Unseen men shouted, and a surging magic of tumbling velvet night shot through with roaring sparks flooded across the common room. They saw it wash over some support pillars and melt those stout timbers away.

Chairs and tables sighed into nothingness as the dark magic passed through them, rolling right on through back pantries, off to the left.

In its wake, daylight flooded the riven room, leaving them gazing at distant roofs in Halfhap.

With those pillars gone, the ceiling began to loudly groan and sag.

Yellander and Eldroon exchanged astonished, fearful looks-and hastily retreated back through the portal again.

Eirhaun found himself standing in the sunlight on the top step of the entry stair into the Oldcoats Inn, in Halfhap, staring through a blasted-open hole that had presumably recently been its front doorway. And blinking in astonishment.

Had all of the Brotherhood mages he’d sent gone mad? They were leaping around the room they’d obviously destroyed, hurling spells at each other! Well, he Bane-be-damned knew what would happen the moment they noticed him; they’d all turn on him. No one likes a ruthless, devoted-to-humiliation teacher.

But then, he’d never liked any of them, either. His shielding was singing around him now, fully up and working.

So Eirhaun allowed himself a smile of anticipation, raised his hands, and quietly and precisely cast the most powerful battle-spell he knew.

Had there been no spell-chaos roiling and grappling in the room in front of him, they’d probably all-or all but the two or three most accomplished, perhaps-perished as that spell smote them.

As it was, one burst apart like a rotten fruit, another burned like a torch, howling in helpless dying agony-and the others all staggered, turned with hatred in their eyes, recognized him, and started casting their strongest remaining battle-spells.

Eirhaun called up a magic in his mind that should slay one of them. He was still debating which one he should fell when half a dozen Zhentarim spells howled into his shielding.

And the world around Eirhaun briefly vanished.

His shielding flared into blinding radiance, searing whiteness that faded into rainbow hues. He was still struggling to peer through them when his legs started changing, bulging and flexing into amorphous bonelessness, all at once. The pain made him sob involuntarily, it was… so great, so horribly…

His shielding was going wild around him, as spells fought for supremacy within it. It was clawing at him, and he was still changing, barbed wings sprouting from his breast in a sickening struggling of knees and elbows that shouldn’t be there, but were bursting out of him, sliding through his ribs… it was agony, it was terrible…

As he sank to his knees, or rather collapsed into wriggling tentacles, his ribs and all twisting into snakelike things that he stared at with revulsion, Eirhaun became aware that one of his eyes was growing very large and thrusting forward out of his face, while the other stayed its usual self and stared in horror. He also became aware that someone was shrieking in agony, long and raw howls and wails of agony and terror.

Then, at last, he became aware that the shrieking someone was him.

Which crystal had chimed had told Sarhthor where the trouble was. He had teleported to his favorite tower in Halfhap, intending to use magic to locate the precise location of the summons, but one glance across Halfhap had told him the Oldcoats Inn was the place to be.

Or rather, not to be. Frowning, he’d teleported again, to a spot he knew, right behind the hotel desk. He’d taken care to arrive crouching, and that thoughtfulness had served him well.

It seemed his arrival hadn’t been detected, and his personal wardings had thus far passed unnoticed as he crouched in hiding behind the hotel desk-and warring Zhentarim blasted most of the Oldcoats Inn down into sagging, perilously hanging ruin in front of him.

He’d watched them, thrusting two tendrils of his shielding around the edges of the desk to serve him as eyes, and seen Eirhaun’s arrival-and their unison attack on him. He harbored no love for Eirhaun-no one in the Brotherhood did, not that any Zhentarim dared allow friendship or kindness to weaken their schemes for an instant-but this… this was madness.

Something was afflicting these magelings, who hitherto had smoldered in waiting maliciousness, not daring to hurl their every spell as they were doing now. Something was forcing them to dare this much.

Wherefore that something had to be hurled out of the Realms, to protect all mages everywhere. If it cost the Brotherhood every last one of these ambitious magelings, what of it? Faerun bred no shortage of ambitious magelings.

Frowning, Sarhthor spun a particular ring around on the middle finger of his left hand, until its customary display was beneath, and its band uppermost. He kissed that band, carefully murmured a word, and kissed it again.

Whereupon the ring spat itself off his finger, into his other (waiting) palm, and became a shield-shaped, rigid scroll. He touched two of its many runes in the right sequence to awaken it to life and make its words appear; when he could see them, he slowly and carefully cast the spell laid out before him.

Ere long his words boomed and rolled, forcing a hush over that battling room by the sheer weight of their power. Sarhthor spoke on, his body starting to shake from the power racing into and through it, streaming out into a roiling something that became a darkness in the air, a waiting, reaching darkness that plucked at the startled warring Zhentarim.

Then he finished the spell, completing the last gestures with nary a tremble. It was done, now, and the howling darkness of his creation snatched all of his fellow Zhentarim out of the shattered room before him.

The Abyss would take them; they would be whirled away into it, there to fend for themselves, hopefully taking that cursed something that was afflicting them with them.

The darkness was roaring now, hungrily, whirling away wild-eyed and shouting Zhentarim, and wispy wraiths that came clawing up out of the eyes and mouths of two of them too. Then Eirhaun, struggling to grow a tail and fins to go with his mismatched, feebly-flapping wings-was whirled up and away with a name on his lips.

“Sarhthor, curse you!” he cried. “ Ar auhammaunas dreth truarr! ”

And to his horrified and helpless fury, Sarhthor felt himself plucked up from behind the desk and snatched across empty, crackling air into his own waiting darkness.

The Abyss opened many-fanged jaws and hungrily swallowed them all.

Azuth, Mystra, and fire in the Weave!

It was the only curse Ghoruld Applethorn could remember in his blind agony.

His scrying crystal had burst in front of him, spraying his face with deadly shards.

He roared in pain, spewing out thick, choking blood as he reeled back, blinded and sliced open in a hundred places.

His limbs trembled uncontrollably; it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He shook from shock and pain, he knew, but also from fear.

Fear of the doom he’d so narrowly escaped. That awful pull of the Abyss… the bone-melting tugging that awakened yearnings he’d never thought he could feel, never dreamed of.

He could have been mind-ruined, or worse: snatched away to the Abyss forever, fair Cormyr and all his schemings lost to him in an instant, even the knowledge that he was Ghoruld Applethorn, and could work with the Art, torn from him.

He fumbled for the healing potions on their shelf, found them, and-wishing some of them were strong drink instead-started frantically uncorking and quaffing.

“What’s going on? ” Jhessail hissed, as the Knights cowered. Everything above them shook as if angry gods were beating on it with great clubs. Another shower of dust and small stones pelted down on and around them.

Florin shook his head, having no answer to give her. Pennae and Laspeera clung to his arms as he crouched over them, trying to shield them and knowing how useless his gallantry was. If the ceiling came down, they’d be entombed together, to gasp out their last breaths in the crushing dark…

The air around them felt alive. Crackling with unseen sparks, slithering and coiling restlessly.

“Magic,” Pennae muttered, sounding disgusted. “But whose? And what?”

“Orders, Lady?” Dauntless growled, as if seeking reassurance. Tight-lipped, Laspeera merely shook her head.

As they all felt a sudden, horrible tugging, a compulsion that clawed at them and awakened a yearning to rise and drift up, up-Doust arched his back under Islif’s hands, and groaned like a man lost in lust-a restlessness raged inside everyone, that made Jhessail whimper, and Pennae and the ornrion whisper soft curses.

All around the Knights, the darkness started to glow, radiances that outlined doors and formed great nets and curtains, like sparks frozen in the air.

“What-what is it?” Dauntless mumbled, eyes wide in wonder.

“Magic-all the magic that’s down here, old wards and preservations and portals, too-shining forth,” Laspeera said slowly. “But what could

…?”

She fell silent in startled awe as lights kindled deep in the stone walls around them, illuminations to match the Dragonfire illusion before them.

Nine swords, vertical with hilts uppermost, were glowing deep in the rock… and drifting soundlessly forward, through it, out into the air above them.

And from the illusory treasure, the nine glowing guardian swords drifted to meet them, right above the heads of the crouched and kneeling Knights.

Met, and then the illusions slowly faded into the nine swords that had come out of the stones. They promptly brightened into dazzling brilliance.

Laspeera, Dauntless, and the Knights of Myth Drannor all gaped up at this magnificence-deadly though it probably was-a mere handspan above their noses.

Then there came a great groan from overhead, a deep, thunderous complaint that heralded doom. As they tensed, huddled together, the Oldcoats Inn slowly, ponderously, and inescapably… collapsed onto their heads.