The Herald

CHAPTER 2

Eyes of flat and baleful Platinum regarded the man below the dais coldly. “Am I understood?”

“Y-yes, Most High.”

“Good. Go.”

The man went.

Telamont Tanthul, Most High of Thultanthar, suppressed a sigh. He was getting tired.

And these days, when he grew weary, his temper shortened.

He was getting old.

His lips thinned at the thought, causing the next Shadovar agent marching into the chamber to hesitate, measured footfalls faltering momEntarily.

Telamont let his mouth go calm, forcing himself to almost smile, and stared the man down, keeping his face expressionless.

The agent went pale, but kept coming.

Telamont quelled another sigh. He had ordered these reports, but had now heard enough of them in unbroken succession to grow weary indeed-and the agents yet waiting to make theirs were still lined up clear across the city from the other side of that door. The door of his-well, call it what it was, an audience chamber. An overly formal place he seldom used, but that suited his purposes just now. A great long and high chamber sheathed in gleaming white marble, that at its rear rose to a dais where a high-backed seat fashioned of one great piece of gleaming black obsidian stood facing the door. A huge bare metal table flanked the throne on the right, and the tammaneth rod floated upright in the air in the corner far behind to its left.

Telamont’s only amusement of the long day had been watching each pair of eyes-those of every Shadovar agent entering the room to make their report-dart to the great black rod, hurriedly look away from it, and then try to keep their gazes locked on him.

They all wanted to know what it was.

What it was, was a great black rod-studded down its length with black spheres enclosing empty, dark glass globes-that floated vertically off the floor in that corner.

That was all they needed to know about it, for now. As for the rest, let them speculate. And fear.

Fear was a handle that moved many men.

Even the best agents of Thultanthar. Who were, after all, men. Of greater lineage and learning than the lower, coarser rabble of Sembia and Cormyr and the lands beyond they might be, but underneath … still human. And beneath all airs and graces, humans were still clever beasts. Talking herd animals.

Witness this long queue. Shadovar agents filing in, one at a time, for an audience with their Most High. They’d come rushing back to report their successes in murdering all sorts of Chosen, across the world, at his command.

A herd, none quite daring to be first-but frantic not to be last once they knew one of their fellows had returned to Thultanthar.

Telamont spread his hand to the latest arrival, silently gesturing for the man to speak.

He cared little about the details. Even if he’d gone hunting himself, or sent someone whose competence he could truly trust, like Aglarel, some Chosen would escape. Others would be inspired to think and call themselves Chosen for the first time, in days yet to come. A few would even have real standing, however paltry, in the eyes of some god or other.

Nor would any of this long line of worms dare to honestly tell their Most High how many Chosen had eluded them, or why.

He was most interested not in their achievements, but in the alacrity of their obedience, for busy Shadovar are Shadovar too enwrapped in their work to accomplish elaborate treacheries.

He asked this latest one the same question he’d asked them all, and received the same answer. “Oh, no, Most High, I have been most careful to adhere to your clear command, and have not tried to work any magic that touched another’s mind, oh, no.”

Telamont believed him.

All of the agents, in turn, had assured him of that.

His memory told him this one’s name was Laerekel, and that he was one of Thultanthar’s better agents. Diligent and loyal-to a Most High who showed no sign of weakness, at least. Show no weakness, yet display not your every weapon, as the old saying put it.

Telamont knew well that his keenest weapon was his memory. Without it, he’d have fallen from his high place centuries ago. Dragged down by those waiting for the chance.

Yet none who’d tried had lasted long enough to succeed, or try a second time.

He recalled what he wanted Laerekel to do next, crisply gave the man those orders, and dismissed him, as he had all the previous agents.

It took him some minutes, sitting alone on his throne, facing the open doors and pondering darker matters, to realize Laerekel had been the last agent of the day.

At last. He stood up, gestured to the guards to close the great double doors, and turned away.

Not that he would trust them. He never did.

Where he was headed was hidden behind two successive sets of doors he’d close and seal himself, with spells few of the mightiest arcanists of this city could breach, even with much time and trouble.

He did not want to be disturbed.

The inscription was pitted with age, but had been graven deeply enough that the words could yet be read: Handramar Ralaskoun.

Above the wizard’s name was a sigil unfamiliar to Amarune. Ralaskoun’s own. Below it was a rune she’d become familiar with this past year: the sealing rune that kept magic pent in and the dead at rest, the one she privately thought looked like three entwined and amorous snakes.

Rune used an improvised brush made of tufts of dead pine needles to finish cleaning out the inscription, not looking up when the bent back of the hunched-over crone who was Storm came swaying up to her.

Then brushed against her.

Rune tried not to stiffen as Storm’s touch sent magic crawling through her, but knew she’d failed. So she feigned a coughing fit instead, as Storm’s clear, sharp, and cool thoughts lanced into her mind.

This mindlink magic will enable us to converse by thought, so long as we keep close together. Say nothing that will betray who we really are. We’ll depart this place soon.

Rune almost nodded, but caught herself just in time. What shook her was not Storm’s words, but the fear that flared clear and cold behind them.

She hadn’t known that, after all her centuries, Storm could still feel that afraid.

The Most High of Thultanthar stood in the last and innermost room of his sanctum, dim and dark and private. The room he had just sealed himself in.

With every step away from the dying fire of the seal he’d just cast on the last door, the floor faded under his boots, and the darkness grew.

This most secluded of his spellcasting chambers was as dark as the void, and almost as cold. Telamont could feel its chill stealing into him as he strode on, seeking the place where the floor would be entirely gone, and it would seem as if he was floating.

The void swallowed echoes, so they came back strangely, and then muted, then not at all. When he reached the right spot, he waited, feeling the cold slowly and silently claim him, visualizing a serene and beautiful feminine face of dark beauty, whose eyes were utter pits of darkness.

My Chosen, the familiar whisper came to him, from everywhere around yet so close it seemed he could feel her icy breath in his ear, have you completed the task I set you?

“Which one?” he dared to ask.

He did not quite dare to add the bitter thought that flared in him then: my sons are not endless in number.

Had he dared, he suspected the Mistress of the Night would merely command him to sire and rear more, orders that would come wreathed in cruel laughter.

One more task, that would be, among the many that continued, both large and small. The one that had recently consumed most of his time was the hunting and slaying of Chosen. All Chosen but Shar’s own-especially the Chosen of Mystra-were to be destroyed so her ambition to finally command and reshape the Weave in her image could unfold unchecked.

Is the training of your special agents complete? Are they ready?

Shar did not sound angry, merely eager.

Telamont swallowed despite himself. He hadn’t realized how strong relief would feel, flooding through him. “I trained five. Doing so slew one; another engaged in treacheries and was eliminated; a third was found lacking and again was destroyed-but two are ready.”

Good. Use them as I have commanded. You are to leave the slaying of Chosen to the underlings you have already set to the work, and take up the task of seizing and draining the mythal of Myth Drannor and the mighty wards of Candlekeep. You shall use the power they yield up to gain control of the nascent Weave, so I can transform it into a new and more powerful Shadow Weave.

Telamont managed a smile. “To give You dominion over magic everywhere.”

Of course, Shar replied, and was gone, leaving him falling through the icy void.

The tomb was somewhere behind them in the deep, trackless forest. At least seven ridges back … or was it eight?

Rune helped the two bent, waddling old crones on, over tree roots and through the slimy mats of dead leaves between. They trudged with slow and grunting care through the trees, setting many small unseen things to scurrying away into hiding behind the moss-girt trunks and the fallen, toadstool-infested hulks of long-fallen duskwoods and felsul.

El, she dared think at the noisier of the two old women with her, who are we hiding from?

The Sage of Shadowdale sighed heavily. His reply, when it came, was grim.

Neither Storm nor I have any idea who compelled the wards from afar-but whoever did so has more power than either of us possesses.

We want to get to cover. Quickly. Storm’s thought was just as gloomy.

They were upset.

Rune suppressed a shiver, and helped them hasten on. Slowly.

Telamont suppressed a shiver. He still felt cold.

The bone-deep chill took longer to leave him every time.

The doors of the audience chamber were closed, so he’d made the dais itself glow with enough amber radiance to let the two men standing before Telamont see their Most High as more than the deepest shadow, like a dark flame on the throne of black glass.

It suited him for those summoned before him to see his face and feel his power.

They faced him impassively, all dark and slender menace. Silent and still, as watchful as two cold-eyed snakes.

Maerandor and Helgore, the two agents he’d trained, wizards he’d plucked from youthful ambition and raised right past the ranks of the arcanists, forging them personally-and separately-into blades as deadly as he could manage in the far too little time he’d been given.

Still, they would have to do. Time waited not even for the gods, despite what those deluded fools who called themselves “chronomancers” were wont to believe.

He watched them give the tammaneth rod the briefest of curious glances, then fix their gazes on him. He smiled inwardly.

Curiosity is a razor-sharp blade with two edges and no hilt. It slices us even as we wield it, yet we cannot resist swinging something so sharp.

He passed his hand casually over a particular spot on the left arm of the throne, causing the secret way in the wall to the left of him to slide open, and watched them both start to look in that direction, then school themselves to keep their gazes on him.

Better and better. He’d forged them well.

He locked eyes with Maerandor and ordered crisply, “Depart at once for Candlekeep. Follow the plan; it stands unchanged.”

Then he turned to Helgore, and commanded, “To Myth Drannor. You know what you are to do.”

He looked meaningfully at the way he’d just opened. Turning from him and seeing the great doors they’d come in by standing closed, they took the hint and strode across the room, departing by that secret way.

He passed his hand over the arm of the throne again, closing the way behind them, and permitted himself a sigh.

Then rose in haste, fighting down another shiver.

Age was riding him down at last.

Was it time to become even less human, and so cheat the ravages of the passing years?

Would he be able to snatch the time it would take for the exacting, painstaking process of becoming a shadow lich, in this spreading chaos and tumult? Or did she have other ideas?

Perhaps he should pursue some of the alternatives. What sort of a life did a floating skull enjoy? Skinless, bodiless, reduced to little more than malice and sinister whisperings …

How far from that am I right now, really?

Those dark thoughts took him down from the dais and, striding unhurriedly, to the great double doors. His will made them swing open at his approach, heavily but in velvet silence.

His will then made his staff appear out of nowhere in his hand as he walked.

Well, at least some things still obeyed him without pause or question.

Aglarel was waiting for him just outside the doors. Of course.

Aglarel, tallest of his sons and bareheaded but resplendent in his obsidian armor, was the commander of the Most High’s personal bodyguard-and the closest thing to a trusted friend in Telamont’s life for too many years to count now.

He fell into step a careful half stride behind Telamont, as usual, the faintly purple crackling of his armor’s ward surrounding Telamont’s own invisible mantle. Nothing short of a falling spire from one of Thultanthar’s loftiest towers should be able to reach the Most High through their combined wardings.

Not that anything in this city had dared to try, for some time.

Yet there would come another attempt someday. One always did.

Aglarel did not ask where they were heading. Wherever his father desired to go, he would walk escort unless ordered away.

Truth to tell, Telamont enjoyed his company.

“You sent your two new wizards off on their first assignments?” Aglarel asked casually.

“Yes,” Telamont told him flatly.

No more words passed between them as they walked the length of the long and deserted forehall. Although they were alone, Aglarel tirelessly peered this way and that seeking trouble, as was his habit.

They came out into the round reception hall with its lofty and magnificent vaulted ceiling, where guards stood at attention, carefully impassive. Telamont turned left.

“You’re not going to tell me what those missions are, are you?” Aglarel asked calmly.

“Not yet,” Telamont replied, his tone matching his son’s.

Together they strode through a hall of gloom and shadows where their footfalls echoed as if across great distances, and there were no guards. Beyond themselves, there was no one at all.

They proceeded in calm silence through an archway, to emerge into a room lit by the soft, steady purple glow of magic, and crossed it to another archway opening into deeper darkness.

They were halfway down the long passageway beyond, walking in darkness no mere human could have navigated through, when Aglarel ventured, “In order to protect you properly, Father, I would like to know the reason behind your sudden prohibition on using magic that attacks minds, or contacts them at all. Working blind is … unsettling. And dangerous.”

“So is suffering damage to our own minds, whenever we use such magics,” Telamont replied. “And that’s what recently began to occur. If you try to read minds a dozen times before nightfall, you’ll go to bed a far lesser arcanist than you were this morning.”

“Who’s behind this?” Aglarel’s voice was ever so slightly sharper. “Surely we should all know everything we can learn about such a peril, so as to deal with it swiftly, before all else.”

Telamont looked at him. “Have you never wondered why for so long I forbade all attempts to bring Hadrhune and your brothers back from death?”

“I presumed it was to avoid any chance of those who make undead their thralls-such as the one called Larloch, and Szass Tam of Thay-extending their influence among us. I take it I was wrong.”

“You were right, but a new reason has been added to that. What most call the Spellplague, this continuing chaos of the collapsing Weave, does not mean the Weave is dead. Holy Shar would not seek its capture, were that so. Lesser wielders of magic than we went mad, or had their brains literally melt or explode, when the Spellplague began. Those greater wielders of the Art who still live are far less sane than they were. And now, lurking in the Weave, are fell sentiences that prey on us-on all of Shade-when we work magic that contacts other minds. For a time, Hadrhune was one of these lurkers. They yet include some of your fallen brothers and rival arcanists, of this city and others.”

“They died, and yet still live?”

“Their minds are caught in the Weave. They seek to regain full life. They need more life-force, depth of will, and scope of mind to forcibly take over a capable living person. Their best road to doing so is to plunder minds they know. So they wait for us-and when we work those sorts of magic, we lay ourselves open to them, and they stealthily rob our minds of some power, every time. It’s happened to you. To me. To most of your brothers, perhaps all.”

Aglarel stopped, mouth agape. “How is this possible?”

Telamont shrugged. “None can ever fully understand the Art. Yet when I seek to compel the Weave, to conquer it locally and claim it for Shar, it resists me as it always has. Which means Mystra yet survives, or enough of her Chosen, to offer resistance.”

Aglarel’s face hardened. “Which is why they must all die,” he snapped. “More than that-be utterly destroyed, minds shattered and severed from the Weave. I am going to be so bold as to guess you have sent your two agents to bring us closer to that goal.”

“So much is obvious,” Telamont replied. He spun around to stare into Aglarel’s silver eyes, their noses almost touching. “I tolerate all the intrigues, petty treason, and misbehavior of your brothers and lesser citizens of our city so long as they stray not from that goal. Every last creature of Mystra, and the vestige of that goddess herself, must perish utterly. We cannot rule this world, else. And in time to come, through patient achievement that ruins not the prize we seek to claim, rule it all the worthy among us shall.”

That last word was said with icy firmness, ere the Most High turned on his heel and strode on.

“The worthy among us,” Aglarel muttered, lengthening his stride to catch up to his father.

“Tell me, how many of us are worthy?”

“All too few,” the High Prince of Shade replied curtly. “It’s why I went on siring sons.”