The Temptation of Elminster

Eighteen: No Shortage Of Victims

It was dark and silent, once the scrape of his boots had stilled. He was alone in the midst of cold, damp stone, the dust of ages sharp in his nostrils…and a feeling of tension as something watched him from the darkness, and waiting.

Elminster let himself grow as still as the stone handholds he still clung to, faced the aware and lurking darkness, and called up one of the powers Mystra had granted him. It was one he'd used far too little, because it required quiet concentration, and time … far more time than most of the beings he shared Faerun with were ever willing to give him. Too often, these days, life seemed a headlong hurry.

His awareness ranged out through the waiting, listening darkness. Things both living and unliving he could not see, but magic, when El concentrated just… so, he could feel so keenly that he could make out surfaces on which dweomer clung, the tendrils of spell-bindings, and even the faint, fading traces of preservative magics that had failed.

All of those things lay before him. Faint magics swirled everywhere, none of them strong or precisely located, but outlining a large cavern or open space. A good way off, on the floor of this chamber or cavern… or down in a pit, he could not tell which…several closely clustered nodes of great, not-so-slumberous magical might throbbed and murmured ceaselessly. El blinked.

Trap or no trap, he had to see what waited here that could hold such magical might. He'd been led here, the swirling sentience that had done it was watching him or at least knew of his coming…so what was the point of stealth? El cast a stone-probing spell, seeking pits or seams ahead of him. Shrouded in its eerily faint blue glow, he stepped warily forward.

Great expanses of the floor were the natural rock of the cavern, as El proceeded, this gave way smoothly to a floor of huge stone slabs, smooth-polished and level, no mosses had stained them, but here and there, the fine white fur of salts leaching out of age-old rock trailed finger-like across the stone.

A throne or seat of the same stone faced Elminster… empty of magic, surprisingly, though it was almost hidden from view behind the dazzle thrown off by the seven nodes of magic when he viewed it with his mage-sight. Thankfully, the seat was empty.

El sighed, threw back his head, and stepped forward. Seven nodes blinding in their magical might. Predictable or not, he could not ignore such power and remain Elminster. He smiled, shook his head ruefully… and took another step.

He might well die here, but he could not turn away.

The human was coming nearer. The Great Foe would soon be within reach…but also close to the runes that were too powerful to safely approach.

Too close.

He would probably get only one chance, so it would have to be a shattering blow that even a great god-touched mage could not hope to survive. After all these years, a few days or even months more would matter not at all. The slaying stroke did.

The strike that would reveal him and harm the Foe all at once had to be one that destroyed…or at least ruined his foe into something powerless but aware-aware of the pain he would then deal to it at leisure, and of who was harming it during that long, dark time … and why.

So wait a bit more, like a patient ghost in the shadows.

Two dark eyes that blazed like two inky flames of fury peered from the depths of one of the darkest clefts in the rear of the cavern and watched the wary wizard step forward to his doom.

Years consumed by the ache to avenge, the gnawing need that ruled him night and day … years that had all come down to this.

"Yes, Vaelam?" Dreadspell Elryn asked, his voice dangerously soft and silky. A long, tense creeping advance to a ruin where powerful foes were almost certainly waiting for them had not improved his temper-especially after one of his boots had found its first muddy, water-filled old burrow hole. That had occurred three paces before his other boot found the second. He'd lost count, since then, of how many creeper thorns had torn at him and raked across his hands and face … and all of it, of course, watched sneeringly from afar by the cruel upperpriestesses of the House, among them the Darklady herself.

Vaelam was practically dancing with excitement, his eyes large and round. The foreguard of the Sharran "wizards" was a thin, soft-spoken priest, both careful and thorough in his duties. He was more excited, now, than Elryn had ever seen him.

"Dark Brother," he hissed excitedly, "I've found something."

"No," Elryn murmured, frowning, "Really? You do surprise me."

"It's a stone," Vaelam continued, astonishingly not catching Elryn's thick sarcasm at all…or displaying uncommonly swift skill at hiding his recognition of it. "A stone with writing on it."

"Writing that says..?"

"Well, ah, just one letter actually…but one as long as a man is tall. It's a 'KT

"No!" Femter gasped sarcastically. "Could it be?"

"Brother, it is," Vaelam confirmed. He seemed genuinely oblivious to their derision.

"Show us," Elryn ordered curtly, and raised his voice a trifle. "Brothers, move slowly, keep apart, and watch the trees around. I don't want us crowded together when someone strikes from hiding. If we arrange things so that one fireball might take care of all of us, a hostile mage might not be able to resist his opportunity, hmm?"

"Aye," Daluth murmured, at the same time as someone else…Elryn couldn't tell who…muttered, "Thinks of everything, our Elryn."

Dark thoughts or not, the "wizards" of Shar reached the stone slab Vaelam had found without incident. It lay between two mossy banks, almost entirely covered with years of rotting, fallen leaves, but the K could clearly be seen. The deep-graven letter sprawled across a little more ground than one of the ornate temple chairs would cover, the stone slab seemed both old and huge.

Elryn leaned forward, not bothering to hide his own swift-rising excitement. Magic. This had to have something to do with magic, strong magic … and magic was what they were here for.

"Uncover it all," he ordered and stood back prudently to watch as this was done. The stone proved to be as long across, or longer, than a man laid out straight on his back, and twice that in the other direction, as well as being…at the one point where the ground dipped, along its edges…at least as thick as the length of a short sword.

When they were done uncovering it, the Sharrans stared at the massive slab.. and it lay there patiently looking back at them.

It knew who would blink first.

After the silence grew uncomfortably long and the lesser priests started snatching sidelong glances at their leader, Elryn sighed and said, "Daluth, work the spell that wizards use to reveal magic. I can see no trigger to this…but there must be one."

Daluth nodded and did so. Elryn was as shocked as everyone else when he raised his head slowly and said, "No magic at all. None upon yon slab or around it. Nothing but what few things we carry, within reach of my spell."

"Impossible," Elryn snapped.

Daluth nodded. "I agree … but my spell cannot lie to me, can it?"

As Elryn stood glaring at him, there was a common gasp of relief…of held breaths let out…from the other Sharrans, and they strode forward to stand on the slab as if it had been calling to them.

Elryn whirled, a shout of warning rising to his lips… a shout that died unuttered. The priests under his command strode across the slab, scraped their boot heels on it, stomped and strolled, staring about at the trees as if the slab was an enspelled lookout that gave them some sort of special sight. No bolts of lightning burst from the stone to slay them, and none of them shifted shape, screamed, or acquired unusual expressions on their faces.

Instead, one by one, they shrugged and fell silent, blinking at each other and back at Elryn, until Hrelgrath said what they were all thinking: "But there must be some magic here, some purpose for this…and it can't be the lid of a tomb, or you'd need a dragon to lift it on and off."

Daluth raised a brow. "And because we have no dealings with dragons, no one does? What if this is some sort of storage box built by a dragon, for its own use?"

'In the midst of a forest? Right out in the open and down low, not girt about with rock? Admitting my unfamiliarity with wyrms, that still feels wrong to me," Femter replied. "No, this smacks of the work of men… or dwarves working for men, or mayhap even giants skilled at stonemasonry."

"So what or who doth the 'K' refer to?" Vaelam burst out. "A king, or a realm?"

"Or a god?" Daluth echoed quietly, and something in his voice brought all eyes upon him.

"Kossuth? In a forest?" Hrelgrath said in puzzled tones.

"Nay, nay," Vaelam said excitedly. "What was the name of that mage in the legend, who defied the gods to steal all magic and become himself lord over all magic? Klar … no, Karsus."

And as that name left the young Sharran's mouth, he vanished, gone in the instant ere he could draw breath. The slab where he had stood, so close between Femter and Hrelgrath that they could easily have jostled elbows with him, was empty.

Those two brave and steadfast priests sprang and sprinted away from the slab with almost comical haste, as Daluth nodded grimly, his eyes fixed on the spot where Vaelam had stood, and Elryn said slowly, "Well, well …"

The four remaining priests stared at the slab in silence for a few tense moments before the most exalted Dreadspell said almost gently, "Daluth, stand upon the letter and utter the name Vaelam did."

Daluth cast a quick glance at Elryn, read in his face that this was a clear and firm order, and did as he was bid. Femter and Hrelgrath shifted uneasily as they watched their most capable comrade wink out of existence, and the appropriate one couldn't suppress a low groan of fear when Elryn said, "Now do likewise, Hrelgrath."

Hrelgrath was trembling so with fear that he could barely shape the name "Karsus," but he vanished as swiftly and utterly as his predecessors. Femter shrugged and strode onto the slab without waiting for an order, looking back for Elryn's nod of assent when he'd planted his boots squarely in the center of the giant letter. The nod was given, and another false wizard disappeared.

Now alone, Elryn looked around at the trees, saw nothing moving or watching, shrugged, and followed his fellow Sharrans onto the slab.

Even before their battle with the elf who'd slain Iyrindyl with such casual ease, he'd thought this entire scheme of holy Sharrans trying to be mages was wrong…dangerously wrong. Dreadspells, indeed. Still, if by some miracle what lay at the other end of this teleport was not one huge trap, it just might lead to enough magic to win them Darklady Avroana's holy approval… and survival long enough to enjoy it. He smiled slowly at that thought, said, "Karsus," with slow deliberation, and watched the world whirl away.

A red radiance lit up the darkness, gleaming back from a hundred curves of metal and countless gems. The light was coming from the floor…wherever they'd walked, the boot prints were a-glow.

It was too late to cry out a warning about awakening guardian spells or beings…Vaelam was already wading through knee-deep, shifting wonders to pluck at a gauntlet whose rows of sapphires were winking with their own internal light: the lambent glow of awakened magic, echoed in sinister chatoyance from a dozen places around the crypt. The low-ceilinged room was crammed with heaped treasures, most of them strange to the eye, and all of them, by the looks of it, harboring magic.

Elryn managed to keep from gasping aloud, but he was conscious of the quick glance Daluth threw him and knew his awe and wonder must be written plainly on his face.

The junior Dreadspells certainly hadn't wasted any time. Hrelgrath seemed to be waltzing with an armored figure as he tried to wrest a gorget from it, and a row of sheathed wands slapped and dangled against Femter's right thigh, depending from a gem-encrusted belt that enwrapped his waist as if it had been made for him. It had altered to fit him, of course. The eager-eyed priest was already reaching into another heap of armbands and anklets, seeking out something else that had caught his eye. Vaelam was drawing on the gauntlet, now, his eyes already on something else.

Only Daluth stood empty-handed, his hands raised to deliver a quenching spell should one of the reckless younger Dreadspells unleash something that could doom them all.

Elryn darted glances in all directions, saw nothing moving by itself and no doors or other ways out of the stone-walled room, and asked quietly, "Oh most diligent Dreadspells, has anyone spared a thought for how we'll be able to leave this place?"

"Karsus," Hrelgrath said clearly, the gorget clutched triumphantly in his hands.

Nothing happened, but Vaelam was already pointing into the farthest, dimmest corner of the chamber. "Another 'K' in a clear spot of floor yonder," he reported. "That'll be it."

"Aye, but to take us back out…or in deeper, to somewhere else unknown?" Daluth asked.

"Moreover, if I was intending to slay thieves who found their way hence uninvited, the way out is where I'd place guards of one sort or another," Elryn added, then…having not moved a pace from where he'd appeared…said, "Karsus" carefully. No whirling before his eyes occurred again, but he was unsurprised.

Slithering metallic sounds heralded Vaelam's continued digging…and as Elryn watched, he saw Femter slip something into his robes, his fingers working at a hitherto-hidden underarm pouch.

"Take nothing you cannot carry," the senior Dread-spell warned, "and be fully prepared to surrender unto the Darklady every last item of magic we bear out of this place, no matter how trifling. We are not unobserved, now and always."

Femter's head snapped up, and he blushed as he found Elryn's eyes upon him. He opened his mouth to say something, but Daluth forestalled him by asking the room at large, "Has anyone found something whose powers are obvious?"

He was answered by shaken heads and frowns.

Elryn used the toe of his boot to open a small black coffer, lifted his eyebrows to the ceiling when he saw the row of rings it contained, snapped it shut again, then blinked at what had lain next to it.

"Daluth," he asked quietly, inclining his head toward the heap of gleaming mysteries by his boot, "that circlet…hasn't that symbol been used to mean healing?"

Daluth pounced on the diadem. It was of plain but massy gold over some more durable metal, and it bore the device of a gleaming sun cupped in two stylized hands. "Yes," he said excitedly. He held it up to show the others and snapped, "Find more of these. Leave off looking at other things for now."

The lesser Dreadspells did as they were bid, digging and tossing aside treasures, and rising, from time to time, with cries of satisfaction. Daluth took the items they proffered…four circlets and a bracer…and Elryn snapped, "Enough. All of you, take only so much as what you can wear or carry, and leave swords and helms and suchlike behind. We dare not try to awaken anything here. Gird yourselves as if for battle, I don't want to see anyone staggering under an armload of loose items."

He reached down and plucked up a number of scepters from among a litter of metal-bound tomes, platters and smaller boxes. Then, as if in afterthought, he casually picked up the black coffer, its dozen rings riding safely hidden inside it.

A few moments of work with the long thongs that always rode in his belt pouch, and the scepters were riding ready at his hip, the coffer hidden down the front of his breeches. Elryn was ready. He said briskly, "Vaelam, the honor is yours, I believe. Take us from this place."

The youngest Dreadspell looked at the clear space at the back of the crypt, waiting in silence for him, swallowed, and said, "You said there might be guards…."

Elryn nodded. "I have every confidence that you'll deal with them quite capably," he said flatly, and waited.

Reluctantly the youngest priest-turned-wizard picked his way through the crowded room, slowing as he approached the letter on the floor. Four pairs of eyes watched him go, their owners crouching down behind heaps of unidentified magic. Vaelam sent them all a look of mingled anger and despair, drew himself erect, and snapped, "Karsus."

As swiftly and as silently as he'd first left them, Vaelam disappeared.

As if that had been a signal, something moved in the heap nearest to Hrelgrath, rising amid a clatter of many small things sliding and tumbling as the Shar-ran stumbled back, moaning in wordless alarm.

"Do nothing," Elryn snapped. In frozen silence the four men watched a glowing sword rise into view, its naked and glittering blade aimed somewhere between Daluth and Elryn. It seemed a good five or six feet long, its ornate hilt a-wink with many lustrous gems, an ever-changing array of runes and letters flickering momentarily up and down the blue flanks of its blade.

"Hrelgrath," Elryn ordered, "follow Vaelam. Keep low, and do nothing in haste. Go now."

When the second sweating Dreadspell winked elsewhere, the sword in the air seemed to shiver for a moment, but otherwise moved not. Elryn watched it for a while, then said slowly, "Femter, follow the others."

Again the sword stayed where it was. When only Daluth and Elryn were left, the senior Dreadspell asked his most capable comrade, "In case some spell prevents us from ever returning here, is there anything in particular we should bear with us?"

Daluth shrugged. "It'd take years to examine all that's here…and even then, we'd only know a few powers of each thing. This is utterly … fantastic. There's more magic crowded in here around us than I think all who worship Holy Shar, in their thousands, can muster. If I have to take just one thing…let it be that stand of staves, yonder. Four staves, I think, almost one for each of us, and all of them sure to hold some sort of magic we can wield in a battle. If we can awaken them, we can at least play convincingly at being archmages … for a little time."

"Let's hope it's long enough, a little time," Elryn agreed, "when it comes. Two each?"

They gave the floating sword another long look, slipped carefully past it, and Daluth took the two staves under one arm and pulled out a wand he'd found earlier in the other. The healing circlets bulged in his scrip.

Elryn looked down at Daluth's ready wand, smiled tightly, and quoted the saying, "We dare not trust anyone save Holy Shar herself." As he spoke, he raised the wand already in his own hand into view so that Daluth could see it.

"I mean this for perils I may find beyond the teleport," Daluth said carefully, "not for…closer dangers." His voice changed, sharpening in alarm. " 'Ware the sword!"

Elryn whirled around to find the sword hanging just as before. He was still turning as he heard Daluth add calmly, "Karsus."

The senior Dreadspell sprang wildly sideways, just in case Daluth had found the urge to trigger his wand irresistible and sprawled on a heap of enspelled clothing. Glowing mesh flickered under him as he slithered painfully down it, traveling over an array of sharp points, hastily Elryn clawed his way upright, snatched another look at the sword, and found it still motionless.

He looked around the room, down at the red footprints already beginning to fade to the hue of old blood, around at the thankfully motionless heaps of treasure, and cast his gaze once more down at the clothes he'd fallen on. Surely that was a stomacher, such as haughty ladies wore … he caught up one garment then another, feeling the tingling of powerful magic surging through his fingertips. They were all gowns, with cutouts in the meshes beneath ornate bodices.

Elryn of Shar looked at the shoulders of one, frowning in consideration … then shrugged and began to strip off his own clothes. He'd best hurry, if he was to be swift enough to keep the others out of mischief…or, knowing this lot, just from wandering off without him. Struggling in the growing dimness while trying to keep his eye on the sword floating nearby, Elryn was briefly glad they'd found no mirror that he'd have to look at himself in. He could imagine Avroana's mirth as she watched him battling the unfamiliar garment…and when at last he stood on the letter on the floor, and with one wary eye on that floating blade, uttered the name "Karsus," it was just this snarled side of a heartfelt curse.

The smoking stump of what must have been an old and large duskwood gave mute testimony to the effectiveness of something one of the younger Dreadspells had awakened. Elryn stared at it with dark anger rising in him, but before he could say anything, Femter was thrusting a ring at him excitedly.

"Dark Brother, look! This ring…against the best seeking Brother Daluth can cast…completely cloaks the dweomers of all magic in contact with its wearer! One could go into the presence of a king armed for a beholder war and strike with impunity."

"Such bold stratagems are usually more effective in ballads than in real life," Elryn replied severely, "to say nothing of prudence." He looked for Daluth and found him carefully taking forth one circlet after another from his scrip.

"Ah," the leader of the Dreadspells announced in satisfaction, "a wiser way to spend time. Let us all heal ourselves, then devote a short time to examining wands and staves before resuming our journey to the ruins."

Several more trees suffered in the moments that followed. The healing items all proved to be of more effectiveness than a single use. Two of the staves proved to have no more battle- worthy spells than the ability to spit forth the streaking bolts men called "magic missiles," but the others could unleash beams of ravening fire and explosive bursts of magic … and two of those seemed able to drain touched magic items and even the spells of their wielders upon command, to power their most destructive attacks.

"What shining luck!" Vaelam laughed, blasting a helpless shadowtop sapling to ashes.

"Luck? Holy Shar led us to this spot, Dark Brother," Elryn said severely, playing to the priestesses watching from afar. "Shar guides us always … you will do well never to forget that."

"Of course," Vaelam said hastily, then laughed heartily as the staff in his hands snarled again…and another tree vanished in roiling flames that fell away into streamers of smoke diving down to the leaf mold all around.

"Vaelam of Shar," Elryn said sharply, "stop that wasteful destruction at once. I'd rather not have this forest aflame around us or every druid and mage within a hundred miles appearing around us to give battle. Have you forgotten Iyrindyl's fate already?"

Vaelam grimaced, but he couldn't seem to stop fondling and hefting the staff, like a warrior who's just been handed a superb blade.

"My apologies, Dark Brother," he said, chastened, "I–I got caught up in its power." He licked his lips, firmly grounded the staff, and asked, as if seeking approval, "Do you know how tempting it is just to blast down everything that irritates or stands against you?"

"Yes, Vaelam, as a matter of fact, I do," Elryn replied, and wiggled the wand in his hand…the wand pointed at Vaelam's face…ever so slightly to draw the younger man's eyes. As Vaelam saw, and paled, the senior Dreadspell continued grimly, "It's just one of many such temptations."

Erlyn smiled tightly and thrust the wand back into his belt. "Aye," he added slowly, setting out at a steady pace in the direction of the ruins. "One of many."

He gestured curtly for the Dreadspells to follow. Reluctantly, they did so. Vaelam stopped to cast a longing look back at the stone slab, and the woods beyond it…and found himself looking right into the coldly smiling eyes and leveled staff of Daluth, who was watchfully bringing up the rear.

Vaelam managed a halfhearted smile, but Daluth's eyes grew no warmer. The youngest surviving Dread-spell swallowed, turned, and trudged off toward doom.

"Now, this curling of the leaf, on the other hand, tells you that this is a si…"

Starsunder paused in mid-word and straightened up suddenly, almost knocking his head against Umbregard's. The human mage stumbled hastily back out of the way as the elf threw out his hands.

Still standing dramatically stiff with his arms spread, the moon elf threw back his head and opened his mouth as if trying to taste the sky.

Silence fell. Umbregard watched his statuelike friend for what seemed like a very long time before he dared to ask, "Starsunder?"

"You expect someone else to jump into this body just because I stop moving?" came the mild reproof, as Star-sunder turned his head, spun around, and took hold of Umbregard's arm all in one smooth motion. "Do you know of some body snatching, wizardly peril I'm unaware of?"

"W-where are we going?" Umbregard asked in lieu of a reply, as the slender moon elf practically dragged him around and between trees, dark green half cloak swirling.

"Where we're needed, and urgently," Starsunder said almost absently, urging the human he was towing into a trot.

"And where…" Umbregard was puffing now, even though they were descending a fern-covered slope rather than climbing,"…might that be?"

"In a forest almost as old as this one, across an arm of the sea," Starsunder replied, his voice as calm and his breathing as steady as if he'd been lounging at ease on a giant leaf rather than racing through the woods, leaping fallen trees and roots, and swinging around forest giants. "No place that humans remember a name for."

"Why?" Umbregard almost shouted, sprinting as fast as he ever had in all his life, with the slim elf still half astride faster than he and threatening to drag his arm out of its socket.

"Trees are burning," Starsunder told him with a frown, "suddenly, as if struck by lightning or firestorm, where there's no storm in the sky to do such harm… and here we are!"

They plunged between two shadowtop trees that seemed perfectly matched, growing not three feet apart…and somewhere in the gloom between a blue haze plucked them and hurled them far away.

Umbregard's next step was in a different forest…one more dry and empty of calling birds and rustling animals. He gaped and tried to look behind him, but at that moment Starsunder let go of his arm and took hold of his chin. Staring into Umbregard's eyes from inches away, the moon elf murmured, "Make no unnecessary noise, and don't call out to anyone you see … even if they're old friends. Hmmm, especially if they're old friends."

"Why?" Umbregard asked, almost despairingly, why had he bothered to learn to speak any other word but 'why"?

"You'll live longer," Starsunder said, laying two gentle fingers across the human mage's lips. "That's why."

The Phoenix Tower was dark and cool and lonely. With his fortress ringed by thick thorns, jagged rubble, and a break- neck chasm dug by his golems literally as they were falling apart, Tenthar felt secure from intrusion by all save the most persistent adventurers. If any such came calling, he'd just have to be very good at hiding … or dying.

The Archmage of the Phoenix Tower had long ago passed beyond loneliness into boredom…after all, how often can one read old and familiar spellbooks that one dare not try any castings out of? He was tired of trudging down to the cellars in the dark to gobble mushrooms like some sort of tomb beast. For that matter, he was tired of trudging everywhere rather than flying… and never leaving the Tower.

All he'd seen of Faerun these last rides was the view his windows commanded. He lived from dawn to dusk, not daring to frivolously use any of the eight precious candle ends he'd found…he, Tenthar Taerhamoos, who was used to conjuring light as needed, almost without thinking. A light after dark might attract the attention of adventurers or hungry beasts that someone was in the shuttered tower. Not two days ago he'd slammed and bolted the shutters just in time. He'd spent most of the rest of the day crouched behind them, dry-mouthed in fear, listening to an angry peryton flap and slash with its horns at the old wood that he hoped would hold fast.

And if such foes got into the Tower, what could he do? He had no particular strength or skill at arms, and his spells failed him all the time, now…or at least, whenever he didn't bolster them with the precious power of his medallion, which was growing more feeble with each use.

He'd called on it too often in the early days of this spell-chaos, when he'd been frantic to find out what was happening, and why. Now he was just sitting in the endless gloom waiting for magic to obey him once more… or someone to force their way into the Phoenix Tower and kill him.

Each morning Tenthar went down into the under-pantry, cast a simple spell from his memory, and grimly watched it turn the stone walls purple or make them start to melt or be goaded into a mad display of sprouting flowers…or whatever new idiocy struck Mystra's whimsy that day. Each morning he hoped spells would return to normal and he could begin life as the Archmage of the Phoenix Tower again.

Every day his visit to the underpantry disappointed him.

Every day he grimly climbed back up into the cold and lonely kitchens, boiled himself some beans and cut a little more green mold off the huge wheel of cheese under the marble hood before he climbed the stairs to the big window, to study anew the spell he'd miscast. Every day he grew a little more despairing.

It had almost gotten to the point where, given the right goad, he'd use his medallion to fly away from this place. He could find some distant realm where no one would know his face, seek work there as a scribe, and try to forget that he'd ever been an Archmage and summoned monsters from other worlds.

Aye, for the ghost of an excuse he'd…

Something shattered in the next room, it seemed a dozen bells rang amid the musical clatter of glass. Tenthar was up and through the door in an instant, peering…ah!

The spelltale he'd laid upon the elven tree-gate in the Tangletrees.. someone had just used it to travel south to the woods near Starmantle. That was it. He was sick of hiding and doing nothing.

"The elves are on the move," Tenthar Taerhamoos told the glass shards at his feet grandly. "I must be there…at least I'll be able to learn as much about this chaos of spells as they do." He cut himself a large wedge of cheese with his dagger, wrapped it up in an old blanket with his traveling spellbook, and thrust the bundle into a battered old shoulder bag. Settling the blade back in its sheath, Tenthar called up the flickering power of his medallion, and cast a spell he'd had ready for a long time.

"Farewell, old stones," he told his Tower, casting what might be his last look around at it. "I'll return… if I can."

A moment later, the floor where he'd stood was empty. A moment after that, another spelltale shattered in the room where no one was left to hear.

All too often, an archmage's life is like that.

Excitement burned within her, leaping to the back of the throat she no longer had in a way it hadn't for years. Gently, Saeraede. Lose nothing now out of haste., you're centuries past trembling like a maid, or should be.

Like a wisp of dark smoke in the darkness, Saeraede flew up a thin crevice at the back of the cavern, back to the main room above.

She'd prepared this spell long ago, and he'd disturbed none of her preparations. In a trice it was done, gray smoke flowing out to settle like old stone over the top of the shaft. Its veil would seem like a raised stone floor to anyone on the surface, the well mouth completely concealed…and her quarry would be trapped beneath its web just as surely as if it was solid stone.

Saeraede gave herself a bare breath of time to gloat before plunging back down through the cold dark stone. Now to let myself be freed by my savior prince… and bring him willingly to the slow slaughter.

She plunged through the cavern like an arrow coming to earth, Elminster frowned and looked up, feeling some magical disturbance…but could sense nothing, and after a long, suspicious time of probing into the dusty darkness, he resumed his cautious advance. That was more than time enough for Saeraede to steal up into one of the runes through the cracked stone beneath, causing it to glow faintly.

Elminster stopped in front of it and stared at the unfamiliar curves and crossings. He didn't recognize any of these sigils. They looked both complex and old, and that of course suggested lost Netheril… or any of a score of its echoes, the fleeting realms that had followed its fall, with their self-styled sorcerer-kings, if any of the rotting old histories he'd read down the years had it right.

Only this one was glowing. El stared at it intently. "Sentience slumbreth here," he murmured, "but whose?"

Only silence answered him. The last prince of Athalantar acquired the ghost of a smile, sighed, and cast an unbinding.

The quiet echoes of his incantation were still rolling back to him from the walls all around when a ghostly head and shoulders erupted from the pale starry glow of the rune.

The eyes were dark and melting flecks in a head whose long and shapely neck yearned up from shoulders of striking beauty. Long hair flowed down over lush breasts, but it seemed his unbinding could free no more of this apparition from the grip of the now pulsing rune.

"Free me!" The voice was a tattered whisper, sighing from a lonely afar. "Oh, if the kindness and mercy of the gods mean anything to you, let me be freer

"Who are ye?" El asked quietly, taking a pace back and kneeling to look more closely into the ghostly face, "and what are these runes?"

Ghostly lips seemed to tremble and gasp. When her voice soared out once more, it held the high, singing note of one who has triumphed over pain. "I am Saeraede … Saeraede Lyonora. I am bound here, so long I know not how many years have passed."

At the last few words, she seemed to grow dimmer and sank back into the rune as far as her shoulders.

"Who bound ye here?" Elminster asked, casting a quick look at the empty, watchful darkness all around. Aye, that was it, he could not shake the feeling that he was being watched … and not merely by the dark and spectral eyes floating near his feet.

"I was bound by the one who made these runes," the whispering shade told him. "Mine is the will and essence that empowers them, as the seasons pass."

"Why were ye bound?" El asked quietly, staring into eyes that seemed to hold tiny stars in their depths, as they melted pleadingly into his.

Her answer, when it came, was a sigh so soft that he barely heard it. Yet it came clearly: "Karsus was cruel."

The eyebrows of the last prince of Athalantar flew up. He knew that name. The Proudest Mage of All, who in his mad folly had dared to try to seize the power of godhood and suffered everlasting doom.

The name Karsus meant peril to any mage of sense. Elminster's eyes narrowed, and he stepped back and forthwith murmured a spell. Bound spirit, undead, wizardly shade or living woman, he would know truth when she spoke it…and falsehood. Of course, this Saeraede was likely to have been a sorceress of some accomplishment, perhaps an apprentice or rival of Karsus, for her to have been chosen for such a binding. She would know he'd just cast a truthtell.

Their eyes met in shared knowledge, and Elminster shrugged. She would answer as truthfully as she could, concealing only by her brevity. Like dueling swordsmen, they'd have to weigh each other's words and fence carefully. He cast a spell he should have used before entering the shaft, calling up a mantle of protection around himself, and stepped forward again.

Unseen beyond the faint shimmer of his mantle, fresh fury flared in eyes watching from the deep darkness at the back of the cavern.

"What will or must ye do, if freed?" El asked the head.

"Live again," she gasped. "Oh, man, free me!"

"What will freeing ye do to the runes?"

"Awaken them once each," the ghostly head moaned, 'and they'll then be exhausted."

"What powers have the awakened runes?"

They call up images of Karsus, who instructs all who view them in ways of magic. Karsus meant them for the education of his clone, hidden here."

"What became of it?" El asked sharply, hurrying to hear her answer as the truthtell ran out.

Dark, star-shot eyes stared steadfastly into his. 'When awareness returned to me after my binding…a long time had passed, I think…I found it headless and wizened on the throne. I know not how it came to be that way."

His spell had failed before the second word had left those phantom lips, but somehow El believed her.

"Saeraede, how do I free ye?" he asked.

"If you have a spellquench or another unbinding, cast it upon me … not on the rune, but on me."

"And if I lack such magics?"

Those dark eyes flickered. "Stand over me, so that your mantle touches the rune, and I am within it. Then cast a magic missile, and let its target be the rune. In what follows, you should be unharmed…and I, freed. Be warned: 'twill cost you your mantle."

"Prepare thyself," Elminster told her, and stepped over her.

"Man, I have been waiting for an age, it seems, I am well prepared. Touch not the rune with your boots."

The last prince of Athalantar made sure his feet were clear of the glowing sigil, and made a careful casting. Blue-white radiance surged around him, roiling and tugging, the rune beneath him flared to blinding brilliance, and he heard Saeraede gasp.

Her breathing was ragged and swift as she surged up into the collapsing mantle beside him. As El stepped back, he saw wild delight in her face. All of the magic seemed to be rushing into her, and with each passing moment she grew more solid … more substantial. Her flickering, wraithlike form grew whole and acquired a dark gown. She was broad of shoulders, slim-waisted, and as tall or taller than he, her hair was an unbound, waist-length flow of velvet black, her brows startlingly dark tufts above eyes of leaping green. Her face was proud and lively…and very, very beautiful.

"Hail, savior mage," she said, eyes glowing with gratitude, as the last fires of magic fled into her. A single tongue of flame escaped from between her lips as she spoke. "Saeraede stands in your debt." She hesitated, reaching out one slender hand. "May I know your name?"

"Elminster, I am called," El told her, keeping a careful pace out of reach.

"Elminster," she breathed, eyes sparkling, "oh, have my thanks."

She hugged herself, as if scarcely believing that she was whole and solid once more…and stepped forward off the rune. Her feet seemed to have grown spike-heeled, pointed black boots.

The moment she moved off it, the rune erupted. A column of white fire burst up from it, twice the height of a man, and smoke surged out in all directions from its snarling. Elminster took a pace back, eyes narrowing…and something unseen in the darkness of a deep crevice stirred and made as if to spring forth … but remained where it was, not all that far from the mage's unsuspecting back.

"Saeraede," El snapped, keeping his eyes on the unfolding magic, "what is this?"

"The magic of the rune," she replied, smiling at him. "Karsus prepared it to impress intruders. 'Tis harmless, a parade of illusions. Watch."

She turned to look at the column of flame, folding her arms, mild interest on her face. As she did so, the surging smoke seemed to freeze and thicken.

The archway of glowing runes solidified out of the smoke and air with startling swiftness. It occurred behind the fiery column, framing it, a wall that looked every bit as old and as solid as those of the cavern around…but hovered a few feet above the smooth stone floor. The runes around the arch matched those graven on the floor, save that all were afire, and even spitting lightning … the risen lightning of awakened magic, now crawling between them almost continuously.

Saeraede stood calmly watching, and El, struck by a sudden thought, glided to her elbow and indicated the empty throne. "Will ye sit, lady?"

Saeraede gave him a dazzling smile, raised a hand in wordless thanks…not quite touching him…and sat upon the throne. No change in it, or her, was apparent to El's intent eyes. Hmmm, well. Nothing learned there.

As Saeraede crossed her legs and leaned back in ease upon the stone seat, the column of flame grew a face…a youthful face ringed by tousled hair and the stubble of a beard aborning, its eyes two points of blazing gold. They were fixed on the throne, and when Elminster swung his left arm in a sudden, wild flourish, the eyes did not move to follow it.

The air in the cavern was suddenly alive with a singing tension. The proud mouth opened, and the voice that issued from it crashed and rolled like thunder through Elminster's mind as well as through the cavern. "I am Karsus! Behold me, and fear. I am The Lord of Lords, a God Among Men, Arcanist Supreme. All magic is my domain, and all who work it or trifle with it without my blessing shall suffer. Begone, and live. Tarry, and the first and least of my curses shall begin its work upon you forthwith, gnawing memories from your brain until naught is left but a sighing shadow."

Elminster looked sharply at Saeraede at those last words, but she sat calmly watching as the hair on the flaming head spat a halo of lightning out to the runes, the echoes of its mighty voice still rolling around the cavern as they faded, leaving it shaking and dust-ridden. They burst into showers of sparks and fell, taking the illusion of the arch and its wall with them.

Still wearing its cruel smile, the face closed its eyes and shrank back into the column of flame, fading as it did so. In a few moments the flames fell back into the rune, and it winked out, becoming mere dark and lifeless grooves in the stone floor.

"Did that curse afflict ye?" Elminster demanded, striding around to where he could see Saeraede.

She lifted the edge of her beautiful mouth in a wry smile. "Never.. nor has it touched anyone, for 'tis all a bluff. Believe me, I've seen it many times down the years, whenever I grew overly lonely for the sight and sound of another human. 'Tis an empty warning, no more."

El nodded, almost trembling in his eagerness, and asked, "How can one see the scenes held by the other runes…and just what is in each?"

Saeraede pointed. "In this next rune lie two of the most destructive spells devised by Karsus…magics none else have attained since…as well as a defensive shielding of surpassing strength and a healing magic, he placed them thus in case his new self should have urgent need to do battle."

Her pointing finger moved. "The rune beyond holds another four magics, as powerful as the battle-spells but of more mundane usage. One creates a floating 'worldlet' to serve as a stronghold for the mage who uses magic to modify it further, one can stop and hold the waters of a river while digging out a new course for its bed, one can shield an area permanently against specific spells or schools of spells with precision…so that one can allow a lightning bolt but deny chain lightning, say, and the last can coddle and keep from harm a living human while permanently altering one limb or organ…Karsus most often used that to move heart or brain to an unexpected place, or graft beast claws where hands had been or extra eyeballs from others … he also gave some men gills to work under the sea for him, as I recall."

Saeraede waved her hand at the curving row of runes. "The others hold lesser magics, four in each…and Karsus himself demonstrates all castings, noting drawbacks, details, and effective strategies."

She watched the hunger in Elminster's face and suppressed a smile. She had seen this so many times before … even Chosen, it seemed, were like eager children when offered new toys. She waited for the question she knew would come.

Elminster licked lips that were suddenly dry, before he could swallow and say quietly, "I asked how one can awaken these runes, lady, to view what waits within … and ye've not answered that. Is there some secret here, some hazard or caution?"

Saeraede gave him a warm and welcoming smile. 'Nay, sir. As you're not Karsus and able to work the magics that respond only to his blood, there's but a matter of time…and your patience."

El raised a questioning eyebrow, and her smile broadened and slid into sadness.

"Only I can activate the runes," the woman on the throne added softly, "and I can call forth the power of only one in a month, by means of a nameless spell bound into me by Karsus. 'Tis a spell I know not how to cast, nor can I teach it to another. I can only call on it when the time is right…and I have no doubt 'tis the sole reason I still exist."

Elminster opened his mouth to say something, his eyes alight with eager fire, but Saeraede held up a hand to stay his speech, and added, "You asked of a hazard? There is one, and 'tis thus: long years must have passed since I was bound here, for my powers have faded indeed. I can awaken one rune, and no more. To open another will destroy me…and all of the magic stored here will drain away and be lost, it cannot persist without me."

"So there is no way to see the spells Karsus stored here…or at least, more than one foursome of them?"

"There is a way," Saeraede said softly, her eyes on his. "If you use that last spell I spoke of, not to give me gills or a tail, but to pass magical strength into me … the magic of another spell that heals, or imparts vitality, or places the vital, flowing power of Art in items, to recharge them. All of these should work."

Elminster frowned in thought. "And we must bide here a month, to see the rune that holds that spell?"

Saeraede spread her hands. "You freed me and woke the first rune. I am yet able to awaken a rune, now… and I owe you my very life. Would you like to see the rune I spoke of, which holds the spell that will let me live to unlock the others for you?"

"I would," El said eagerly, striding forward.

Saeraede rose from the throne and held up her hands in warning.

"Remember," she said gravely, "you'll see Karsus instructing himself how to cast those spells, and the rune will then be dead forever, its spells…spells neither you nor any living mage may now be able to cast…lost with it."

She took two slow steps away from Elminster, then turned back to face him, pointing down at the rune. "If you want to preserve its power and be able to view it again hereafter, there is a way … but it will call greatly on your trust."

Elminster's brows rose again, but he said merely, "Say on."

Saeraede spread empty hands in the age-old gesture traders use to show they are unarmed, and said gently, "You can channel energy into the rune through me. Touch me as I stand upon the rune, and will your spell to seek the rune as its target. The bindings set within me by Karsus will keep me from harm and deliver the fury of your magic into the rune. One powerful spell ought to do it … or two lesser ones."

The eyes of the last prince of Athalantar narrowed. "Mystra forfend," he murmured, raising a reluctant hand.

"Elminster," Saeraede said beseechingly, "I owe you my life. I mean you no harm. Take whatever precautions you see fit…a blindfold, bindings, a gag." She extended her arms to him, wrists crossed over each other in a gesture of submission. "You have nothing to fear from me."

Slowly, Elminster stepped forward and took her cold hand in his.