And he was ready. Telamont had made certain he would be ready. The spell he was using to identify Thultanthans had another facet to it. The Declaration. He stepped back to where he could readily meet the eyes of both men, and used it on them.

Telamont Tanthul, High Prince of Thultanthar, was not a man who often raised his voice. He didn't need to, when his calm, cold, quiet voice carried doom enough. The Declaration was no shout, but the spell made it roll into their minds so powerfully that it might as well have been.

I am the High Prince of Thultanthar, and my word is law in Shade and all lands under the dominion of the matchless city of Thultanthar. I am Lord Shadow, and when I go to war, the mightiest arcanists of Netheril serve me, and when I am at peace, the most brilliant Netherese kneel to me and do my bidding and exalt my city. I am the ruler of the greatest city of Netheril, and I am the most powerful in Thultanthar. I am the rightful ruler of all Netherese; there is no other. Obey this my servant Maerandor, or face my wrath.

The mental echoes of that mind-voice had both men on their knees, half in awed obedience and half in dazed collapse, beaten down, by the time the last word smote them.

"Well?" Maerandor asked them, into the near silence of their labored breathing, his challenge barely more than a whisper.

They looked up at him like whipped dogs, wary and yet eager to obey. "I-whatever you command, Lord Maerandor," the unwounded man said hastily.

"Y-yes," the man still pinned to the wall managed, swallowing blood.

"Come," Maerandor snapped briskly, and he strode away, loosening his ward hold over the man and returning it to full defensive mettle.

He might well need it.

They stalked through a labyrinth of dim and cluttered chambers, walled in books and roofed in hanging maps, dominated by stout wooden tables and crude wooden benches.

Everywhere underfoot there were ribbons of sticky, starting-to-dry blood-and at the end of each one there sprawled the body of a monk.

Other Shadovar joined them as they went, none needing the hammer of the Declaration. Six, eight, eleven ... Maerandor smiled, feeling powerful enough to swagger at last.

Which meant, of course, he'd best gird himself against real danger.

He let go of Telamont's recognition spell in favor of the far more widely known magic of true sight. It would go ill if he missed a real foe among the still-living monks he met.

They heard shouts, and more than one booming echo of a burst that was almost certainly a spell hurled in anger-but thus far, in room after room, they found no living monks.

So Maerandor turned and used his augmented vision on the Shadovar with him.

And with a grim and utter lack of surprise, saw that one of the purported Thultanthans was an impostor. That is, someone who must have murdered a Shadovar, impersonating a quietly slain monk.

For he could see now that this false Shadovar had a face Telamont had warned him belonged to one Saerlar Stormwyvern, a half-elf Moonstar.

Maerandor pointed and snarled, "A Moonstar! That one-kill him!"

There was a rush to do just that, as Stormwyvern's hands flashed through a desperate incantation-but before any magic could erupt, Candlekeep around them gave a mighty shudder, the stones rumbling and groaning so violently that everyone was flung off their feet.

Bouncing bruisingly, shouting in fear, or snarling out curses, the Shadovar bounced from wall to wall, shattering lanterns.

The great shaking seemed to be welling up beneath them, the floors bulging up and then falling back.

"Earthquake!" someone cried.

"We're doomed!" another Shadovar shouted.

"The ceiling's falling! It falls!"

A few stones and tiles and a lot of dust did fall, pelting and bouncing down, but no general roaring collapse came down on them.

Shockingly, though, the floating, magical glowing globes that provided general overhead illumination in this room of Candlekeep as in so many others all winked out in unison, plunging the chamber into darkness, as all around Maerandor, men grunted, grappled, and screamed as they were wounded-or stabbed to death.

There had been time enough, but only just.

The shield of force Elminster had spun from the Weave was large and curved enough to keep him from being flattened-as it was slammed to the floor and battered down by a thunderous deluge of falling rock, with him beneath it.

The roaring torrent became a syncopated hammering that gave way to individual stones crashing, bouncing, and rolling ... and then to echoes and swirling dust.

Out of which Elminster's shield came whirling, hurled across the cavern with the full strength of the Old Mage's will and the wards of Candlekeep.

To slap Alustriel and Laeral as if it was a great paddle, batting them head over heels across the echoing expanse of the cavern.

El sought to pin the sisters against the rocks of the far wall-but skidding on knees and elbows, eyes flashing, they both called on the wards too.

Wards they'd been attuned to and living with far longer than Elminster ever had, wards now very familiar to them-and responsive to their will.

The shield racing at them slowed abruptly, came to a stop ... and started coming back at Elminster, ponderously at first, but then with ever-quickening speed.

Elminster gave it a disapproving look, and it slowed abruptly. A ripple ran down his jawline, and the shield stopped.

And started back to where the two sisters stood side by side, glaring at him. They gave the shield a mental shove, and it shuddered, slowing abruptly. Elminster shoved back.

Alustriel's eyes glowed, flaring like two lamps, and the shield shook in the air. Elminster thrust at it with all he could call up from the wards.

And all light flickered and then failed, the cavern around them and under their feet shuddering as the Weave convulsed, shockwaves rippling.

El felt a drift of dust and fine sand falling on his face as Candlekeep groaned above him, a yawning slow and loud and deep, that fell into the rumbling of an earthquake.

He took six swift crouching steps to his right in the utter darkness-and that proved to be wise, because as the rumbling died and the magical radiances faded back into being, the shield was racing right at where he'd been standing.

And it was coming edge on, this time.

It swerved around in a slicing arc as Laeral and Alustriel saw where he now stood, and came at him again.

Elminster lifted his lip in a mirthless smile and strode to meet it.

The spell that would serve him best right then was already taking hold; a magic that would cleave the shield and anything else solid sent at him, leaving a path of emptiness before him wreathed in shimmering magical fire.

It did just that, smoothly slicing the shield asunder, and El left it seeking new things to devour as he used the Weave to call on the wards of the keep again, trying to bring down the cavern wall behind Alustriel and Laeral, so rubble would rain onto their heads-just as they'd sought to serve him.

His call became ineffectual tugging. They were using the Weave, two to his one, and their control over the wards remained firm.

The cavern wall didn't even tremble.

Not that they'd been idle. He raised his cleaving fire and tried to twist it to intercept magic, but it was still transforming when the spells they'd just cast tore through it and struck him-a roaring burst of flames enveloping his head and hands, as ice seared and rimed him below the waist.

El had to fight for breath enough to scream.

He writhed in agony, trying to cry out and blinded by scalding steam billowing up from the roiling, clawing meeting of fire and ice right across his chest. He was vaguely aware of falling backward, legs frozen and rigid, the silver fire within him leaping out of half a dozen raw wounds and licking up and down his limbs.

He landed hard and bounced, only his silver fire keeping his lower body from being shattered. He could not even squirm. Shudder, yes, but that was his ravaged body's doing, not something he could control. He lay there shaking and helpless, in whimpering agony.

"Sorry, old friend and mentor," he heard Alustriel say sadly, from somewhere close above him. "We didn't want to do this. We never wanted to have to do anything like this to you."

"Yet do it we must," Laeral wept. "Finish it, Luse. Finish him now, before we weaken and change our minds. Still alive, he's a peril forever. Do it!"

"I think not," someone else said then.

It was a cold and calm voice that Elminster had heard before.

"Oh? And who are you?" Alustriel asked sharply-and there followed an ear-shattering explosion.

"Is that the best you can do?" the newcomer asked contemptuously. "Truly, Chosen have become lesser beings than they were in my day."

"And when was that, bone lord?" Laeral snapped, and through swimming tears El was aware of a blindingly bright flash of emerald light.

The cold voice laughed. "You seem used to destroying far feebler liches. I am Larloch, the First Chosen of Mystryl, and her herald. Some call me the Shadow King. You may call me-Oblivion."

You grew used to the gentle singing of the City of Song after a time, Amarune had discovered. It was as beautiful and softly ethereal as ever, but it faded in your awareness to an ever-present background. Until something louder and more strident drowned it out.

War horns blared, deep and menacingly mournful, through the trees. Mercenaries' horns. They were coming now, a widespread crashing of leaves and dead twigs underfoot amid the thunder of many rushing warriors' boots, pouring through the forest in an all-out charge. The armies of Shade, striking in unison at last.

Converging not just on Storm, Amarune, and Arclath, nor the elves who stood with them, but closing in from all directions on the core of Myth Drannor that the elves still held, the war horns dying away in mournful echoes as a cacophony of shouts, war cries, and bellowed orders arose.

"Steady," Arclath commanded no one in particular, as he stood beside his beloved. Storm was on Amarune's other side, sword ready and the long silver tresses of her hair stirring around her shoulders like so many restless snakes. On either side of them stood a line of elves-a line only one defender deep, a pitiful handful to stand against so many onrushing mercenaries.

"Strike to disable," Arclath added quietly, "and let their fallen become a barrier we can defend."

Storm nodded. "Wise words, but-"

Then there was no more time for nervous talk. The charging mercenaries had reached them, roaring.

In half a breath the world became a confusing, bloody chaos of hacking swords. The shriek and clang of steel was deafening, birds fleeing from branches overhead squalling but utterly unheard.

Rune and Arclath stabbed and parried and sidestepped, but the footing soon became treacherous and they fell into the same attacks as their attackers-hacking wildly and frantically, like unskilled wanderers trying to cut their way out of a forest thicket. There wasn't room to do anything else; the few spears thrust high and tangled in branches overhead, their wielders reeling back, too wounded to keep hold of them. Blood sprayed blindingly in all directions as sword hands were lopped off and throats laid open, men reeled and fell, and ... suddenly it was over, and the mercenaries were falling back.

Leaving mounds of heaped dead and moaning, writhing wounded behind them. Ruthlessly the blood-drenched elf defenders advanced to stab the stricken into silence.

Everyone was panting hard, covered in sticky blood-and Storm was working hard alongside the elves, tendrils of her hair plucking daggers from mercenary sheaths and swords from under bodies or out of failing hands, tossing the gleaned weapons back among the elf lines.

The besiegers hadn't gone far. They were within easy bowshot, through the trees, though no shafts were flying.

The surviving high mages had boosted the city's mythal to quench flames and slow arrows, spears, and other missiles in midair, but it had been done in haste, and they lacked skill and might enough for the augmentation to be permanent. The new abilities rode the age-old mythal uneasily, flickering and fitful.

A proof of this came hurtling: a spear arcing through the air from among the milling mercenaries. It deflected off a tree to crash to the forest floor, rattling and sliding ... but didn't stop until it found heaped bodies.

"Our mages must be getting tired," a bladesinger panted, leaning back against a tree trunk beside Storm. "When they falter, so do the new mythal powers."

"At least the mythal work keeps them from getting underfoot when swords are swinging," Storm replied.

That brought a wry and weary grin to the bladesinger's face, but Storm didn't echo it. Rather, she turned and beckoned Arclath and Amarune, looking thoughtful.

"Come," was all she said as they left the lines. Arclath looked back warily at the mercenaries as someone among them started to beat a drum, but Rune laid a hand on his arm to gently tug him along.

Storm set a brisk pace through the trees, but they hadn't come far when two elves stepped from behind trees, blades in hand-long whipswords, barb-ended blades whose slender lengths flexed and sang-and faces unfriendly.

"Where are you headed?" one of them asked softly.

"To the high mages working on the mythal," Storm replied politely, not slowing.

The elves frowned, neither stepping aside. "How is it that you know-?"

Storm dodged between them with a liquid shift of her hips that lifted Arclath's eyebrows appreciatively, and murmured, "I was one of several who suggested the augmentations."

The elves started after her, but then stopped and sighed as Arclath went wide around them one way, Amarune did the same in the other direction, and Storm turned around to watch, from well beyond them now.

"It would be wiser, humans-" one of the elves began, but Storm shook her head and smiled.

"I've never quite had leisure enough to wait to become wiser," the silver-haired bard told the sentries. "I've always just had to go ahead and do things now." A few retreating steps later she added brightly, " 'Tis our curse, we short-lived humans!"

Then she turned and hurried over a little ridge, to come down through duskwoods into a landscape of little lawns and grassy paths and curving stone walls amid the trees, where the wild forest gave way to soaring elven architecture.

Arclath and Amarune joined her, looking around in pleasure at the sweeping curves and spires of the City of Song. The fighting hadn't yet reached this far, but the litter of war was everywhere.

And so were the sentries. None of the elves who stepped forth to challenge the three hurrying humans had ready bows or spears ready to hurl, thanks to the mythal augmentations, but they were far less than pleased at "outlanders" seeking to get to the high mages, and Storm had to talk her way past sentry post after sentry post with increasing difficulty.

Arclath and Amarune kept their heads down and their mouths shut, knowing that without Storm-whom many of the elves knew-they'd have been attacked long ago.

For her part, though her voice remained gentle and courteous, it was clear from the increasingly flat brevity of her converse that Storm's temper was growing shorter and shorter.

"Easy, Lady Storm," Arclath muttered, as they finally won their way past a particularly rude sentry, and strode on. "Their ways are ... their ways."

Rune gave him a withering look, and he shrugged sheepishly. Less than eloquent, to be sure, but ...

"Thank you, Arclath," Storm told him softly, wrapping one long and shapely arm around him and squeezing. "I've never had much use for obstinate stupidity, but your point is taken. And your support appreciated."

Arclath struck a heroic pose that made her snort.

An instant later, something crashed through the limbs of some distant trees. Boulders plummeted and rolled, downed leaves and boughs crashing in their wakes.

"A catapult load," Arclath murmured. "I'd been wondering why they hadn't got around to that earlier. One could spread fire all too well ..."

His words trailed away as he realized what the arrival of the boulders meant.

"Yes," Storm said grimly, seeing his face. "The high mages are failing in earnest."

"So, should we be hurrying?" Amarune asked. "Or is there really anything we can do?"