Storm sighed as the next sentries-a trio, this time-appeared from behind some trees ahead, and moved to intercept them.

" 'One does what one can,' " she quoted the old saying. " 'And the result must be taken as good enough.' " She shook her head, and muttered, "Though my sister Dove always hated that saying. Now I know how she felt."

The next load to rain down out of the sky and bounce bloodily, right in front of Storm this time, were the dismembered limbs and torsos of battle dead. There were some human remains, but all too much of it was elf flesh.

Fresh ... and not so fresh. The staring, dusty-eyed heads were the worst.

The sentries recoiled from what spattered or rolled at their feet, and Storm sighed again.

It was early in the evening of this twelfth day of Marpenoth. Which meant that only the earliest and most eager of the idle and wealthy nobles in Suzail had found their ways to the Memories of Queen Fee.

So they could be first with the latest and juiciest gossip, of course.

"They're saying," Lady Shalais Wyrmwood burst out breathlessly, eyes dancing with excitement, "that Myth Drannor has fallen, and all the Dales too!"

"As even my great-grandsire often observed, 'they' say many things," Lord Illance said sourly. "Where's the proof? Lay before us some details, lass! A vagabond hiresword army has to be paid, remember! What they can seize from the elves and the Dalefolk is their own booty, theirs in addition to their promised coin. And last I heard, they hadn't been paid at the agreed-upon time, and were getting a mite surly about it. So before you have the fabled City of Song with all its proud elves and the Dales with their sturdy farmers overthrown, routed, and taken, hearken to this: I've noticed, down the years, that armies always win their greatest victories in rumor, and do rather less well on the battlefield."

"You'd not say that, Lord Illance," Lady Rowanmantle snapped, "if you'd seen the wasteland that was once the glittering heart of Sembia. Why-"

"And have you seen it, Lady?" came his frosty interruption. "Have you seen anything at all beyond what can be glimpsed from the highest towers in this city, in the last three decades? I think not. Wherefore you must needs rely on the same racing and loose-tongued rumor that so informs young Lady Wyrmwood here."

At the next table, Lord Harflame set down his goblet to sneer. "They'll be at our gates next! Run and hide your jewels and your best gowns, ladies!"

"Yes, and go about in our frilly scanties," old Lady Rowanmantle said caustically. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, Amondras? You always were a lecherous, drooling, tasteless boor!"

"Odds blood, what a sharp-tongued liar you are, Arletta! How would you know what I taste like, hmm? And were I as lewd as you claim, I'd even want to see your old dragon-scarred hide bared, whereas the truth of the matter is that I'm far more selective! Young Shalais here, Delaunthra yonder, and one or two others, not the whole aging herd of you!"

"Herd, Lord Harflame? Herd!?"

"Yes, 'herd,' to be sure. Although perhaps that's a disservice to my cows, who still yield milk and give me calves, and are on the whole far easier on the eyes, and most certainly on the ears, than you old battle-axes!"

Mirt hid a wide-and getting broader-grin behind his oversized goblet. This was better than a play! They'd be throwing food and dashing wine at each other next!

So as not to be noticed by anyone who might curb their tongue when reminded there was an outlander present, he settled himself a little lower in his seat in the darkest corner of this exclusive upper room in the Memories of Queen Fee. The most fashionable and expensive club along the Promenade in Suzail was sparsely populated just now, but then it was early yet. Many of the regular noble patrons were at home, with large and sumptuous meals and more than a few goblets of good wine still to get through, to fortify themselves for the serious imbibing that went on in the Fee.

Rank amateurs in debauchery to a veteran glutton and drunkard like the oldest living Lord of Waterdeep, but after all, these were Cormyreans; they went at such things far more lightly than in the Deep.

"Well," observed Lord Renstameir Haelrood, as he swept into the room with a club servant scrambling in his wake to retrieve his casually discarded, many-feathered hat and gilt-trimmed cloak, "I see you're all hard at work trying to dismantle each other's tempers and reputations, as usual, rather than concerning yourselves with the weightier matters that should ensnare the attention of us all. We'll find it hard to go on leading a kingdom if we find it destroyed beneath us on the morrow. Care you nothing for what's happening across Faern?"

"Such as what, precisely, Renstameir? Who or what is so thundering likely to destroy Cormyr overnight, may I ask?"

"You may, Lady Rowanmantle. Please do. Anything to keep Harflame goading you into being the old cows and battle-axes he so fondly likes to describe you as. Yet to keep matters from devolving down a dozen-some side lanes of distractions, name-calling, and riding favorite hobbyhorses, let me set before you these: the Great Rain has swollen the Sea of Fallen Stars so greatly as to restore its shores to something akin to what our grandsires remember, which means our own shores are flooding and may soon be sunken for good; priests of more faiths than I can keep track of are fighting among themselves over this or that detail of their gods, and this strife is widespread and becoming worse, so that we may yet have a score or more holy wars raging across all the lands; and it seems every third or fourth home or farm in every kingdom houses an ambitious person who thinks they are the Chosen of this or that god, and must go out into the world with fire and sword and claim the recognition of their deity by doing awful and great things that all too often seem to involve much bloodshed. Including killing others who claim to be Chosen. Something that may yet have the gods angered enough to do even more awful things to all of us."

Lord Haelrood sank into a chair with more sighing satisfaction than grace, and added, "I could go on, at length, but I need a drink. While all of you try to deny or dismiss everything I've just said so you can hurry back to arguing if Lady Such-and-Such is a trollop because she showed some knee through a slit in her gown two revels ago, or if Lord So-and-So's piles are larger and more painful than Lord Howsoever's. Pah. Can you not see, my lords and ladies? Toril around us is sinking into wild disaster-'cataclysm' is not too strong a word-and you care not, so long as the good food and better wine keeps coming. Well, the vineyards and herds and farm fields that provide such things may soon be laid waste, and then you will have to notice. Whereupon no doubt you'll start squabbling about which of your old rivals is really to blame, rather than all this rumor from afar about Chosen and Great Rains and disasters."

"Rains of frogs, forty nights of torrential downpours of blood, monsters coupling with other monsters to spawn as yet unheard-of stranger monsters, taxes going down, and-gasp!-nobles telling the truth," Lord Harflame recited to his goblet mockingly. "Whatever next?"

Haelrood turned on him. "So you mock, and think yourself oh-so-superior, and do nothing. Steward of the realm that you are, that we all are, we lords and ladies. Beware frightened commoners with pitchforks, Harflame. When they get angry and scared enough to go looking for something to stick their forks into, your ample behind will be right there in view-and that's when they'll remember they don't think much of the sneering old goat attached to it. I hope you can run faster than you can get up out of a chair here, after you've been guzzling firewine all night."

"I do not," Harflame replied coldly, "guzzle firewine. A common beverage. I guzzle Taerluthran." He held up his goblet, smirked, and added, "As I'm doing now."

Lady Wyrmwood surprised them all then by shooting to her feet, goblet in hand.

"Drink while you can, lords," she toasted the room grimly. "For war may yet come again to these very streets, and by then many of us may be a little too dead to drink."

Mirt had expected derisive jeers and laughter to greet these words, but instead a silence fell. And stretched, deepening, as lords and ladies exchanged glances and grew both pale and grim.

Well, well. Perhaps it wasn't going to be too late for Cormyr after all.

The deep blue-green forest around Myth Drannor had suddenly become a din of ground-shaking cacophony.

Catapult loads were crashing down on all sides now-huge boulders, heaps of fresh corpses, the trunks of felled trees, and the occasional smoking mass of firewood that the city's mythal had quenched in midflight-and more than one group of sentries were dashed flat before Storm and her Cormyrean companions could reach them.

"What's that?" Amarune shouted suddenly from behind Storm, and the bard whirled around in time to see the air to the southwest go from faint blue to blood orange, in a swirling midair stain that spread as if some unseen titan had splashed something orange from the southwest toward the center of Myth Drannor.

As they stared-it actually looked quite pretty, if one set aside all fear of what it probably meant-another and smaller part of the sky, off to the south beyond the roiling amber radiance, abruptly flared apple green.

"Magic, isn't it?" Arclath hazarded.

Storm nodded, looking grim. "Wizards-arcanists, rather-among the besiegers are hurling spells at the mythal," she explained. "Not doing much damage that I can see, but of course we must add the word 'yet' here, if we cleave to honesty."

"Look," Rune hissed insistently, pointing. In the distance, through the trees, the amber radiance flashed and winked back reflections from metal-metal on the move, and a lot of it. The invading army was surging forward.

"The elf lines must have been overwhelmed," Amarune concluded gloomily.

Even as Arclath nodded and turned to Storm to ask her what they should do now, the high, fluting calls of silver trumpets rang out from the tallest trees and spires at the heart of Myth Drannor.

The call telling the defenders to rally to the breach, and fight to hold the foe back.

Storm sighed, turned around with a wave that bade Arclath and Amarune to come with her, and answered that call.

CHAPTER 11.

All Hail the Shadow King

YES, OBLIVION. A TRIFLE BOASTFUL," THE COLD VOICE OF LARLOCH added conversationally, "but such seems to be the style these days."

The archlich laughed, mirth that was almost immediately drowned out by a mighty roar.

Alustriel and Laeral screamed, and- Suddenly the tumult and the cavern in which it had been raging were both gone, and Elminster found himself whirling silently through an endless blue void, tumbling and plunging down, down, down ... to a brief flare of silver fire that transfixed him in utter spasming, gasping agony.

That faded as abruptly as it had come, leaving him panting, pain free and whole, but staggeringly weak, standing on an unfamiliar cold and dusty stone floor.

A brown floor, belonging to a cavernous, high-vaulted hall of brown stone. The very air around El as he swayed was ale brown and eddying, stale and tainted with the unmistakable reek of mildew.

Elminster blinked. He was facing a tall and slender figure in black robes. It towered head and shoulders above him.

He stared up at it. Into fell, old, and knowing eyes like two black, bottomless pools, set deep in a long, slender skull. For an instant, El was reminded of a bare, staring ox skull.

Then those dark eyes sharpened, and it was more like being impaled on two dagger points.

"Be welcome," said a dry voice from behind Elminster, "in the house of Larloch, the Shadow King."

El didn't turn to regard whoever had spoken-one of the Shadow King's liches, no doubt, serving him as herald or steward-but kept his gaze fixed on the eyes of the legendary Larloch.

Who stood confident and casual, flanked by a black staff twice as tall as Elminster, floating upright at the archlich's shoulder. It flared out from base to top, and was studded all along its length with the yellowing skulls of all sorts of creatures, from horned devils and demons down to small serpents.

A line of black-robed and glaring-eyed liches stood along the brown back wall of the chamber like the menacing members of a street gang, regarding Elminster as if he was a worm they itched to crush brutally in an instant.

Larloch made a casual gesture without turning to look at them, and they all hastily turned and filed out of the room through a modest door El hadn't noticed until then, behind the archlich's looming form.

"Your line, I believe, is 'Where am I?' " Larloch informed El pleasantly.

The Sage of Shadowdale shook his head, and found he needed to clear his throat before he could speak. "I was going to begin with 'Why did you save me?' "

Larloch smiled. "So we ride hard right at what is most important. Very well. I saved you, mage of Shadowdale, because you are the wisest and most capable of the Chosen-and always have been, with the possible exception of the Srinshee."

"And so? You've taken to collecting wise and capable Chosen?"

Larloch's smile went a trifle colder. "I need you, and the Realms needs you. You are the best tool at hand, to put it bluntly. And I cannot do this alone, for if just one spellcaster, in one spot, tries to call on the wards of Candlekeep to strengthen the Weave, the wards will surely collapse-like a man dropping and marring a long and heavy table he tries to carry from one end, whereas two men can readily manage the same transport, by lifting the table from both ends at once. The strengthening needs two of us, standing well apart, so we can draw on that part of the wards between us in a controlled manner, and so manage it."

El nodded. "And what," he asked carefully, "does the Shadow King-who weathered the Spellplague so handily-care about the Weave?"

Larloch tendered a cold, considering look, as if a pet had displeased him and he was reconsidering his acquisition of it.

And then he began to speak, leaning forward and speaking in earnest, as if El was a vital pupil who had to be clearly told something of utmost importance.

"Mystryl in my time, and two Mystras in yours, have been the goddess of magic-have been the Weave. The goddess Shar, in her pride and folly, believes that as Mystra is dead and there is still a Weave, the two are separate and can remain so. In this, she is wrong, but she also holds a belief that is correct: that control of the Weave, in the grasp of one with power enough, grants dominion over magic."

Larloch started to pace, the floating staff moving with him to always hang just behind his right shoulder.

"Her Cycle of Night failed here, and Sune defeated her attempt to have the Shadowfell flood into Toril and give her mastery over the other gods-have you not noticed that the tremors that shook the ground beneath your feet have now died away?-so Shar now desires to be the goddess of magic, and use it as her sword and war hammer and whip, to cause chaos and loss and destruction upon her whim. She believes this will deliver her from Ao and the order of things, by shattering that order, so the world shall become her plaything, under her absolute-and of course arbitrary-reign. Those sages who insist that we are all the playthings of the gods will finally be correct, to their despair, as we all learn what it is to be not the pawns of a more or less balanced group of many deities with opposing interests and techniques, but the pawns of one goddess. Who is mad, cares nothing for mortals, and exults in causing torment in all lesser beings. Some folk hate and fear magic for its devastating power. If Shar has her way, we will all hate and fear it, be we village idiots with no talent for the Art or archmages who might presume to challenge gods in our mastery of it. And we shall be but an afterthought to the Mistress of the Night, to be cast down and toyed with after she serves the other gods we venerate likewise. She wants to see gods suffer and despair, and slay themselves and each other, until she is the only god left, and her supremacy can never be threatened."

El nodded. This sounded like the Shar he knew, as much as any long-lived and alert mortal can come to know a deity.

Larloch came closer, his dark eyes still fixed on his guest as if they were blades or hooks that could pierce and hold sages of Shadowdale. "She will begin by subverting the least among the divine, while she manipulates the rest into making war on Ao. When he is destroyed or at least cast out of reach of our world, and the way he was sent sealed behind him, the ravaged survivors among the gods will become her toys, to be tormented at leisure, their destruction savored and prolonged. We mortals will be unregarded casualties in this endeavor, and only rise to her primary interest when there are no other gods-nor primordials, nor near-gods who might in time become gods-left, and the ways by which gods of other places might enter this world or influence it from afar are sealed or shattered."

Larloch halted right in front of Elminster, and points of light winked into being in many of the hitherto dark eye sockets of the yellowing skulls encrusting the floating staff-many fell and silent gazes that fixed coldly on the Old Mage, gazes that seemed to hold accusation and scorn.

"And all of this madness and wanton destruction begins with seizing control of the Weave. Working through her mortal servants whose ambition far outstrips their reasoning faculties-or they'd see the mad all-destroying folly they're attempting for what it is-yet who have skill enough in the Art to so serve. The arcanists of Thultanthar, who just might be numerous enough to achieve her first goal before they fail her or turn on her, as all of her previous magically mighty agents have done."

The archlich fell silent, and he and Elminster regarded each other expressionlessly as the silence stretched and deepened between them.

Finally Larloch asked, "Well?"

"Thy every word rings true," Elminster replied gently, "and I believe it. Yet what's befallen me down the years has schooled me to be suspicious of everything. Know that I am fully mindful of thy great experience and brilliance at the Art, yet feel moved to ask: how know ye all of this?"

Larloch nodded, betraying not the slightest hint of anger. "Telamont Tanthul, the High Prince of Thultanthar, is a vain man. As are many rulers, not to mention all too many archmages and archsorcerers. To me, he is one more arrogant young fool-and there's never been a shortage of those."

"A judgment he'll not welcome," El said dryly.

"His cold reception of it would not make it one whit less true. This self-styled 'Most High' has a habit of collecting trophies from those he's defeated-those he considers worthy foes, at least. One such is a ring he's proud of and wears all the time, as a mark of his defeat and destruction of a fellow Chosen of Mystryl, Araundras Othaun."

"And while he wears it, ye are closer to his thoughts than he knows," El concluded.

Larloch nodded. "While he wears it, I can see and hear what he does, though not touch his thoughts."

"And how came the ring to aid ye so?"

"A very long time ago, I doubted Othaun's loyalty to the goddess we both served-without cause, as it turned out-and altered the magics of that ring so I could eavesdrop on him." Larloch smiled mirthlessly. "Telamont has as yet not discerned this passive property of the ring. Much of his successes and survival, since Thultanthar's return to Toril, have been covertly aided by me and by those who serve me, often in light of what I have seen and heard through the ring. I saw Shade as a useful hand to shake many throats that should have been shaken long ago, without involving myself directly and publicly in current matters. Now, though, I have come to see differently. Now I see that Telamont must be stopped."

"As this shaking of throats will never end," Elminster interpreted aloud. "Progressing from specific targets to anyone whose downfall will benefit the High Prince or Thultanthar, and then to shaking every throat the Mistress of Night fancies shaken ... which will eventually encompass every last throat that can be found."

Larloch's smile held not the slightest trace of mirth. "Precisely. So let me show you how best to call on the wards-so your control of them will triumph over that of Alustriel, Laeral, and the Prefects of Candlekeep."

"The Prefects ...," Elminster purred thoughtfully.

Rather than saying another word about the Prefects that so obviously intrigued his guest, Larloch smiled more widely and said, "Your mistake, thus far, has been thinking of the wards of Candlekeep as just local shackles that constrain the Weave into a specific order-which is, yes, what a mythal does. And, I'll grant, how you augmented the wards when you made your little additions to them."

Something overhead chimed very softly, but the archlich ignored it. "The wards seem to accomplish the same imposition of order that mythals do, but are far different in nature-being, for one thing, the untidy accumulated creation of so many diverse hands using differing methods and ways of seeing the world that no one examiner can now easily see how the wards accomplish what they do. So most individuals, if they can affect the wards at all beyond shifting matters from already-crafted setting to already-crafted setting, do as you have: they grasp whatever's nearest of the wards and tug on it as if turning the Weave to their will. That works, crudely, but can be easily and utterly foiled by anyone who knows more of how to 'work' the wards, as the monks say. The real monks, that is; watching the unfolding dance of covert slayings and impersonations has afforded me true entertainment, these last few years. So the proper way to bend the wards to your will is to ..."

He waved one bony hand, and a glowing, moving image appeared in the air between them, showing a smaller and more silent Larloch calling on the wards with a particular technique.

The real Larloch imitated the actions of his image, and gave his guest a sidelong look. Obediently Elminster joined in, and together they briefly practiced alongside the animated image.

A bony finger wagged, the image winked out, and the Shadow King commanded, "Now you try working the wards in that manner, without guidance. I'll spin something that resembles the wards-thus. Now you grasp it and try to alter matters so the air of the warded area glows bright as day, and all sounds are muted."

El did as he was bid, thrice over, until he and Larloch were both satisfied the Sage of Shadowdale had mastered the technique.

"We are almost ready to return to Candlekeep," the archlich announced. "I can get us in through the wards without issue."

"Oh? How?"

"Who do you think renewed and expanded them, centuries ago?" Larloch asked, eyes twinkling. "Of course, I took the opportunity to make a few changes for my own benefit, in case I ever wanted to peruse a tome or two at my leisure."

"And have ye felt that want?"