She was interrupted by a ragged shout, as a dozen human warriors in motley armor came crashing hastily through saplings and dead leaves, waving swords and spears and axes.

"Let's start with these handy targets," Dove added cheerfully, and strode to meet them, dagger in one hand and long and ready blade in the other.

Moonstars hesitated-but Dove waded cheerfully into the fray, one woman alone against the dozen. Steel clanged on steel; she danced and ducked and sprang like a festival tumbler, and it was mercenaries who fell, not the lone woman darting about in their midst. "Surrender and be spared," she chanted in their faces as she parried hard enough that sparks flew, and dealt death. "Surrender and be spared!"

The last few mercenaries fled from her, crashing wildly through the forest, but the din of their flight was drowned out by the arrival of more of the besieging army, from two directions through the trees-hundreds of them.

They came on at a trot, flooding through the saplings, swarming up and around Dove, who never faltered in her demands that they surrender, though they closed in around her, thrusting and hacking viciously. Several Moonstars rushed to her aid, charging determinedly through all the offered steel, but others yelled, "Fall back!" or just hastened away.

More warriors came through the trees, scores of them, and it wasn't long before a Moonstar fell. And then another.

Even Dove was being driven back by the sheer force of new arrivals, charging in to try to get at her, their rush shoving back the forefront of the bloody fray.

A high, clear horncall rang out through the trees, and suddenly there were elves darting in among the mercenaries, their long swords gleaming.

A Moonstar reared up, transfixed by two mercenary blades, shrieking in agony-and right beside him, as he crashed down in his last fall, choking on his own blood, an elf charge swept away most of the Shadovar forces surrounding Dove and the handful of Moonstars standing with her.

And came at Dove and those Moonstars with the same slaying ferocity that they'd shown to the besiegers.

Dove thrust them away with a swift spell, shouting, "Can you not tell friend from foe?"

Whatever reply the elves she was facing might have tried to make was lost in another horncall, this one three notes winded at once.

The signal for a retreat.

In an instant, the elves fell back again, running back into the trees. After a wavering moment, the besiegers let out a ragged chorus of yells and went after them.

Leaving Dove and her Moonstars behind, forgotten.

She peered through the trees, grimacing. The elves were surrendering more and more of their city.

Given what she knew of their pride, their ranks must have been thinned indeed, worn down in this siege, for this to happen.

"Well?" one of the Moonstars asked, looking to her.

"Aye, what now?" asked another, wiping at blood that was streaming down the side of his face. "Where shall we throw our lives away?"

Dove snorted like a horse in dismissal of his words, but had no others to give him.

"So pass two princes of Thultanthar," the Coronal of Myth Drannor said bitterly. "Would that they had kept to their own city and their own Art, and left ours alone. What they've destroyed can never be replaced ... like so much of what all Tel'Quess have lost, these last few centuries."

She turned away from the smoking ashes of what had been Mattick and Vattick Tanthul, and signaled wordlessly to one of the high mages. He bowed and obeyed, beginning to cast an intricate spell over the remains of their fallen foes that would ensure no one successfully brought them back to life or unlife.

His three fellow mages turned to obey commands she'd given earlier, resealing the crypt of House Alavalae.

Ilsevele Miritar, the Coronal of Myth Drannor, watched them, and sighed. How long would it be before the next tomb robbers came down this passage, bent on taking what they could and destroying all that was left of a proud elf family?

They had won this battle, but it didn't feel like any sort of victory.

The mages all looked to her, their castings done.

"Come," she commanded softly, and led the way along the passage. There was another crypt, around two bends of the way ahead, and these plunderers might have sent others ...

They found its doors intact, but the door warden of House Felaeraun was a flickering blue flame in the passage before them, weeping inconsolably.

"Gone!" was all they could get out of the baelnorn. "Gone!"

At a gesture from their coronal, two of the high mages unsealed the doors with careful spells, working gently-and just as gently, opened the doors wide.

Into still darkness.

The last resting place of House Felaeraun had been drained from within. All of its honored dead were now dust, their magic gone.

CHAPTER 16.

Slain Qualms and Worse

I HAVE AN IDEA," ELMINSTER ANNOUNCED SUDDENLY.

"Of course you do," the Srinshee, Alustriel, and Laeral all replied in unintentional unison-something that startled them into gales of laughter.

El overrode them all with a firm, "Heed me!" And then added, "For I'll be needing aid-mind-steadying-from all of ye."

"El," Laeral told him crisply, "you've needed that for years."

That brought a chuckle from the man himself, amid fresh mirth from the others, but then he said, "I've magically bound more than a few beings over the years. Some, I'm thinking, could wreak much havoc among the armies of Thultanthar gathered here."

"And against the battered few Tel'Quess still fighting for our city," the Srinshee said sharply.

"Only if they break through all the massed mercenaries I'm thinking of putting them right into the midst of."

"What sort of bound beings?" Alustriel asked suspiciously.

"Dracoliches, dragons, beholders, and the like. Usually I thrust them into stasis, where they've been caught ever since, but in a few cases I bound them to a particular place, so they could no longer wander and maraud at will."

"Dragons ... beholders," the Srinshee murmured, shaking her head. "And this will help my people how? By sending them to their graves all the sooner?"

"If you help me transform the bindings I've laid on them into prohibitions to keep them from translocating or flying," El explained, "we'll keep most of them ground ridden. Beholders dragging themselves along, dragons and dracoliches stalking like cats-they'll be caught in the thick of well-armed hireswords who can hit back, and hit hard. Lots of hireswords. The armies far too numerous for the Tel'Quess of Myth Drannor to stand against. Think of these beasts as our army."

Laeral winced. "I have some ethical qualms ... convince me, El."

"I bind nothing and no one lightly. These bound creatures are all menaces-and if I fall in battle, they'll all be loosed anyway, wherever they are on Toril, without heralding nor any watch over where they go and what they do. Which will undoubtedly be to slaughter and despoil and devour. Why not have that havoc be visited on warriors who've taken coin to do butchery on others, in a forest-locked city far from what any of them hold dear, whose inhabitants have threatened them not at all? Let them earn their blood-coins for once. And if all this should thin the ranks of mercenaries, so be it. Better they fall, and all lands be somewhat the safer for the lack of so cheap and plentiful means of making war, than Myth Drannor fall and Shar or Larloch or something worse prevail, the Weave crash, and a new Spellplague or worse race like wildfire across the world, and countless beings be plunged into fear and misery and lives of desperate savagery, fighting every day just to stay alive in the face of-"

"Enough," Laeral said firmly. "You've slain my qualms, not to mention any more qualms I may entertain for the next season or so. Let's be loosing your beasts-only with precision."

"Of course," Elminster agreed. "That is what I need the three of ye to help with. I need ye to steady and guide me, so we translocate each beast to the best spot at the right time."

"Though every moment we spend means more of my people fall," the Srinshee said firmly, "we are going to begin by taking time enough to swiftly survey the strength of the foe, and just where they're scattered. Fortunately, this was a survey I was already undertaking when you arrived. Sit down, all of you."

"I-"

"Sit down. Or lie down; whatever brings most ease. Linking hands, all of us, in a ring. Attune to me."

Both Alustriel and Laeral opened their mouths as if to protest, then nodded, sat, and reached out for Elminster- who was grinning at the Srinshee's sudden fire-and for the Srinshee herself.

It took a moment for their minds to mesh, four so spirited and long-lived individuals, but when the inevitable tugging and surging subsided into a comfortable union, their linked minds flashed out to several pairs of small, darting forest birds, and rode their tiny minds and all-seeing eyes through the trees, sweeping over the Shadovar army ringing Myth Drannor. Everywhere within the city, there were skirmishes and fires and rushing armed bands ... but not far off, there were thousands of mercenaries encamped, or waiting orders to advance into the city.

Elminster and the two sisters could feel the Srinshee's despair growing as she saw just how many hireswords there were-and how few elves were left to stand against them.

"Do it," she snapped at last. "A good big dragon there, and a dracolich there, and beholders here and here. So anyone fleeing will rush into the fearful running from another peril, not off by themselves to straggle through the forest for days and regroup to do mischief. Hem them in with terror. Then we watch, and unbind more beasts only as some of those fall. Yes?"

"Yes," three mind-voices agreed, and plunged into Elminster's memories, following him down to the black elder wyrm Harlotharaur, bound in a deep mountain cavern on the northern edge of Amn after it had gloated to El that nothing and no one could stop it poisoning the wells of human cities and the streams that watered mountain villages, to destroy humans in their tens of thousands, and so rid the land of a pest that endangered all other creatures.

The bindings on the dragon were thus and so ... Alustriel and Laeral twisted them, and when the roused Harlotharaur stretched its wings and sat up in fell glee to smite the bindings and win its freedom, the Srinshee smilingly plunged into the dragon's mind, pinned its every muscle, and held it immobile as she translocated it to precisely the spot she'd chosen-and then flung it into a daze.

When the wyrm recovered, not all that many handfuls of moments later, all trace of the four minds that had so violated it were gone, but it was ringed by angry and fearful humans who were even now assailing it with everything they could swing, hurl, or thrust.

Almost gleefully it gave battle, rearing up and lashing out in one titanic surge. Broken bodies were flung high into the air, or sent spattering off trees all around-and Harlotharaur roared in exulting challenge, and set about harvesting more bodies to hurl. It gathered itself for a bound into the air, and flung out its wings for one great beat-only to feel nothing. The muscles that should coil and let it bound into the air twitched and spasmed instead of obeying, and the wings drooped; they could spread but not beat down with any force at all, nor hold an edge ...

In baffled rage Harlotharaur tried again and again, throwing back its head and howling its fury. And then it lowered its head and reached out with its claws and jaws, and dug into the armed humans around it, savaging them and scattering them like dried leaves, and then savaging them some more.

By then, the Srinshee was already rooting through Elminster's deep memories, dismissing the seething pain it caused him with a brisk, "The sooner we're in and out and done, the sooner you can start mending your mind-something you should have given more thought to long ago."

Finding the dracolich he wanted her to find, the Srinshee pounced.

Its cold eyes stared around vainly in the lightless, frigid water and swirling mud. El, Srinshee, Laeral, and Alustriel could all feel its puzzlement, and now, as they drifted in more closely to its flashing thoughts, could hear what it was thinking.

Who were these awakeners? They were-they were in its own mind, nowhere to be seen ...

Anger and fear blossomed and rose in the bone dragon's thoughts. It was Tlossarylathaunglar by name, one of the oldest and most fell creations of the Cult of the Dragon, long frozen by El's will and Art in the silted depths of a frigid Underdark lake after it refused to stop using its spells and undead brawn to cause collapse after collapse in the Realms Below, crushing entire deep gnome cities and flooding a huge network of caverns that were home to drow, duergar, and dwarves alike by shattering lake basins in the bedrock above them. All for the delight of slaying and the goal of opening vast subterranean caverns it could fly through, and rule over ...

Now, Tlossaryl was aroused.

It was appalled to find itself in the grip of a mind far mightier than its own, enraged to feel the attentive awareness of that other, hated mind that had bound it, and frightened to discover that two other minds of power were also in contact with it. Its struggles were feeble-or rather, crushed before they could amount to anything-until it was suddenly elsewhere, in the blinding light and warmth, in air instead of water, and surrounded by so many angry and excited minds that the dracolich was overwhelmed anew, and frankly cowered.

Then the four minds that had gripped it so powerfully were gone, and it was free. Attacked by thousands of armed humans rushing at it from all sides, but unhampered at last-at last!-and so, free to give battle. It beat its bony wings, shattering trees and swiftly learning how entangled by the forest it was-and also discovering that it had lost the power to fly; that part of its undeath and magic had been stripped from it.

That plunged it into a darker, deeper rage than it had ever felt in all its life and unlife, and it lost no time in venting that fury. The minds all around it flared up into fresh rages of their own-and fear. Fear that Tlossaryl reveled in, as it slew, maimed, and slew some more.

By then, the Srinshee was thrusting ruthless mental barbs-long black lances of her contempt and revulsion-deep into the mind of the eye tyrant Xoraulkyr, shattering its arrogant confidence that it was superior to all other minds, and had been ensnared by the human Elminster only through luck and deceit. While it was still reeling mentally, too aghast at being so wounded to gather the will to slap down any of the four minds riding it, it was suddenly no longer in the bricked-up Waterdhavian cellar Elminster had put it into stasis in, but-elsewhere.

Specifically, a glade in deep shade, roofed over by the interwoven branches of a thick stand of duskwoods, where shades and arcanists of Thultanthar were arguing over where to send their "idiot troops" to most swiftly smash what elf resistance remained.

"I've always hated commanders who led from the rear," the Srinshee whispered into Xoraulkyr's mind confidingly, her words carrying into the thoughts of her three companions. "Let them taste unleashed beholder, and learn a little!"

An instant later, Xoraulkyr thudded heavily to the trodden moss of the forest floor, eyestalks writhing in pain. It sought to soar, to lash out at these astonished humans before they could work the magics they were even now frantically calling up-but found, as the Thultanthans scattered, fleeing for the encircling trees, that it couldn't even rise off the ground. At all. It was what it had always been: a beholder of massive size for its kind, a sphere the size of a small human coach. Which meant it was so heavy that if it rolled without great care, it crushed its own eyestalks under its bulk.

Xoraulkyr painfully rediscovered this very flaw just before the first spells tore into it. Their force awakened agony and flung it away in a clumsy, bouncing roll, to fetch up against the trunk of a large duskwood where the eye tyrant rested, stretching its eyestalks in a swift wild spasm and then unleashing its magic back at those who'd just harmed it.

The glade erupted in magic so ferocious that trees started to topple, or were blasted to shards that were flung far away through the forest.

By then, the Srinshee was dumping another beholder into another group of commanders, a gathering of mercenary war captains who were strolling and chatting idly, pursuing war in far idler fashion than the shades and arcanists. To a man-and they were all men, ruthless louts of veteran killers, every one-they were most interested, at the moment, in emptying wineskins as fast as their servants could pour them into flagons. The war captains were toasting their guests, a dozen hired mages, but the Srinshee made sure none of those wizards would be fleeing with all that much alacrity, by breaking one ankle of each mage she saw.

And then she let go of El's hand to break the ring and give them all a moment to breathe and collect their own wits, while she called on the mythal she'd helped shape, to let her far scry the four centers of mayhem they'd just kindled.

"Mayhem," she commented with some satisfaction, after she'd looked for a few moments at each fray, "is certainly spreading. It might just become widespread among the besiegers of Myth Drannor, if you can find us four more champions as powerful as that quartet among your bindings, El."

"I believe I can," Elminster replied, managing a slow grin. It felt good to be rid of burdens, and he was carrying so many.

"Good. Do so. Then I'll leave you three to get on with destroying Weave anchors, and-"

"Destroying Weave anchors?" El came to his feet in a wild rush, aghast. "We've been renewing them, and crafting new ones! Why, the Weave may collapse, and cause all magic to go wild, if we take away its anchors! What-"

"Madness is this? Desperate times, desperate measures, my fire-sword! You're right about the danger, of course, but Larloch-and Shar-expect you to rush around strengthening anchors. They are depending on it. Only if the Weave holds strong here, around the mythal, can they drain the one and take over the other. They need someone else to hold the Weave steady so they can snatch it all, whereas if you sever it from its local anchors here, it becomes not a target stretched and held taut for their snatching, but a ragged bit of cloth blowing in wild winds that they can scarce see, let alone seize, as they rush past. Trust me."

El winced.

"Yes," the Srinshee told him softly, "I know you have just trusted and been betrayed, but I am no Larloch. Trust me. Destroy anchors, just hereabouts, as swiftly as you can-but take care to choose and destroy those that anchor both the mythal and the Weave, first. Wise crafters would have overlapped none, but ... elves and humans alike are all too often unwise."

"And lazy," said Laeral.

"And in a hurry," Alustriel added.

"Indeed," the Srinshee agreed. "And have not all of us been all of those things, betimes? Yet let us not be those things today. Too much rides on victory. Which is why I've come back. Myth Drannor stands imperiled, so I am here."

Laeral regarded her unsmilingly. "You truly believe the city can be saved?"

The Srinshee shrugged. "Buildings are just that-buildings. The community has already been lost, turned from lives unfolding freely into waging constant war ... but the people can be saved, some of them, to return and refound and rebuild once this threat is past. I'm here to salvage what Tel'Quess I can, and friends to the elves too. I came back because I could not bear to see it all be lost, while I did nothing. You three have brought me hope; with your meddling, perhaps Shar and the Shadovar who serve her, and Larloch who seeks to exalt himself, shall not prevail."

She looked into their eyes, one after another, and then added, "Now enough grand words. El, yield me up some more monsters!"

And she plunged right through his eyes into his mind, plucking at the minds of the two silver-haired sisters as she passed, and dragging them down and into the warm and familiar murk of Elminster's busy mind along with her. Images flashed past them, one melting through another with bewildering rapidity, some half familiar, some very strange. El steered the racing meteor that was the Srinshee, taking her down, down to where runes glowed and wrote themselves over and over in his remembrances, secret words were whispered, hiding places under stones and behind concealing spells were revealed, and-a mind flayer came striding.

It had baleful eyes, as it reached out its tentacles in another place and another time, uncoiling to stab into both Elminster's ears, to feed-but was instead ensnared in his waiting trap, stiffening in dismayed disbelief as its intrusion plunged into waiting magic meant to hook it alone, setting mental barbs deep so that to tear away would be to lose the greater part of its intellect. It tried to tear free anyway, tasting terror for the first occasion in a long time, but the leaking chaos washing across its thoughts, that lessened it and bewildered it, left it powerless to resist the tightening spell ... and so it was that the illithid Qhelaraxxalarr was frozen, its mind whirling in an endless loop, its muscles locked. Shoved into a closet, hooded, and as the endless darkness began, sunk into a torpor by a chilling spell it had never felt before, even as it heard the thudding echoes of the closet being boarded up, blows that seemed to come from a vast distance, and that were followed by fainter hammerings that went on for a much longer time, as a false wall was built in front of the closet.

"Perfect," the Srinshee decreed. "Mind-wounded beyond recovery, but goaded by fear and anger into the feeding hunger. It won't last long, the moment the mercenaries see what's in their midst and any Shadovar with them decree it not of their recruiting." She whirled it away as Laeral and Alustriel worked busily on lifting Elminster's spells, and it was gone.