"Next!" she commanded briskly.

"How about another dragon? Only a little one, but deadly. It can't fly, having no wings-nor does it have a breath weapon-both thanks to arcanists of Thultanthar, as it happens, and their eagerness to experiment on dragonkind. But it can take human shape, and once it escaped the arcanists and went on a slaying spree, slaughtering any human mage it could find. 'Ware the poisonous stinging tail."

"You do have quite the menagerie, don't you?"

And so the unleashing went on, El groaning at the upheaval in his memories as long-forgotten oaths and sealing spells and bindings were dredged up.

"Hurts," he gasped several times, and by the time the last bound creature-a one-armed lich that wielded some very creative magics- was set among an encampment of the besiegers, El was staggering in a murk of his own making, lost to the world.

When he ran into his third tree, gentle but firm arms embraced him and sat him down, and from somewhere nearby he heard Alustriel murmur, "He's not doing well. A little silver fire?"

"No," the Srinshee said emphatically. "That'll draw arcanists galore down on us, and quite likely Larloch too. No, just let me ..."

She murmured something, and cool, blessed relief flooded through Elminster's roiling thoughts like dappled sunlight dancing through leaves and falling through high windows onto the dark floor of his mind.

He was barely aware that he was being lifted and carried, by Laeral and Alustriel, who grunted and staggered from time to time under his dead weight and the awkwardness of conveying him over tree roots and the uneven forest floor. More than once, he felt a magical force thrust up beneath him out of nowhere, as if the air had suddenly become a firm and solid hand, to hold him up over the roughest stretches, or where the trees stood so thick and close that he had to be turned on his side and slid through and around boughs and trunks, to ...

A place where he started to tingle all over. A Weave anchor!

He was propped against a tree trunk-a shadowtop, by the feel of the bark, and as large across as the wall of a good-sized cottage-and left there, as Laeral and Alustriel and the Srinshee moved to form a box, with each of them and himself as a corner. The magic they worked then roused his mind out of the Srinshee's healing mist, into full awareness of the forest around him again, and of what they were doing.

Destroying a Weave anchor, that was also one of the places the mythal of Myth Drannor was rooted. It was like shifting a downspout while storm rain was racing down it, rain that tugged at him and tore a little of his essence away.

Shocking him utterly awake. He blinked and groaned.

"Get up!" The Srinshee was shoving at his chest and armpits, trying to make him stand from where he'd slumped down the tree trunk. "Up! The sooner you're on your feet and able to think, the sooner I can be fighting! I can win you more time by defending my city than helping you three do away with anchors-which must be done with care, remember, or the Weave will be lost!"

"And Mystra," Alustriel warned.

"Not necessarily. That's the foremost reason Mystra is hiding from the wider world-to withdraw herself from the Weave as much as possible. She told me so, and said her other important reason is to not provoke Shar into taking a hand openly-lest the Dark Goddess sweep the most important mortals who oppose her off the board before we have a chance to play."

"This isn't a game," Laeral flared.

The Srinshee turned to her. "Isn't it? To Shar, it certainly is. Remember that. She doesn't want to destroy the prize to win it, or she'd have done so long ago. Playing the game is what sustains her, not winning."

The sisters both stared at her, openmouthed, as Elminster tried to remember how to nod. And managed it with some satisfaction.

"After she destroys or enthralls all mortals," the Srinshee added, almost fiercely, "where will she gain the loss, forgetfulness, and oblivion she feeds upon? Did you never ponder why the world hadn't been destroyed by the gods who feed on destruction long before any of us could have been born? It never ends-it's not meant to. If we defeat Shar's pawns now, she'll withdraw and seduce new ones and scheme anew. If you think of her thus, and talk not of 'forever' and other absolutes, it becomes easier to bear-and easier to correctly foresee what any deity will do. Even the mad ones."

"Especially the mad ones," Elminster muttered.

"Which, from the point of view of most crofters and shopkeepers, is every last one of them," Laeral said wryly.

Alustriel, however, was frowning at the Srinshee. "How can you be sure of what Shar will do?"

"I know her," came the bleak reply. "Far better than I care to. I was the Herald of Mystra before El was-stars and seas, before any of you were born. I met many of the gods, often." The Srinshee shook her head and added in a whisper, "I am ... too old for this now."

She turned away. "So come on. If he can't walk straight yet, bring him."

Elminster waved away helping hands, started striding after the Srinshee-and fell flat on his face.

Grinning and shaking their heads, Laeral and Alustriel hauled him to his feet, put their arms around his shoulders, and started walking him through the forest. Six stumbling steps later they lost patience, exchanged glances, slid long locks of silver hair under their burden's thighs from behind, and boosted him off his feet into a chair lift.

Enthroned, Elminster was whisked over a wooded ridge, across a tangled ravine beyond, and over a second ridge. Where mercenaries came charging out of the trees with a triumphal roar.

The Srinshee sighed, waved one arm without slowing, and paid no attention at all to the startled cries of pain-or the thuds and abruptly-cut-off yells that followed, when the weapons and bucklers racing away from her towed their mercenary owners into swift and brutal meetings with trees.

Not a single besieger reached the two silver-haired women and the bearded old man bouncing between them.

"Here!" said the Srinshee, a ridge later, as they came upon an ancient stump the size of a large coach, with a tiny spring fountaining out between its rotting roots. "Triangle, the three of us, and put El between us. When the anchor breaks, mind you thrust the leakage into him!"

It was Laeral's turn to frown. "But won't that-?"

The Srinshee gave her a look that was somewhere between patiently polite and withering.

"Ah." Laeral winced. "You've done this before. Yes."

The anchor gave way with frightening ease, and Elminster's body arched and bucked as Weave and mythal energies snarled through him, leaking out of his mouth as brief blue flames.

He rolled over, coughing weakly.

The Srinshee clapped him on the back, kissed the startled face he raised to her, and announced briskly, "Right, only forty-two more to go! I'm off!"

And she hurled herself away through the air like a sling stone-to slam into an arcanist who was just stepping out from behind a tree to hurl a blasting spell at Elminster and the two sisters. He was flung backward into an awkward stagger, and the Srinshee pursued him, slicing his throat open with a dagger as she flashed past.

About then, she noticed the arcanist she'd felled was just the foremost of a dozen more hastening through the trees to investigate the magical turmoil of the anchor being destroyed.

She fetched up on a high bough, rebounded off the trunk it had grown out of to reclaim her balance, and cast a spell of her own.

As El, Laeral, and Alustriel watched, the Srinshee's working became a mighty explosion in the heart of those approaching arcanists. Tattered bodies-some collapsing into disembodied heads, limbs, and hands in midair-hurtled in all spattering directions.

Then, with a cheery wave, she was gone.

"Well," Alustriel said rather ruefully, "that seems to be that. We're on our own."

"Which means," El agreed, "that we'd best be finding the next anchor. She remembers where they all are. I ... recall a few. Luse, Laer, 'tis done like thi-"

Laeral gave him a withering look, and pointed through the trees.

"Ah," Elminster said hastily, "my apologies."

"Accepted, Old Mage," she replied pointedly, leading the way.

Which meant the Shadovar warriors who burst out of the next thicket came at her first, thrusting bills and glaives that she easily turned aside with her hair.

Alustriel's swarm of a dozen racing blue-white bolts arced and swooped into as many faces-and Elminster contributed an echo spell that followed up the magic missiles with stunning lightning.

Most of the mercenaries fell, but a few snarled in pain and kept coming, swinging swords and axes rather unsteadily.

The three Chosen met them blade to blade.

"After this anchor, we need only take care of forty-two more, remember," Elminster panted, amid the clang and clash of steel. "That should be enough to collapse the mythal at our bidding."

"Only?" Alustriel asked archly, as her tresses dashed two helms together hard enough to crumple metal. "Your words delight me."

"We must all find our delights where we can these days," Laeral commented, ducking under a vicious axe swing and slamming the pommel of her blade hard into the ear of her would-be butcher. Who reeled right into Elminster's backswing.

Laeral sprang away from the gory result. "Don't get blood on this, you! It never all comes out!"

A mercenary was startled enough by her complaint to turn and gape at her, just for an instant-and that was all Elminster needed.

"Back in brawling form?" Alustriel grinned at him, as he rose from downing that last man and saw that there were no more mercenaries left to fight.

El smiled and shrugged. "Got my wind back, at least. Help me remember, you two; if we see the coronal, we must tell her where the portal that brought us here is located. When the city falls, it and the other portals nearby will be the only ways she'll be able to get any Tel'Quess out."

Laeral laid a hand on his arm. "You think any of us will get out, El?" she asked softly.

El shrugged. "Acting as if I know we all will is always best."

Laeral gave him a wry smile. "So you're always bluffing, no matter the danger?"

Elminster drew himself up and made a dignified reply. "Manipulating, please. 'Bluffing' is such a crass word. Merely bending others to do as I'd like them to do, by means of a little acting. Ye learn these things, when ye've lived through as many falls of cities and utter Realms-rending disasters as I have ..."

Luse and Laer stared at him, then burst into wild, helpless laughter.

The Wizard of War and the six Purple Dragons with him came to a stop in the dingy back street in Suzail, all of them wearing deepening frowns.

"So just where is this treason you speak of?" The young mage's tone was openly suspicious. "This looks like all too good a place for an ambush, if you ask-"

"I didn't," the fat and wheezing man in the well-worn and food-stained clothing and the flopping wrecks of old seaboots interrupted, "and you needn't worry. I'll be going first." And he flung open the nearest door.

"Yes," the wizard snapped, "but how do we know you aren't working with some miscreants, and leading us right into their clutches?"

Mirt caught hold of a good fistful of the young war wizard's splendid doublet and dragged him down until they were nose to nose.

"You can come with me, young fearfulguts," he growled, "because I'll be needing you. But mind this: no casting spells, and no yelling at enemies of the Crown, until I say so, hear? You may have standing orders and the shiny authority of the Dragon Throne-but I've managed to keep myself alive for more years than you've seen, without having spells down both arms and stuffed up my backside to resort to! So, do we have an agreement?"

"W-we do," Narancel replied, with as much dignity as he could muster. He made a little show of brushing the breast of his doublet smooth again with apparent unconcern.

"Good." Mirt grinned at him. "Then follow me up these stairs quietly."

"But-but this building's been cleared out for a tenday, after two clerks came down with blacktongue! We-"

Mirt's withering look reduced the protesting mage to silence, and he followed the rotund and wheezing merchant up the narrow and dim back stairs as quietly as possible. As he did, Narancel wondered why they didn't just go in the front way, but he took care to wonder it mutely.

Two flights up, he heard voices. Mens' voices where there should be none. Mirt turned with a warning finger held straight up against his lips, then went on. The wizard followed, taking great care to be as quiet as he could.

They were close enough, now, to hear what was being said.

"So you see, I'm prepared to pay you this handsomely just to do your duty. Nothing beyond the rules, nothing that can get you in trouble. You are supposed to inspect noble estates-and their city properties too-from time to time, without warning, to make sure what they tell the Crown tax clerks to be so is, in fact, so. Oh, the particular nobles on my little list, here ... ah, your little list, yes? ... will be less than pleased, but then, they always are, aren't they?"

"It's-if anyone higher finds out-" That voice was anxious, and was echoed by the wordless murmurs of others. Worried others.

"Ah, but they won't, if none of you talk. See how short that list is? All you have to do is remember one name each from it-just one-and it becomes your choice, and I destroy the list, and-behold!-there's no evidence left, at all! Now, what say you?"

"I-I-oh, I don't know ...," the worried voice mumbled, sounding very unhappy.

Which was when Mirt laid a firm hand on the war wizard's arm, tugged meaningfully, and let go to lurch and wheeze his way through the door and around the corner to give the room of startled men-six palace courtiers and one Manshoon-a nod of greeting and a lopsided grin.

"Well done, men of Cormyr! Well done!" he told them heartily. "You passed this little test as Cormyreans staunch and true! Proving yer honesty and loyalty to the Crown as boldly as any battle-tested Purple Dragon! The Forest Kingdom is proud of you!"

Clasping his hands behind his back, he started to stroll. Mainly to make sure the tremulous young fool of a war wizard had indeed dared to follow him into the room-aye, he had, thank all the gods for small beneficences-but also to put one or two courtiers between him and any little magic an annoyed Manshoon might hurl.

"You rightly saw through the stratagem our peerless actor here"-he waved at the glowering Manshoon-"was so smoothly attempting to recruit you into abetting. It would create dissent among certain noble families whose support the Dragon Throne sorely needs right now. You didn't know it, but more than a dozen Wizards of War have been watching and listening to it all! Worry not; every last one of you has impressed them. Young Narancel here will escort you back to your offices now, and will echo my praise. Cormyr's future is bright in your hands!"

Mirt swung around to give Narancel a look. Damned if the young pup wasn't shaking like a sapling in a fall wind, but at least he knew his cue, and nodded, waving to the courtiers to come with him.

They bolted, almost upsetting their chairs in their relieved haste, and were gone in a door-banging trice. Leaving Mirt alone with a seething Manshoon. The onetime ruler of Zhentil Keep and of Westgate, founder and longtime leader of the Zhentarim-and a vampire, to boot.

Who would kill him in an instant or three if he so much as suspected it was all a ruse, and those more than a dozen war wizards were so much utter fiction.

Manshoon's smile was as hard as cold crypt stone. "I can think of no magical defenses you can have, fat man," he remarked with menacing softness, "that will protect you against me if I choose to destroy you now. In slow, writhing agony."

Mirt chuckled, and took the seat right across from Manshoon. "Ah, so you still can't think-clearly enough and ahead far enough. Yer usual problem, if you don't mind me pointing it out. The salient point on the table between us right now is this: you don't know what defenses I have. I, however, obviously do. Care to be foolish enough to think I'm bluffing?"

Manshoon scowled, then shook his head.

Mirt produced a belt flask with two metal flagons clipped to it, and poured them both wine.

He handed one flagon across the table to Manshoon, who regarded it dubiously. Mirt took it back, drank deeply from it, and handed Manshoon the other, still-full flagon.

Slowly, Manshoon put out his hand, took it, sipped-and then smiled. The wine was splendid.

He sipped again and savored it, sitting back and letting it roll around on his tongue.

Mirt leaned forward and rumbled, "So, Scourge of Westgate and Zhentil Keep and the gods alone know how many other places ... why don't we sit this one out, the two of us? Hmm? At least until half Toril is done tearing itself apart?"

Manshoon regarded the fat and battered man across the table thoughtfully for a long, silent time before he said, "Convince me."

He sipped again. "More of this wine ought to do it."

CHAPTER 17.