Laeral grinned. "Is now a good time to admit I've never been able to keep track of coins, or numbers of any sort, above about seven at once?"

El grinned at her. "A serious failing in a ruler, I'd say. And one that I share."

Laeral turned to her sister. "Well, High Lady of Silverymoon? And whatever-they-called-you, of Luruar?"

Alustriel gave her a wry look. "I generally lose count somewhere around forty-odd. And we passed that many anchors destroyed, long ago. Speaking of which, the next one is over that way, about-" She broke off, her face changing, and asked, "What's that?"

They could all feel it. A tugging in the air, an invisible pull rising in its silently tremulous force. It clawed at them, seeming to want to drag them up into the air, angling up into the sky, northward.

Up to the floating stone city of Thultanthar, now hanging tall and dark in the sky, still drifting closer.

"They want the mythal, those arcanists," Elminster said, peering up at the city, then down at its spreading shadow over the trees. "Perhaps we should give it to them."

"Not freely, I take it," Laeral said dryly.

"Oh, freely indeed-but all at once, in a rush, like a great fist of force. Mayhap we could shatter it."

"Quite a rain of destruction that would be," Alustriel commented, peering up at the dark stone city. "You think we can manage it?"

El sighed. "No. No, I don't, though I wish I could answer thee otherwise."

"Take too long?" Laeral asked softly. "Might go awry?"

"Both of those," the Sage of Shadowdale said shortly. "Take too much crucial time, I'm almost certain ... so this draining magic may well succeed."

"Ignore it, El," Alustriel counseled grimly. "Let's just go on destroying anchors. You can't be everywhere, do everything, and save everyone-and you should have stopped trying centuries ago."

"And how much less fun would that have been?" Laeral countered. "For old weirdbeard here and all the rest of Faern?"

"Ah," her sister granted, nodding her head and letting her long silver tresses writhe and swirl freely about her shoulders. "You have a point there. That many have felt the sharp end of these last twelve centuries or so."

"Or so?"

Alustriel grinned and shrugged. "As I said, I lose count."

"I wish I could," Elminster whispered fervently, and stalked off in the direction of the next anchor.

The two sisters exchanged worried glances and followed.

With their every step, the tugging grew stronger.

Storm Silverhand trudged past perhaps her sixteen thousandth tree of the day, reeling on her feet with weariness. She was alone and blood drenched and trailing her sword, glad of the wrist thong that tethered it to her numbed sword hand.

Was there no end to these Shadovar-hired mercenaries? She'd slain hundreds herself, today, and clambered over thousands slain by others-and they were still as thick as the swarming blowflies, coming through the trees by their dozens and scores and even hundreds.

As if her thoughts had alerted a lot of someones that their battlefield cue was upon them, she saw sunlight glinting off bright armor in the trees.

She sighed and started looking around for a good place to make a stand. Against the broad trunk of yon duskwood would have to do ...

By the time she reached it, her foes were out in the open, walking steadily toward her in a wedge of gleaming shields, helms, and armor. No spears or glaives, but plenty of long swords and battle-axes. Fresh troops, hundreds of them.

And at their head strode two warriors who must have been seven feet tall and three feet across at their shoulders-half-orcs or half-giants or some such; it was hard to see their features through their menacing beak-faced war helms. Between them walked a young Shadovar arcanist in his robes, his face as haughty as any Zhentarim or Red Wizard Storm had ever met.

"Well met, elf-lover," he greeted her. "If you beg for your life, I might spare you for a time. Long enough to serve as a reward for those under my command here who fight outstandingly today. But I warn you, you must choose your fate right now. We're in a hurry; if we tarry, there might not be any elves left."

Leaning on her sword with the duskwood at her back, Storm gave him a wintry smile. "An interesting bargain, Thultanthan, but I offer you a different one. There's been enough killing this day. Surrender or depart, and I'll spare you."

The arcanist gaped at her, then sneered. "You presume to try to stop me?"

"It's what I do," Storm told him grimly, and started to stalk toward him, sword raised.

Contemptuously he cast slaying lightning at her-only to see it meet a sudden gout of silver fire from her mouth. It spiraled around that silvern flame, into her, and she hissed in pain-but kept right on striding.

Before he could do anything else, she sprang, a great swing of her blade sending one of his gigantic bodyguards sprawling. She came down in a squat and launched herself at the other one, who swung his blade in time to meet hers in midair with a great clang and shower of sparks, and spill her to the ground on her behind.

On her way down, her sword flicked out-and sliced off all the fingers on one of the arcanist's hands.

He screamed in shock and pain, staggering back as Storm's blood-matted hair swiped the feet out from under the second bodyguard, and her sword cut deep into the goliath's neck as he fell. He bounced, writhed, clawed the air feebly ... and fell back into a bleeding heap.

As she turned to face the arcanist again, he stared at her in disbelief. "You-how did you-?"

"Old, gray experience and low cunning prevails over youthful overconfidence," she replied crisply, bounding forward and swinging her sword. "Again."

Her slash took out his throat.

As the arcanist toppled, she looked past his falling body at the rest of the mercenaries he'd been leading. They stared back at her uncertainly, not advancing, their swords and axes raised.

Storm Silverhand gave them a sweet smile.

"Run," she suggested softly.

And obediently, they turned and fled back into the forest, every last warrior of them.

It had been some time since the young war wizard and a handful of Purple Dragons had bolted from this upper room off a back street in Suzail; Mirt's flagon was almost empty now.

And that was bad, for his drinking companion was not in any mellow good humor.

"Fat man," Manshoon said coldly across the table, "I have acquired a certain sneaking respect for you, truly I have. Yet know this: what is unfolding across Faern right now offers too many and too great opportunities to seize power for me to resist-even if I wasn't as restless as I am. I enjoy drinking your wine, I have gone so far as to refrain from blasting you to ashes for foiling my plots, and I intend to depart this place leaving you alive and unharmed. Yet I will not tarry here longer, like an idle noble of Cormyr, too dunderheaded or too hampered by timidity or ignorance of how the fanged and clawed real world beyond these ornate walls works to stir from my chair and the endless parade of succulent feasting platters set before me. I go. Try to prevent me at your peril."

Mirt looked across the table sadly, let out a great belch that rattled the door handle Manshoon was reaching for, and replied, "Worry not, Lord Manshoon; I intend to do nothing of the sort. I doubt I could hold my own against a vampire for half a breath, anyroad-to say nothing of an archmage of yer accomplishments."

Manshoon sneered and wrenched open the door-to find the way blocked by two elderly but mighty-looking priests with glowing rods in their hands.

The other doors in the room opened then, and more high priests of various faiths, with quite an arsenal of enchanted items roused and aglow in their hands, came into the room. Followed by more than a dozen Wizards of War, holding all manner of dangerous-looking items of magic.

"That's why," Mirt added mildly, "I admitted my limitations for once, and called in the-er, cavalry."

A cold-faced woman came up behind the fat man's chair then, staring with flinty eyes at Manshoon. "Are you calling me a horse, Mirt?" she snapped.

Mirt chuckled. "No need, when I happen to know yer name. Thanks for coming, Glathra."

Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle shrugged. "I did it for Cormyr, not for you." There was an ugly, ungainly spiderlike creature on her shoulder with a human-seeming head that looked far too big for its splayed, segmented legs.

Manshoon peered at the spider-thing's face, and frowned. "Vangerdahast?"

"The same," the spider-thing rasped. "You haven't been keeping up with events, Lord Manshoon. A serious failing in a vampire who desires continued existence, I'd say."

"Is that a threat?" Manshoon asked silkily.

"I don't make threats," Vangerdahast replied. "These days, I deal in promises."

Power was beginning to flow to the arcanists in Thultanthar, invisible energies dragged up from the besieged city below. Slowly, very slowly those energies came, the mythal seemingly reluctant to yield its shape and anything of its might.

The things the mythal of Myth Drannor could do, and the things it could thwart, were many, and most of them came with intricate commands and contingencies and attunements, a flood of half-seen memories and silent instructions and magical lore, the very things that fascinated most arcanists, that left them lusting for more. A hundred or more minds wavered, craving to know more, to study and see and master ... and like a dark-eyed storm front rolling inexorably into their minds with cold patience but a grip like tightening iron, the High Prince of Thultanthar quelled their straying and dragged them back to the shared work of breaking down the resistance of the mythal and draining its energies.

Settling back into the shared concentration, they felt the power flowing, slow but vast, more and more on the move, coming to them, coming ...

Stopping cold. There was a moment of chaos, of many minds separately plunging into shocked realization that their mighty shared ritual hadn't ended, but rather had been abruptly halted by something more powerful.

Then the dark will of the Most High rose through them again, rallying them, turning them to collectively face and examine whatever it was that had stopped the draining-and walled away the energies they'd already sapped from the intricate and many-layered mythal.

The mysterious impediment loomed in their collective regard as a dark wall, but it was a dark wall that seemed to smile, and not nicely-in the brief instant before a barbed and many-clawed energy boiled out of the wall and lashed into their minds in a malicious slap, a bludgeoning blow of mental power that overwhelmed many of them.

All over the courtyard, arcanists toppled, bleeding from mouths and nostrils, unconsciousness as they fell. Others reeled, drooling or keening in dazed mental ruin. One fell to his knees and started trying to eat his own hands, biting and gnawing.

The great collective faltered.

Those who were still standing, mentally, recoiled in involuntary unison when the dark wall became a smiling, nigh skeletal face.

Fools and idiots, the undead being's voice rolled mockingly into their heads, well met.

Half a hundred minds dared to ask, without any words at all, Who are you?

Some of the others knew, or guessed, and to them came the mental equivalent of a wink, dividing them from their fellows.

Shades of the City of Shadow, the voice echoed in their heads, far deeper and louder than the Most High's had ever been, I am the Shadow King. I, alone, blocked all of your minds. A trifle, when one is Master of the Weave and Devourer of the Wards of Candlekeep. You prate of your power, and smugly hold yourselves to be mightier than the wizards of this world you have returned to. You preen, arcanists of Thultanthar, and exult in your power. And all the while, you know nothing of real power.

Another mental slap felled more arcanists, and left others clutching their heads and screaming, their minds collapsing into shattered darkness.

That is but a taste of what I can do casually, in an idle moment. As one would slap an irritating insect. As anyone responsible would slap down someone too ignorant and reckless to be trusted with the power you so arrogantly presume to seize. Shadovar, know this: if anyone in this world is going to be so arrogantly presumptuous, it will be me. Because I, Larloch, can-and can gainsay you and all other hollow pretenders.

And then that terrible mind turned from the cowering, gibbering, or droolingly ruined arcanists to bear down on just one mind. The sentience of Telamont Tanthul, High Prince of Thultanthar. What Larloch said to the Most High of the city, he let-nay, forced-every mind in the city to hear. It was a biting rebuke.

If you were a tenth the wielder of the Art you presume to be, you might have succeeded in this. If, that is, I decided not to prevent you.

Larloch ended his address with a contemptuous surge of power that shattered the draining spell and left Telamont Tanthul leaking mental pain into the heads of those arcanists still conscious and sane.

Then, the dark and awful mind was abruptly gone.

Leaving the Most High of Thultanthar aghast, standing in a courtyard littered with ruined arcanists.

Telamont Tanthul stared around wildly, hearing wild babblings, keening, and even doglike barking from some arcanists on their knees.

Then he turned and ran for the doors that would lead most directly to his throne, desperate to get to it and unleash all of the magics in that chamber, to try to destroy Larloch.

Before Larloch decided to destroy him.

Prince Aglarel lay sprawled and senseless in front of the doors.

Telamont kicked desperately at his son's body, to try to shift it so he could get at least one door far enough open to slip through.

In the courtyard behind him, some of the arcanists started to howl and bay at the sun.

CHAPTER 19.

Descent, Destruction, and Endgame

THE DOOR BANGED OPEN.

Manarlume and Lelavdra whirled from their table of maps and tomes and rune tiles, hands rising to hurl dread magic.

The arcanist Gwelt stood panting on the threshold.

"Madness!" he gasped, "sheer madness! And the Most High is paying for it right now!"

"What madness?" Lelavdra snapped.

"T-the draining spell! Of hundreds of arcanists, working in concert with the High Prince, together seeking to draw the power of the elf city's mythal to us, and so master the Weave, for the greater glory of Shar! He-"

"Yes, yes, we've heard the grand and glorious plan," Manarlume said dismissively. "Mythal down, Weave our servant, hot suppers for everyone with a snap of our fingers, new gowns whenever we turn around, yes. What 'madness' is involved, and High Prince Tanthul is 'paying for it' how, exactly?"

"The one called Larloch-the archlich served by many liches-got to the mythal first. And blocked the shielding, sending deadly magic along it that's felled many arcanists, mind-ruining them or worse! He's calling himself the Shadow King, and he taunted the Most High, and said he prevented us all by himself, and could stop anything we tried. Called us fools, presumptuous fools who know nothing of real power."

"Oh? And how fared you against Larloch's attack?"

"I ... I was not touched. I was there, but not part of the meshed minds of the spell."