Get close, and then ...

Rune shook her head in silent wonder at the sheer beauty before her.

Storm had led them through a gate behind a tapestry in the back room of a toy shop in an unfashionable part of Suzail. One step past that hanging-a faded working of blue unicorns sporting with satyrs in a wooded glade-she'd been plunged into the familiar sensation of gently falling through an endless void of warm royal blue.

Yet her next step had been here, somewhere far enough from the capital of Cormyr that the damp sea air was gone and a cool mountain breeze was in its place. A somewhere that looked out over an endless forest, as the moon rose bright and clear, bathing everything in silver.

Under Selne's silvery light, beneath a sky studded with twinkling stars, the land below seemed so tranquil.

"As pretty as the kiss of a princess," Arclath murmured, from behind her. "And as misleading as the honeyed tongue of a dock trader."

"That, Lord Delcastle," Storm agreed gently, "has been said a time or two before. In my hearing, by folk standing right here, arriving when the weather is fair. Sometimes, the winds howling over this height would freeze your heart and set your teeth to chattering before you could wax so lyrical. I'm afraid it's more than a fair walk from here to Myth Drannor. The mythal keeps closer ways closed."

"Where are we, exactly?" Arclath asked, looking back over his shoulder and seeing the distant many-spired rock wall of the Thunder Peaks rising to the stars.

"Right here," Storm teased, and then added, "This is Downdragon Tor. Named for the dying fall of a red dragon onto this height, after a midair death struggle between two such wyrms, one summer when I was young."

"Four years back, or five?" Arclath replied swiftly.

"Oh, you are a sly gallant, sirrah," Storm reproved him fondly. "Don't make me regret dragging you from your hearth and wine, now."

"So 'sly gallant' means base flatterer?" Amarune asked her lover archly.

Lord Arclath Delcastle shrugged. "The words used pale before what is heard and understood, as always, ladies. Pillory me not, I but speak fond foolishness to the two greatest ladies it's ever been my honor to escort anywhere."

Storm and Rune looked at each other. "Base flatterer," they agreed in crisp unison.

Arclath sighed. "Outnumbered and vanquished," he declaimed mournfully. "Lead on, Lady Bard. As impressive as the view may be, I doubt a desire to tarry here is what moved you to drag me from idle luxury into sword-ready danger. 'A fray that will probably mean your death' was how you described it, as I recall."

"Yet you rose, buckled on your blade, ate a handwheel of cheese in two bites while you dragged on your boots, and came with us," Storm reminded him.

" 'Twas the 'us' that carried me into whatever imprudence you might have commanded, not the spice of danger," Arclath replied. "Speaking of which, lead on, Lady of the Harp."

Storm smiled. "Now there's a nice name I've not been called before." She looked at Rune. "You chose a well-spoken one."

Amarune smiled. "I chose the best. Or rather, he chose me. Rather persistently, as I recall."

Arclath winced. "Shall we revisit my style, or lack of it, later?"

Storm was already heading down a narrow, winding path that clung to the weathered rock walls of the tor. In the steepest spots along it, steps had been carved out of the solid rock. They followed her down into a wild wood of rock creeper vines, old and jagged rocks, and struggling felsul and quarr trees.

"Where are we heading? Within Myth Drannor, I mean?"

"Dlabraddath, first." Catching sight of Rune's puzzled look, Storm explained, "The part of the city that was open to all races in elder days. Since the city was rebuilt, it's been where commoners of low coin dwell, sell, and buy, keeping shops for wealthier folk to flock to. So its defenders won't just be elves, and we run a lower risk of being lightning bolted on sight by the nearest high mages."

Arclath winced. "I'd forgotten their fervent dislike of the likes of us."

The woodland path they followed cut around a towering stand of duskwoods and out into the open where a small fire-lightning, probably, and no more than two seasons ago-had cleared a slope down to ashes and blackened spars that were the tusklike remnants of trees.

They traversed that slope, and others beyond, then nine or more rolling, wooded hills, to emerge at last on a height where Storm stopped and flung out an arm.

Amid the trees stretching out below were a few slender spires of towers, and nearer jutted up three separate keeps that looked like the turreted gate towers of Suzail.

In a great ring around these buildings were the tents, campfires, and glittering weapons of a vast besieging army.

"Behold," Storm announced, in a voice that had a clear bitter edge to it, "Myth Drannor! A jewel ruined and rebuilt and ruined anew more times than it should have been. That now bids fair to fall once more. Because to some fools, a city so fair must be made to fall."

"I-I-am hurt!" Helgore gasped. "W-where am I, exactly?"

"Right here, Lady Duemethyl. In the Promenade of the Fallen. A place I am charged to guard, where you should not be."

"Oh," Helgore murmured, feigning injury and dazedness, swaying as he staggered nearer to the imperious elf. "Oh, dear ..."

He put one hand to his head, moaned as if in despairing pain, and felt blindly for the elf barring his way, or the nearest wall, or something solid to cling to.

Shaking his head and murmuring wordlessly to himself, he sensed rather than saw the elf smoothly step out of the way to avoid being touched, and raise a hand festooned with rings that winked and glowed as he called on the magic within them.

So he'd have to strike now, and this was as close as he was going to get.

His back to the imperious elf, Helgore made the forearm and fingers of the hand that were most hidden from the guardian grow longer, and slipped the incantation of the vampiric spell Telamont had taught him into his mumblings.

It tingled down his lengthened arm, and he spun around and lunged, willing his arm longer still.

The guardian shouted and flung up both hands, bright magic lashing out-but the tips of Helgore's longest two fingers brushed the recoiling elf's elbow for an instant.

And that was all that was needed.

The roiling radiances of the spell lashed out, red and purple and edged with black, washing over the shouting guardian, whose shout had time only to soar in fear into a sort of startled mew before it abruptly ended.

The guardian staggered back, and Helgore cast one swift glance down the promenade to make sure there were no witnesses. Seeing only empty darkness, he looked back at his victim, the tingling in his arm becoming a numbing explosion of silent spasms, and watched as the spell raged up the elf's body, draining the guardian of vitality, blood, and moisture, the eyes becoming two dark pits above a vainly gasping mouth.

The doomed elf sagged as his life-force poured into Helgore, who stood over him watching in satisfaction.

Well, now. Drain enough elves, and one could live forever, yes?

The guardian collapsed into a puddle on the floor, mere shriveled skin over bones.

Helgore broke off his spell before it was entirely done in his haste to shape himself into an exact likeness of this imperious elf as Helgore had first seen him, hale and frowningly alert, before he forgot any details of the guardian's appearance.

He thought he'd succeeded well enough, but truncating a spell has consequences. When he turned away, the puddle on the floor stirred, tugged eerily as if connected to him by invisible cords, and then ... the skin of his victim flowed away from its bones.

Helgore looked down at it with interest, then regarded the sprawled bones. Anyone walking down the passage could hardly miss them. Which might raise an alarm and hamper him, before he was done with his work here. So these bones should go, or at least be put somewhere a trifle less in the way.

He looked up and down the promenade, seeking handy hiding places. Every doorway along the way was set into its own alcove, and there were scores of them, a long curving row of closed stone doors graven with House sigils, each of them its own dark byway. He kicked the bones into the darkest corner of the nearest, and turned away.

In his wake, the skin of the elf he'd just slain slithered after him like an obedient dog.

CHAPTER 6.

Time to Loose the Prowling Beast

WELL, LORD DELCASTLE?"

Arclath looked his ladylove up and down. Not that it was easy in the dimness of the deep forest all around them and through the darkness that now clung to her. Her face was entirely hidden; he could just make out the gleam of her eyes through what seemed a roiling cloud of smoke.

"I prefer to see what I want to kiss," he told Storm. "Just to avoid broken noses and chipped teeth, you understand. Yet I won't deny this shadowy look has a certain exotic allure." He looked at Rune. "Tell me, does it tickle?"

"No," she replied with a chuckle, "and that's a good thing, being as she's started on you already."

"What, and didn't even buy me a drink first?"

"My, but what passes for humor among nobles is ... interesting," Storm commented darkly as she strolled around Arclath, studying him critically as her illusory darkness built around his shins like swirling smoke, and started to drift higher. "Seldom amusing, but interesting."

"We learn from the very best," Arclath assured her affably. "Jesters, bards, and Elminsters."

Storm's reply to that was a snort. Ere she stepped back, looked him up and down, and pronounced, "You'll do. We look like three Shadovar arcanists showing our true selves so the motley mercenaries we've hired from all around the Sea of Fallen Stars and beyond will recognize us, and not put swords or crossbow bolts through us."

"By accident," Arclath amended dryly.

"By accident," Storm agreed. "Now let's get going. It's a fair hike through yon army. One piece of advice, if I may: Lord Arclath Delcastle of Cormyr, try to keep your mouth shut. You don't sound Netherese enough to fool anyone. Let me talk, as the two of you do the murmur, mumble, and 'stare silently' routine."

"By your command, Marchioness," Arclath agreed with sardonic formality, falling into step behind Rune. Rune chuckled again.

Ahead of them both, Storm was already striding purposefully onto the little path that led to the latrines and on down into the encampment below.

As they passed the expected aroma, Arclath wondered for the fourscore and second time why soldiers always seemed to dig their latrines uphill from where they'd be sleeping-but keeping in mind Storm's command, he wondered it silently. Crossing Storm was best done for very good reasons, and as seldom as possible.

The camp was the usual confusion of men trotting in various directions all at once, laden with firewood and weapons and grimly important looks, but it was quieter than most. No officers were shouting urgent orders.

Not that any were needed. The siege had settled into a daily grind of fighting in the trees, slowly wearing down vastly outnumbered defenders who couldn't replenish their losses.

The three false Shadovar walked straight through it all unchallenged, heading for the clang of sword on sword, the occasional brief flashes of spells, and the smoke drifting from where fiery spells had set trees aflame.

Arclath set himself to wondering again. This time as to why exactly this age-old, merry woman with octopus-like living hair the hue of polished silver was taking them straight into the heart of the thickest choking smoke.

Rune was coughing already. Storm turned, murmured something, and touched her throat, then kept right on turning until her long fingers tapped Arclath under the chin.

He blinked. There was still smoke all around them, so thick it was getting hard to see, and he could smell the sharp, acrid burning in his nose-gods, up his nose-but the tickle in his throat, the searing that threatened to set him choking, was just ... gone.

"How-?" he blurted involuntarily.

"Magic," Storm purred in his ear. "Pray silence, Arclath. Not for all that much longer, but for now. Please."

Her unseen hand captured his, and a thigh that, by what was belted around it, almost certainly belonged to his Rune brushed against his. Storm led them both by the hand down a little slope, into the blinding heart of the thickest smoke.

Arclath could see nothing of their surroundings then, not even what must have been a large, gnarled old tree trunk as he brushed-scraped-past it. The world around them was lost to view, entirely hidden in smoke.

Storm stopped suddenly. Her arms proved as strong and immobile as iron bars, abruptly halting Arclath and Amarune as they started to walk obliviously on.

"Down," she murmured nigh their ears. "Sit down, then lie down, trying not to lose hold of my hand."

I couldn't if I wanted to, Arclath thought ruefully, doing as she'd commanded and saying nothing. She is so much stronger than I am, this Lady Bard, I can scarce believe it. She looks in good trim, yes, thewed as well as buxom, but I do believe that if she ran to meet a galloping horse, and they crashed together, it would not be the horse that raced on unchecked. Ye gods, she has a grip like thick forged steel.

He couldn't see Rune, but knew she'd laid herself down on the ground on the far side of Storm, just as he'd now done.

Abruptly, that iron grip relaxed and his hand had its freedom back, but he could feel what seemed to be a dry lapping wave flowing over his chest and arms, tracing the shape of his torso. Soft and yet firm, a manyfold caress at once reassuring and yet at the same time clearly bidding him, without a word being spoken, to remain still.

Storm's hair, those long silver tresses that moved like so many serpents with minds of their own.

Their owner was murmuring something soft and low, strange words that bore the hum of power. An incantation.

As it came to an end Arclath felt suddenly rigid, hard and cold and somehow at the same time detached from himself, distant from the smoke-muffled din of battle. He couldn't move, not a muscle, even his breathing came with a struggle, through a tightening chest and throat.

And now, he was tight all over.

Helpless. Immobile on this battlefield sharp with the stink of charcoal, of trees gone half to ash and brush scorched away into windblown cinders.

Storm's hair was gone, her reassuring touch absent too ... and now the very ground beneath him had left him.

He rose into the air, ascending smoothly. Straight up, if the eddying and swirling smoke around him could be trusted.

And then he was rising no longer, but sliding forward through the air, horizontal and feet first, scudding along rigid through thinning smoke ... yet into air that was somehow thicker, heavier and yet alive. His heart thudded and the air all over his body jutted out on end as a tingling within him grew and grew and ... he was briefly aware of a soundless burst and a roiling of impossibly bright blueness, a spray that washed over him like water yet left no wetness upon him that he lanced through as lights flared and pulsed silently around him and then were gone in his wake.

The air thinned, and the thrilling, tingling vitality left him-left behind in that place in his wake where the air had been thicker and heavier. Suddenly Arclath knew what had happened. The mythal. He'd just flown through the magical walls of Myth Drannor without harm.

Not alone, of course. Storm had done it and was with him, and somehow he could feel Rune beyond her, the three of them arrowing on in unison.

Over flashing swords and struggling men and elves, and what was briefly a grisly carpet of the sprawled and bloody dead below, ere they all raced into a dark, riven shell of stone, and slowed as abruptly as if an unseen giant's hand had barred their way and started to drag them down.

Down they sank, through what had been a magnificent upswept tower before boulders the size of warehouses had been hurled into it, to crash against and then through its walls. What was left of the tower was a mere shell, broken open to the sky and all down one flank.

They sank past a collapsed floor hanging in tatters, and amid the wreckage he saw more bodies, many so battered and smeared that they were more bloody splatterings on the old stones than corpses. Beyond that was another floor that no longer existed and sweeping stairs, which lay shattered and dangling in splintered claws, ending in nothingness. Then they sank past a mirror, in which Arclath saw not a silver-haired bard flanked by two younger humans, but three ballista shafts, the great sleek iron war lances fired like giant arrows by wagon-sized ballistae.

Then they passed into deeper darkness, as a great stone floor rose to meet them, and the jagged roots of the tower walls hid the forest battlefield from view.

And they were human again, stumbling as their feet met shattered flagstones and abundant strewn stone rubble atop that floor.