Spellstorm (37 page)

So when they were on Toril, what one lich saw and thought could be communicated to
all the rest.

And what the lich guarding the gate, and the five liches beyond him, and presumably
all the others beyond that wanted was to keep the gate open. There were more than
a hundred of those others, still. There had been five times that, not so long ago,
but in his last moments of agony under the Srinshee’s goad, Larloch had reached out
to many of his liches to let her ravening magic sear their brains instead of his,
so many of his liches had been destroyed, snuffed out in mere instants. These hundred-some
survivors intended to lie in wait for anyone who tried to use magic to close the gate,
and then use its magic to suck that hapless being into the gate and through it, to
be brought before them buffeted and helpless by their whirling journey—and there mindream
them before draining them of all vitality.

Charming.

El withdrew his scrutiny with the same slow, exacting care and returned to Mirt and
Myrmeen, who interpreted his grim silence correctly, and asked no questions.

Silently he led them on through the cellars and up the grand staircase, watching warily
for more warriors—or anyone else.

They hooded their lanterns before they reached the ground floor, because they could
hear the movements of something large and heavy and many-legged through the open door
to their left, which led into the Chamber of the Founder.

The rooms of Malchor and Manshoon both opened into the chamber, where the forbidding
bronze statue of the first Lord Halaunt brooded endlessly over its couches and side
tables.

Myrmeen laid a hand on Elminster’s arm and then on Mirt’s, to tell them the same thing.
I’ll go see
.

Handing Mirt her drawn sword, she went to her knees and crawled up the last few steps
to where she could peer. Then she rose to her feet and sidled to the door, keeping
to one side of it until she leaned out to see—for but an instant.

She came back to them in some haste, and found them standing with hands touching,
so she could mindspeak them both by adding hers atop theirs.

She shared her swift glimpse with them: a creature with its back to her, larger than
the biggest pair of yoked oxen she’d ever seen. It had a stinger-tipped tail like
a scorpion, thrusting up from an eight-spindly-legged body like a spider’s—and its
head was like that of a rat, only with a boar’s tusks. Its eyes were large and dark
and full of malice, as it faced … Malchor Harpell.

Who stood in the open doorway of his bedchamber frowning up at it, mouth already shaping
a spell.

Never seen one like
that
before
, Mirt thought grimly.
Came through that gate, d’you think?

Nor have I
, Elminster mindtold them—as there came a flash through the open doorway, the air
rocked with that soundless fury they were getting used to, now, and—there came a deep,
shuddering groan of pain.

They hastened up the last few steps and advanced warily to where they could peer through
the doorway together.

Malchor Harpell was pinned against the far wall of the Chamber of the Founder, impaled
on that stinger—which was as long as he stood tall, and so large around that it was
almost as wide as his torso.

Which meant that he was almost cut in half, and dying. Blood spilled from his mouth
as his eyes darkened, motes of light like restless fireflies still winking around
his hands from where the spell he’d tried to cast had failed. Leaving him helpless
before the monster.

The stinger pulled back out of him, dark and glistening, and the patriarch of the
Harpells collapsed.

As the door beside Malchor’s opened, and Manshoon stepped calmly out into the hall,
gave the giant spider-thing a cold smile as it turned to confront him, and raised
his hands to work a spell.

“I suppose,” he told the monster conversationally, “it’s doom time for one of us.”

T
HE GENTLEST
wisp of a cold breeze caressed Elminster’s cheek.

Well met, Old Mage
, Alusair’s voice stole into his mind. It was weak and faint and wavering.

Luse! Ye should not be here! Yon mage
—

Is about to hurl a spell, or have it go wrong, I know
. The mind voice of the ghost princess was wry.
El, I have been through utter agony, and am back. Thanks to you. You gave me enough
of a shield against the buffeting of spells, cast or miscast, to at least fly again,
and spy. I can’t carry things, yet, nor become visible, but that’s returning. It’s
all coming back. Such a wonderful world you who work with the Art inhabit, beyond
what we mere swordswingers can perceive
.

True. Aye, Princess, very true. But let me see ye up close …

Alusair drifted into his nose, chilling him so utterly that he struggled to breathe.
It was like a chunk of ice, numbing all it touched, behind his eyes …

And then the pain was gone, and she was outside of him again.
Well?

’Twill serve ye well enough. And this should serve ye better
. El thrust power into her, so much and so swiftly that she gasped aloud, even as
he staggered, feeling weak and sick.
Alusair Obarskyr, I need ye to do a thing
.

El, I owe you—Cormyr owes you—more than I can ever repay. Command me
.

Elminster reached out to her again, and felt her stiffen in the enthralling collision
of ecstasy and agony he’d just visited upon her.

Ohhhh, what is this?

Silver fire. I need ye to race across yon room—fast and dodge, because Manshoon at
least will be able to see its glow—and plunge into the wound in Malchor Harpell, tarry
there until the fire leaves thee, then hasten back to me. He must live. Do it swiftly
.

It would have to be fast, or it would consume her utterly; a non-Weave ghost wouldn’t
be able to do this at all. Just as a recipient who didn’t have a long mastery of the
Art, as Malchor Harpell did, couldn’t survive the silver fire’s sudden and ungoverned
arrival inside them. He really should tend Malchor himself, gently guiding the silver
fire through him and taking the time to do things properly—but with Manshoon and an
unfamiliar and murderously hostile creature from another world in the same room, he
dare not try that either.

Alusair moaned in rapture, her mind shuddering in his, then collected herself enough
to tell him,
I go!

And then she swooped through the doorway, a twinkling silver star.

“E
LMINSTER
,” M
ANSHOON SAID
calmly, “I know you’re there. An assist, if you would. Steady me with the Weave—and
this just might work. To all our benefit.”

The monster was towering over the founding lord of the Zhentarim now, its stinger
drawn back to strike, its foremost pair of legs thrust forward like pincers, bracketing
him to prevent his escape.

El sighed inwardly. Only in bards’ ballads did monsters charge or slither through
every gate between the worlds the moment such ways opened; this prowling spidery beast
had been sent or compelled through the gate, which meant it was almost certainly serving
as eyes and ears for Larloch’s liches.

Who were going to be an increasing problem, it was dunderheadedly obvious, unless
they were stopped in a way that was either final, or so devastating that the surviving
ones learned and heeded their lesson. Hmmm …

One more problem for the platter. Right now, he had
this
pressing problem.

Which meant he had to trust Manshoon.

He raised his voice enough to make sure Manshoon heard him clearly without his having
to show himself in the doorway, for that stinger looked like it had a long reach,
and unlike a scorpion’s, could strike in nigh any direction.

“Trust in me,” he told the Zhentarim firmly, and plunged into the Weave. Of course,
he was having to trust Manshoon, too, for if the vampire betrayed him now—

The loudest gasp he’d ever heard, ragged and astonished, rising to a high and trilling
sob, erupted in the Chamber of the Founder. Malchor.

So it had worked. He only hoped Luse would have sense enough to get clear instead
of lingering to feel that rapture just a little too long …

Why was the monster waiting so long? Towering over its prey rather than striking?
There was something not right here …

Manshoon snarled out his incantation and clapped his hands together to finish the
casting. The Weave channeled the energies of the surrounding
world into the spell calling for them, the bright and temporary shifting weaving that
would twist them into the magical effect—and aye, that weaving started to twist awry,
like a badly woven basket collapsing under the strain of holding heavy and leaking
water.

Elminster tugged at the Weave here and there, deftly shoring it up, making of the
Weave great cradling hands that held the spell together for the mere moments it would
need to shape its effect and discharge it—scores of tiny blades, like the blade barrier
so beloved of veteran adventuring clerics, only Manshoon’s spell made them slicing
edges of acid, not of hardened force—and the spell worked.

Except that it didn’t.

The monster absorbed the energies of the spell, rather than suffering its effects.
Before their eyes, the beast was drawing in all the magical force that should have
manifested as a cloud of slicing whirling blades of acid. So to this creature, a spell
that twisted awry was as good as a spell that was perfectly cast; it drained them
all. Either making itself stronger, or storing that energy for … what? A spellfire-like
blast of raw magical energy, or some other attack? Or something the liches could make
use of?

El shrugged. He knew not; this was a creature he’d never seen before. Had the liches
magically amalgamated several beasts, and spell-augmented or bred them or both, to
make something found nowhere else but in their clutches? It had been done before …

Something else of interest, to be dealt with later. Probably much later.

Right now, all he could do was watch and think quickly. The monster had tarried, rearing
up and waiting, offering clear menace to its foe—who could readily see that it could
use that stinger or those pincerlike sharp-pointed foreleg sheaths or, for that matter,
its tusks and teeth at any time, ending its wait in murder—to provoke Manshoon, as
it had prodded Malchor, into hurling a spell at it.

“Elminster!” Manshoon shouted. “The Weave! Help me shapechange, and use my bite!”

Of course! Changing to mist form must have been what Manshoon had attempted when first
arriving outside the walls of Oldspires. Where swirling energy leakages from the gates
were making the Weave unstable, that sort of mutability was chancy, and anything necrotic
nigh impossible.

Unless you had a Weavemaster to hold the Weave smooth and stable in a specific spot
just large enough to encompass source, target, and the
space between, for just long enough for the ability or the spell or an item’s magical
discharge to take effect.

This was going to drain him, and hurt, particularly in the wake of giving some of
his silver fire to Malchor. Moreover, it would leave him more vulnerable to Manshoon
than any sane mage would accept, knowing what he did of the Manyfaced One.

On the other hand, fail to deal with this beast now, while it was still confined within
Oldspires—a creature that magic aided rather than hurting, so all the enthusiastic
war wizards in all Cormyr couldn’t stop it—would be a peril far, far more grave than
the fate of one old Sage of Shadowdale.

Particularly with liches—perhaps more than a hundred of them—spying out through the
creature, possibly directing it, and certainly valuing it and wanting to keep it hale
and hunting.

Elminster swallowed another sigh and called back, “Do it!”

The stinger was already stabbing down.

Manshoon flung himself desperately to one side, those stabbing pincers reaching for
him, and flung himself into mist form at the same time.