Elminster Enraged

Aye. It was. The scent was faint, yet unmistakable, and Alorglauvenemaus had smelled it before. Silver fire, the raw stuff of the Weave, had been unleashed down there.

Which was puzzling, even alarming, given that the Weave had fallen, and its bright goddess with it, some sleeps ago.

The ancient black dragon frowned, shook its head slowly, and let out a deep, cavern-shaking growl that announced to the reverberating cavern walls that it was not pleased to encounter that particular scent. That smell meant trouble.

Yet Alorglauvenemaus knew how to deal with trouble. It drew back its head and spat, letting out a great hissing breath of sickly green acid, a burst that struck foam from the rocks it touched as it bounced and boiled down the long chute of caverns.

As it went, that green, swiftly graying flow hissed and spat and spewed forth many momentary little whirl devils of glowing spume, stuff of the rocks it was eating into; rocks that were already pitted and worn smooth by previous acid spewings.

Three caverns down, the last fading tongue of the acid flowed around a heap of rocks, washing away some of the shoulder of stone they stood on. Almost wearily the heap slumped over the edge, starting to roll and tumble. And awakening a gathering roar as it went on down. In the end, much lower down, it had faded into a small rockslide, but it spilled out of a side cleft in the tunnel almost to Elminster’s feet.

El stopped to let the last stones of the rattling little avalanche roll to their various stops right in front of her boots, rock back and forth, then settle. The faint breeze came down into the Underdark by the same route the rocks had taken.

And it was bearing a sharp, fresh reek. She’d smelled this particular acrid stink before.

Black dragon acid. Spewed by a large elder wyrm.

Elminster sighed. A fell and mighty dragon in her way. Of course.

She went into the cleft and started to pick her way very cautiously upward. The acid was still fresh; she’d have to be careful indeed if she wanted her boots to last for most of the way up, or longer.

The climb looked long and unpleasant, featuring not just acid, but dragon dung. Sighing out a silent curse- why hadn’t Manshoon just obeyed Mystra for once? Or why hadn’t the Lady of All Mysteries dealt with him, or freed her trustworthy El to deal with him? — Elminster found her first sheltering corner of rock, picked her way to it, then looked for the next one.

More offerings from either end of the black dragon could come raging down at her at any time. Which meant prudence must be paramount. Ah, scale the rocks just there, so as to pick her way over yonder, and so on …

Unnoticed by the Sage of Shadowdale’s newfound dark elf body, there was the faintest of stealthy movements by the edge of the cleft.

Even an alert and staring Elminster could have seen no more than a shadow, just for an instant, as someone-or something-melted silently against the jagged cavern wall, well above the smooth, worn path of long ago acid flows.

The lone drow priestess ascending cautiously out of the Underdark had a very patient pursuer.

Lord Constable Farland looked across the table and found a certain grim measure of comfort in the faces staring back at him. He trusted these two men.

Sometimes he wished he could trust anyone else in all the Realms, but thus far, he’d found only these two. His senior constables. Tall, scarred, taciturn Anglur Traelshun, almost a head taller than grim, stocky, cynical Bradraer Delloak. Thank the gods the two were firm friends, because they were both capable men, and would have made deadly enemies for each other, had they been so inclined.

It was hrasted isolated at Irlingstar, perched on a knife-edged stone ridge running west out of Irlingmount, one of the Orondstars. Just “Oronds,” most called them; a cluster of uncharacteristically knife-edged peaks in the Thunder Peaks range, just a little northwest of halfway between the Realm of Wailing Fog and Thunderholme. Only one road reached the castle, and save for striding deep into the Stonelands-not the act of a sane man-it wasn’t possible to stay in Cormyr and yet get so far from the rest of the Forest Kingdom.

Which was why the Crown’s most secure prison was there, and not inside the walls of Sharran-infested Wheloon. The nobles in the cells at Irlingstar could birth no end of trouble if they were closer to other Cormyreans- folk in need of coins and susceptible to whispered threats, promises, and sly dealings.

“You’re no more mages than I am,” Farland said wearily, “but have you found any sign that the wards have been breached?”

They both shook their heads, wasting no words. They never did.

More than century ago, the infamous Royal Magician Vangerdahast had cast the first wards at Castle Irlingstar. With stark and strong magical barriers renewed annually ever since, this normally invisible dome of magic hampered most spells within Irlingstar, preventing translocation and scrying into and out of the fortress. Although the Spellplague had clawed at Irlingstar’s wards, they had survived, and remained crucial in preventing wizards hired by noble families from breaching the castle’s security at will.

“Right,” Farland said grimly. “You know what you have to do.” He got up, ending the meeting. The two senior constables made for the door.

Traelshun would rouse the few guards who’d been off-shift and asleep when Avathnar had been murdered, and Delloak was off to the gatehouse to order the wagon drivers to depart immediately, taking their wagons to Immerford to fetch fresh food. He was to ride ahead of them, to be Farland’s messenger to the nearest king’s lord- Lord Lothan Durncaskyn at Immerkeep-to report the murder and request war wizard reinforcements, for the inevitably difficult investigation. Mind-reaming, now that it so often left both interrogator and suspect drool-witted, was a thing of the past. Solving crimes was once more a process of threatening, peering, and cajoling-and given Irlingstar’s current roster of resentful, sneering, sophisticated, and very capable noblemen-the castle’s handful of weary duty war wizards were going to need all the help they could get. The sooner they got started …

Farland descended the back stair that would take him to the mages’ room. Well, they’d have to wait some days, as it was. Immerford, still growing visibly with every passing summer, was one of the newest settlements in Cormyr, centered on the ford where the East Way crossed the Immerflow. But the countryside betwixt here and where Lord Durncaskyn sat in his bright new castle of Immerkeep was hard country indeed, deep swamp wherever it wasn’t knife-sharp rock ridges cloaked by thick, dark, wolf-roamed forests. There wasn’t a fenced clearing between Immerford and Irlingstar, farm or ranch, because Cormyreans weren’t fools enough to try farming or steading there.

Durncaskyn wasn’t going to be pleased at Delloak’s report, but then Durncaskyn never was. Dragon in the sky, Irlingstar’s five duty wizards of war were probably going to be irked, too, but he could do nothing about that.

To say nothing of Irlingstar’s own all-too-superior mages, who’d be scared and therefore even harder to deal with than usual …

Farland reached the bottom of the stair, stepped through the archway, turned right-and stopped.

A long, wet tongue of fresh blood ran out into the passage right in front of him.

It was coming from under the door of the ready room into which the bedchambers of the war wizards all opened.

“Saer mages?” he called sharply.

The ominous silence continued unbroken.

Swallowing a curse, the lord constable of Irlingstar drew his sword and flung open the door, taking care to keep his feet out of the blood.

Even before it swung wide, he knew what he was going to find.

CHAPTER NINE