any of the Stormwands.
Elminster fought his way free of all the stone-and then stiffened, as Mystra spoke briefly and firmly in his head.
Not that way, El. ’Tis time to teach Manshoon a lesson.
He sighed, looked longingly at the last Darkway he’d altered for a moment, then murmured, “As ye wish, Great Lady of Mysteries,” and started walking briskly through Stormgates.
He strode the length of that sprawling, many-pillared stone mansion, raising a new mantle around himself as he went, to the front doors of Swordgates.
Jhoszelbur’s house guards threw them wide at his approach, and Elminster strode out into the sunlight-and the welcome he’d been expecting.
Zhentilar javelins cracked and shivered on the descending flight of steps in front of his boots, and behind the massed black-armored horde of warriors happily hurling them, El saw baneguards advancing, upperpriests of Bane commanding them. More priests stood on roofs and balconies all around, and there were Zhentarim, too, some of them in the saddles of foulwings flapping and circling overhead like great black bat-winged toads.
The tripled-jawed aerial steeds of the Brotherhood croaked and hissed harsh unpleasantnesses to each other, their red eyes burning, eager to enter the fray.
Swordgates occupied a corner where two streets met, and similarly grand mansions lined both of those routes-high houses whose streetfront windows and balconies were crowded with priestesses of Loviatar, presumably aiding the Brotherhood to gain Manshoon’s favor.
Manshoon? Ah, there he was, standing with Fzoul Chembryl on a high mansion balcony right across the road, ready to gloat as the lone wizard on the steps got destroyed.
The Rightful Hand of Bane held two dark rods in his hands, and Manshoon hadn’t forgotten to bring a long, fell-looking staff.
“Oh, dung,” Elminster said sourly, clawing in a pouch for his least useful enchanted rings, so as to feed his mantle with something. This was going to hurt.
“Care, lords, I beg of you!” the owner of the mansion whose balcony Manshoon and Fzoul were standing on shouted then, from the room behind them. “If much magic is unleashed here, the destruction will be ruinous! Zhentil Keep’s fairest houses could well be-”
Manshoon lifted one hand and made a lazy signal, without even bothering to turn around. The wealthy merchant gurgled in mid protest as his throat was slit, the ugly sound lost in Fzoul’s thunderous, “Destroy him!”
The priest of Bane brought his arm down with a flourish, pointing right at Elminster.
Zhentarim, Banite priests, and priestesses of Loviatar all unleashed deadly spells, hurling them with glee, all wanting to be part of obliterating that lone figure on the steps.
Elminster’s world became roiling flame, tongues of fire that swirled like white snowflakes in a roaring, purple-black darkness as the Weave was torn, Faerun shrieked aloud, and he was plucked off his feet, shaken like a doll, and hurled Nowhere at all, as Mystra manifested all around him in an armor of eerie blue light, dancing sparks that dazzled the eyes with their hue.
Two huge and long-lashed eyes opened behind Elminster and drank in the darkness, and nine silver stars blossomed out of those sparks. Two of those stars darted into Mystra’s eyes, and the other seven began to circle her slumped, pain-wracked Chosen.
Gathering all the magic hurled at him… and slowly, one spell after another, sending it all back whence it came.
The huge floating eyes of the goddess swept across the shouting Zhentarim army, regarding them with something like sorrow, then rose to meet Manshoon’s astonished and outraged gaze.
As he stared at Mystra, and Mystra stared back at him, the First Lord of Zhentil Keep began to scream in terror.
Beholders appeared, rising menacingly into view over rooftops with their eyestalks writhing, gliding forward with fell intent-only to melt away in an instant. A moment later, every last foulwing faded to nothingness, spilling shrieking riders out of the sky.
The balcony where Manshoon and Fzoul stood broke off the front of the mansion it adorned and fell to earth, slowly and soundlessly. Clinging to it, the two mightiest of the Zhentarim bawled like babies, clawing at the stones.
It came to rest very gently, with no crash at all, but the two men pitched forward onto their faces, trembling in fear. Fzoul fainted, and Manshoon hid his face in his hands, daring only to peek between them.
He saw Mystra bend her will and power on the army at the foot of the steps. Baneguards vanished in bony silence, black armor was suddenly gone from hairy and horrified men, and spears and swords were swept away from their hands.
As they broke and fled, pelting away down the streets as fast as they could run, moaning and trampling each other in their fear, the goddess roared up into a spire of blue flame.
That great tongue of fire rose with a thunderous snarl, to tower high over Swordgates, to loom into the sky above Zhentil Keep and catch distant, awed eyes-then flashed, blinding many watchers, and-vanished.
On balconies and rooftops, down alleys and in windows, every last priest and priestess collapsed, all dashed senseless at once.
Silence fell. Mystra was gone.
Leaving Manshoon weeping and trembling, and a weary and wincing Elminster regarding him with disgust.
Stumbling in obvious pain, and trailing a scorched smell, El came slowly down the steps. Over the rubble, over the bodies of the trampled, over fallen weapons and spilled blood, across the street to where the First Lord of Zhentil Keep cowered.
Citizens were watching, peering from windows and alleys, from doors and from atop carts down the streets, as Elminster approached Manshoon.
“For years, ye have owed thy life to a promise,” he told the leader of the Zhentarim quietly. “Ye almost threw that life away this day. Try to learn some wisdom.”
On his haunches, Manshoon spun around and covered his ears, turning his back on the bearded Chosen.
Who rolled his eyes, drew back one dusty-booted foot, and gave the First Lord a solid kick in the pants, pitching him over onto his face.
Then Elminster stalked away, not looking back.
Face down in the dirt and furious, Manshoon snarled.
“I swear,” he whispered, knowing how many eyes were upon him, “I’ll slay you some day, Elminster. And work it so that as you die, you know full well who has slain you.”
He kept still, hunched down. For now, though, he must play the overconfident fool, to avoid being destroyed by Mystra as too dangerous. Yet at the same time work, with infinite patience and contingency upon contingency, scheme overlapping scheme, toward ultimate triumph.
Oh, the things he could do without being hampered by Elminster’s meddlings!
Hah, the things he could do to Elminster if the old bearded goat didn’t have the goddess protecting him!
“There will come a day, Elminster of Shadowdale,” Manshoon announced to his own spellchamber quietly, as he teleported back to its dark, deserted safety, “when my chance will come. A day when you aren’t cloaked and armored in the favor of a goddess.”
He turned slowly on one heel to look around at the quiet darkness. “And on that day,” he added with a crooked smile, “Manshoon will laugh-and Elminster will die.”
DREAMING OF WATERDEEP
A TALE OF THE FORGOTTEN REALMS
