Elminster Must Die

Where she was promptly greeted by far too many cold, vigilant stares.

She found herself smiling wryly, despite the looming danger. It seemed that the Room of the Watchful Sentinel was very well named.

Architecturally small and unimportant, a mere antechamber off the far larger and grander Starander’s Hall, it was guarded day and night to prevent covert departures-and unwelcome incursions-by way of the small, flickering doorway that stood in its northeast corner, bereft of surrounding walls or even a physical door or frame.

The Dalestride Portal’s usual guardians were fourteen. Two highknights, eight battle-tested Purple Dragons, and four wizards of war.

Right then, there were more guards than that just in the passage outside-and they had unfriendly faces and ready weapons. The passage ahead of Storm looked like a crowded forest, with every tree a waiting sentinel expecting battle, and with eyes fixed on her.

Still breathing hard from her brisk run through the palace and from the brief tussle that had punctuated that journey, Storm turned her walk into a stroll as she approached the row of waiting spear points.

Beyond those leveled spears, several wands were aimed her way, and she could see some dart-firing bowguns held in highknight fists, too.

“El,” she murmured, “this is going to be messy. There’s no way I can force passage through this many-”

“Keep moving. Duck aside against the wall, if they let fly at ye from inside the room once ye try to enter,” Elminster muttered from behind her, where he was lurching along bent over, an arm held up to shield his face.

Storm lacked both breath and will to point out to him that he was fooling no one; any Purple Dragon or war wizard who’d been warned to watch out for Elminster of Shadowdale or any other old, bearded, male stranger walking the palace would know at a glance exactly what was scuttling along in Storm’s wake.

“I don’t want to kill or maim scores of good and loyal folk of Cormyr,” Storm hissed over her shoulder. “These are our allies, remember; those who stand for justice and-”

“I’ve not forgotten that. Don’t believe what ye’re about to see, overhead,” Elminster warned her. “I still have a little magic to spend.”

Storm nodded, eyeing bowguns being aimed carefully at her throat-as the ceiling of the passage came down with a roar.

The passage shook, a hanging lamp starting to swing wildly. Dust billowed, swallowing many of the arrayed guardians-who shouted in fear and started sprinting wildly along the passage.

Right at Storm.

“El,” she snapped, reaching for her sword, “I-”

Darts came streaking at her, and there was a sudden snarl of crimson flame as a wand spat in her direction.

The flames rushed at her, expanding with the usual terrifying speed-only to fall silent and begin to spin in a great pinwheel right in front of her that … that …

“El, what’re you doing?”

There came an all-too-familiar chuckle from behind her. “How many times have ye asked me that, lass? Down the passing centuries?”

“Don’t remind me,” Storm replied sharply, sword up and out and seeking foes she couldn’t see. “How many times have you destroyed bits and pieces of palaces? Or castles?”

“I don’t keep track,” came the gruff reply. “Always seemed a mite childish, all this keeping score. Those who do tend to be those I dislike. Now, don’t step forward, whatever ye do. The results would be … unpleasant.”

“You’re sending what they hurl right back at them, aren’t you?”

“Wise lass; I am indeed. And I’m destroying no palaces this day-at least, that’s my present intention. Yon collapse was no collapse at all.”

“But if you try to scare them away, those who’ll flee will come running right into our laps!”

“Oh? Has thy lap greeted anyone, yet?”

“No, but-”

“More years ago than I care to remember,” the Sage of Shadowdale announced, straightening out of his crouch with a brief wince, “ye may recall I had a hand in crafting some of the wards cast here. Without the Weave, I can’t twist them much now-there are so many later castings-but in some places I can temporarily cause a room or passage to, ah, adjoin another that’s really halfway across the palace. Wherefore- heh-a lot of guardians, whether fearful or enthusiastic, are now sprinting along the torchwalk outside the Hall of the Warrior King, heading for the royal court at a pace that shouldn’t break too many necks, if the door at the end of that passage is as flimsy as I remember it being. I do hope they’ve repaired the little bridge over the silverfin pond, or more than a few loyal defenders of Cormyr are shortly going to wind up rather wet.”

Storm smirked, despite herself. “How far do your magics reach? Into the Room of the Watchful Sentinel itself-or are all the honor guard undoubtedly waiting for us in there going to be standing untouched, crowded to the very walls, and itching to fell Elminster, infamous enemy of the Dragon Crown?”

The Sage of Shadowdale favored her with one of his more sour looks. “D’ye think I started spinning spells yestermorn?”

“No,” Storm replied dryly, “I believe you only started thinking of your own neck about then. Yes?”

“Stormy one, when did ye start wanting to take all the fun out of things? Eh?”

A man in ankle-length robes came staggering out of the roiling dust just then, a wand in one shaking hand starting to spit sparks, so Storm ducked into a low lunge that gave her reach enough to shove him into the wall.

The young and startled wizard of war rebounded off it hard, head lolling and wand cartwheeling away, so Storm didn’t bother braining him with her sword hilt. She just glided out of the way and let the handy, hard flagstones feed him that fate instead.

“Yon overbold unfortunate wasn’t one of those waiting for us in the passage,” Elminster remarked, “so I’d say the portal guardians are coming out after us. Time to send my shield of return spell in to greet them-and let them harm themselves with everything they hurl at it. I am, after all, a hand that brings about the fitting justice of the gods.”

“We all were, we Chosen,” Storm reminded him sadly. “When Mystra still spoke to us and the Weave still sang.”

“Not now, lass,” Elminster grunted. “I’m busy.” The walls and ceiling ahead of them seemed to shudder, as the very air around them seemed to snarl and then whirl and rush loudly.

“Keep thy sword up and handy,” he added a little grimly a shrieking moment or two later. What sounded like the wail of a gale-force wind was rising around them, as the Sage of Shadowdale wrestled his magic sideways and through a doorway that wasn’t made to accommodate it-at the same time as a dozen or more mages inside the room beyond that door hurled their own spells at the pinwheel of intruding magic, seeking to destroy it.

Elminster’s face was suddenly drenched with sweat, so much of it that his nose dripped a stream like a village tap and his beard became a small waterfall.

“El?” Storm asked sharply, eyeing him as he went pale. “Is there anything I could-should-do?”

“No,” the Old Mage snapped. “Not unless ye-”

A section of the passage wall ahead of them screamed like an agonized child and abruptly burst into shattered shards of stone that crashed into the far wall with force enough to rock and heave some of the flagstones beneath their boots. Amid the hail of falling stone descending that far wall was at least one wet and broken crimson thing that had been a man.

Much of the wall that had separated the Room of the Watchful Sentinel from the passage was missing. The room itself seemed to be full of glowing smoke lit by frequent flashes and bursts of howling radiance-and to hold the turning pinwheel of Elminster’s shielding magic.

Abruptly, somewhere in the distant midair of the room’s interior, something blinding bright exploded, hurling off great streamers of flame and sparks.

“A wand!” Storm snapped, having seen wands destroyed by wild magical backlashes before. “Do you think the Dalestride can-?”

“Withstand all they’re trying to hurl at us?” Elminster replied, throwing an arm around her from behind and dragging her hastily back. “Drop thy blade-now!”

Storm was several centuries too old to argue with him or question such an order. She flung away her sword