Elminster Must Die

deeds of your yesteryears. Yet you’ve trampled on our patience and our good nature, time and again, stealing the greatest royal treasures and magics of the Crown. Our forbearance, old man, is at an end. Surrender the gorget, or die.”

“Ah,” El said mildly, spreading his hands. “As to that, the gorget has been destroyed; it is far beyond being surrendered to anyone, by anybody. So let us have peace, and-”

“Die, thief!” Shuldroon thundered, flicking his fingers and crying a word that hurled his mightiest spell.

Nor was he alone. Most of the other war wizards cast swift battle magics, hands and tongues moving as swiftly as Elminster and the Simbul.

Or faster.

The night promptly exploded in great gouts of white flame as the ground shook and Tethgard erupted toward the stars.

El, Storm, and the Simbul were dashed off their feet again, the air around them shrieking and bubbling as the spells clawed at each other.

Elminster’s last magic item was gone in an instant, consumed in keeping the three from being blasted to nothingness. Charging highknights were flung away in all directions-and the stones of Tethgard were hurled into the air, riven asunder.

In the rolling, shuddering aftermath of that blast, amid involuntary groans from those still alive enough to feel the pain of their ringing ears, the three former Chosen watched Tethgard crash down in a deadly cloud of ricocheting fragments that clacked and clattered off the shaking stones all around. In a trice, Wizard of War Kelgantor lost his head to one slicing shard. In the moments that followed, larger stones crushed his bouncing head and some of his limbs even before they could come to rest.

“Back!” Nordroun cried, spitting blood. “Highknights, back! Rally to me!”

“I’ll give the orders around here!” Shuldroon screamed, staggering up from his knees with blood on his face and more of it running out of his ears. “Men of Cormyr, rally to me!”

“Our turn,” the Simbul purred triumphantly. And she raised her hands like two avenging claws, Elminster at her side, and struck back.

The air shimmered, and out of that whirling chaos spun countless swords of force, sharp blades that lacked hilts and wielders but shone with purple-white, howling magic as they sliced and spun their way through screaming men.

Three wizards of war were diced in a blood-drenched instant, leaving only a drifting crimson mist where they’d stood.

Another two were hurled high into the air, ruining the spells they’d been working, and the Old Mage, who’d sent them aloft, roared a great, spell-augmented warning out over much of Hullack Forest: “Begone, or I’ll not be responsible for what happens to ye! There will be more death!”

“Yours, if you don’t surrender!” Shuldroon shouted back, clawing out a wand and raking the night with lightning-

— that rebounded from the heaped stones of Tethgard, ravaging a highknight caught among them.

Crouching in the lee of some of those stones, Elminster whimpered, biting through his lip and shivering violently. Storm ran to him.

“Let me,” her sister hissed fiercely in her ear, one clawlike hand descending atop Storm’s own, as she clutched Elminster’s head.

Storm turned her head. Alassra was so close that their noses bumped. “You mustn’t-”

“I must,” the Witch-Queen of Aglarond snarled. “You think I don’t know my sanity is fleeting? He needs it now, to be sane enough to win this fray. My head has a handful of none-too-useful Art in it-unless you want half the Hullack gone-but he knows how to foil the spells of war wizards and strike back! Take what the gorget gave me, and feed it to him!”

Elminster was chanting, words that came in a fluid rush, his mouth wet and frothy and his eyes wide and staring.

“Loross?” Storm gasped. “I’ve not heard that since-”

“Not now, Astorma! Just keep your hands wrapped around his head when he moves, and let him get up and prance around! Look, he seeks to!”

El exploded to his feet and sprinted around the rocks, flinging his arms wide and sketching strange, intricate gestures as he came out into the full moonlight. White flames sprang out of the air around his hands, trailing them as he shaped a circle in the air in front of him. Storm struggled to keep hold of his head, the Simbul clawing at them both.

Shuldroon shouted furious curses at his foe, once again visible, and sent lightning racing at the three of them.

Bright, deadly bolts that Elminster’s cone of white fire gathered in, brought to his chest as a shrieking, spitting ball of blinding white conflagration-and sent howling back at their source.

The wand in Shuldroon’s hand exploded, and Shuldroon with it, his last scream cut off abruptly as tiny, dark, wet pieces of ambitious young war wizard spattered the distant trees.

Highknights burst up out of the rocks and flung daggers at them desperately, racing in behind those whirling blades with swords out to-

— vanish in a great ball of flame that flared up out of Elminster’s palm to blister rocks of Tethgard and then snatch itself aloft, carrying those screaming men with it, and explode up among the stars.

As blackened limbs rained down, Elminster started to sing.

Wild, off-key, and incoherent his song came, all half-words that were slurred and seemingly plucked from a dozen languages, making no sense at all.

“He’s going,” Storm said, her voice quavering. “Sister, have you more?”

The reply in her ear was a shriek that nearly deafened her, a scream that sounded like nothing that could-or should-come from a human throat.

Her sister tore violently away from her and was gone, flinging Storm and El down in a heap together on the stones.

Storm tried to find her footing again without letting go of El. Under her, he burst into wild, high-pitched laughter, cascades of sobbing giggles that set her teeth on edge.

She turned to see what had befallen Alassra-in time to see a lashing scaled tail rise up into the night. The Simbul had become a sleek, many-horned thing that looked a little like a wyvern and was flying away as fast as her batlike wings could take her, letting out another of those wild, screaming calls as she went.

Great. Alassra was insane again.

And so was Elminster. Storm looked wildly all around, wondering if she dared try to heal him-or if she’d find herself fighting for her own life in a moment or two, against a generous supply of enraged Cormyrean knights and wizards.

She put her hands on his head again, still tensely staring about.

No one moved amid the rocks. No swords came seeking her.

Out in the moonlight, she caught sight of a handful of surviving Cormyreans-a very small handful-fleeing back toward the trees, pelting along in frantic and terrified haste. A wizard of war waved frantic hands, and pale light flared briefly to claim them all, teleporting them elsewhere.

Somewhere safely far away, she hoped, sagging down atop Elminster with her tears starting. She’d be crying in earnest once she plunged into his ravaged mind, she knew, but in a forest this wild she dared not wait too long, for fear of something hungry coming along to feed before he was at least on his feet again … and they were both free of the worst of his madness.

The moon was serenely riding a nearly empty sky, highlighting a scorched and smoking battlefield strewn with pieces of dead wizard and highknight.

Tears blinded her then as she fell into real weeping.

Between her hands, the Old Mage’s head quivered, and Elminster started barking.