withdraw before being discovered, with a chance to earn a reward instead of the cold, deadly weight of Manshoon's disfavor.
Hcarla Bellwind drew his robe more tightly about himself and hastened to a dark and winding stair he knew of. It descended directly to the part of the cellars where a certain noisome cavern held the cesspool.
Bellwind was in too much of a hurry to close the secret door to Xanther's little room, once a private treasury vault, no doubt, and discovered by the Brotherhood long ago. The councillor, hurrying along soon after, felt cold fingers of fear touch his spine as he stared at the open door. Who had found his secret place and listened?
Who knew Manshoon's orders and the truth about Elminster of Shadowdale; who was lurking somewhere near in the castle right now?
Xanther tried to look about in all directions and discovered, as others have before him, that it's not easy… and that finding no immediate danger brings no comfort.
The hurrying Hcarla had no time for fear as his hastening feet descended stairs cold, dark, and worn smooth with age. Others might sneer, as Stormcloak had, at the Old Mage's feeble powers and strange behavior, but Elminster had caused Manshoon himself to flee a fight at least twice. No, Hcarla Bellwind would not begrudge the power he could gain from Elminster.
Not begrudge, but not fear either. If he could take the Old Mage unawares, he could cast his most precious magic: a stealspell. It would draw the most powerful spell out of the Old Mage's mind into his own, for Hcarla to wield. If that mind was empty of magic, the Old Mage's magic was truly gone and he could never hope to stand against the other spells Hcarla carried.
On the way through the cellars, a thought struck Hcarla. He paused in a room where glowing mold had been left to grow undisturbed to cast its eerie light over a workbench. He took down a hatchet from where it hung over the bench and caught up a moldering old sack from a pile nearby.
With the Old Mage's head in a sack, Hcarla could steal away to ask questions of it at leisure, using his own adaptation of the spell that Brotherhood priests used to speak with the dead. With Elminster's lore-directions to his spellbooks and hidden magical items would be enough-Hcarla Bellwind could forget about Manshoon's favor or disfavor and think instead about replacing him to command the Brotherhood himself. Aye, now there was a thought.
As he hurried on through the familiar darkness, Hcarla wondered briefly why Elminster had never tried to take control of the Brotherhood himself
'Enough!' Itharr gasped. 'I'm worn out… or at least my sword arm is. There can't be more than a hand's worth of Wolves left alive in all this castle.'
Belkram came to a reluctant halt, nodding. 'You must be right,' he said. 'Even the Zhentarim can't make men out of nothing, and nothing is all we've found for six-seven? — rooms now.'
Itharr nodded. 'That reminds me,' he panted. 'One of the men… yelled after us. After Elminster… left the hall, someone… created… magical darkness, and some councillors… got away.'
Belkram groaned. 'Well, you've just proclaimed the task left to us: rounding up a lot of scheming councillors in their various hidey-holes all over this dale.'
Itharr waved a hand. 'Time for that on the morrow,' he said. 'I'm more worried about archmages of Shadowdale wandering about the place.'
Belkram rolled his eyes as he opened his mouth to reply, but another, familiar voice rang out instead.
'Hail, Harpers!'
They turned. The clangor of arms had faded away in the bloodstained passages of the High Castle, and a man they knew was coming slowly toward them.
Gedaern was stumbling on a leg that was no longer sound. Blood soaked his clothes and ran down his face from a cut where hair was tangled and caught fast in gore. The blade in his hand was broken, its tip shattered by the same fierce blows that had marked its length with deep notches. His breath was a wet, whistling sighing that spoke of blood spilling inside him.
But Gedaern of the High Dale came on, eyes bright and fierce, and through the blood he was smiling. A proud, dangerous smile. A smile that Belkram would never forget, to the end of his days.
'Fair fighting, Harpers,' Gedaern said. 'I thank you for this chance to hit back, at last.' And he smiled that terrible smile again.
'Gods, Old Mage,' Sharantyr choked as they felt around in the thick, foul air. 'You sure know some romantic places to take a lady!'
Elminster made a harrumphing, throat-clearing noise from somewhere in the darkness nearby. 'When ye've lived as many years as I have, Shar, ye know all the places!'
Sharantyr turned toward him. 'So why come here instead?' A whiff of putrefaction set her to coughing again. 'Can't we even go for a torch?'
'In this bad air, ye'd probably set off a blast that'd bring the stone above down atop us, after separating thy limbs from thy body and spreading ye all over the nearest wall.'
The ranger Knight sniffed. 'Without light, Old Mage, the alternative bids fair to be finding the cesspool before finding this gate, by the simple means of falling into it!'
Keep talking, idiots, Hcarla Bellwind thought with savage glee, coming cautiously nearer in the deep, velvety darkness. Their voices would lead him close enough. Cautiously he probed ahead of him with his foot, testing for firm footing before he committed his weight.
His foot came down on something yielding, something that squeaked and moved hastily out from under his toes. He felt the harmless pressure of teeth on his boot before whatever it was scurried away.
'Old Mage!' Sharantyr hissed, ahead. 'Did you hear?'
'Aye,' Elminster replied. 'Someone stepped on a rat.'
Silence fell, deep and waiting. Hcarla snarled a silent curse. Then he shrugged. No need to come within reach of the woman's sword while he had the stealspell.
Setting down the axe and sack with slow, stealthy care, he moved his hands in the gestures he'd learned from an old Myth Drannan tome, its ever-bright metal pages still clear in his mind's eye, and softly spoke the words that tied the magic together and hurled it on its way.
'No!' Elminster gasped roughly, a moment later. 'Oh, no.'
Like someone uncorking a wineskin and squeezing it, the power pent up within him started to flow, being drawn off into the darkness. 'Lass,' he snapped urgently, 'close thy eyes!'
An instant later there was a blinding flash and a shattering roar that left their faces wet.
Hcarla Bellwind, with all his dreams, had been consumed in a white-hot fireball by the titanic power of Art surging into him.
In a chamber dark and warm, where soft limbs caressed his own in the flickering torchlight, Manshoon watched his favorite scrying crystal burst apart in the blue-white flame of Hcarla Bellwind's destruction. As the ladies in the wide bed around him shrieked and scrambled away, he sat up and hissed, 'I'll have your head at last, Elminster!' His hand moved to the silken tassel of the bell cord to summon mages. Many mages.
'Dread Lord?' the best of his companions asked, standing uncertainly beside the bed. 'Shall I summon the'- her voice faltered and dropped almost to a whisper- 'beholders?'
Manshoon turned eyes that were very cold and dark on her. 'You share my opinion of our current magelings, then? You expect them all to fail?'
Anaithe looked back at him with the eyes of a trapped animal, licked her lips, and managed to say, 'Yes.'
'Perhaps they'd do better,' the High Lord of Zhentil Keep said in silken tones, 'if you accompanied them in their search for Elminster. One who's seen so much she's not supposed to must have keen eyes indeed.'
Anaithe trembled, bit her lip, and brought her hands deliberately down to her sides, recovering her poise with an effort. 'I shall do whatever my lord desires… though I cannot see how I, without any magic, can be of any help in destroying an archmage.'
