confirm where they were.
'Aye,' Elminster said, striding forward. 'As to what happened, well… it's a very long story and happened a long, long time ago. Let's just say that the realm of Netheril fell, and the friend I spoke of-the sorceress Saharel- lived on here. But mages had very few ways of stretching their years, then.' He fell silent, looking around at the moss and the tumbled stone.
'Except being chosen by Mystra,' Sharantyr said softly beside him.
Elminster nodded slowly. 'Save for the grace of Mystra,' he echoed. He stood looking at nothing for a long, sad moment, then lifted his head and said almost defiantly, 'Best we look about. Ye never know… some Zhent wizard might find the gate behind us.'
Sharantyr's sword slid out as she spun around to see only dust and empty air. 'Not yet,' she said, turning back. 'Lead, El. You know this place.'
Elminster strode toward an archway. 'Saharelgard it was called, when I knew it. I've been here once since, but I was too busy running then to look around.'
'Too busy running?'
'Running from, and fighting, a family of mages who'd learned how to turn themselves into dragons.'
'Oh'
Elminster waited, and her expected question came: 'What happened?'
'I'm with ye today, eh, lass? What else would ye know?'
In a room that was deep and dark and spherical, a figure stirred on a round bed. Dark robes rustled, tatters falling away into dust, as the thing on the bed sat up and leaned forward as if sniffing the air.
It had been awakened by an intrusion, the sudden presence of more magic than it had ever felt in one being before. Awesome magic. What befell in the Realms above now? The figure rose in a sudden, smooth movement and spread its hands.
A door that had been closed and sealed for centuries suddenly ceased to be, exploding into dust. The figure strode forward in uncanny silence.
22
One instant saw a high-ceilinged hall empty of all but glowing moss and tumbled stone. In the next breath, a young man in robes stood in its midst, crouching as if facing a foe-but his hand held a wand, not a sword. He darted hurriedly four steps to one side and looked all around. No sign of anyone. Where was he?
Silence hung heavy in Spellgard. Avaerl of Sembresh peered around in the weird, dim light of the glowing mosses and muttered a quick spell.
Abruptly he disappeared. Invisibility cloaked him as he stepped carefully to another spot and murmured his next spell.
Unseen, he rose slowly and silently to the uppermost balcony, glancing into archways and along passages as he passed them. In some, cold radiances pulsed and flickered, but Avaerl had seen the mushrooms called glow-caps before and knew them for what they were.
He'd learned of Elminster's woman companion from his informant in the High Castle, but of those two or the route they had taken, he saw no sign. Avaerl breathed out a soundless sigh, then shrugged and set foot on the stones of the highest balcony. Let the hunt begin.
'Itharr,' said a voice from the darkness at the foot of the bed, 'I hate to do this, really I do, but we've got a problem.'
'The Zhentarim have sent an army? Well, defeat them, and tell me about it in the morning,' Itharr said sleepily.
'Not as simple as that,' Belkram said kindly. 'Get up, and bring your sword. Elminster's gone.'
'Oh, dung,' Itharr said, coming all the way awake, little chilly feet of foreboding racing down his spine. 'When?' As he asked the useless question, he gently slipped a warm but very heavy head from his shoulder. Its owner murmured something, slid a caressing hand along his thigh, settled into a new position, and began to snore.
'Mine did that, too,' Belkram said in amused tones, handing Itharr his scabbarded sword. The buckle hit the younger Harper in the face.
Itharr spat it away and snarled, 'Clothes first, you dolt. I don't consider them optional.'
'Here. Hurry.'
Itharr hurried, grumbling all the while in low, muttered whispers. 'He's probably just gone to relieve himself, or look at the stars, or find a wench who'll have him.'
Belkram tried to hand him his sword again. This time, Itharr was ready.
'Remember what Storm told us,' Belkram said. 'Even if he is just out on the nearest battlement, his safety is too important to risk. Besides, Sharantyr's gone too, and their clothes and weapons.'
'Tymora aid us,' Itharr groaned, leaping up. Together they ran to the door. Itharr winced as a lonely and bewildered voice called his name softly and sleepily from the bed behind him, but he did not answer or slow down.
Belkram clapped him on the shoulder as they hurried down the passage. 'Gedaern woke me up, and he did it by running into the room bellowing at the top of his lungs. He smashed straight into the bed and fell on top of us. I thought you'd appreciate a gentler awakening.'
'My thanks,' Itharr said dryly. 'Has he left it just to us, or have we a band of willing idiots to help us scour the dale in the dark?'
'We have such a band, and now they have two willing idiots to lead them,' Belkram replied brightly.
Itharr grunted something that his companion didn't quite catch.
Zalarth Bloodbrow smiled grimly at the startled shout and the splash. A fitting reward for disobedience, he thought, watching the thief thrashing and spluttering in the cesspool. There were only two others left. The rest of his men had walked exactly as he'd directed, and the gate had taken them elsewhere already. He motioned those two forward as if to aid the one in the pool. The moment they were in front of him, he moved his fingers in the quick movements of a spell.
The limbs of the thrashing man abruptly froze, and he stared at the wizard in wide-eyed, openmouthed, silent horror as he sank slowly into the thick brown ooze. The soundless mouth slid from view, then the unmoving, staring eyes. The hair coiled momentarily amid bubbles… and then there was nothing.
The two Brotherhood thieves turned to look at Zalarth, their throwing knives leaping into their hands as if they commanded their own magic.
The cruel-faced Zhentarim shook his head and sighed. 'His heart? A seizure, perhaps? Better it happened here, I suppose, than in the midst of whatever we'll find through there.' He nodded at the empty air where the gate must be.
'Mind you step off the edge there, between the two bumps, and not try to jump in from one side as Lesker did.' He shook his head again, frowning, thin-lipped. 'He didn't have seizures, did he? Or anything of the sort?'
The two men shook their heads silently. The knives did not leave their hands.
Zalarth frowned down at the now-placid surface of the cesspool. 'Unless,' he said slowly, 'there's something alive in there, feeding on Lesker now.'
He looked up and said briskly, 'We'd best be gone from here before it sends up tentacles or the like.'
He'd scared them sufficiently. Without further demur the thieves stepped forward into the gate-and were gone. Zalarth hastily advanced to position himself between the two stone knobs before the torch went with them.
In the sudden darkness, he conjured up an invisible protective shield of force around himself, just in case one
