The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 17
Shadows danced and shivered around the edges of the scene in the portal. Six sweating elder Shadowmasters, under the gasped directions of Bheloris who stood among them, trembling with effort, fought to hold its view so large and clear.
Most of the kin-sixty or more-were in the Great Hall of the Throne now, but the bell tolled on. Everyone but the struggling elders was talking excitedly, eyes glued to the portal, which showed Dhalgrave sprawled on the gleaming tiles of his private audience chamber. His eyes were two smoldering, empty holes. A long forked tongue trailed from his mouth, and his brow and wrists were bare. The Shadowcrown and the Doomstars were gone.
There was more. A word had been written on the tiles beside the head of the Shadowmaster High… written in his own blood. That word was 'UNWORTHY.'
The talk was growing excited, as hope to seize the Shadow Throne grew in the hearts of two dozen Malaugrym, tempered only by fear of what might befall anyone who tried to hold that throne without the Shadowcrown and the threat of the Doomstars. Even if the ambushes and treacheries of open rivals were quelled, whoever had the missing items could appear without warning and slay any new Shadowmaster High, to take the throne in turn.
'Who could have done this?' Taernil asked for the sixth time, his voice as awed and outraged as it had been at first. Beside him, Huerbara sighed.
'Someone has,' she said simply. 'Accept that and go on. What now, for the two of us?'
'Accept that someone-' The rising rage in Taernil's voice broke off abruptly, and he fell silent and looked at her. 'You're right. We must decide what to do, and not rage or dither.' Then his sharp features changed, and he added softly, almost wonderingly, 'The two of us, you said…'
Huerbara blushed, eyes glittering into his, and then abruptly turned her head away.
'Young idiots,' Kostil said under his breath, flapping his wings down to reabsorb them into his body, eyes on the quivering scene of Dhalgrave dead in his chambers.
Yabrant shrugged beside him. 'We all were, once.' He seemed about to say more, but at that moment Bheloris shuddered, cried out, and pitched forward on his face — and the scene of death flew apart into shards and streamers of radiance, fading swiftly into the mists.
'He managed to force the portal's eye through Dhalgrave's defenses?' Kostil muttered. 'I'm surprised he held it together so long.'
'Dhalgrave wasn't resisting him or directing the shield spells,' Yabrant said thoughtfully. 'The feat is not that impressive. Doing it with such swiftness is.'
'The young she-kin's question remains a good one,' Kostil said. 'What to we do now, the two of us?'
'Rescue Bheloris, before one of his old rivals decides to take advantage of his condition. We'll need him,' Yabrant said, shouldering his way forward. 'I believe the killing's about to start.'
As he spoke, shouts arose across the Great Hall, and there was frenzied movement. The flaring radiance of a spell followed, accompanied by a scream, as the unleashed magics returned to their caster.
'Didn't that idiot pay any attention to Dhalgrave's words about the defenses he'd added to this hall? He made enough noise about 'a truly safe meeting-ground for all of the blood of Malaug' and such!' Kostil's voice was disgusted. 'Do we really share kinship with total idiots?'
'It's a common fate in the multiverse, I'm told,' Yabrant replied wryly as they forced their way to Bheloris. They found Neleyd there before them, his body shifted into a shield of many curling tentacles. 'Well done, boy.'
Neleyd flushed at the words, then sighed and asked, 'Am I to be 'boy' forever?'
'No,' Kostil told him kindly. 'You get to alternate between that, 'young fool,' and 'brainless youngling' for a few hundred years yet.'
'I'll enjoy that,' Neleyd told him dryly, as the chamber rocked under the impact of two warring explosions, and kin all around them grew weapons out of their limbs and began shouting and hacking. 'Let's be gone!'
'Wisely said, young fool,' Yabrant told him with a many-fanged smile.
His expression was matched by a figure none of them saw, who stood watching the tumult from a high, shadow-cloaked balcony. Milhvar smiled only that once, then turned silently away. There was much to do.
Somewhere in Faerun, Kythorn 17
Elminster paused for a moment on a hilltop, his eyes full of swirling stars. The sight that showed him the flows of Art-that is, where magic could be expected to twist wild-was an exhausting thing to use for long, but he had to be sure of his next move. He had a long, hard day ahead, what with avatars stalking around Faerun, egos first, trying to destroy anything and everything that so much as looked askance at them.
A thought brought his pipe whizzing around his head to his lips, and he puffed on it thoughtfully. Over there was the next battle to be fought, aye, but first…
He leaned forward, banished the mage-sight, and called on farseeing for a moment. A gnarled tree, bark crumbling off a dead limb that curved just so… and the ground beneath… a-hum. Enough. Do it!
Abruptly the hilltop was empty except for a silently circling pipe. An instant later, the pipe vanished too.
Faerun: a camp on the High Road south of Tunland, then Hawkgauntlet, Kythorn 18
'I told ye to strike at the goblins, an' leave the orc to me! Tempus take thee for a softskull, lad! Now we'll have to… leave him lie.'
'To die.' It was not a question.
'Get out of my sight!' the old warrior roared, rounding on the younger with his eyes blazing almost-visible flames. The younger man fell back, fumbling for his blade in fearful habit. 'If ye knew how to rotting take orders as well as ye know how to rotting well ignore 'em, we'd not have to be leaving anyone! Go now, afore I really lose my temper!'
The young warrior gulped, spun about, and ran.
The older armsman spat after him and then turned back to the injured priest of the Wargod, who lay clutching at a lapful of his own steaming innards where an orc scimitar had bitten deep. 'Roarald?' he asked roughly. 'Are ye with us yet, man?'
'I… I suppose,' the reply came dully, the priest's eyes not seeing him. 'Beware, Symon. I may be the luckier of us two. The days ahead will be dark. I have seen gods walking Faerun, and whole cities laid waste, and the land much changed. Titans clash with their heads among clouds and their feet trampling us poor folk beneath, and rivers run black with poison… and more death than any war has brought to this world. No good. No good I've seen… no end that Tempus would show me.' He caught his breath for a moment, and then gasped, 'Symon! I am much afraid. Speak gently to the boy, for my sake. He was only… a helpful fool, and we've all been that a time or two.'
The old warrior took him by the shoulders. 'Don't leave us, Roarald! Call on Tempus, man! Surely he owes ye something, after all these years! Surely he'll-'
'Speak not of the god that way!' Roarald was protesting feebly under his hands. 'The way of Temp-'
'Surely he does,' a powerful, melodious voice thundered around them.
The two men gaped, dumbfounded, at the man-high, glowing battlesword-of one piece of deadly blue-black metal, standing vertically with its point not quite touching the ground-that stood beside them. A sword that had certainly not been there before. That thunderous voice issued from it again.
'Stand clear, good Symon. Thy loyalty to a comrade pleases me.'
White to the lips, the old warrior hastily scrambled back, going to his knees in the mud. 'M-my pardon, Great Lord! I meant no presumpt-'
'I know this. Be still now.' The sword began to move, and the old warrior gulped once and was silent.
The black blade drifted silently through the air to hang with its point above Roarald's hands, where they clutched at his bloody vitals.
'I need ye, faithful servant. I need thy obedience and strong arms to keep order in this Time of Troubles. I need thy continued service, Roarald of Tempus. Will ye obey me still?'
'L-lord,' the priest gasped, 'I will… if I can.'
'Then go to Luskan, and put down a rising of dark wizards who seek to plunge all the North into bloody
