'By the Seven Mysteries, who are you?' he gasped.
'Please, sir,' the blonde woman breathed, entreaty in her green eyes, 'where are we? What place is this?'
The wizard dragged his eyes up from the ivory curves of her bare body, swallowed, and blinked.
'You're in my tower-the Tower of Mortoth,' he said gruffly. 'Er, that's me.' He took a step into the room. 'Perhaps you've heard of me?'
The taller of the two women parted her raven tresses to display a figure fully as spectacular as her companion's, and husked, 'Nay, Lord… but pray, tell us about yourself. Pleasing great men is our business-and our pleasure.'
And as Mortoth goggled at her in astonishment, two tentacles appeared over the shoulder of the blonde maid and shot out with terrifying speed. One grasped the wand, twisted, and snatched-and it flew from the stumbling wizard's bruised fingers.
'Rivals!' the wizard snarled as he caught his balance. Blue-white bolts of force were already streaking from his fingers in a hasty burst of magic missiles.
Those missiles curved home, and he saw the two intruders flinch, but one had grown fleshy wings, and the other had dropped into catlike form, and they sprang at him before he could do anything else.
The room crashed and spun for Mortoth as heavy bodies slammed into him and bowled him over. Suddenly flesh was enveloping him. He struggled, trying to spit out something that was probing into his mouth, and failing.
Lorgyn, his eyes like two copper coins, catching the sun, encased the wizard's head and hands in folds of flesh, invading his mouth with a firm tentacle to keep him from speaking spells, and leaving him only small nose- hole for breathing.
'Do you want the portal right here?' he asked.
Bralatar shrugged. 'Why not? We know a way into this room, and I don't want to risk wandering around among waiting spells and enchanted items and possible traps looking for a better place. Get the thing done first.'
Lorgyn nodded. 'The decision is wise.' He held the wizard securely as Mortoth's struggles ceased and his body started to tremble.
Bralatar paced out the space he'd need and began the casting, moving slowly and carefully, his body half voluptuous maiden and half panther. White, cold fire that blazed but did not consume sprang up where he gestured, building into two open rings-both about as far across inside as a man is tall; one horizontal and the other vertical- linked by a webwork of complex lines and runes.
'Place him,' he ordered. Lorgyn spun the helpless wizard deftly to a spot where Bralatar bound him about with the same cold fire before Lorgyn released the binding of flesh.
Mortoth blinked. He could suddenly see again and opened his mouth to shout a spell, but found himself staring into a pair of cold, uncaring eyes for just an instant before his vision vanished abruptly. The same white, endless fire that had taken it whirled into his mouth, and all he could do was hum…
Bralatar stepped back with a satisfied air, surveying the magical gate he'd created. The wizard hung spread- eagled and helpless in the upright circle; anyone stepping into the other circle, blazing just above the floor, would set foot in Shadowhome.
To use the other end to come to Faerun, a rival Shadowmaster would have to stand in exactly the right spot in the Castle of Shadows, and utter the secret word Bralatar had bound the casting with. There was a small chance that one of the blood of Malaug might be standing near when the gate formed-it did not become invisible until complete-but in the spot he'd chosen, in a place as large as the Castle of Shadows, it was unlikely.
Necessary though it was if he and Lorgyn were ever to return home, Bralatar had no intention of testing his creation. Each use would drain the wizard of some of his life-energy, and they'd need another magic-wielding being to replace him. Most mortals could power the passage of only four beings before they died, the last life stolen from them to leave behind only shriveled husks.
It was a pity the senior Malaugrym never revealed the locations of the ancient gates in Faerun built or discovered by the early blood of Malaug. Worse still, neither he nor Lorgyn had the use of a scrying portal to search either Shadowhome or Faerun from afar. If there were gates enough and in the right places, they could have avoided this entire undertaking… and left important, bustling little Mortoth of Sembia in peace.
'At least we're putting this wizard to good use, not just slaying him and seizing his magic, as Lunquar did to all the Zhents he could find in the brothels of Sembia.'
Bralatar commented, watching cold fire race up and down Mortoth's motionless limbs.
'Lunquar's gathered a lot of magic, don't forget,' Lorgyn reminded him.
'Yes, but the risk!'
'The Great Foe is dead! What is to stop us ruling over all?'
'So why did Lunquar counsel us to subtlety?'
'It's his way. Lunquar's always been a fierce loner; he refused to work with Dhalgrave himself, once. He's as bad as Ahorga.'
'The probable difference between them is that to get home, Lunquar's going to have to do what we have-or use our gate, at whatever price we set-and old Ahorga can no doubt travel freely back and forth between Shadowhome and Faerun. He must know the old gates and the traps our kin set on them ages ago.'
'Are there any gates known to our kin, that we've not trapped?'
Lorgyn shook his lovely blonde head. 'Not so far as I know; the doing was deliberate and absolute, to prevent the use of all gates known to us by any being not familiar with our guard spells.' The Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome, Flamerule 23
'And we intend to keep things that way,' said Amdramnar softly, staring through his hastily cast scrying portal. He'd only caught this utterance and the last few words of something about Ahorga, but it was clear which of the kin were involved: they'd found Bralatar and Lorgyn.
It had been sheer chance that he and Argast had passed through the little-used Hall of the Eyes to avoid the well-traveled Hathtor's Gallery. The gate had appeared right in front of them, lines of white fire drawing themselves in the air.
Amdramnar was fast with his magic, but he was more used to hurling slaying spells in haste than spinning a scrying portal at speed. It had taken some time to call up a view of the other end of the unfolding magic.
'So we know of four kin active in Faerun now: Ahorga and Lunquar, operating independently, and these two,' Argast mused aloud. 'Shall we place a slaying trap on their gate?'
'I think not,' Amdramnar replied. 'Given the right spell-I'll have find it in my libraries-we can divine the trigger word Bralatar used in the casting. Then it can serve us as a route that Ahorga and the other elders don't know about, if we have to bring someone into Shadowhome undetected.'
'A mate, for example,' Argast said softly. 'Your lady of the sword.'
Amdramnar regarded him, unsmiling. 'You seek a lady too, I know. With a world open to me, Sharantyr may not be my choice.'
If the two Malaugrym who stood beside the scrying portal could have used it to look into each other's minds, they would have seen that Amdramnar burned with the need to have the mortal Sharantyr-and no other-and that Argast had a deeper need. His mother had fled the Castle of Shadows long ago and successfully hid, somewhere in Faerun, from the seeking magic of the House of Malaug. She was then pregnant; Argast son of Halthor must have siblings now. If one could be befriended and manipulated, or bred with… a new dynasty of Shadowmasters could rise to rule the shattered House of Malaug…
But it was very much a good thing that scrying portals-and most other magic, even wielded by kin-couldn't pry at the thoughts of Malaugrym.
'Let us go to your chambers,' Argast suggested. 'I'll wait without while you prepare your spell, and we can return here without delay.'
Amdramnar nodded. He passed a hand across the scrying portal; it rippled and was gone, leaving the Hall of the Eyes dark and apparently empty.
'I have little liking for hunting mage after mage for their magic,' Lorgyn said carefully as they stood in the room with the helpless wizard floating between them, 'but we should take steps to ensure that this one doesn't
