have an apprentice or three who'll find and free him.'
'Hah-if I know apprentices, more likely they'll slay and rob him, and take away all the magic they can.' Bralatar replied.
Lorgyn looked thoughtful. 'That brings to mind another thing,' he said slowly, frowning. 'There have always been rumors that Malaug left powerful magic hidden on Faerun before he came to Shadowhome. It was one of the reasons old Stannar grumbled so much about the prohibition on forays into Faerun. If we can find it…'
Bralatar lifted an eyebrow. 'Is that why you ransacked Candlekeep?'
Lorgyn smiled faintly. 'You know about that? Aye, but I found nothing there… not even in the minds of the eldest whitebeards. Are Malaug's writings truly lost, or forgotten-or are they just hidden in some grasping wizard's tower?'
'Elminster's tower, of course,' Bralatar said grimly. His eyes alight with a sudden dark fire. 'And with Elminster destroyed…'
13
Shadows roiled around them, sliding past in an endless murmur of green and gray motes, streaming between the massive stone pillars. Each pillar, some of the kin whispered, held an unfortunate Malaugrym, entombed alive as part of the cruel magics Malaug employed. These traitors thus kept the very foundations of the Castle of Shadows from being swept away by shadows.
Argast and Amdramnar both suspected those whispers held truth. There was something eerie about the Undercrypt. One felt the scrutiny of an unseen presence here. As the Malaugrym stood facing each other in the stream of ever-shifting shadows, they could feel it very strongly. Was the watcher all that was left of Malaug himself? If it was the First to Walk Shadows, he must be truly ancient… and he never broke silence or gave any sign that he knew what befell his descendants. Other Malaugrym believed the castle itself was sentient, that the Undercrypt was where it was most truly awake and aware.
'I am ready,' Argast announced calmly, 'but I have one question: how much greater is the risk to us, traveling to a place neither of us has actually been?'
'Oh, but we have,' Amdramnar said with a smile. 'That's the beauty of it. Moreover, when we visited, I let fall a focus token there. The risk is vanishingly small.'
Argast frowned. 'You say I have been to this place?'
'Yes. We stood in the sky hurling spells down at the Great Foe and the three rangers with him when they were encamped in a ruin, and-'
'There? The ruin?'
'It's as good a place as any,' Amdramnar said. 'Close to places we've viewed, but in the wilderlands. We're not likely to be seen arriving, nor be swiftly called upon to shift shape or act at being something we're not-until we choose to do so. Let us smell and feel Faerun first.'
A faint smile crossed Argast's face. 'Good points, all. Let us be going, then. I have waited a very long time for this.'
'I, too,' Amdramnar said, and reached out his hand to touch Argast's shoulder. He spoke a single word, there was a momentary falling, spinning sensation-and they were suddenly standing in the long grass of upland Daggerdale, with the ruins of Irythkeep around them.
'See how easy it is?' Amdramnar said, shaking his head. 'It seems incredible that all of our clan has been kept from this for centuries, for fear of one old man!'
A helmed head promptly bobbed into view above a section of crumbling wall, and a voice roared, 'Enemy mages! Strike-strike to slay, for the greater glory of the Dead Dragons!'
The two Malaugrym exchanged startled looks, then ducked away in opposite directions as a ball of flame hissed through the air, divided into two smaller balls, and chased them.
'By the blood of Malaug, who've we stumbled into this time?' Amdramnar snarled, somersaulting over a jagged wall and falling down the steep drop-off beyond with a jolt that rattled his very teeth. A moment later, there was a flash and a ground-shaking roar. The fireball struck the wall and blew it apart; it promptly toppled, burst, and plummeted down on top of him.
The furious Malaugrym grew one long leg and leapt-crazily off-balance-from under a huge pile of rubble that thudded into the turf where he'd lain a moment before.
He landed, rolled, and came up facing back where he'd been, in time to see a large war bird that must be Argast flap into view, rising sharply. A robed man who bore a gleaming staff stood on the edge of the drop-off. As Amdramnar hastily backed away, the man discharged the staff, spitting a beam of flame at Argast that scorched him all along one flank and startled him into a fall.
Another man took up a dramatic stance, a wand raised in his hand. He peppered Argast with magic missiles, sending him down to a hard landing on the rubble pile.
Argast got up shrieking in fury, but his Art was feeble. He could do little against wizards of power. He fled desperately downhill, changing shape into a large, bounding jackrabbit for greater speed-and outrunning a web of crimson bolts from the staff.
Very soon Amdramnar fetched up beside Argast, his eyes blazing. 'Somewhere quiet in the wilderlands? By the fist of Malaug, what're the cities like?'
'Someone else must have decided this ruin would be quiet and secluded, too-or they wouldn't be so eager to throw away powerful magic on two men they haven't even spoken to yet,' Amdramnar said calmly. 'Let's withdraw.'
'There seems little point to it,' Argast said grimly, pointing at another swarm of bright bolts headed their way: magic missiles, unavoidable and painful. 'Who are the Dead Dragons, anyway? An adventuring band? Some of the Great Foe's apprentices, out for some fun?'
Amdramnar suddenly chuckled. 'No, I think they're some sort of cult that were always bothering the Great Foe… idiots who worship skeletal undead dragons.'
Argast gave him a disbelieving look, but gritted his teeth as the swarm of magic missiles struck home, hurling them both onto their backs in the grass. 'Let's move out of sight,' he said, sounding sick. 'That hurt.' Keeping low, they crawled over a ridge and became two wolves, trotting in a wide circle around the ruin.
'Shall we go elsewhere?' Amdramnar asked.
'Revenge first,' Argast said in iron tones. 'No one should try to slay Malaugrym out of hand and get away with it!' They trotted on. 'So what does worshiping undead dragons have to do with hurling spells at everyone you glimpse?'
Amdramnar shrugged. 'They seize treasure to offer dragons,' he said slowly. 'Perhaps they thought we were thieves come to take it.'
'They walk around heavily laden with killing magic all the time?'
'Perhaps the Shadowmasters High were not such fools as we thought to ban entry into Faerun,' Amdramnar said mildly.
'Bah! Bralatar and Lorgyn still live-and have done well here. If those two overconfident lackwits can thrive in Faerun, we certainly can!'
'Talking wolves?' A man's voice said from behind them. 'Shapeshifters, more likely! 'Ware a trap!'
Without bothering to look around, the two Malaugrym broke into a run. The fireball, when it came, exploded just above their heads.
Somewhere in the red, roaring inferno of the fireball's fringes, Argast fetched up very hard against a boulder and felt many things snap. He saw Amdramnar hurtle helplessly past, turning over and over in midair, so racked with pain that he was losing wolf form. Tentacles and a misshapen gray mass wobbled and thrashed the air just before he landed in a cloud of dust.
'A fireball!' snapped the first voice they'd heard. 'They must know we're here! Attack!'
As the two Malaugrym lay in pain among the smoldering grass, forty or more mages and warriors boiled up
