Realms of infamy

Chess.

The nobleman felt a sudden heaviness tearing at his mind. He gasped, then roared in fury as he felt his tongue thicken and words come unbidden into his mouth.

The first lord smiled at him as cruelly as any cat cornering his prey.

Chess glared into that mocking smile as he struggled against his own muscles. The lesser rings of protection on his fingers smoked, flared into tiny blue flames, and burned away. The searing pain cleared his senses. Desperately, Chess drove his arm up-it moved slowly, as if coming from a great distance-to stare at the one ring still on his hand. It flashed.

Sudden golden radiance swirled in the air over the central well of the High Hall. It spun ever-brighter until the stunned councilors saw it become a large black dragon, vast and scaled, its head like a gigantic horned snake. Mighty wings clapped, once.

The wind of that wingbeat smashed many men flat against their benches. The dragon hissed, loud and angry. Acid foamed and bubbled at the edges of its jaws, and the chamber was suddenly full of the eye-watering stink of its breath.

Men screamed. The dragon turned its snakelike head, terrible hunger and mirth in its eyes. With its tail, the wyrm casually smashed a councilor and his bench into a bloody heap of pulp and splinters.

That crash was answered with a ringing like angry bells as the tall windows of the chamber shattered-and true nightmare descended on the council.

The dragon whirled, gleaming scales shifting.

Three orbs, black against the bright sunlight, drifted into the chamber through the broken windows. Eyestalks writhed as each dark sphere looked down with a single unwinking, central eye. A large, many-toothed mouth split one sphere in cruel laughter.

'Beholders!' a councilor shrieked.

'The rumors were true!' another shouted. 'The Zhentarim are in league with beholders!'

All across the chamber, councilors and citizens shrieked and scrambled over benches in a frantic rush to flee. The dragon roared and spat a smoking plume of acid at the foremost beholder, but the air suddenly filled with glowing rays, which lanced out from the beholders' many eyes. At their touch, the acid hissed into smoke.

Lord Chess felt Manshoon's mind-attack falter and fade. The noble flung himself under his bench and tried to reach the dragon's mind, to turn its fury on the first lord before Manshoon could work worse magic.

The dragon's will was clear and hard, far mightier than the nobleman's. Bent on destroying its many-eyed foes, the dragon ignored his silent commands. Chess growled in exasperation.

Across the hall, Zhentarim mages came to their feet. They boldly ignored the dragon's lashing tail and used the panic to follow their own dark plot. Triumphant sneers twisted their faces as they hurled balls of fire and bolts of lightning at the keep's proudest and most powerful nobles. Many lords snatched out magical rods and wands of their own, striking back with fury.

Overhead the dragon roared in pain, writhing, as many rays stabbed at-and through-it Smoking wounds appeared all over its body, raining hot blood down on the men fighting below. Swords and knives flashed as men slashed and grappled along the benches. Chess tried again to reach the dragon's mind, but felt from it pain that made him shout aloud and recoil so violently he cracked his head on the underside of the bench. When he'd recovered his senses, he settled on drawing his slim ceremonial sword.

A Zhentarim mage hurried past. Chess rose as another wizard rushed by. Coolly, he ran the man through.

The wizard coughed, convulsed, and hung heavily on the noble's blade. As Chess wrested his steel free, ripples of radiant magic rolled out from the beholders to strike the dragon.

The mighty wyrm flickered and grew pale as wave after wave of bright magic broke over it… until Chess thought he could see benches and struggling men through it.

A breath later, the still-roaring dragon simply faded away.

The noble looked around, blade raised. Zhentarim wizards were blocking every exit, using magic to hurl back fearful councilors, preventing all from leaving. Spells snatched blades from hands all over the chamber, or made drawn steel burn as if aflame. Even as his own blade seemed to catch fire, Chess saw a man curse as his sword clanged to the floor. Then Chess was forced to let his own weapon fall.

Manshoon stood at the center of the hall, gloating openly. The wizard's grin was wide as his gaze took in the moaning and the fallen. Then the first lord glanced up at the three beholders.

His triumphant smile slid suddenly into open-mouthed astonishment. The beholder Manshoon knew as Arglath had turned-and rays lashed from its eyes to rend its two fellows.

One eye tyrant burst, spattering stunned priests and mages below with its gore. The other spun through the air, torn apart and blazing, to crash down in ruin on a cluster of vainly shouting Zhentarim wizards. The treacherous beholder floated slowly across the chamber. Lord Chess cowered as its dark, awesome bulk halted above him, eye- stalks curling like a nest of angry snakes.

'Enough killing,' the eye tyrant hissed in a deep and terrible voice that brought the hall to sudden silence. 'Let order be restored and all magic cease. Let all able councilors return to their seats-and I do mean all, Manshoon.'

The first lord of Zhentil Keep froze in the midst of frantic spellweaving. Failing magic flashed and faded around him as he glared up at the beholder. Chess saw fear and hatred war with each other in Manshoon's eyes.

Fear won. For now.

The second vote, taken with the beholder hanging dark over the terrified councilors, was not even close. The special powers requested by the first lord were denied.

At the beholder's bidding, Lord Chess was named 'Watch-lord of the Council.' His vote was stripped from him, along with any authority over the armsmen of Zhentil Keep. But he was made supreme in directing council affairs. None could now lawfully set aside the council to seize rule over the city… not even ambitious archmages.

More than a few eyes saw Fzoul, the supposedly impartial high priest of Bane, turn white with fury. There was a general hiss of anger at his revealed connivance when Man-shoon strode around the ring of benches to lean over the priest and murmur a few words. The price of the uncloaking was high, but the words needed to be said.

'Make no defiance,' Manshoon breathed. His face was a calm mask; only his burning eyes betrayed the fear and rage that were almost choking him. 'I was close with Chess once, and can be again… close enough, at least, to make him move at our bidding.'

Whatever reply Fzoul might have made, his own eyes still dark and ugly with rage, was drowned out by the beholder's cold, hissing voice. It had silently descended to hang close above the two men.

'It is hoped among my kind,' the eye tyrant said with deep sarcasm, 'that the events of today have taught you both the folly of such clumsy, drawn-swords villainy. Those who deal in rashness are changed by their dealing- and not for the better. The waste caused by the violence you began should make your lesson as clear and as painful to you as it has been to the rest of this council.'

The beholder rose swiftly, eyestalks still trained in a deadly array on the two. Then it added almost bitterly, 'But the curse of humans seems to be the nimbleness with which they forget.'

Manshoon straightened, opening his mouth. His expression foretold words of proud defiance, but the beholder was already disappearing through a shattered window. Its parting words echoed around the hall. 'Behave with rather more subtlety in the future, Manshoon, if you wish to enjoy our continued support!'

Silence fell. The councilors sat frozen in fear of what the first lord might do in his rage.

Manshoon stared up at the window for a very long time. Then he smiled thinly, raised one hand in what might have been a salute-or a wave of dismissal-and quietly walked out of the hall. Wordlessly the surviving Zhentarim rose and followed, their dark cloaks sweeping out like the wings of so many determined birds of prey.

Lord Chess watched them go and let out a breath he'd been holding a long time. As he made his own way out, he was careful not to glance at Fzoul Chembryl. He could feel the cold weight of the priest's gaze. The master of the Black Altar had been known to lash out in fury himself.

Cold sweat was trickling down the newly appointed watchlord's back by the time he strode out of the chamber and turned hastily aside to where hurled spells could not reach. He sighed then. There were still some