handy that could be swept up and used to brain his closest pursuer, then tossed under the knees of those following, to take them down groaning among impaling splinters.
An instant before a deathly white ray stabbed into the palace from the beholder somewhere near, outside- and the doorway became a huge hole in the palace wall that claimed the floor of a stone chamber above and the bodies of at least three Dragons who’d been running after him in one sighing moment.
A fourth soldier, who’d been just about to drop two hairy hands onto Mirt’s shoulders to drag the fleeing miscreant down, shrieked as one foot foot vanished in the ray, leaving behind a spurting stump-and fell.
Yelling out unthinking curses of fear, and running as fast as he could wheeze, Mirt of Waterdeep raced deeper into the palace.
“Spread out!” a war wizard was yelling, his voice high with fear and excitement. “Wide apart, so it can’t easily get all of us! Hurry!”
Now. Elminster’s voice was fiercely insistent. Get to Storm. In by the walls, tell them you’re surrendering, act like the beholder has you so scared you’ll surrender quietly, sheathe your sword, and get ye to Storm, to touch and hold onto her, just as fast as ye can.
Arclath slammed his blade back into its scabbard and hastened toward the palace, bowing his head as he stepped around Dragons. “Sorry, can’t stop. I’m busy surrendering,” he said to the owner of the one hand that grabbed at him, and hurried on.
“Well, I’ll be so bold if you really insist,” he joked aloud to the heavy presence in his head, “but among politely reared folk, those who rush to touch and hold expect to pay for the privilege, in establishments that exclusively cater to such behavior.”
Oh? Since when have nobles of Cormyr been politely reared folk?
Arclath laughed aloud at that and caught a “You’re madwits, you are!” stare from a Dragon right in front of him.
By way of reply, as the beholder turned overhead and let fly with more rays, and men shouted and fled, he spread his empty hands and offered hastily, “I’m surrendering, and spell-talking with a friend of mine, a wizard of war who’s with the king right now-and who’s guiding me where I should go.”
The Dragon gave him another strange look then fled. Half a breath before the soldiers beyond him and a good bit of the palace wall beyond them vanished in a flash of eye-tyrant magic, enlarging the open doorway to a gaping hole.
Leaving Storm and Arclath staring at each other across suddenly open street cobbles, with devastation on one side of them and frantically fleeing Purple Dragons and war wizards on the other.
Run!
Elminster’s mind-shout was almost deafening, and Arclath put his head down and pumped his arms and really ran, fetching up in Storm’s arms-as she caught him to keep him from slamming into the palace wall-a few panting instants later.
The moment Storm was holding him, it was as if a great glowing hearth of light and warmth rolled open in Arclath’s mind.
He reeled mentally and was thrust firmly to the task of regaining his balance and breath, just as fast as possible, anchoring himself with one hand on the unyielding stone of the palace wall, as Elminster and Storm communicated in a flashing dance of thoughts too fast for the Fragrant Flower of House Delcastle to follow.
A moment later, he was turning, Elminster firmly in control. Away from the palace, to look up into the night where a great looming eye tyrant was turning, rising, and rolling over to look down on the greatest number of Cormyreans at once, ready to hurl its magics again and permanently deprive the realm of as many Crown soldiers and mages as possible.
To cast a swift, deft, and unfamiliar spell that lanced up to strike the beholder and wrestle it into its true shape, in the grip of a terrible compulsion. A magic that raced around and around the floating horror in a snarling racing of blue-and-silver fire.
The Weave may have fallen, and Elminster and Storm might be Chosen of the mightiest goddess of the realms no longer, but they knew just how to force proud wizards who’d grown up praying to Mystra to obey, even if only for a moment.
The racing fire became a spellburst, a shortlived sun of silver-blue light in the sky over the Promenade, around a writhing beholder.
An eye tyrant that flickered and was a man for a moment, a man falling through the air. Then it was a beholder once more, shuddering and writhing, groaning aloud and then roaring, “I am Xarlandralath, spawn of Xorlughra-and slave of the accursed Manshoon! Deliver me! Deliver me from this!”
Then the sun winked out, hurling the beholder high into the air, spinning and writhing.
Arclath heard a gasp, and the strong, longer-fingered hands holding him stiffened-and then fell away.
He turned in time to see Storm fall on her face on the cobbles, crumpling to the street as limp as a wet cloak.
Pain exploded in his head. Elminster’s pain.
As he staggered back to the wall to keep from falling, and clawed his way feebly along it, Arclath heard the wizard say weakly, sounding both faint and far off in the echoing depths of his mind, Storm’s done Storm’s done get us inside get us away…
He bent to pick her up, or try to, lost his balance, and stumbled a few wild and swift steps back on his heels to keep from falling. They took him around to look out into the street again.
Where the Lord of House Delcastle saw the beholder descending again, wearing a murderous glare and seemingly in control of itself-or under Manshoon’s control, that is-once more.
Beyond it, Targrael had turned from trying to get to a particular building, and with a sword waving wildly in both hands, was racing back across the street, wearing a murderous glare of her own. A bared-teeth glare that was bent on the beholder.
Far more glares were being aimed at the menacingly swooping eye tyrant. Every wizard of war on the street had taken a stance and was casting a spell-every last one of them, with the Dragons drawn hastily back to give each one room.
“Now!” a long-bearded war wizard shouted.
And the air itself screamed as half a hundred spells tore through it, to converge in the onrushing beholder.
The flash was blinding and deafening and made Arclath want to fall.
So he did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The royal palace, the Promenade, and the row of buildings facing the palace across the broadest street in Suzail all rocked and swayed. A parapet corbel broke off and plummeted to the cobbles where it shattered, the shards rolling ponderously to various halts.
Hardly anyone noticed. Everyone, even as they fell and bounced amid the shaking cobbles and swirling dust, was staring up at the beholder above-the eye tyrant at the snarling heart of more than twoscore ravening magics. They tore and thrust, seared and lashed, and sent a shrieking, fang-shedding, broken-jawed sphere spinning helplessly away, shredded eyestalks whirling away from it in a wide-hurled rain of wet ruin.
Dying, torn open, and spilling guts in a rain of purple gore, the beholder Talane now knew was Manshoon’s slowed as it reached the zenith of where the magics had hurled it, and started to fall.
Ravaged and drifting, too wounded to attack anything, but trying to slow its descent, the beholder tumbled, its central eye staring at nothing and going dim. The Cormyreans watched, not daring to cheer yet.
Targrael kept moving, following the path of the beholder, peering hard at it, watching for any sign of Manshoon working a last magic.
It was drifting sideways as it fell, away from the palace… toward the rest of the city. To the rooftop where
