Spellfire

"That still," Casildar said carefully, "leaves open the question of what actions, if any, we should now take."

"We must gain control over the maid, or destroy her. Her spellfire threatens us all," Ashemmi said. The curly-bearded mage's dangling earring chimed as he turned his head sharply to look at Fzoul. "We cannot afford to sit idle. What if Mulmaster or Maalthiir of Hillsfar gains the power to wield spellfire? Even if those of Shadowdale use it only to aid their friends in Daggerdale, it will set our plans back. If someone sets out deliberately to destroy us with it, we could fare far worse."

"Aye, well said," Casildar agreed. "We must move. But how? Our armies?"

"I do not care to launch the armies of Zhentil Keep in Manshoon's absence," Fzoul said. "Shadowdale need merely spread the rumor that we have mastered spellfire, and Cormyr, Sembia, Hillsfar, and all will strike together to forestall the destruction they will expect at our hands. No, we must move more quietly than that, my lords. Yet as Casildar says, we must move. What say you?"

"What of our assassins?" Yarkul suggested.

"The replacements are young and poorly trained, yet."

Zhessae said. "Even strengthened by our lesser brothers and the magelings, I fear they would anger Shadowdale more than harm it."

"Aye," Sarhthor agreed in his deep voice. "We have gone that way before. Always we must run, or die."

"Yes," Sememmon put in. "We have all seen what happens when we send the magelings. Everyone wants to be the hero, to make his name among us. Reckless and foolish, they overreach themselves and fall. Elminster is no foe to be mastered by a mageling."

"Are you suggesting that we go in force, ourselves?" Ashemmi asked. "Leaving aside our personal peril, does that not leave Zhentil Keep undefended? Surely the High Imperceptor of Bane has heard of Manshoon's absence by now. Will he not strike against you, Fzoul, and all of us?" His words fell into a deepening silence around the table.

"No doubt," Fzoul agreed coldly, "he will try. But The Black Altar, and Zhentil Keep about it, are not undefended, my friends." He waved a hand, and out from behind a curtain far down the large chamber floated Manxam.

The beholder was old and vast and terrible. Lichen grew upon its nether plates, and its eyestalks were scarred by old wounds and wrinkled with age. Its single great central eye turned slowly to survey them all as it drifted closer. In the depths of that dark-pupilled, bloodshot orb each man at the table saw his own death and worse. A deep, burbling hiss came from its closed, many-toothed maw; its ten smaller eyestalks moved restlessly as Manxam the Merciless came to the table.

The eye tyrant passed over them all to hang above the center of the table, and rolled slowly in awful majesty until its ten small eyes hung just above them, at least one looking at each man there. It said nothing, but merely hung in midair, watching.

"I feel we can all be persuaded," Fzoul said without a trace of a smile, "to come to some consensus now." The beholder did not blink.

Nervously Sememmon cleared his throat. "Aye, indeed… but what do you propose?"

"I believe," Fzoul said steadily, "that the most powerful mages among us here now should go to Shadowdale immediately and do whatever is necessary to capture or destroy this Shandril, Elminster or no Elminster. As we are not sending incompetent or weak magelings, as you have so correctly advised us against, brother Sememmon, I have every confidence that you shall return with spellfire, if you return at all."

The mages Sememmon, Ashemmi, and Yarkul went white and silent. Only the wizard Sarhthor looked unsurprised. He merely nodded. Sememmon looked up to find that Manxam had silently rolled over so that its central eye, the one that foiled magic, gazed at them all.

Now the reason for seating the mages together around one end of the table was all too apparent. Manxam and Fzoul were just too far away for them both to be caught in a timestop spell, and no other magic would allow Sememmon to ready an item of art to strike at Fzoul or Manxam. Certainly he could not strike at both-nor was there a great chance of besting Fzoul here, in his temple. Against Manxam, the mage knew he stood almost no chance at all.

Sememmon doubted he could even escape alive from The Black Altar if he merely tried to flee. Perhaps if he, Ashemi, Yarkul, and Sarhthor all worked together, with spells planned beforehand, they might have a chance to escape. If Casildar and Zhessae, as well as any number of loyal clerics hiding on all sides behind the tapestries, were ready to aid Fzoul in his trap, escape would be impossible. Sememmon kept his face expressionless with an effort, and turned to Fzoul directly.

"It certainly seems the right thing to do, brother Fzoul," he said, as if considering and approving. "However, I feel most uneasy in undertaking such a mission-or indeed, any major expedition outside the city-without even a single priest of Bane to pray for our success and aid us with the favor of the god's will. What say you, Lord Marsh, as one who neither serves Bane nor works art?"

Weaken them at least by one priest, Sememmon thought, and cut that one down as a warning to Fzoul. And if we win the spellfire, we'll come back and try it on one of the beholders. Had Fzoul done something to Manshoon? Sememmon wondered with a sudden chill. Perhaps Manshoon was behind this, to be rid of all his most powerful rivals in art in the brotherhood. If not, and he did return, would Fzoul tell him that all the mages had denounced him and gone off to act as they pleased?

Lord Marsh rubbed his jaw, frowning at the tabletop, thereby avoiding both the calm scrutiny of the beholder and the icy stares of Fzoul, Casildar, and Zhessae. He then looked up. "I must concur with you on this, brother Sememmon. We have always won our greatest gains by careful use of all three of our strengths: the favor of great Bane; the versatile art of mages; and the might of the swords of our men-at-arms. It would go ill to deliberately neglect more than one of those strengths now.

"Our men-at-arms cannot reach the dale in time without use of art, or in numbers enough to be useful without alarming our foes. We must, therefore, forego our warriors. I believe that it would be foolish-as foolish as deliberately going into battle without shield and armor-to abandon also the strength of Bane in this matter. Moreover, I feel that the warriors under me, and probably many underclerics and magelings here and in Darkhold, would think the same-and seriously question our collective wisdom in doing so, whatever the outcome of the venture."

With that emphatic point. Marsh sat back and looked directly at Fzoul, fingers toying with a bauble at his throat which Sememmon, and no doubt most of the others at the table, knew to be an explosive globe from a magical necklace of missiles. Sememmon almost smiled. The hard-faced warrior was another who bore no love for the Master of The Black Altar.

The eye tyrant hung over them all this time, silent and terrible. Ignoring it, bearded Sarhthor rubbed his hands and said, "Well, I'm for such a strike, and the sooner the better. The spellfire must be ours."

Sememmon did not turn to look at his fellow mages, but nodded absently as he raged inwardly. Was the fool actually that simple and enthusiastic? Or was he working with Fzoul? Nay, listen to the way his words were spoken, the little soft twists at the end of the words that flashed like dagger blades turning over! Sarhthor was telling Fzoul, openly and cuttingly, that he knew Fzoul's game and thought very little of it.

"I'm so glad that we were able to come to an understanding so quickly," Fzoul said softly. His voice was like an assassin's bloody dagger being wiped clean on velvet.