Then, just days ago, a dragon-a dragon! — had arrowed out of the skies to try to wrest open the top of one of the keep’s walled-up and abandoned north-facing towers. Why that particular tower, and what it might contain, were matters of pure speculation to the current monks. The gigantic black wyrm had almost reached its goal thanks to the woman riding it. No one had recognized that rider, but her magic had forced back the Great Shield so far that the mightily flapping dragon’s straining claws had almost raked the tower’s spire before Great Reader Asmurom had used a Rune of Warding to hurl both dragon and rider into another plane of existence.
Those runes, personally bestowed on the monastery by Deneir and Oghma, were precious and irreplaceable. There were now, so far as the Avowed knew, only four of them left.
And who had that dragonrider been? And his what-what-had she sought?
Elminster had no better answers than the bewildered monks, and well understood their consternation. If the armies besieging Myth Drannor marched on Candlekeep, just how long would the Great Shield stand? And how long would the remaining handful of Runes of Warding last?
He could craft replacement runes, as it happened, though doing so was neither swift nor easy. Yet if confronted as to where he, Andannas Dalkur, had been, it gave him a ready answer: He’d been off alone searching the many, many books of Candlekeep to find instructions for raising a rune he knew to be coded and hidden therein-knew because he’d found tantalizing fragments of four separate writings, by different sages, and just needed to follow the cryptic clues to find the other parts of the four processes. Should he find them, he would of course have to experiment with actually crafting the rune, and such perilous experiments were traditionally done in the deepest caverns beneath the keep itself.
An excellent excuse for what he’d really be doing-which was, of course, seeking the writings he needed to rebuild the Weave, all at once rather than in painstakingly slow and piecemeal mendings here, there, and everywhere. Mendings that took much too long to rescue Faerûn from its current tumult.
If he’d had a leisurely lifetime ahead in which to study, he could have just read his way through book after book-for his Mystra and Mystryl before her, not to mention Azuth and Savras and even Selûne and, for that matter, Jergal, had instructed many mortals in Weave work down the unfolding centuries, and even the gods might not know how many mortals had taken up quills and written of what they’d learned.
Yet that siege wouldn’t last forever, and Shar had been draining captured Chosen like an insatiable devourer all year long, and so he lacked time to do much of anything properly or carefully. As usual. Which meant he had to seek out the writings by one man he knew had understood the Weave, and set down instructions and lore for later readers to find: Khelben Arunsun. His longtime colleague, the strict bark to his sly bite. They’d been very different men who’d shared all too little common ground, but if there was one thing El could trust in, it was the Blackstaff’s magic.
If he could find it. All he had to do, among all these thousands upon thousands of bound volumes and even more scrolls, was find those Khelben had written, rewritten, edited, or penned under names other than his own. Unfortunately, having detested the man’s stodgy, plodding, and dogmatic style, he’d paid as little attention to Khelben’s writings as he could. Which meant he could recall just six titles, knew of the existence of another ten or so … and remembered the contents of just two books, one of which would be no help at all in his present quest.
While impostors among the Avowed around him hindered him or even sought to kill him.
Just once he’d caught a glimpse of the other Andannas Dalkur from afar, across the central courtyard of the monastery, but the other monk had hastily turned away, pulled his cowl up over his head, and vanished through a door into a maze of passages that could have taken him almost anywhere within the fortress.
Lurking in hiding.
Elminster smiled wryly. As he was, himself-and judging by the bodies he’d found, more than one other might be doing as well, here in this great, gloomy stone pile of a monastery.
Lurking in hiding, while war and chaos raged and reigned all around.
There was a lot of that, these days.
It wasn’t much of an army camp. Tents huddled here and there in the seemingly unbroken forest. Even with all the felling for firewood and the digging of dung pits, the trees were so old and vast that the disturbances of the besiegers seemed lost among them. Those hidden and scattered tents actually formed a great ring around Myth Drannor, but far enough back from those soaring towers as to be out of earshot of the endless singing, that wordless chorus of song and chiming that was strangely alluring. And deeply unsettling. Elves were different, and the world would be a better place when they were all eradicated.
Not that his mission here would accomplish that. It would, however, put an end to the damnable singing.
Helgore of Thultanthar strode through the encampment undisguised, his cloak flapping, and shifting tongues of his own darkness traveled with him like so many striding shadows. Mercenaries aplenty were huddled around their cookfires and snoring in their tents. All of them seemed to be following orders: every tent had its pair of armed and watchful sentinels, standing back to back staring out into the dark forest, well away from the fires-and the light of every fire was shaded by shields driven into the earth at angles to form walls. Blackened shields of the older, heavier sort not favored in battles these days formed the bed of each fire, to keep flames from spreading and burning out the besiegers.
The sentinels watched Helgore as he passed, but not one of them was unwise enough to challenge him. The lone walker’s dark skin, emanation of shadows, and his face-two bright eyes staring out of roiling shadow-told them he was a shade, and his purposeful, even swaggering gait betokened high rank.
He should have been stopped and questioned, at the very least, but the hireswords weren’t looking for traitors who were shades.
Helgore’s lip curled. They should have been.
The sharp wits, forethought, and ruthlessness of Telamont Tanthul might prevent open rebellion, but the Shadovar Helgore had known all his life were constantly scheming to advance themselves and discredit others, and to let the princes of Shade know and see as little as possible of their true ambitions and deeds. Everyone had hidden wealth and weapons, and plans for a life outside Thultanthar that began with a swift escape from the city. And everyone was learning all they could of the suddenly tumultuous world around their city, with an eye to making use of what they learned for their own private advantage, in ways large and small, despite any plans for conquest the Most High might proceed with.
Helgore himself wouldn’t have dreamed of crossing the Most High in the smallest detail or degree, but he wouldn’t-couldn’t-have sworn the same for any of his fellow Shadovar. Even Maerandor.
Hmm. Perhaps especially Maerandor.
Helgore thrust that darkly amusing thought aside. What was ahead needed his full attention. The camps were behind him now, and he was heading up into the trampled clearing where wounded mercenaries were tended to, and those held in reserve were assembling. Swordcaptains gave Helgore hard and suspicious stares, but he ignored them, striding on toward the din of battle and the flaring, moving glows amid the trees that marked where elven armor was being tested. The hard way.
The front lines were within sight, not that the darkness of deepening night and all the trees made it easy to actually see anything. Myth Drannor was more tended forest than it was buildings, and entirely lacked walls, moats, ditches, or any of the other usual defensive barriers besiegers faced when attacking most cities.