Jhessail hissed in disgust and worked a spell. Whatever she tried to hurl turned into rippling silver flames in the air just beyond her fingertips, fire that snarled vainly toward the armored thing, but dwindled and faded before Florin could even draw breath.
Merith's blade bit into the silent thing's helm, but seemed not to bother it in the slightest. Old steel, it must be, and soft. Very old steel.
Old steel that still reached for Florin with chill patience, swooping around to his other flank, that chorus of tiny fangs gnashing and clattering. Merith pursued it, whipping his blade around sidearm like a flail, hacking until fingertips flew. Florin Falconhand leaned into the heart of that singing steel and slid his own stout sword home, deep between the fingers and up the arm behind, armor plates rippling.
Still no blood, but unseen force shoved against him until his hilt fetched up against spasming fingers. Merith grinned as he pruned fingers-and winced back from the sudden flood of sparks that marked Jhessail's dagger-thrust through the open front of the helm into the baleful nothingness there.
The dark armor tumbled away, falling and fading at once. With a faint clank and rattle it was gone, leaving three panting Knights facing each other across unmarked, smooth whiteness, ringed by apparently curious mists.
"What was it?" Jhessail asked, a little wild-eyed. She worked her fingers as if she could still feel something, around the hilt of a dagger that was clouded as if with frost.
Merith shrugged. "Now, do I look like Elminster?" he teased.
Florin, who was darting glances in all directions, took time enough to eye the white semi-statue he knew to be the Old Mage, and frowned. "You will know who to trust, and what to do," he murmured. "I think not."
Suddenly he was staring into the glittering eyes of a skull-faced man in robes who'd just winked into visibility among the strands off to his right.
" 'Ware!" he snapped, hefting his sword, but before the word had quite left his lips the lich-if that's what it had truly been-was gone.
Jhessail tossed her head, nodding to tell Florin she'd seen it too, and backed her hips toward his even before the ranger commanded, "Back to back! That thing could reappear any-"
"Naeth," Merith cursed, as quite a different undead man-one wearing a crown askew on its yellowed skull, and an armored tabard of arcane design-blinked into existence not ten paces away. It gave them a cold stare 'ere it vanished again, just as suddenly.
"Knights!" Jhessail cried, and in response two swords whistled past her shoulders to bite where her dagger couldn't reach.
The lich that had just appeared-a female with blackened teeth dropping like shed pearls from sagging jaws as she reared back from clawing at Jhessail to avoid the two points of thrumming steel-tried to smile, her head twisted to one side and wobbling sickeningly, before she winked out of existence again.
"D'you think our presence here is drawing them?" Merith asked, swinging back to his former position, to peer again into mists all around, his blade up and ready.
"I wouldn't doubt it," Florin replied. "Things seem… whiter, somehow, just here."
"And spreading out from here," Merith added.
"Spreading from Dove and Elminster," Jhessail murmured. "I'd like to know why they did-whatever they did, bonding with these strands."
"I think they're… powering this place, somehow, or augmenting its forces… or something," Merith muttered.
"Thank you, sage most learned," Florin chuckled. "Yet I find I must agree. That musing feels right, somehow. That thing we fought, and the liches, are probably drawn to El and my lady-love, not we three."
"But why?" Jhessail hissed, almost weary. "What is this place?"
Something arose out of a drift of mists at her feet and soared steadily upright. She almost stabbed at it 'ere she saw sapphire-blue hair, elfin features, and a smile that she could only term "tender."
"This is a place only the Weave can reach, now," a musical voice replied. "Well met, Knights of Myth Dran-nor. Be welcome. You are needed. You see, there are liches-and there are liches."
This apparition was certainly easier on the eyes than the others. The three Knights beheld an elf of dainty stature, curvaceous and yet so slender as to be wasp-waisted, with a glorious fall of rich sapphire-blue hair, eyes like beaten gold, and that gentle smile. She wore a tur-quoise-and-moonstone girdle around her hips, leggings of turquoise shimmerweave, and a matching breastplate trimmed with golden teardrops. Her skin was a pale tan, and her tiny hands were empty and… fading, going swiftly translucent and… she was gone again, leaving only mists behind.
Jhessail sighed. "So 'there are liches-and there are liches.' As my life unfolds, I increasingly find that I hate cryptic utterances and mysterious puzzles. Would it not be easier and more efficient for all if folk simply spoke plainly?"
She turned to her mate, only to find Merith staring past her at Florin, his eyes wide with wonder. "Was that-?"
Florin nodded once. "You think so, too?"
Whatever else any of the Knights might have gone on to say then was dashed into forgetfulness forever by another looming apparition, appearing out of a sudden swirl of mists between Florin and Jhessail.
They found themselves close enough to smell its whiff of herbs and faint decay, and brought their blades up.
It was an elf taller than Florin, retreating swiftly even before their warsteel menaced it, gliding back from between the ranger and the mage as it cast glances of silent alarm at all three Knights, out of eyes that were two glowing white motes in deep, hollow sockets.
It looked… dead, its skin faint blue and shriveled. In clawlike hands it clutched a fell scepter, nigh as long as one of its legs, that whispered of stored magic. It wore an ornate tabard of archaic design over robes of white silk that age had darkened to black in every crease and curl. The Knights of Myth Drannor had met baelnorn before, and knew it for what it was.
Merith bowed and spoke to it in the tongue of elves, adding the lilts and nourishes he'd heard the eldest of his kin use: "Revered Guardian, we are well met, for there is no quarrel between us. We stray and are lost, and would fain know: What is this place, and what guard you here?"
Any elf who has a right eye of blue and a left one of green, as Merith did, was used to sharp and appraising glances from other elves, but he was sure it was his speech that earned him the hard stare, and the muttered reply, "I guard the Weaving of Raulauve, and you should not be here, thaes. Yet I begin to think I should not be here, for I feel the Weaving but faintly. What is this place?"
"In truth, we know not," Merith replied.
The glowing eyes nickered at that, and blazed with sudden fire. "So you intrude, and must be slain!"
The scepter flashed up, Jhessail hissed in exasperation and ducked aside-and Florin's long sword stabbed low and swift over her shapely back and through a bony blue wrist before that scepter could be aimed precisely.
The baelnorn struggled to move its hand as it desired, to bring the scepter down, but Florin's transfixing steel and strength prevented it-and Merith's blade struck its other hand aside.
There was a flash from somewhere behind the undead elf, in the curling mists, and Jhessail and Merith shot glances that way in time to see a second baelnorn, some thing its wielder had not expected.
The baelnorn facing the Knights chose that moment to voice its own frustration with a hiss very like that Jhessail had made. Still wrestling against Florin's brawn, it triggered its own scepter.
There was a flash, a flood of drifting sparks, and… nothing but empty air, the mist shrinking back as if afraid or revolted. The baelnorn gaped at the widening drift of fading, winking-out sparks in shocked dismay, its face a mask of bewilderment. It vanished-scepter, astonishment, and all-half a breath before the distant baelnorn winked out of existence too.