Their disappearance left Florin wincing and shaking his numbed hand, the sword it held frosted over and thrumming no longer.
Jhessail was already looking around, rather wildly, in all directions-at nothing but mist, mist, and more curling mist. "I'd give a lot to know why Elminster brought us here, where and what 'here' is, and just what we're supposed to do. If we're going to be facing one foe after another, translocating in under our noses out of nowhere, it's only a matter of time before-"
" 'Ware!" Florin snapped, whirling around.
It was another lich, shorter and more withered and gaunt than the previous ones. Florin's blade sliced into the hand it was raising, and bit through a staring eye that had just opened in its withered palm. The lich vanished in a burst of blue flame and acrid smoke, taking the tip of Florin's sword with it.
The ranger studied the clean, squared-off end of his shortened blade just long enough to be sure the metal wasn't melting away further or trying to turn into something else.
Then he turned to Merith, who looked ashen, and asked, "What befalls?"
The elf Knight sighed. "Did you see the sigil in that lichnee's palm? Around the eye that was trying to get a look at us?"
"Not well enough to draw it properly, no, but I'd probably recognize it again," Florin replied. "What of it?"
"It's one of the signs of Larloch," Merith said grimly. "That lich was his, and he was probably looking through that eye."
Jhessail winced. "Did we blind him? Or just cut off his view through that lich?"
"Just cut off his view, most likely."
Merith delivered that judgement as if it comforted him not at all. Reaching a long arm around Jhessail's shoulders, he drew her close, hugged her tight, and kissed her fiercely and swiftly-'ere whirling away, sword up, to glare all around, as if expecting an onrushing foe in the next breath.
He didn't have to say a word to tell her: I want to do this, because for one or both of us, this kiss may be our last.
His lady sighed. "So there are liches, and then there are liches. Baelnorns don't seem pleased to find us here, but don't know where 'here' is, and their magic fails them in this place. And then there are Larloch's liches. Marvellous. That brings us not a stride closer to knowing what's going on, or what we're supposed to be doing."
"Ride easy, Jhess," Florin said as they returned to standing back to back, looking outward with weapons ready. "There are worse fates than not knowing what's going on. After all, that's the life most folk in Faerun live, almost all their days."
"Your words are both clever and utter failures as reassurance," Jhessail told him, but her voice was more amused than angry. "At least that baelnorn stood in the same boots as we do: not knowing what was going on."
"Yet it should not have attacked so swiftly," Merith mused. "And its eyes seemed to change then."
"Aye, I saw that too," Florin agreed. "Could something- or someone-be controlling it?" He peered into the mists for a few moments then added, "I understood its speech well, old stylings, flutings and all, save for one word. What means 'thaes'?"
Merith's head turned far enough that the ranger could see one end of his frown. "An exact translation is difficult, but… 'young stranger-elf?' "lis a neutral word, but wary, combining 'I know you not' with something of'there is no hostility between us-yet.' However, the Revered said something far more interesting than one old, little-used word. It spoke of its duty to guard the Weaving of Raulauve. Now, Raulauve is the name of an elf, not a place-but by 'Weaving', I tell you true, he meant a mythal."
"So the baelnorn was a mythal-guard," Jhessail murmured. "And surprised to find itself away from its mythal. Wherefore it did or experienced nothing unusual to bring itself here." She stared into the endless mists. "I wonder if someone else fetched it here, and tried to turn it against us?"
"Larloch, you're thinking," Florin said.
Jhessail spread her hands. "Does it not seem more than merely possible? Yet its master could be a thousand-thousand other beings, or a chain of old spells, or other causes entirely, I grant. To be certain, we'll have to see if all the liches bear some mark of Larloch, or proclaim allegiance to him. If other baelnorns-or anyone or anything else-appear, we must try to learn by sign or speech if anyone is compelling them."
Merith nodded. "Baelnorns do not usually behave thus; that much is certain."
Florin gave him a sudden sidelong grin. "Oh? You've met many?"
The darkly handsome moon elf did not smile back. "Ask me not. Please."
"I'd give a lot to know why my spells turn to harmless flames," Jhessail muttered, "but all manner of creatures seem able to translocate here freely-and at least one creature is able to farscry through a lich, and at least one creature can magically or mentally control a baelnorn." She looked from Merith to Florin and back, and added, "And spare me the clever comments about every mortal desiring to know the whys and wherefores of their life, but only the gods being cursed to understand such things."
Obligingly, the other two Knights gave her silence-in which they shared a wink.
Jhessail rolled her eyes at that, and observed, "As I started to say earlier, it's going to be but a matter of time before one of these sudden arrivals manages to slay or wound one of us-and if we all stand wary with weapons ready, we'll eventually grow too tired to defend ourselves, and-"
"My, you're in a dark mood this even, my love," Merith said, stroking her cheek in the manner he knew she liked. "Stand easy, whilst Florin and I think awhile. Our wits move more slowly than yours, mi-"
A drift of mist not far from them turned golden, a warm glimmering that became firelight. The Knights found themselves peering, as if through a window in thickly-swirling mists that seemed for a moment like the falling snows of Shadowdale in deep winter, into a firelit study. There an elf with skin like silver metal, wearing a strange upswept tabard, sat upon a floating-on-air couch, intently studying a tome bound in dragonhide.
Jhessail leaned forward in quickening interest, angling her head to try to catch a glimpse of what was written on those pages. The elf seemed to sense he was being watched, and lifted his head to glare at her-or past her, not quite seeing her-with rose-red eyes that were sharp with anger.
He waved a long-fingered hand in an intricate spell-weaving none of the Knights recognized. They hastily scattered, out of long habit, only to watch whatever it was flare up golden… and turn to rippling silver flames that faded away in an instant, a mere handspan away from the hand that had birthed them.
The elf sprang from his crouch, anger turning to real alarm at what his spell had become, and flung his spellbook away. It grew fins or spines that looked swordblade-sharp, and flew away, swooping in a tight arc like a swallow, to vanish from view beyond the edges of the window in the mist.
The elf mage snatched up a staff that crackled with power. The staff grew blades, glittering with moon-runes, from both ends. He brandished it, silently shouting something at the adventurers he could not see.
The window drifted closed again, leaving the Knights blinking at white mist, and at each other.
"Hey-hah," Jhessail muttered. "Wondrous strange. Was this scene sent to us as some sort of message, or are we just standing in a place that touches many other places, often, and-" She shrugged in bewilderment.
"Your guess," said Florin, "is as grand as mine own. That elf mage was familiar to none of us, right?"
Merith and Jhessail both started to shake their heads- and the light changed behind Merith. He whirled around to face the flare, and flung up a hand in warning.