Bury Elminster Deep

The second book of the Sage of Shadowdale trilogy, Bury Elminster Deep, picks off right where the previous one ended. Elminster has been reduced into a cloud of ashes by Manshoon and now shares the body of his descendant, Amarune Whitewave. In her body, El rushes into the woods to follow the call of Mystra, the s'posedly dead goddess of magic.

The old sage finds Mystra, or her presence, in some random bear cave. She asks Elminster to continue his task of preserving magic and protecting its creation, and also to find her new agents since her old Chosens are mostly gone. In her current state, Mystra can't do anything to El's lack of a body but is able to increase the amount he is able to cast spells before losing his mind. (Or that's how I understood it anyway.)

That's where the godly matters stopped, though, and became more "mundane". The nobles of Cormyr are gathering to the capital city, Suzail, for the Council, where the king listens to their wishes and whines, and maybe does something about them. And of course things don't going smoothly with the ever-scheming highborn. Especially now with Manshoon aiming to become the emperor of Cormyr and causing as much chaos as possible. And so Elminster and others return to the city to save the realm in peril of a civil war.

Besides Rune, helping the mage are of course Astorma Silverhand, and the young Lord Arclath Delcastle, who's very fond of Rune but not the fact the old wizard is riding along in her body. His mistrust toward El and Storm is in ridiculous levels for the first half of the book (before El pops into his body as well), getting the good guys in all kinds of unnecessary trouble. It's very hard to understand his behaviour -- for fuck's sake, they are the Sage and Bard of Shadowdale! It's been a hundred years but Arclath is a noble. You'd think they get some sort of history education.

They are also joined by Mirt the Moneylender, a Lord of Waterdeep, who in the previous novel was freed from a magical hand axe. And who is also a character of the past, but thanks to his imprisonment, survives to see the 4th edition Forgotten Realms. I found him very amusing.

In fact, the whole matter of realm saving gets almost comical in how the protagonists multiple times sneak into the royal palace, get chased by the war wizards and purple dragons (the military force, not actual dragons) of Cormyr, and then retreat when things get too complicated. The pacing of the story is quite frantic, and there are very few breath times before the action continues.

Typically to Ed Greenwood, there are a shit ton of characters again. It's amazing how the whole thing stays together in an entertaining and surprisingly tight package. I read a few reviews where people complained they couldn't keep up with what was happening and who was who. I had no such problem. I read the book in two gos, though. That might have helped a bit.

One odd and just stupid character was Lady Glathra Barcantle, a mage who's in charge of the war wizards while the royal magician is gone. She doesn't stand Elminster nor his friends at all, making their work very difficult. Even after the royal magician is saved from the coffin, where he was put in stasis in the previous book, and takes charge, Glathra tries stubbornly to undermine the heroes.

At least things get bit calmer when Manshoon learns that Elminster has survived. The vampire mage shifts his focus back to his obsession of eliminating the Sage of Shadowdale, who finally learns it's Manshoon behind the attacks. It was about time, if you ask me. Elminster is also provided a body by the previous royal court wizard of Cormyr, Vangerdahast, who somehow still lives (though not in the best of conditions -- "wrathlike head with spidery finger legs"). Archmages die hard.

Elminster still wants to restore The Simbul's aka Alassra Silverhand's sanity and makes a plan of obtaining a blueflame item an unknown noble has. The plan succeeds but as Elminster, Rune, Arclath, and Storm rush into the royal palace to use the portal that would take them to the King's Forest where Alassra is chained in a cave, they are followed be Manshoon, some Lady of Ghosts -- who was introduced halfway through the book and who controls five blueflame items -- and Glathra who, despite the royal magician's orders, attemps to stop the party.

She reaches them first and launches a fiery attack at the party. Elminster blocks it but is burned to ashes again. The body wasn't exactly his, just some war wizard's whose mind was blown into oblivion by Manshoon, but still, why does Glathra even exist? And how did she even get into her position with the way she acts? At least she then gets bruised by Rune and Storm. Mirt stays to guard her while the rest continue their way to Simbul (Elminster riding in Arclath's body).

Alassra absorbs the magic of the blueflame beltbuckle and evidently gains her sanity permantly back. She also seems to have gained demigodly powers at some point as she simply destroys the Lady of Ghosts and then restores Elminster's proper body like it was no big deal at all. And then things get interesting.

She tells Elminster and Manshoon -- who has followed in the body of one of his beholders -- to start working with each other to gather all the blueflame items and use them to close the rifts the Weave's collapse caused or ancient Primordials will enter Toril and destroy all races. The grand theme of D&D 4E, but it feels rather silly and sudden in a book that has been about the happenings of just one kingdom.

Manshoon, being a mad and evil, seems reluctant to even hear what The Simbul has to say. She threatens to spellscourge him to obey, however, and apparently she has the power to do so because Manshoon believes her. After getting him and Elminster to agree, she teleports away for some task Mystra has set for her, though, and Manshoon of course chooses to give zero shits about saving the world now that no one is threatening him, and instead comes after Elminster.

El has the time to whisk Rune, Arclath, and Storm away and start running before Manshoon arrives. Be it because he couldn't prepare or because Mystra doesn't strengthen him with the Weave anymore, Elminster stands no chance and Manshoon burns his restored body to ashes... again...

Of course, Elminster still doesn't die but his ashes seep through the ground, all the way into the upper caverns of the Underdark and a chuckle can be heard. (How does a cloud of ashes chuckle anyway?) The next book's, Elminster Enraged, description says he inhabits the body of a fallen dark elf and starts rallying Cormyr's war wizards to find the blueflame items.

Sounds promising but there was no fault in this one either. Well, apart from Glathra and the first half's Arclath. I would even go as far as to say that Bury Elminster Deep is probably one of Greenwood's best novels.

Also, the cover art is much better than in the previous one, even though the artist is the same, Ketai Kotaki. I think it's because there's only one prevalent color on the front cover this time.