Lance after lance thudded home-the thing’s hide wasn’t all that tough, after all-but the glaragh didn’t even seem to notice.
The barrage ended as the drow defenders ran out of loaded and ready arraugra. El could see sleek dark bodies dashing around on balconies trying to reload, but the glaragh wasn’t waiting. It plunged straight into the midst of a hastily assembling wall of warriors in front of the citadel’s nearest gate, and kept right on going.
It swept inside, where it couldn’t help but get stuck in the narrow passages and tiny rooms, smooth though their walls undoubtedly were. Dark elf architecture might favor the sweeping curve and the smooth surface, but tight quarters were tight-
The glaragh thrust itself into a very narrow passage, thinning down like a ribbon, then suddenly surged. The rock around it groaned and shattered in countless places, falling away in a thunder of rubble from which the glaragh freed itself with two great sweeps of its tail, and surged on.
There was a crack followed by a rumbling fall, and then the same tumult repeated itself. Mined at its heart, the great citadel was falling in.
Much of the stronghold’s center-the prow itself-had been hollowed out by the glaragh in less time than it would take Elminster to get out a wand, and the glaragh was stabbing with its head into the open sides of shattered rooms, biting and sucking. Drow fought vainly against the pursuing tentacles thrusting out of the great worm’s sides-and were gone.
Whereupon the glaragh fell silent and still.
Then, the moment the echoes of its destruction had finally died and stillness had fallen, the creature suddenly rose again in one great heave. That mighty convulsion preceded a mental onslaught that smote Elminster like a tidal wave, a thunderous silent darkness that broke over his thoughts and almost swept him away, dragging him far closer to the glaragh than he’d ever intended to get.
As it happened, he’d been watching some drow mages hurriedly claw out enchanted scepters to deal with the invader, so he saw the effects of the glaragh’s mind attack all too clearly. One moment the dark elves were all frenzied agility, scrambling to undo latches and pluck out wrapped and stored scepters-and the next, they crumpled like so many discarded puppets, emptied of will and wits, toppling like mindless meat to the floor. One even heedlessly impaled himself on his own scepter.
Somehow-he never knew quite how-Elminster tore himself away from the glaragh’s pull, free of the dark and hungry mind that sought to lure and feed on his, and got a good look at the face of one fallen drow mage. Eyes blank, mouth open and drooling, everything slack. Mindless meat, to be sure.
Behind him, the glaragh gave another great heave, slicing off the mind pull as if with a falling knife. Then the great worm veered. A lash of its tail swept more rooms down into ruin and gave it space enough to freely turn around and depart.
It glided out into the cavern more slowly than it had charged the citadel, and paused. It seemed to sniff the available passages before choosing one-turning again into the breeze-and plunging on into the Underdark. The jaunty flick of its tail as it left the cavern behind seemed almost … satisfied.
Elminster watched it go. He had already decided to stay behind in the citadel. Among so many mindless drow bodies, he might well find a new body for himself. Dark elves were nothing if not supple, and-Mystra!
What by all the Nine Flaming Hells?
He had not felt that sudden tingling stealing into him for years, had not thought to ever feel it again. A cool sweetness, the almost sensual rising tide within him that made him purr aloud involuntarily, a soft growling that spat brief silver flames in front of his nose.
The silver fire.
Mystra’s divine fire was flowing into him from somewhere nearby, somewhere in the shattered citadel!
Astonished, Elminster forgot all about the glaragh and turned his attention to the ruins around him. The great prow had been split open, its center destroyed. Below him yawned a rubble-filled gulf. The prow had been reduced to two torn, separate walls of rock, with nothing between them but debris and a few sagging walls and pillars that wouldn’t stand for long ere they joined the heaped and broken stone below.
He felt invigorated, stronger than ever. Well, of course he would, with this new fire in him-but he had to know who was dying, which Chosen of Mystra was sinking into death and yielding up their divine fire, leaking it out into the Realms around. He must know!
And who dared to slay a Chosen of Mystra?
Aglow with silver fire, wild with the excitement such energy always brought him, and hungry for more, the swift stream of radiant ashes that was Elminster arrowed down into the ruins.
Who or what was waiting in there that could slay keepers of the divine fire of the goddess of all magic?
CHAPTER THREE
El plunged into shattered rooms, through arches that leaned and ceilings that sagged, seeking silver fire.
Its flow into him had faded swiftly after that first flood, down to a trickle. Which meant he had to hurry …
Broken drow bodies were everywhere, half-buried in rubble, wet ribbons of blood running from under many stone piles.
Less gruesome but more eerie were the last victims of the glaragh, the untouched but mindless bodies draped and sprawled atop the rubble.
El darted past them, racing this way and that, following the fading trail of Mystra’s divine fire deeper into what was left of the citadel … into the intact rooms on one side of the devastation.
He would be finding death, he knew, the last moments of someone who might well be dear to him. Was this Mystra’s will, this timing? The fire her gift to him?
That might be the most comforting way to think of it, aye, but …
What if it was a trap? What if he was rushing to his doom? Lured by someone or something eager to slay Chosen, or someone who cared not who came racing, but would smite any unwelcome arrival?
He cared not. He had to know who was relinquishing silver fire, had to taste more of it if he could, had to … had to …
El came at last into a room where grandly robed drow lay slumped in profusion-spider priestesses and mages-around a table where chains held spread-eagled remains that had been butchered beyond recognition. The sacrifice, or victim, had been both a Chosen and a she-elf. He could tell that much.
Grim anger grew in him as he came nearer. The drow had removed organs from her, and cast experimental spells on her, while she lived.
A jar still cradled in the arms of one crumpled and mindless dark elf held a freshly severed human tongue, and … were those eyeballs, glistening on a tray across the room?
Aye, staring sightlessly now, forever. Black rage flared, rising until Elminster wanted to snarl, or choke. As ashes, he could do neither; he could only swirl.
This death will be paid for. This I swear.
He looked wildly around for a greater foe, but saw or sensed no one. Only all these cruel, now mindless drow …
Dark rage rode him. He was trembling, every ash mote of him. He did not know which was stronger: his grief or his rage.
Mingled with them was shame, as El furiously circled in the air above the sad remnants of a fellow Chosen he could neither name nor aid. Feeling no better than her drow tormentors, he fed on her instead, drinking in the very last of Mystra’s fire escaping from her.
Those precious silver flames streamed past a trail of purple and black fire tracing a slow and endless circle in midair above the blood-drenched table; a poorly crafted dark elf spell that had sought to capture the escaping divine essence for drow use. It had failed. El gave it a glance. Such magic could never have contained the silver fire …