An unfamiliar, disembodied voice murmured something, and a tiny whirling glow erupted from the flying beholder.
Elminster knew that voice.
So, now … before whatever magic Manshoon was trying to visit on them could erupt, let’s just send it elsewhere-along the magical link binding this forceblade to Mreldrake, for instance!
Smiling grimly, he spent a little silver fire to do just that.
Oooh, Symrustar applauded. Nasty.
The sealed doors of Mreldrake’s room were flung open. His three captors burst in, not troubling to hide from him that they were shades in their frantic haste.
They were just in time to be caught, along with Mreldrake, in the spell lashing out from the tiny beholder.
The mindscrambling made Mreldrake and the closest Netherese shriek helplessly, as pain stabbed through their heads.
For everyone in that room, the world stretched impossibly, and started to swirl …
As he was swept away into madness, the slowest, farthest-back shade managed to snap out a ready spell.
The eyeball beholderkin was small, and close, so it had no chance to escape.
It burst, sending a harmful backlash to the one who’d sent the mindscrambling.
The backlash howled into the cellar, into Manshoon-and his head exploded.
Or rather, Sraunter’s body was beheaded. The alchemist was already standing behind the war wizard, his hand on Everwood’s shoulder, so Manshoon simply left one expendable pawn for another.
He flooded into the dazed, brains-bespattered Crown mage’s mind and seared it to nothing.
Everwood trembled and spasmed for what seemed forever, but was in truth no more than a few fleeting instants.
Then he grew still again-burnt out, a vessel for the future emperor of Cormyr.
Who made Everwood smile more cruelly than the young war wizard had ever smiled in his life.
This new body was young and strong, and fairly competent in Art. In less time than it took Manshoon to swallow his own anger-or Sraunter’s headless body to topple to the floor, forgotten-Manshoon gathered all the magic he could bring to hand, that he could link together with a spell already in his mind.
And he hurled it all at the three shades in Mreldrake’s room.
The shades clawed at each other, their mad shouts slurred, as they staggered helplessly and nigh mindlessly around Mreldrake’s prison.
Hostile magic suddenly erupted into the room, lashing them with emerald flame that snarled and rebounded off the walls-and was gone again, just as suddenly, as its fury overwhelmed the tenuous linkage between the room and its distant source.
Mreldrake and the shades gasped in agony, but their pain passed as swiftly as it had come.
Whatever the flame attack had been, it had failed-and shattered the mindscrambling afflicting them in doing so.
Wincing and groaning, the shades hurried out of the room and spell-sealed it again, to cast shielding spells on themselves as fast as they could.
They paid no attention to their unconscious captive, left behind sprawled on the floor.
Above Mreldrake’s unconscious body, his spell collapsed.
And in distant Irlingstar, his forceblade silently faded away.
“We’ve got to get out of here! All of us!”
If the kitchen staff or the guards of Irlingstar were unwilling to take orders from a dark elf-even a beautiful female one-they didn’t show it. Elminster rushed up and down the passages, parting the wards to let prisoners out of their cells. She was ordering the abandonment of Castle Irlingstar immediately, regardless of what Ganrahast or anyone else might say or think later. No one argued.
A few of the freed prisoners promptly attacked her-or Gulkanun, or Rune and Arclath-and there were several brief, nasty tussles, but every one of them ended with the nobles defeated. Nor were hostilities renewed; the promise of getting out of “this deathtrap,” backed up by the fear of being left behind, alone and warded into a cell without food or water to face the unseen slayer, convinced everyone.
In a surprisingly short time, they were gathered at the main gates, and then spilling out of the castle together-cooks, guards, prisoners, staff, and all. Only to come to a dismayed halt.
Something blocked Orondstars Road. Something large, dark, and scaly.
The black dragon Alorglauvenemaus was waiting for them, and it was smiling. Its first spew of acid melted the frontrunners into wounded, dying agony.
One of them was Elminster.
Panting in pain, her legs gone at the knees and her pelvis and belly slowly melting, El propped herself on one elbow and fought to make her failing body cast protective magic.
Now, El. Now I repay you, by giving you my last. I loved you. Farewell, old rogue-and conquer!
Symrustar’s mind-voice was warm and weeping. Before El could even think of a protest, the last of her washed through his mind, clearing it of pain, of weary worrying, of everything except what had to be done. A shielding, thus …
Amid all the shouting, scattering, fleeing folk of Irlingstar, she was almost done, gasping and shuddering out the last words of the spell, when the dragon noticed her.
Alorglauvenemaus turned its head toward the nearest trees of Hullack Forest, hard by the road, and commanded, “Now.”
Two crossbows cracked, and two heavy war quarrels sped out of the treegloom. One took the struggling drow through the shoulder, and the other tore out her throat on its way past.
Even before Rune could gasp, Harbrand and Hawkspike stepped out of concealment to peer at the results of their archery. Each of them trailed the bow they’d just fired, and cradling a second, loaded crossbow.
Seeing that the drow was down, they stepped back into the forest. Whereupon Amarune ducked her head down and sprinted for Elminster, Arclath right behind her.
She was halfway there when a crossbow quarrel crashed into her shoulder, plucked her off her running feet, and left her down and sobbing in the road.
Arclath flung himself atop her, to shield her. Gulkanun fell to the ground right behind him.
“Can you heal her?” Arclath asked the war wizard pleadingly.
Gulkanun shook his head and snapped, “Stay with her. I’ll go to Elminster. If anyone knows how to twist this or that handy arcane spell into healing, she will. Er, he will.”
“Yes, but-”
“I’m doing this,” Gulkanun said flatly. “Even if it means the end of me, that … matters not. Nothing matters, since my Longclaws was taken from me.”
He rolled over and up, leaping to his feet and running, changing direction sharply once, twice, and-a crossbow quarrel slammed into him as he reached Elminster.
Snarling in pain, he fell onto what was left of the dying drow. Silver fire flared, the quivering shaft of the quarrel melted away-and Elminster flooded into Gulkanun’s mind.
The wizard rolled over, dragging the dissolving drow torso over as a shield, and worked a swift spell. Then he stood up to face the dragon.
“Oh, that was boldly done,” Alorglauvenemaus said mockingly, and he spewed a great cloud of acid right at Gulkanun.
Another rift closed, and of course more monsters slain. At last.
The Simbul stared at deep gashes in her left shoulder as she drifted away from her latest battlefield, exhausted and reeling. The blueflame items in her hands flickered dully, almost spent.
“I am becoming blueflame,” she mumbled. “Mystra, it hurts, and the madness is coming back … I can feel it …”
Not long now, loyal daughter, came Mystra’s firm reply. Not long until you can rest forever.