There were tears in Alustriel’s eyes now, and running down Laeral’s cheeks, but their lips were firm lines of determination.
He found his own throat closing in grief, as he asked roughly, “And if I stand against ye both, what then, old friends? Foster daughters?”
Laeral lifted her chin. “Choose wisely, El. If you are not with the Moonstars, you are against the Moonstars.”
El looked from one tear-wet face to the other, his face as sad as theirs as he used the Weave to spin down streamers of power from the mighty wards of Candlekeep, spiraling eel-like tongues of energy that became two cocoons of force to imprison Alustriel and Laeral.
He saw surprise in their faces-that became astonishment as they tried to command the wards against him, and discovered that his control overrode theirs.
He didn’t wait to see more. Not that he’d ever seen the sense of wasting time in gloating, when there was something very needful that had to be done very swiftly if all this wasn’t to end in disaster. He had to work a difficult spell of his own, and very quickly.
He got the incantation off, and the gestures, and it began. Half-seen movement in the air in front of him, the edges of fingers, darting and interweaving like a great school of fish swarming in the air. Ghostly hands, scores of them, disembodied and swirling in front of him in a shield of sorts.
The moment they were a little more tangible, he sent them racing at Alustriel and Laeral in their whirling, now tightening cocoons. Those streams of slapping, clutching, clawing hands should hamper any spellcastings they might attempt-and hold the two women fast if they managed to banish the cocoons.
They didn’t try. Trading glances, they chanted the same spell in unison.
And shattered the ceiling of the cavern so it plummeted with a thunderous roar.
Elminster didn’t bother to stare upward. He knew what he’d see. Tons of rock, hurtling to crash down on him.
CHAPTER 9
The power of the Baelnorn’s spell was enough to force Helgore’s body back, arching in the throes of a violent shuddering, but his wards wrestled with the emerald flames, holding them at a standstill. Should they reach him, they would consume flesh and tissue, and send burning magic racing through his veins; the wards told him that much as they roiled and recoiled a few finger thicknesses from his skin.
And then the spent spell fell away.
Leaving Helgore smirking at Thurauvyn Nathalanorn, Guardian Undying of House Nathalanorn.
Time for a little goading. Fun, but more importantly, this baelnorn might be made to reveal useful things ere he destroyed it.
He could see the arch-topped stone double doors it guarded beyond it-through it, actually-and could just make out the House symbol sculpted in relief upon them. A salamander wreathed in flames, entwined around a great fish with long, whiplike barbels and a jutting, many-toothed lower jaw. All wreathed and overlaid with sinuous vines whose many tiny leaves looked like ivy. So, fire and water? Pah, it could signify anything.
“So tell me, unworthy guardian,” Helgore drawled, “why the world should remember House Nathalanorn? A few forgotten elves who comported themselves with great pride, no doubt, as all elves do. But had House Nathalanorn any real grounds for such hauteur? Who were they, and what did they achieve?”
“Nothing one who comes to destroy and despoil cares about,” the baelnorn replied coldly. “I’ll tell you nothing that will aid you in finding other crypts or making any good use of anything you find here. I am sworn, beyond death itself. So much is, I grant, obvious, but I am speaking with a human.”
“And we hairy, grasping, reeking barbarians are beneath you oh-so-superior Tel’Quess, is that it?”
“Race is not the major part of this. Youth and ignorance are. Grasping thieves and vandals of all shapes and natures are beneath the regard of House Nathalanorn,” said the baelnorn, drifting a little nearer.
Helgore retreated a step in the face of its chill.
“There is no more House Nathalanorn, old fool,” he told the undead guardian harshly. “You and your kin were forgotten an age ago, before the elves abandoned Myth Drannor to the forest, the roving beasts, and fell fiends. They remain forgotten now. I doubt if the precious coronal could name your family or recognize your blazon, if they were put before her now. You are not even memories-outside these few feet of passage and your own failing wits.”
“I have little doubt we are as nothing in your regard, creature of Telamont. Nothing more than a stronger arcanist of your own benighted city is-and your interest is spent on such powerful beings as targets to be undermined and thrown down in time, to your own advancement. If that is a life you find worthy, revel in it. You will not find much company of worth, however, swimming with you in those waters.”
Helgore shrugged. “I have no need of the adulation of others, dead elf. I know my place and my powers.”
“Knowledge born of a self-delusion so mighty is sure and certain indeed,” the baelnorn agreed caustically, drifting forward again.
This time, Helgore did not retreat, but took a deliberate step forward into the chill, his wards crackling and flaring purple in warning.
“It is past time I shattered your grating superiority, ancient fool,” he said, showing his teeth to the translucent skull face. “So let it begin between us.”
He drew back one arm as if to free it from sticky mud-and thrust it forward with crackling lines of purple-white lightning snarling from its fingertips.
The baelnorn regarded him expressionlessly from mere inches away, unmoving-and as unaffected as if his spell hadn’t existed at all.
“So, have you begun?” it asked mockingly, after Helgore’s lightning had died away. “Telamont is sure to be impressed by the swift and easy victory of his most capable agent.”
“Still your tongue,” Helgore replied venomously. “The tongue you no longer truly possess, yes? Just as you have lost all else of worth in your existence. Lovers, a body to love them with, kin, reputation … all gone. You chose to become nothing, and have achieved it. Congratulations.”
“Your biting scorn is wasted, Shadovar; your understanding is so imperfect as to render your taunts laughable emptiness. I had hoped you’d furnish me some entertainment, but you are such a sad and hollow excuse for a Thultanthan arcanist-even among that wretched company-as to be merely a waste of time. Time that’s precious only to you, for I have stepped beyond the demands of racing age.”
“Undead thing,” Helgore snapped, nettled despite himself, “be still. Your prattle is the wind of the tomb.”
“Well, at least you know the poets,” the Guardian Undying of House Nathalanorn said archly. “There may be some hope for you yet. However, you really should read more closely, being as you work with the Art. The proper words are: ‘is but as wind from a tomb.’ ”
“Do you actually presume to toy with me, talking gatepost?”
The baelnorn chuckled. “Nay, nay, nay! There’s an art to delivering an insult! This stiff, pompous snapping out of half-remembered barbed phrases wastes their cleverness and merely makes you seem more ridiculous!”
“Oh, burn you!” Helgore roared, and he lashed out with his most powerful spell.