All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [123]
"No, envoy, keep your life," the Malaugrym told him. "I shall need your services to inform Azoun that the
Purple Dragon throne is mine now. My realm will take in Sembia, too, of course… but you won't be bored. Ill be sending all the brave warriors of both lands against Zhentil Keep-and none of you shall rest, nor fail me, until that city and all its folk are eradicated."
He took another slow pace forward. "Before all of that, however, I must attend to the business that brought all of the blood of Malaug lately to Faerun… a little matter of revenge."
Dhalgrave looked at Belkram and Itharr and smiled again. "Your deaths will be slow," he said softly, "very slow." A frown crossed the handsome human face he wore, and he asked the world at large, "I wonder if I can transform them to mushrooms, as that woman did?"
He raised his hands slowly, nodding in sudden satisfaction, and said, "Yes!"
The doomstars hummed, dimmed, and grew still. The Malaugrym began the gestures of a spell-and the two Harper rangers erupted into a last desperate charge, swinging their blades as they came.
The cloak Dhalgrave wore spoke.
"Yes, indeed," it agreed, and two gnarled old hands grew out of it on the shapeshifter's flanks, and dug fingers deep into Dhalgrave-fingers that blazed with spellfire!
The Malaugrym screamed. His hands faltered, the doomstars winking wildly, and the hands literally tore him apart.
Dhalgrave convulsed, struggling to throw out a tentacle here and an eyestalk there amid the spreading spellfire-and as the two Harpers came to hasty halts, blades held ready, the Malaugrym sported the long, jagged jaws of a crocodile for just a moment… before collapsing into a swirling cloud of ash. What remained was a raging, man-high column of spellfire, with the hands that had slain Dhalgrave protruding from it.
The doomstars spun and winked by themselves in midair for a breath, then drifted obediently into one of those old, waiting hands.
As they settled, all of the spellfire seemed to roar down into them-and burst in a flash that made unwary men cry out and clutch at their eyes.
Those stricken did not see the beams that lanced out from the destruction of the doomstars to touch Storm, Laeral, and Khelben, and awaken them to vibrant life.
As the Bard of Shadowdale came unsteadily to her feet and reached down to help her sister up, a familiar voice said disgustedly, "Do I have to do everything myself, look ye?"
"Elminster!" Laeral cried delightedly.
The Old Mage puffed one last time on his pipe before calmly tapping out its coals onto the ash that had been the Shadowmaster High.
"But you-you died!" Mourngrym said, laughing, as he shouldered through the armsmen, Shaerl at his side.
"Reports of my death," the Old Mage said solemnly, "have been-ahem-greatly exaggerated."
The scrying portal shook as Hulurran's rage almost ended his control over it. "No!" he snarled, but the other two who stood in the shadows with him kept silent. One of them laid a silent tentacle against his cheek for a moment.
After they'd stood staring into Faerun for a long time, Gathran stirred.
"If we could get that cloak," he began, "we-"
He fell silent again as, below, Elminster stirred the ashes, held up a tattered scrap-and firmly burned it to nothingness with a jet of spellfire from his finger.
"By the blazing blood of Malaug," Hulurran raged in a voice that trembled with emotion, "111 never rest un-"
"Hold your wind!" snapped the youngest and smallest of the Malaugrym. "This disaster is born directly of reckless overconfidence… even on my father's part."
Huerbara's eyes blazed with resolve as she scattered the scrying portal with one slim tentacle. "We must not act-we must never act-against folk of Faerun until we are strong, and prepared… even for the unexpected. Revenge can be won, yes… but it may take years. We must rebuild the House of Malaug