Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [54]
"Where are these brigands? I'll face 'em, and fifty more besides! Bring 'em on!"
Elminster grinned. "There's the fourth thing," he added.
"What?" Galdus grinned back.
"Ye may have to lose that old outhouse," El told him. "And I hope ye have a fire in the kitchen ye can get to swiftly, with some logs on it that're well and truly alight, but have unburnt ends ye can carry 'em by."
Galdus stared at him for a moment, and then laughed again. "I have, and can. What's this all about?"
"Well," El began, "just be sure ye say With Elminster's regards' to whoever touches that coin, an-"
The door banged open suddenly, and the Old Mage was gone, as if he'd never been there. Galdus blinked at where he'd been and then at the drawn swords coming across the room at him, followed by the stench of old sweat and desperate men.
"Counting the coins, were ye? Well, I think that right kindly of ye, to save us the trouble of finding 'em. Go and get yer real savings, old man, with Baerlus here beside ye to save tricks, while we have a pull or two at a keg o' yer best!"
"Who-? What're y-" Galdus began, struggling to keep a smile from his face. Then he saw the man's hands raking the coins across the bar, and knew the enspelled one might bounce and roll on the floor in a moment, so he stammered, "With Elminster's regards!"
"You fools," he added a breath later, watching the coin erupt into wildly coiling black tentacles. The five brigands shouted in alarm, and the one who must be Baerlus snarled and drove his blade into Galdus, under the old man's ribs, jerking his steel savagely up and sideways.
Galdus stared down in wonder as the weapon slid through him as though he were a ghost. He didn't feel a thing! The outlaw stared up at him, face paling, and then hacked wildly at him, the blade whipping back and forth like a flail on the threshing floor.
The blade seemed not able to touch him, though he felt the man's knuckles graze his shoulder on one wild swing. Baerlus stared at him, dumbfounded. Galdus snatched a wooden salad bowl from its wall peg and brought it down smartly on the man's sword hand.
Baerlus howled and stepped back, dropping his blade with a clatter, so Galdus leaned in and walloped him across the side of the head with the edge of the bowl. The outlaw staggered and stepped back, right into his four fellows.
They were thrashing and grunting in fear, staggering around his taproom helplessly in a confused tangle of arms and legs. The coin had become a black ball with many long tentacles that stuck to flesh as a sucking eel sticks to fish. The tentacles were wriggling and probing constantly but didn't stick to clothing, weapons, or wood. The four outlaws-no, five now, with Baerlus-were firmly bound together, unable to straighten up or even turn to face each other as the tentacles pulled them in closer together… and closer still…
Galdus watched the brigands struggle, slipping and sliding on the coins and swords that lay dropped and forgotten all over his recently cleaned floor. They crashed aside chairs and even a table, yelling in muffled fury and mounting fear, and rolled about, their struggles taking them vaguely away from the bar.
The front door groaned open again, and Galdus looked up warily, wondering if he could reach any of the swords on the floor. The man who stepped inside, however, was Elminster.
"My apologies, Galdus," he said. "I'd something else to attend to and no time to do it in. But 'tis done now."
"Can I-may I ask what it was?"
"I had to talk a few frightened archpriests in Baldur's Gate out of starting a religious war-on each other."
"Why bother?" Galdus asked, frowning. Then his frown deepened. "Did it work?"
"No, of course not, so I had to scare them into a truce by showing them what I'd do if they didn't make peace."
"You flattened both temples," Galdus said hopefully.
Elminster grinned. "I