Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [6]
"The Malaugrym?" she said in an awful whisper of fury and promised doom.
Elminster stroked his beard thoughtfully and nodded. "Again," he said as the door behind her swung wide. There was a startled gasp, and another platter of tankards crashed to the floor.
The sorceress whirled around, red fire blazing around one raised hand, in time to see a serving wench, face white in terror, moan and faint dead away, crumpling to the floor atop her spilled burden.
Behind the Simbul, the Old Mage's head came up, face brightening into a smile of welcome. "Will you take ale, love? It's richer, nuttier, and more warming in the chest, by my halidom, as a man I trust said not long ago!"
At the look on the Witch-Queen's face, Sharantyr burst into helpless laughter, followed by Belkram. It was a perilously long moment before the Simbul's dark gaze flickered. Then she too began to laugh, a low, raw, throaty chuckle that made both Belkram and Itharr think of leaping flames and hungry caresses and wilder things.
"Why is it," Elminster asked his pipe as it hung obecuently nearby, fragrant wisps of smoke still rising from it, "that folk always seem to feel the need to laugh at my converse?" Fresh gales of mirth rocked the ruined room around him at his words. The Old Mage looked around at his friends sourly and then readdressed himself to his pipe. "Is it my looks, d'ye think? My sensually musical voice, perhaps?"
Wisely, the pipe chose not to answer.
2
This Wizard Must Be Destroyed
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 14
The oval of light flickered and faded. As the dark and ever-hungry shadows crept and slithered back to reclaim the heart of the Great Hall of the Throne, those who'd watched death and laughter in the back room of an inn turned away from the darkening scrying portal. Some were hissing in anger as they went, and some were grim and silent, as their natures governed them.
"Poor entertainment," rumbled one lord, gliding through the shifting shadows in the shape of a cone of many eyes. He grew several long, spiderlike legs, two of which reached out to select a glowing bottle from a forest of glass containers in the vast black marble chamber.
Other Malaugrym muttered agreement, but a single clear, cold voice said, "We did not gather for 'entertainment,' Uncle."
Eyes swam swiftly around the cone to look back at the one who'd spoken so, but the cone did not turn or cease its gliding passage. "I know better than some young and loose-lipped kin, Halastra, why we're here," came the chill reply. "Guard your tongue, if you'd live to an age approaching mine."
"Another lecture? Are such words all you know how to speak?" a third voice put in. It seemed to issue from a coiling, serpentine form gliding half-seen through the mists, bound for the same destination as the cone. A low rumble of anger followed in the cone's wake as it went, expelling an empty bottle, but the lord did not accompany the rumble or the bottle with any words of reply.
Smoothly the cone began to rise through the mists, drawn up by the magic of the lift-spiral. Several half-human forms followed the cone in the ascent – bipedal figures that changed height and girth in a continuous, uneasy shifting but always seemed to have tails, clawed limbs, and spines or barbs here and there. The serpentine creature-sporting a succession of small pairs of leathery wings along its entire length but having no head-joined them, rising to where the mists hung darker and shadows seemed to drift menacingly like cruising sharks.
"Who was it who dared-and died?" a voice asked in hushed tones. The ascent seemed to be bringing a certain caution, or fear, upon all.
"Does it matter? Those who die fools are best forgotten," the conical lord said sternly, but another voice said clearly, "Thalart, get of Galartyn and Chasra."
"Another of us slain by the wizard Elminster," a new voice snarled. "His doom grows heavier by one more death."
"What