Crown of Fire - Ed Greenwood [93]
Shandril stared its Narm toppled heavily to the floor, body blazing. His screams ceased abruptly as his limbs flopped loosely on the stone. Then he lay very still.
Silence fell. The skull's attack had ceased even as Shandril's did. In horror, she stared down at her husband. The skull glided slowly forward to hang over her. It leered down, glowing, opened its mouth in echoing mirth-and then fell suddenly quiet, hangi motionless, its flames flickering and fading In a dark room deep in the High Hall of Zhentil Keep, Sarhthor, mage of the Zhentarim, sat at a black table and stared at a tiny skull that hovered above it. The skull was carved from human bone-from a bone of one Iliph Thraun, lord among liches. Small radiances swirled around it, chasing each other in little currents and eddies as Sarhthor bent his will against the far-off lich lord.
Sweat ran down his face, and his hands trembled as he stared fixedly at the carved skull. Wrestling with the cold will of Iliph Thraun across a great and echoing distance, Sarhthor reached deep and found strength he hadn't known was there- and held the lich lord from attacking Shandril.
Weeping, Shandril hurled herself on Narm, as she had done long ago in Thunder Gap. Dragonfire had ravaged him then-but this was spellfire. Lips to lips, flesh to flesh, she embraced him frantically, pouring healing spellfire into him.
Above them, the skull quivered, and its eyes flashed flame. Then it shook again, more feebly, and hung motionless.
The door opened suddenly without a knock, and Fzoul Chembryl, High Priest of the Black Altar of Bane, strode in. "What are you doing?" he asked coldly.
The miniature skull sank down to land softly on the table, and a weary Sarhthor looked up at him.
"Lord Manshoon left this means to compel the lich lord with Art, and gave me orders to use it in his absence to prevent the lichnee from passing out of our control," he explained.
The wizard shook his head and wiped sweat out of his eyes. "I'm not the mage he is-and perhaps I lack some detail or secret to make this work, too; I can't seem to contact Iliph Thraun properly. The lich is there, all right-but it seems almost as though something greater stands against us, fighting me."
"Elminster?" Fzoul snapped, wondering who else could be interfering with the skull in Manshoon's absence. "Nay, nay; something greater. Bane, perhaps." Sarhthor said that with a straight face but inner pleasure; the priests of the Black Altar never like to be reminded of their rebellion against church authority-and how the Dark One himself might feel about it.
"Our Lord?" Fzoul's voice was harsh. He tried to scoff, bit it didn't sound convincing. The two men stared coldly at each other for a breath or two.
Then Sarhthor shrugged, and waved at the miniature skull lying motionless on the tabletop. "Try for yourself. My skill is not great enough to know clearly who it is."
Sarhthor took care to hide all signs of his inward smile as Fzoul silently but savagely spun around and stalked out.
The lich lord hissed suddenly, and its eyes lit with flame. Freed of the restraint from afar, it sank down to bite into Shandril's shoulder as she lay atop her husband. The spellfire that blazed from her pulsed and flickered as the skull began to drain her, hauling energy out of her reluctant body slowly at first, and then with greater speed.
A grim and blackened Thrulgar burst into the room then, at the head of a handful of white-faced but grimly loyal Evenor farmers. They clutched pikes and pitchforks, and sleepiness battled horror in their eyes as they stared at flying skull.
By then, the lich lord was strong enough to rise from Shandril and lash