Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [117]
Tearing out the stopper with her teeth, Laeral drank the cool, sweet potion greedily. Relief flooded through her body. She lay back thankfully and let the healing magic bring her strength.
When she felt strong enough, she undid the rod's other end and drank the second potion quickly. The instant the vial was empty, she straightened her broken leg with firm hands and clenched teeth. The pain burned and raged for only a short time, then subsided to a dull ache.
Patiently Laeral picked up the rod again and shook it. A roll of parchment dropped out. "My most precious magic, indeed," she said aloud, and then added in a fierce whisper, "Blaskyn-you fool!"
She read the outermost scroll first, casting its heal spell upon herself. When she was fully recovered, she conjured up light again to explore the tower thoroughly, gleaning from it what small, hidden magics she could find. Not once did she touch the throne.
She found no spellbooks and suspected they were under the throne. She looked at it once, as it sat there waiting for her, glowing silently and beckoningly, and shook her head. Only the thinnest of smiles touched her lips.
One day it might send another foe to find her, if she did not destroy it first. But ending the long career of Thalon was a task for another day. Laeral unrolled the last, inner scroll-the teleport spell that would take her home. Without bidding Thalon farewell, she read the scroll and left that place.
Am I going to see some magic, human? Are you going to live?
[silence]
bah. Show me the rest. [growl]
Standing in her own familiar spell chamber, naked and filthy, bereft of apprentice and much magic, Laeral of Loudwater smiled wryly.
"Of Art gain great sight, wise beyond any mage," the verse had run. It had spoken truth; she'd gained great sight, indeed-of what unchecked power and fanatical mastery of Art did to archmages.
Laeral sighed and carelessly tossed her bundle (what was left of her robes, tied as a sack around the scraps of magic she'd scavenged) across the room.
Right now, the most important goal of her life lay downstairs, at the bottom of her garden: the stream where she could wash off the dust, din, bone splinters, and the gods-alone-knew-what-else was caked all over her, stuck to Thalon's gluelike anmdoon sauce.
Laeral went down the stairs to the landing where her cloaks hung. She brushed past them to a littered desk whose pigeonholes held dusty scrolls written years before. She took out one she'd never expected to need and read it as she went slowly down another flight of stairs to the garden door.
The scroll melted away between her fingertips, and the dancing lights it conjured gave Laeral light enough to bathe by. She whispered the word that unlocked the door and went out into the night with a decanter of wine to wash away the oily sauce. Cradling it she dove headlong into the stream.
She'd have to find another apprentice tomorrow… where was that list Orliph of the Harpers had left her? There'd been a good dozen names on it, some of them interesting.
Oh, yes. She snapped her fingers, and out of the night sky above her a scroll arrowed down, unfolded itself gracefully above her nose, and angled itself to catch the radiance of the gently drifting globes of light around her.
Laeral scrubbed and stretched in the cool water, making small murmuring sounds of contentment as the stickiness left her. Tossing back her wet hair, she peered at the list.
Cold fear made its slow way up her spine, crawling like one of the bony claws of the archmage's tower. The list had held almost twenty names, she was sure. Now there was only one, written in flowing, darkly bold and fresh script: "Thalon."
Laeral curled her lip. Enough. That throne was going to have to go. Tomorrow.
Hah. You deny me once more. The promise of magic, spells waved before me-and then, no doing and crafting and viewing. Enough of other