Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [57]
Sapphire eyes flashed. "She protected you!"
Elminster bowed his head. "Lady, she did."
"That traitoress!" the Lady Laurlaethee spat, striding to a corner where large and small spheres of crystal turned slowly, chiming faintly as they spun. "Once word of thi-"
"Lady, I must guard ye against thy own foolishness," Elminster said swiftly, raising his voice a trifle. "Ye seem to think I speak of the Srinshee. I do not. She neither knows of our meeting nor provides me with any defenses. My spell cloak is my own."
The exquisite beauty of an elven face is shattered when perfect lips twist into a sneer. "You presume me foolish indeed, ape-thing. You wield no magics of any accomplishment that you did not seize, steal, or cozen from this elf or that. Who is this 'she" who protects you, if not one of the People?"
“Divine Mystra, the goddess I serve," Elminster said quietly. He watched for her response as calmly as if he feared nothing.
"Pah!" The Lady Laurlaethee spat, coming to a halt behind her crystals and glaring at the guest she hoped to slay over them. Their radiance lit her face strangely from below. "All sorcery streams from those we reverence- the True Gods! If this 'Mystra' of yours has any power at all, she must be but a face and a name extended to you unwashed humans by divinity that cleaves to elves, the Chosen Folk!"
"And if this is so," Elminster said with a smile lurking in his eyes that did not-quite-touch his lips, "and my magic triumphed over thy magic, it would mean that a goddess we both revere, by whatever name, has chosen me over ye-would it not?''
"Be still, ape!" his hostess snarled. "Lie down and die! How clare you profane the air of my home, to say nodi-ing of my own ears, with such a suggestion!"
She made a clawlike gesture with one hand, and the air seemed to sparkle and freeze in place, just for a moment, around Elminster. He gave her a lazy smile and strode forward.
The Lady Laurlaethee stiffened and went white, her eyes blazing. There was a sighing in the air around the advancing human. Her eyes widened, and she drew back a pace.
Elminster Aumar stepped gently around the spheres of crystal and continued to advance on her. Furiously she wove magic with nimble fingers and hissed incantations. The air became alive with tiny silver lances and curling, half-seen dragons… but still he came on.
"Back, beast!" the elf matron said, her voice rising in real fear. "Stay back, or-or-"
A ring on her finger winked and vanished. Suddenly great hands reached up from the floor beneath her guest's boots, and down from the ceiling… hands that faded into trailing dust before they could close on the human.
Laurlaethee's lips tightened. Other rings flashed. She shouted a sudden incantation and dashed one hand across her other palm, gashing it with the thorn-barb on a ring. A swift word made the drops of blood she flung into the air catch fire and hang motionless between them.
Elminster smiled gently and stepped through them, wincing not at all as they exploded.
The Lady Laurlaethee was almost in a corner now, her mouth trembling with fear. The next words made the room rock and roar. They left her visibly wrinkled and withered… but seemed to touch the advancing human not at all.
Slender shoulder blades brushed a flower-girt wall, and the last of the Shaurlanglars shuddered, drew in a deep breath, and closed her eyes. She did not need or want to see what she did next.
Her hand swept down like a striking adder, plucking the tiny dagger from its sheath at her loins and bringing it back up to her breast in one flashing movement. As it went home, she would spit her death blood in his face and bring down a curse on him that no mage shield could turn aside. Laurlaethee Shaurlanglar did not want to live in a world where beasts rose to rule. To think that it had come to this, that-
She knew just where to