Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [125]
Sometimes El thought about his tumultuous early days in Cormanthor. He wondered if the Srinshee and the Coronal thought him dead, or if they cared about his fate at all. More often he wondered what had become of the elven lady Symrustar, whom he'd left crawling in the woods, when he'd been unable to defend her or even to make her notice him. And what had become of Mythanthar. and his dream of a raythai? Surely they'd have heard from the Master if such a spectacular giant mantle had been spun, and the city opened to other races. But then, why would he tell news of the world outside his tower to two apprentices whom he kept as virtual prisoners?
Recently, even the attentive teaching of magic had stopped. The Masked was absent from his tower more often, or shut away in spell-sealed chambers scrying events elsewhere. Day after day during this most recent winter his apprentices had been left alone to feed themselves and follow a bald list of tasks that appeared written in letters of fire on a certain wall: drudge-work, and the spinning of small spells to keep the Master's tower clean, well-ordered, and strong in its fabric. Yet he kept a watch over them; unauthorized explorations of the tower, or overmuch intimacy between them, brought swift and sharp retributive spells out of the empty air. Only two tendays ago, when Nacacia had dropped a kiss on Elminster's shoulder as she brushed past him, an unseen whip had lashed her lips and face to bloody ribbons, defying El's frantic attempts to dispel it as she staggered back, screaming. She'd awakened the next morning wholly healed. But a row of barbed thorns grew all around her mouth, making kissing impossible. It was more than a tenday before they faded away.
These days, when the masked mage put in one of his rare appearances in the rooms where they dwelt, it was to call on them for magical aid, usually either to drain some of their vital energies in an arcane-and unexplained-spell he was experimenting with, or to help him create a spell web.
Like the one they were working on now. Incredible constructions these were, glowing nets or interwoven cages of glowing force-lines that one could walk along as if striding along a broad wooden beam, regardless of whether one was upside down, or walking tilted sharply sideways. Multiple spells could be cast into the glowing fabric of these cages, placed in particular spots and for specific reasons, so that triggering the collapse of the web would unleash spell after spell at preset targets, in a particular order.
The Master rarely revealed all of the magics he'd placed in a web before its triggering displayed their true natures, and had never shown either apprentice how to start such a web. El and Nacacia didn't even know the primary purpose-or target-of most of the webs they worked on; El suspected The Masked often used the aid of his two largely ignorant apprentices purely to remain hidden, so that the spells striking down a distant rival would bear no hint of who was behind them.
Now the elf turned, his eyes flashing beneath the mask that never left his face. "Elminster, come here," he said coldly, indicating a particular spot in the web with one finger. "We have death to weave, together."
Eighteen
In The Web
There comes a day at last when even the most patient and exacting of scheming traitors grows impatient, and breaks forth into open treachery. Henceforth, he must deal with the world as it is, reacting around him, and not as he sees or desires it to be in his plots and dreams. This is the point at which many treacheries go awry.
The sorcerer known as The Masked was, however, no ordinary traitor-if one may think of an "ordinary traitor." The historian of Cormanthor, reaching back far enough, can do so, finding many ordinary