Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [131]
Nacacia pointed at the masked Starym mage and said crisply, "He is. It is all his plotting, and the one he truly seeks to slay, Revered Lord, is your
"Lies!" the Masked shouted, and two bolts of flame burst from his eyes, snarling across the Chamber of the Court at Nacacia. She shrank back, but Mythanthar smiled and lifted his hand. The streaming fire struck something unseen and faded away.
"You'll have to do better than that, Starym," he said calmly, "and I don't think you know how. You didn't even recognize a seeming when it lay before you here, in chains, an-"
"Starym!" The Masked bellowed, raising his arms. "Let it be NOW!"
Among the courtiers, all over the chamber, bright magic erupted. There were screams, and sudden explosions, and suddenly elves were running everywhere in the hall, swords flashing out.
"Die, false ruler!" Llombaerth Starym shouted, wheeling to face the Coronal. "Let the Starym rule at last!"
The roaring white bolt of rending magic that he hurled then was only one of many that lashed out at the old elf standing before his throne, as Starym mages hurled death from many places in the hall.
The Coronal vanished in a blinding white conflagration of meeting, warring spells. The very air roiled and split apart in dark, starry rifts; the Lady Herald screamed and collapsed to the gleaming floor as the shield she'd spun around her ruler was overwhelmed. The hall rocked, and many of the shrieking courtiers were hurled from their feet. A tapestry fell.
Then the bright, roiling radiance above the Pool was thrust back, to reveal Lord Eltargrim standing atop the floating Throne of the Coronal, his drawn sword in his hand. Light flickered down the awakened runes on the flanks of that blade as he growled, "Death take all who practice treachery against fair Cormanthor! Starym, your life is forfeit!"
The old warrior sprang down from his throne and waded forward, swinging his sword like a farmer scything grain, using the enchantments that smoked and streamed along its edges to cleave the magic trained upon him. The swirling flames and lightnings faded in tatters before the bright edges of that blade.
Someone shouted in triumph among the courtiers, and the ghostly outlines of a great green dragon began to take shape in the air above their heads, its wings spread, its jaws open and poised to bite down on the slowly advancing Coronal. As the Starym who'd summoned it wrestled against the wards of the chamber to bring the wyrm wholly into solidity, and its outlines flickered and darkened, El and Nacacia could see the neck of the dragon arching and straining, trying to reach the lone old elfin white robes who stood beneath it.
Mythanthar said two strange words, calmly and distinctly, and the flickering lightnings and smokes of magic the Coronal was hacking his way through suddenly flowed up and over Eltargrim's head, straight into the straining maw of the dragon.
The blast that followed smashed the roof of the chamber apart, and toppled one of its mighty pillars. Dust swirled and drifted, as elves screamed on all sides, and Elminster and Nacacia, still in each other's arms, were hurled to the floor as the magical radiances that gave light to the vast Chamber of the Court winked out.
In the sudden darkness, as they coughed and blinked, only one source of light remained steady: the empty throne of the Coronal, floating serenely above the glowing Pool of Remembrance.
Lightnings clawed and crashed around it, and the body of a hapless elven lady was dashed to bloody ruin against it. She fell like a rag doll into the Pool below, and its radiance went suddenly scarlet.
The Chamber of the Court shook again, as another explosion smashed aside tapestries along the east wall, and sent more broken bodies flying.
"Stop," snapped a voice in the darkness. "This has gone quite far enough."
The Srinshee had come at last.
Twenty
Spellstorm At Court
And so it was that a spellstorm was unleashed in the Court of Cormanthor that day.