Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [143]
The court sorceress blanched and fell back, but did not flee from her place in the ring. She drew in a deep breath, tossed her head, and said, voice trembling only a little, "If need be, traitor."
He had called, and Mystra had sent Symrustar, and she was dying for him! Writhing in agony, El could find no time for grief. Mystra! he shouted, as a warrior bellows in battle. Send me something to aid her! The Starym prevails! Mystra!
Something golden shone in his tattered mind-a thread, a ribbon, moving and turning. His eyes could not help but follow it, and the image of his unleashing it that overlaid it briefly. It twisted, to form a shape thus, and so! Set that upon the foe!
Thanks be, Mystra, El thought with all his heart, and seized on the shape firmly as he lashed out with another bolt, straight at Uldreiyn Starym. This would hurt.
The Starym arch-sorcerer stiffened, turned with slow menace, and smilingly dealt a counterblow, sending a mocking message with it.
Not crazed yet, human? You will be. Oh, you will be.
Oh? Eat this, arrogant elf! Elminster replied in Uldreiyn's mind – and unspun Mystra's weaving.
The watching Cormanthans saw Beldroth shriek first, snatching his hand away from the child to clutch at his head with both hands, clawing at his ears and howling in raw pain.
* * * * *
Lord Nelaeryn Mornmist spasmed and kicked out. His lady was hurled back, bowling over two anxiously watching servants. One of the others rushed forward to aid his convulsing lord, who was shrieking like nothing the servant had ever heard before. Droplets of blood were gouting from his mouth, his eyes, and from under his fingernails. He thrashed in midair like a struggling fish, then slumped, crashing to the ground and smashing the servant senseless beneath him.
Ithrythra Mornmist struggled to her feet. "Nelaer!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "Oh, Nelaer, speak to me!" With frantic fingers she rolled him over, staring at the working face of her lord.
"Get a mage!" she snarled at the servants who were still standing. "All of you go! Get twenty mages! And hurry!”
There was a splashing, and a heavy weight tumbling on top of her. Alaglossa Tornglara came back to awareness with a shock as the waters of Satyrdance Pool closed over her head. She kicked out and thrust herself up to the air again, tumbling a stiff body off of her-Nlaea! Gods, what had happened?
"Help!"
The gardener looked up from his watering. That was the lady's voice!
"Help!"
He hastened, kicking over the waterspout he'd just set carefully down in his haste. It was a long run to Satyrdance Pool, Corellon curse it! He got up onto the path and put some leg into it, only to come to a halt, staring.
The Lady Alaglossa Tornglara, naked as the day she was born, staggered along the path toward him, her feet cut open on the flagstones, leaving a trail of blood behind her as she came. She was cradling her maid Nlaea in her arms, her eyes wild. "Help me!" she roared. "We must get her to the house! Move, Corellon curse you!"
The gardener swallowed and scooped Nlaea out of his lady's arms. Corellon, he reflected wryly, as he turned around to run, was going to have a busy day.
Uldreiyn Starym opened his mouth in surprise-the first time it had worn that expression in earnest in some centuries.
And the last. White fire surged through him and stripped him bare just as he had burned out Lord Orbryn earlier, leaving nothing behind his eyes but a rushing nothingness. A new potency raced through the Mythal, crashing through the heads of mages all over Cormanthor, as the hungry white fire drank the life and wits and power of the Starym archmage.
The elves standing uncertainly in the Court, not knowing where or how to strike, saw the tall, broad body of the great Starym lord blaze forth yellow flames, for all the world as if he were a tree struck by lightning.
He burned like a torch before their shocked faces, while the web of white fire hummed on serenely overhead