Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [86]
Much of the wall that had separated the Room of the Watchful Sentinel from the passage was missing. The room itself seemed to be full of glowing smoke lit by frequent flashes and bursts of howling radiance—and to hold the turning pinwheel of Elminster’s shielding magic.
Abruptly, somewhere in the distant midair of the room’s interior, something blinding bright exploded, hurling off great streamers of flame and sparks.
“A wand!” Storm snapped, having seen wands destroyed by wild magical backlashes before. “Do you think the Dalestride can—?”
“Withstand all they’re trying to hurl at us?” Elminster replied, throwing an arm around her from behind and dragging her hastily back. “Drop thy blade—now!”
Storm was several centuries too old to argue with him or question such an order. She flung away her sword as if it were burning her hand, turned in a smooth shifting of her hips, and started to run with him down the passage to where it met—
Behind them, a blast erupted that snatched them both off their feet, smote their ringing ears so hard that all sound abruptly went away, and flung them headlong down the passage, well past the intersection and through a servant’s door that gave way in an instant of wild, high groaning of rent wood and whirling splinters, onto a table where a cream sauce studded with mushroom and smelling strongly of nutmeg was being ladled over thick steaks of spit-seared lion on gold plates.
Undercooks screamed or at least flung up their hands, wild-eyed, and opened their mouths wide, as the Sage of Shadowdale and the tall and curvaceous silver-haired woman at his side crashed breast-first down onto the hot sauce and slid the length of the table … straight into the ample backside of Nestur Laklantur, Royal Cook of the Low Kitchen, as he stood bent over at the end of the table, carefully applying garnishes to platters of dishes on an adjacent counter.
Struck hard, Laklantur plunged helplessly face-first into a glazed and steaming manymeats pudding he’d spent hours preparing, and rose up roaring in scalded pain and rage, ready to turn and rend whoever had dared—
He had managed only to half turn and snatch up the nearest ladle to serve as his weapon of retribution when Storm’s sword arrived.
It raced like an arrow, pommel first and surrounded by a winking cloud of sparks. The outraged cook had no time to dodge or duck nor even to draw breath to frame an appropriately scorching oath of wrath ere the ladle numbed his hand with its clanging departure. His life was saved by its deflection of the sword, and the cloud of sparks left the ricocheting steel to become a crawling fan of blue fire that transformed the stamped copper sheeting of the kitchen ceiling into a sheet of solid sapphire.
Laklantur and various maids and kitchen jacks stared up at it in astonishment and then either fainted or fled.
A good long breath before the sheet cracked into a thousand shards and fell, with a crash that sent cauldrons rolling and lids and cleavers ringing all over the kitchen.
And left a dazed wizard and former bard rolling slowly over, coated in sapphire dust and lumpy cream sauce, to stare at each other and then back the way they’d been hurled.
They were in time to see a wizard of war part the roiling dust with an impatient wand blast and glare in their direction.
In the suddenly clear air they saw that the Room of the Watchful Sentinel now extended into the passage and right up to the kitchen doors. Though it held much heaped rubble, adorned with more than a few silent and sprawled bodies, the Dalestride Portal stood glowing and unharmed—behind a grim dozen wizards of the Crown and half that many Purple Dragons.
“Those two, on yon table!” the wizard of war with the wand barked, looking at the Portal guardians and then pointing at Elminster and Storm.