Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [100]
Nothing rose out of the casket this time, and Elmara stepped cautiously forward to peer down into the open coffin.
In the bottom lay dust, smashed and splintered bones among the tatters of once-fine robes and the three spellbooks. Some of the bones shifted, trying to move. A ruined arm rose unsteadily up to point at Elmara-who coolly reached in, grabbed it, and pulled.
When she had the clutching, clawing arm free of the casket, she flung it down on the floor and stamped on it repeatedly until all the bones were shattered. Then she looked into the casket again, seeking other restive remains. Twice more she hauled out bones and stamped on them-and at the sight of her dancing on them, Tarthe broke into sudden shouts of laughter.
Elmara shook her head and reached into the coffin, touching the spellbooks and murmuring the words of one last spell. The books quietly disappeared.
Behind her, Tarthe's laughter ended abruptly. Elmara whirled around in time to see a smiling robed man thicken from a shadowy outline into full solidity above a winking curved thing of metal on the floor… Tharp's helm.
It was a cruel smile, and its owner turned to Elmara, who stiffened, recalling a face burned forever into her memories. The magelord who'd ridden the dragon and burned Heldon!
"Ah, yes, Elmara-or should I say Elminster Aumar, Prince of Athalantar? Tharp was my spy among the Brave Blades from the very beginning. Very useful you've been, too, finding all sorts of malcontents and hidden magic and gold. Yes, the magelords thank you in particular for the gold… one can never have enough, you know." He smiled as Tarthe's hurled dagger spun through him to clash and clatter against the far wall of the chamber.
An instant later, flames roared through the room. The blazing body of Tarthe Maermir, leader of the Brave Blades, was flung into the far wall, and Elmara heard the warrior's neck snap. The magelord looked down at the burning corpse and sneered. "You didn't think I'd be foolish enough to reveal where my true self stood? You did? Ah, well…"
Elmara's eyes narrowed, and she spoke a single word. The sound of a body heavily striking a wall came to her ears-and the magelord's image vanished.
A moment later, the man appeared nearby, slumped against the wall. He gazed coldly up at Elmara, who was stammering out a more powerful incantation, and said, "My thanks for destroying Ondil. I shall enjoy augmenting my magic with his. I am in your debt, mageling… and so it is my duty and pleasure to rid us of your annoying attacks, once and for all!" A ring on his finger winked once, and the world exploded in flames.
Hands still moving in the feeble, useless gestures of a broken spell, Elmara found herself hurled out the shattered window where the two thieves had gone, a coil of flames crackling and searing around her. She roared in pain, the flames clawing at her, and twisted about as she fell so as to appear helpless for as long as possible before she called on the powers of her still-working flight spell. The book strapped to her stomach seemed to ward off the flames, but her ears were full of the sizzle of her burning hair.
Below lay the shattered bodies of the two thieves, and a large blackened area where lumps still gave off smoke-all Briost had left of the youngest Blade and the horses he'd guarded. Scant feet above them, Elmara bent her will and darted away, soaring just above the ground, smoke trailing from her blackened clothes. She wept as she flew, but not from the growing pain of her burns.
*****
The small open boat held a man and a woman. The old,