Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [112]
She leapt aside. The warrior snarled, "Osta! Indruu hathan halarl! and the blade veered in the air, darting straight at Elmara.
She let go the wand and raised her hands desperately-and the blade cut right through them, searing aside her fingers to plunge deep into her. Elmara screamed. The dawn sky whirled around her as she staggered back, blood welling up, fought to speak, and fell back onto the turf, greater pain than she'd ever known hissing through her.
She heard a cold chuckle from Gartos as darkness rolled in, and fought with all her will to cling to something… anything… With her last breath she gasped, "Mystra, aid me…"
*****
Prince Gartos struggled to his feet. He felt weak and sick inside and couldn't feel his feet at all… but they seemed to obey him. Grunting, he took a few unsteady steps and sat down, armor clanking. Narthil spun around him.
"Easy," he muttered, shaking his head. "Easy, now…" His men lay strewn along the road, with not a horse in sight. "Thaerin," he grunted, "Agios!" Gartos extended his hand, watched the blade tug itself free of the dead woman and drift, dark and wet, to his waiting grasp. Young witch, who did she think she was to defy Athalantar's magelords? He fumbled at his gorget, got it aside, and grasped the amulet beneath, closing his eyes and trying to concentrate on the remembered face of Mage-lord Ithboltar…
Firm fingers swept his aside. His eyes flew open, and he was staring up at the innkeeper's white, frightened face as she thrust a dagger into his throat and drew it firmly across. Blood sprayed. Prince Gartos struggled to swallow, could not, and tried to raise his blade. Its glowing runes dancing before his eyes, mocking him, were the last things he saw as he sank down into darkness…
*****
"Gartos will see that this sorceress dies," Briost said firmly, and a smile slowly crossed his face. "Eth will make sure he does."
"You're confident of Eth's abilities?" Undarl asked. The wizards seated around the table all looked down it to the high seat where the mage royal sat, in time to see his fire-red ring wink with sudden inner light.
Briost shrugged, wondering (not for the first time) just what powers slept in that ring. "He has proven himself able… and prudent… thus far."
"This was a testing, though, wasn't it?" Galath asked excitedly.
"Of course," Briost replied in a voice dry with patience. Why, he thought privately, did there always have to be one eager puppy at these meetings? Surely work could be found for such as Galath on these evenings-teaching him to unroll a scroll, perhaps, or put on his own robes so the hood was to the back and the tabard facing front? Anything would suffice, so long as it kept him far away…
Galath leaned forward eagerly. "Has he reported in?"
Nasarn the Hooded snorted and looked coldly down the table. "If every mageling we set to a task did that, our ears'd be ringing with their babble every moment of the day-and all night, too!" With his unblinking stare, sharp nose, and dusty black robes, the old man resembled a vulture sitting and watching prey that would soon come its way.
Undarl nodded. "I'd not expect a magelord to waste magic on bothering his fellows just for idle chatter; a report should come only if something serious is amiss… if the intruding mage should prove to be a spy for another realm, for instance, or the leader of an invading army."
Galath flushed in embarrassment and looked away from the mage royal's calm face. Several of the other magelords let him see smiles of amusement on their faces as he looked swiftly and involuntarily up and down the table. Briost yawned openly as he smoothed one dark green sleeve of his robes and shifted into a more comfortable position in his chair. Alarashan, ever one to leap onto a popular cart, yawned too, and Galath's gaze fell to the table in front of him in misery.
"Your enthusiasm does you credit, Galath," Undarl Dragonrider added with a straight face. "If Eth asks us for aid or something befalls him, I assign you to act for us all in setting things