Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [134]
When he was close enough to touch the writhing intruder, the Mad Mage carefully cast the most powerful and complex spell he knew-and leaned forward to hook one finger into Elminster's ear.
If the soul-drain succeeded, he would gain all the spells and knowledge this intruder possessed. Entering the helpless man's mind, Ilhundyl bore down through the roiling pain he found there, seeking to find and break this upstart's will. Instead, he felt his probe pounced on and slashed at. He threw back his head, hissing in pain, but did not break the contact… yet. It would take hours to memorize this spell again, and if his prisoner died, it would all be for nothing-or if the mage recovered, the fight would begin anew.
Suddenly he was falling, plunging into a dark void in the other man's mind, and out of nowhere and everywhere a blade of white flame was stabbing and cutting him, shearing through his very self. Screaming, Ilhundyl fell away from the sprawled mage, breaking contact. Gods, the pain! Shaking his head to clear it, he crawled away through a yellow haze.
When it cleared, he turned… and saw Elminster struggling to his own knees, vainly raking through his own gore to recover a ring with fingers that had been chopped away. Angrily, Ilhundyl hissed the words of a short, simple spell and stepped back to watch his foe die.
The spell manifested. Bony claws coalesced out of empty air into sudden, harsh reality, and swarmed over Elminster-a score or more of them, raking and gouging with needle-sharp talons.
Ilhundyl smiled as they did their gruesome work… and then his jaw dropped. They were fading away! The claws were ebbing back into the air, leaving the bloody wreck of a man still living.
"What befalls?" the Mad Mage angrily asked Faerun at large as he strode forward.
"Doom," said a low voice from behind him. Ilhundyl whirled.
A dark-eyed woman was growing from his own front door, stepping smoothly out of the dark wood to confront him. She was tall and lithe, and wore robes of dark green. Black, liquid eyes under arched brows met his own… and Ilhundyl saw his death in them. The Mad Mage was still stammering an incantation when white fire, brighter than anything he'd ever seen, leapt from one of her slim-fingered hands at him.
Ilhundyl stared helplessly at her beautiful, merciless face. And then the roaring flames swept into and through him, and her bone-white face and the sky behind it darkened in his failing gaze.
Through the blood dripping into his eyes, Elminster saw the Mad Mage swept away and consumed in a single roaring moment.
"Wha-What spell was that?" El croaked.
"No spell, but spellfire," Myrjala told him crisply. "Now get up, fool, before all Ilhundyl's rivals arrive to seize what they can. We must be gone by then."
She turned and blasted the Castle of Sorcery with that same all-consuming fire. The Great Gate vanished, and the halls beyond collapsed in flames.
Elminster struggled to his feet somehow, spitting blood. "But his magic! Lost, now, all-"
Myrjala turned back to him. The slim hands that had hurled magical fire an instant before now held a thick, battered old book. She thrust it into Elminster's mangled hands; the pain of the contact nearly made him drop it. "His important work is here-now we must go!"
Elminster's eyes narrowed as he looked at her; somehow her tone seemed different. But perhaps he was just too hurt to hear aright… he nodded wearily.
Myrjala touched his cheek, and they were suddenly elsewhere: an echoing cavern. Fungi on its walls glowed a faint blue and green here and there.
Elminster stumbled and with an effort caught his balance, cradling the spellbook. "Where-are we?"
"One of my hideaways," Myrjala said, peering around alertly. "This was once part of an elven city. We're deep under Nimbral, an island in the Great Sea."
Elminster looked around and then down at the book in his hands. When he raised his watery eyes to meet hers, they held a strange look. "Ye knew him?"
Myrjala's eyes were very dark. "I know many mages, Elminster," she said, almost