Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [155]
The apprentice half-rose in his seat to get a better look at what Undarl was doing, and stiffened in that awkward pose, swaying, as the spell took hold.
Undarl smiled tightly and left the chamber. Three rooms away he found another apprentice sprawled on the floor, a key he wasn't supposed to have had fallen from his hand, the other clutching a scroll he'd been forbidden to read. Much good might it do him now.
The spell that brought down the sleep of ages would hold until Undarl ended it, the pedestal broke or crumbled away to break the sigil, or the magic consumed the gems-and that would take a good thousand winters or more. Anyone save Undarl himself who entered the Dragonrider's Tower would fall into enspelled stasis, a sleep that held them unchanged as the world aged around them.
Perhaps he'd leave them all that long and stay away from his tower for a time to see if Seldinor or other ambitious rivals would be tempted into entering it and be caught in his trap. It would be a simple matter to arrange things so that the spell that broke the stasis also slew them before they could arrange any defenses.
Musing, Undarl strode down the winding stone stair and out into the courtyard, the floating, empty suits of armor raising their halberds to let him pass through the door. "Anglatham-maroth!" he called. "To me!"
A step later, he was gone. When the huge shadow fell over the courtyard two breaths later, all it found were a few dwindling motes of light. It beat its wings once, the sound of a thunderclap breaking over the Horn Hills, climbed toward the stars, turned, and soared southeast.
*****
The warm, sweet smell of bread rolled out over the arms-men. They sniffed appreciatively and hauled open the door of the bake shop, striding straight over to Shandathe, who was bent over pans of cooling loaves. One grabbed her arm; she looked up and screamed.
Her husband stepped through the door from the kitchens. He took two quick, furious steps toward his struggling wife, and was brought up short by two blades at his throat.
"Keep back, you!" one of the armsmen at the other end of those weapons ordered.
"What're y-"
"Silence! Keep back!" another armsman snarled, snatching up a loaf of bread from the nearest pan. "Well have this, too."
"Shandathe!" the baker roared, as the two jabbing sword tips forced him back a step.
"Keep back, love!" she sobbed as she was dragged roughly toward the door. "Back, or they'll slay you!"
"Why are you doing this?" Hannibur snarled in bewilderment.
"The king has seen your wife and fancies her. Be honored," one of the armsmen said with cruel humor. Another armsman backhanded the baker's head from behind with a heavy, gauntleted fist. Hannibur opened his mouth in a last, trailing snarl, and crashed headlong to the floor…
*****
"Get used to it," Farl said with a grin. "The sewers are the only way under the castle walls."
"Don't you know about the secret passages?" Helm rumbled, glaring around at the dripping walls. Scum floated past his chin; he wrinkled his nose as one of the other knights, to the rear, started to retch.
"Yes," Farl said sweetly, "but I fear the magelords do too. Folk who try to use them always end up in the wizard's spell chambers as part of some fatal magical experiment or other. We lost a lot of competitors that way."
"I don't doubt it, clever-tongue," Helm said sourly, trying to keep his sword dry. Filth swirled and rolled past him as he forged ahead in the chest-high waters, wondering why it was that the elves, who could have pushed back the waters, had chosen to hide nearby, and do their cloaking from their hideaway… which was somewhere drier.
"Here's the place," Farl said, pointing up into the darkness. "There're handholds cut into this shaft,