Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [162]
Braer's eyes widened in recognition and awe. "Lady?"
* * * * *
It was dark and cold this deep in the dripping cellars of Athalgard. Here below the sewers, the solid stone walls sweated water, and things long undisturbed scuttled or slid away as the sudden fire blazed in their midst. Blood and formless flesh curled and flowed at its heart; flesh that blurred and coiled and spasmed, as all that was left of Undarl Dragonrider fought to rebuild his body. A long time the mage royal struggled, the light flickering and waning as the man shaped one arm onto the shoulder, head, and back that had survived. Then he fought with all his will, panting, to give himself legs again.
Several times he slipped toward his true form, but each time regained the semblance he wanted-a taller, more regal Undarl. The pain ebbed as his confidence grew… He was winning… He could weave all matter to his will, given time enough.
A second arm lengthened into a hand and fingers. Undarl fought to control its thrashing, but could not. Not yet. Give me, gods, just a little more time…
* * * * *
The magelords were arguing bitterly as Elminster rose like a vengeful wraith from Ithboltar's crystal. Bits of the ceiling broke off here and there to fall and shatter on the floor below. Proud wizards stepped back hastily. El's hard eyes were on the Old One as he whispered the last careful words of a mighty incantation.
It ended-and the stone floor of the chamber split from end to end with a crack that deafened them all. Gems, blazing like tiny fireballs, flew in all directions from the Old One's crown.
Ithboltar staggered, screamed in pain, and clutched his head.
A few of the magelords saw Elminster as he vanished back into the crystal, but their angry and disbelieving gazes were caught by the flickering forces spiraling out from the shattered skullcap on Ithboltar's head. Smoke was rising from their staggering ex-tutor's eyes. The crown pulsed, spinning a vortex of gathering force out into the chamber.
Hasty incantations were being chanted all over the shattered chamber as the vortex shivered, throwing off roiling waves of force that swept the wizards into each other and dashed them against the walls… and the crown exploded, white bolts of destruction stabbing out in all directions. Mage-lords wailed and flickered in and out of visibility as contingencies took effect.
Watching the scene from a balcony across the courtyard, Myrjala murmured the last words of a spell of her own. A bloody, disheveled Elminster appeared out of the air beside her, gasping.
They stared together into the shattered chamber. Ithboltar's headless body swayed for a moment, took one unsteady step forward and fell. Over against one wall, a magelord was gibbering on his knees, and another of the mages had become a smoking heap of bones and ashes.
The other wizards were struggling to escape, hands moving in frantic spellcastings. The vortex, adorned with the swirling bolts the crown had spat into it, gathered speed and strength like an angry cyclone as it swept across the chamber toward them. A roar like a deep, unending roll of thunder grew and moved with it, throwing back echoes from the walls and towers of Athalgard. The entire castle began to shake.
Myrjala frowned and made a pulling motion with her hands. The seeing eye she commanded slid through the ragged gap in the wall to hang just outside the tower. "The crown," she murmured, "must be holding them in the room."
The vortex struck the mages-and whirled through them to the back wall of Ithboltar's spellchamber. It smashed into those old stones, the tower shuddered… and slowly, with terrible purpose, the shattered room folded in on itself and collapsed, bringing down the upper reaches of Ithboltar's tower in a titanic crash and roar of falling stone.
An earsplitting explosion burst from where the chamber had been, flinging stones out of the avalanche of falling rock, and among them, one magelord was dashed across the courtyard