Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [175]
"No!" Elminster cried, leaping on the dragon-thing the magelord had become. He clawed at its eyes, kicking and weeping.
Undarl shook him off. El fell heavily, saw the fanged snout turn just above him to breathe down devouring fire, and rolled in under it with desperate speed, rising beneath those snarling jaws.
Undarl's flame roared skyward, useless, as the prince snatched out the stub of the Lion Sword and stabbed at its throat repeatedly, forcing the dragon-thing to recoil. Even as its head arched back away from his blade, hissing, Undarl's biting claws clutched and tore El's back and face. Elminster crooked an arm around the dragon-thing's throat and swung around behind it, scrabbling for balance. Those clattering claws swarmed in on him, but he drove his blade deep into one of the dragon's golden eyes.
Undarl convulsed and shuddered, tearing free. Its newly grown tail smashed El away. He rolled in the dirt as the dragon-thing squalled and thrashed in agony. Elminster scrambled to his feet and carefully cast a lash of lightning, a feeble spell that might not do more to a dragon than singe its scales-but he cast it not at Undarl, but at the hilt of the Lion Sword, where it stood quivering in the dragon's eye.
Lightning leapt and flashed. The dragon-thing stiffened, jerked its tail, and sank limply back across the low stone wall, its brain cooked. Smoke rose in lazy curls from its eyes and nose.
Weeping in fury, Elminster hurled every battle-spell he had left. Before his streaming eyes the scaly body of his foe was chopped apart and then frozen. He stood over the riven carcass until he could force his trembling lips to shape the words of his very last battle-spell. Small, stinging bolts of magic lanced out at the pieces of Undarl, hurling them aloft. El did not stop until only tangled lumps of flesh remained amid blood… blood everywhere.
Still weeping, Elminster turned to where Myrjala had fallen. Fallen defending him-again. He tried to embrace her ashen bones, but they crumbled and he was holding only drifting dust… and then, nothing.
"No!" he sobbed brokenly, on his knees before Mystra's shrine in the brightening morning. "No!"
He stood up, mouth working, and shouted at the uncaring sun, "Magic brings only death! I'll wield magic no more!"
The ground rumbled and rocked at his words, and something slithered around his feet. Elminster looked down… and froze, watching in stunned silence. The ashes around him began to glow and drift together over the overgrown stone, rising and reshaping themselves into… Myrjala!
Honey-brown hair swirled as the glow became her bone-white body, lying on the stones. The hair wavered as if disturbed by an ebbing wave, and fell aside to reveal his teacher's familiar, pert face, and those large, dark eyes. They opened and looked up at him.
Elminster stood gaping in shock as Myrjala said gently, "Please, Elminster… never utter such words again-please? For me?"
Dumbly, Elminster fell to his knees again, reaching out wondering hands to touch her shoulders. They were solid, and smooth, and so were the hands that lifted to him and pulled his mouth down to hers. The sharp smell of burnt hair was strong around them as Elminster pulled back in alarm, wary of another magelord trick, and stared down into the eyes of the sorceress.
Their eyes met for a long time, and El knew he was facing Myrjala. He swallowed, tears falling from his cheeks onto her own, and said, "I-I promise. I thought ye dead… ye were dead, burned to ashes! How can this be?"
Fire rose and raged, deep in those dark eyes staring up into his. The ghost of what might have been a smile passed over her lips as she said softly, "For Mystra, anything is possible."
Elminster stared down at her, and then at last, he realized who-what-his