Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [90]
The others obeyed, but waited at the far end of the hall, watching. Gralkyn sprinted toward the door, dived through it, and hit the stone floor hard. As he passed through the opening, the lights halted, as if held by an invisible wall, so he was stripped of all of them. After a moment, he got to his knees and crawled as fast as he could out of the passage. Only then did he look back, at a smooth wall of twinkling lights, solidly filling the doorway.
"Are ye… well?" The words were out of Elmara's mouth before she thought about the prudence of asking.
Gralkyn rubbed at his shoulders. "I… know not. Everything seems aright… now that the tingling's stopped." He was flexing thoughtful fingers when Ithym shrugged, drew a slim dagger from his belt, and flung it at the doorful of floating lights. There was a vicious crackle of tiny lightnings, so bright they all drew their heads back and grunted in pain, and the weapon was gone. There was nothing left to strike the floor. When they could see clearly again, the lights were still filling the doorway, forming a smooth, unbroken barrier.
Tarthe looked at it sourly. "Well," he said, "that's no way back as I'd care to try. So… forward."
They all turned and looked about. They stood on a balcony that curved slightly as if on the inside of a vast circle. The waist-high stone railing in front of them opened on to nothingness. Vast, open darkness. They peered along the walls, and could dimly see other balconies nearby-some higher, some lower… all of them empty.
Tarthe shrugged. "Well, mage?"
Elmara raised an eyebrow. "Do ye seek my counsel, or a spell?"
"Can you conjure a sphere of light and sail it out into this?" He waved an arm at the great darkness before them, being careful not to extend it beyond the rail.
Elmara nodded. "I can," she said quietly, "but should I? This has the feeling of-something waiting. A trap, belike, awaiting my spell to set it off."
Tarthe sighed. "We're in a wizard's tower! Of course there're hanging spells and traps all about… and of course we invite danger by working magic here! You think none of us realize that?"
Elmara shrugged. "I… strong magic is all about us in webs.
I know not what will befall if I disturb it. I want all of ye to be aware of this and be not unprepared to leap aside if… the worst comes down on us. So I ask ye again: should I?"
Tarthe exploded. "Why these endless questions about what is right and should you do thus or so? You've got the power-use it! When d'you ever hear other mages asking if hurling a spell is to the liking of those around?"
"Not often enough," one of the other warriors murmured, and Tarthe wheeled around to give him a flat glare.
The warrior shrugged and spread empty hands. "Eh, Tarthe," he protested, "I but speak my view of the world."
"Hmmph," Tarthe grunted. "Take care that someone does not alter your view of the world for you-forcefully, and mayhap working on what you view with, not what you see."
"Well enough," Elmara said, raising her hands. "I will give ye light. Be it on thy head, Tarthe, if the result be not pleasant. Stand ye back."
She took something small and glowing from a pouch at her belt, held it up, and muttered over it. It seemed to bubble and grow in her fingers, and she spread them to let it rise up and hang in front of her face, spinning, shaping itself into a sphere of pulsing, ever-growing light. Its flickering radiance gave the mage's sharp-nosed, intent face a brooding appearance.
When the sphere was as large as her head and hung bright and steady, Elmara bent her gaze on it. Obediently it moved away from her, gliding soundlessly through the air, out from the balcony into the darkness beyond. As it went, the darkness parted before it like a tattered curtain, showing them the true size of the vast chamber. Even before it reached the far wall of the great spherical room, other radiances not of Elmara's making appeared, here and there in the air before them,