Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [93]
"Not every day," Elmara replied. "The spells are woven into a dwaeodem."
"How nice," Gralkyn said with light, lilting sarcasm. "That explains everything… now I can go to my deathbed content."
"The spells are linked in a shield about me," Elmara replied softly. "Its creation took the sacrifice of an enchanted item of power-and it drains the life from me, slowly but inescapably, more the longer I hold it."
"Then enough idle talk," Tarthe said sharply. "Lead us into battle, mage."
Elmara nodded, swallowed, ducked her head just as a helmed warrior does to pull down his visor before a charge-the warriors exchanged looks and smiled-caught up her staff, and scrambled up onto the balcony rail.
Then she leapt off into space-and plunged from view.
The Blades exchanged grim looks and leaned forward over the rail. Far below, Elmara was gliding, arms outstretched, across the chamber, tilting her body as if testing the air. Her flight pulled sharply upward a scant hand's-breadth in front of a balcony, and she began to soar toward them. Her face was white and set; they saw her swallow and begin to look green even as she released her staff and moved her hands in intricate passes and finger-link-ings. The staff flew along beside her, mirroring her slight shifts of direction as Elmara rose up the far side of the chamber, working a spell. She seemed to cast it twice… and drifted to a halt facing them, arms spread above her head, two ghostly circles of radiance flickering about her hands. Then they saw but did not hear her mouth a word that made the chamber itself quiver-and the radiances rushed outward from her hands and vanished.
The four spheres in the center of the space began to move. The Blades watched, warily raising weapons as the globes of light glided around the chamber-and the beings within them stirred. As if awakened from a long sleep, they turned to look about. One of the Blades whispered a heartfelt curse. The thieves ducked low behind the balcony rail, peering at their crazed comrade hanging in the air, hands moving again as she cast yet another spell.
There was a soundless flash. The mind flayer had worked some spell of its own, seeking to break free of its globe, but the glowing magic had prevailed. The tentacled thing crouched down in seeming pain. Elmara frowned and gestured at it, and the mind flayer's prison of light scudded across the chamber, gathering speed as it spun toward the globe that held the dragon. The great wyrm was thrashing its tail, wriggling its shoulders, and roaring silently, trying to shatter the cramped confines of light about it. Its jaws flashed fire as it caught sight of the watching men on the balcony. Hatred glared in its gaze as it snarled at them.
Then the two globes rushed together, and the world shattered.
The Blades roared as a light brighter than they'd ever seen blasted into their eyes. They were staggering back even before the balcony shook beneath them, and they fell, blinded by the flash of the bursting globes. Only Asglyn, the Sword of Tempus, who'd expected spellfury of some sort and had closed his eyes in time, was able to see the mind flayer struggling in the dragon's jaws, hissing and burbling in futile spells before those teeth chomped down, once.
What remained of the purple body fell away in a dark rain of gore as the dragon opened its mouth and roared its rage. The third globe was already rushing in at the dragon, the beholder's eyestalks writhing as it prepared for the battle it knew would come.
Asglyn had a brief glimpse of Elmara, face a mask of sweat, jaw clenched in effort, driving the globe along the path she'd chosen. Then the priest shut his eyes tight, just before the flash of rending globes came again. It was followed by a second flash that lit his face with its heat. When Asglyn dared look, he saw the beholder wreathed in flames as the dragon beat its huge wings and raked at the eye tyrant with reaching claws. Stabbing rays of radiance leapt from the beholder's many eyes. The dragon's answering roars held a rising note of fear amid its fury.
Asglyn looked