Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [97]
Aumshar Urtrar, Master Mage
said to an apprentice at Midsummer
Year of the Weeping Moon
The cold hand of doom was tightening around the Brave Blades again. They could all feel it. They'd tried nine balconies now, and every door led somehow into the same silent tomb chamber. It lay across their paths like a waiting pit, patient and inescapable.
"Magic!" Dlartarnan spat, crouching down on a balcony and leaning on his drawn broadsword. "Always magic! Why don't the gods smile on a swung sword and a simple plan?"
"Mind, there!" Asglyn said sharply. "Tempus puts valor of the sword before all else, as well you know, and presuming to know better than any god, Dlar, is a fast leap into the grave!"
"Aye," the priest of Tyche agreed. "My Holy Lady looks well on those who complain little, but take advantage of what befalls and make their own good fortune!"
"Well enough," Dlartarnan grunted. "To please both your gods, I suppose I'd best lead the way into this tomb, and be the first to go down. That will make Tempus and Tyche both happy."
Without another word he rose from his haunches and strode into the tomb chamber beyond, his blade gleaming in his hand.
The other Blades exchanged glances and shrugs, and followed.
Dlartarnan was already across the chamber and at the nearest of its two closed doors, prying at the frame with his blade. " 'Tis locked," he snarled, putting his weight behind his blade, "but if-"
There was a loud snapping sound. Blue fire burst from the door, racing briefly up and down the frame. Smoke rose from the blackened thing that had been Dlartarnan of Belanchor before it fell to the floor. The warrior's ashes rolled away in dark gray swirls as his bones bounced on the flagstones. The skull rolled over once and came to a stop grinning up at them reproachfully. They stared down at the remains, stunned.
"Tyche watch over his soul," the Hand of Tyche whispered, lips trembling. As if in answer, Dlartarnan's twisted, half-melted sword fell out of the door. With a cry like the sob of a young maiden, it struck the flagstones and shattered.
Elmara swayed, then fell to her knees and was sick. The comforting hand Ithym put on her shoulder trembled violently.
"Perhaps a spell to try to open the other one?" Gralkyn suggested, voice high.
Asglyn nodded. "I have a battleshatter that may serve," he said quietly, "Tempus willing."
He bent his head briefly in prayer, leveled one hand at the remaining door, and murmured a phrase under his breath.
There was a splintering crash. The door shook, but did not burst. Dust fell from the ceiling here and there, and a long, jagged crack split the flagstones with a sharp sound that smote their ears like a hammer. The Blades reeled back, staring, as the crack raced out from the base of the tomb toward the door. Asglyn was running away, face tight with fear, when sudden fire blazed up from his limbs.
"Nooo!" he cried, sprinting vainly across the chamber. "Tempussss!" Flames roared up to scorch the domed ceiling high overhead, and when they died away, the priest of Tempus was gone.
Into the shocked silence, Tarthe said, "Back-out of this place. That magic came from the tomb!"
Tharp was nearest the passage back to the balcony, so it was only a breath later that he plunged through the doorway-and froze in mid-stride, limbs trembling under the attack of some unseen force. The Blades watched in horror as the warrior's bones burst up out of his body in a grisly spray of blood and vanished near the ceiling. What was left collapsed in a boneless heap, blood raining down around it as Tharp's helm and armor rang on the floor.
The five remaining Blades looked at each other in horror. Elmara moaned and closed her eyes, face pale-but no less white than Tarthe's, as he reached out a reassuring arm to grip her shoulder. Othbar, the Hand of Tyche, swallowed