Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [98]
Tarthe nodded, face sharp with fear. "What should we do?
You and Elmara know more of magic than the rest of us here."
"Dig our way out of the chamber?" Elmara asked faintly. "The doors and windows he must have covered with hanging spells that wait to slay us, but if he's not expected us to pry at the flagstones, he may have to rise from his rest to hurl spells at us."
"And when he rises, what then?" Gralkyn asked fearfully. Ithym nodded grimly, echoing the question.
"We strike with everything we have," Tarthe said, "both spell and blade."
"Let me cast a spell first," said Othbar. His face was very white and his voice shook. "If it works, Ondil will be bound into his tomb for a time, unable to work magic-and we can try to get out."
"To have him sending spells and beasts after us for the rest of our lives?" Ithym asked grimly.
Tarthe shrugged. "We'll have the chance to gather blades and spells enough to fight him if he does, where now he slaughters us at whim. Ready weapons, and I'll try these flagstones. Othbar, say out when you're ready."
The priest of Tyche fell to his knees in fervent prayer, bidding the Lady remember his long and faithful service. Then he pricked his palm with a belt knife, and caught the falling drops of blood in his other hand, intoning something they could not understand.
A moment later, he crumpled to the flagstones, arms flopping loosely. Gralkyn took an involuntary step forward-and then recoiled, as something ghost-white rose in wisps from the priest's body. It roiled in silence, growing taller and thinner-until a ghostly image of Othbar stood facing them. It pointed sternly at the four surviving Blades, and then at the windows. They watched in awe as Othbar's shade strode to the casket and laid its palms on the stone lid.
"What? Is he-?" Ithym was shaken.
Tarthe bent over the body. "Yes." When he straightened, the warrior's face looked older. "He knew the spell would cost him his life, I would guess, by what he said," Tarthe said, and his voice quavered. "Let's begone."
"By the windows?" Ithym asked, tears in his eyes as he looked back at the ghostly figure standing by the tomb.
"It's the way he pointed," Tarthe said heavily. "Ropes first."
The two thieves undid leather jerkins to reveal ropes wound many times around their bellies. Elmara took hold of one end of each rope, and the thieves spun around and around until the ropes lay in loose coils on the floor. Ithym caught up two ends and tied them together.
Then, gingerly, the two thieves approached a window, looking back over to be sure there was nothing visible that might spring at them. Ithym carried the coil of rope on his shoulder, and Gralkyn held one end of it in his hands as he approached the window.
He touched the end of the rope to the ornate wrought iron of the window screen, and then to the draperies beyond. Then he followed, gingerly, with one gloved hand. Nothing happened.
The oval window-screens depicted scenes of flying dragons, wizards standing atop rocky pinnacles, and rearing pegasi. With a shrug, Gralkyn chose the nearest one with a pegasus on it and swung the screen aside on its hinges. They made a slight squeal of protest, but nothing else befell. His blade parted the draperies beyond-to reveal bubble-pocked glass, and through it, a view of the sky and the wilderlands. Cautiously the thief probed the window opening with his blade, peering about for traps. Then he said, "These were not made to open. The glass is fixed in place."
"Break it, then," Ithym said.
Gralkyn shrugged, reversed his blade, and swung hard. The glass burst apart, shards flashing and tinkling everywhere.
Sudden motes of light shone in the air where the window had been, spiraling, slowly at first… and then faster…
"Back!" Elmara shouted in sudden alarm. "Get ye back!"
The light of the activating spell flared before her words were half out-and a force of awesome power snatched both thieves out through the