Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [22]
"Idiot noble," the Red Wizard hissed, his sweating face as pale as a bleached skull. "Do you know what risk you place upon fair Cormyr by this overbold action? Or how terribly you doom yourself?"
The tall, scarred man at the other end of the grand rapier smiled. "Yes," he told Thauvas sweetly.
Behind his back, the Red Wizard finally completed the intricate gesture he'd been tracing. "Sssardamar!" he said triumphantly- and twisted away from the sharp swordpoint, shouting, "Die, fool! To dare to threaten a mage of Thay so! Down-country dog!"
Magic flared up around the man who'd called himself Khorna-dar of Westgate with a roar, hungry flames that thrust out at the raven-haired noble.
Who did not scream and shrivel and die but instead lost sword and dark hair and clean-shaven chin to stand smiling through the flames as a hawk-nosed, white-bearded man with busy brows, stained old robes-and even brighter fire in his hands.
"Ah, but it seems fools dare just about anything, these days, doesn't it?" he asked merrily. "Do ye know me now, Thauvas Zlorn? Do they still, in Thay-amidst all their swaggering and gleeful counting of as-yet-unhatched chickens, as they scheme to rule all Toril a dozen times over-mention the name 'Elminster' from time to time? Just to warn young wizards of the natural perils of this world?"
Blood trickled down Zlorn's throat as magic that sliced through his own as if it were mere false conjurer's fancy-feathers lifted him into the air and held him dangling there. He swallowed, managed the nigh impossible feat of growing even more pale, and fainted.
"Mystra mine," Elminster murmured disgustedly, "but they let just about anything swagger out of Thay these days, don't they?"
* * * * *
It was dark at the bottom of the stairs. The only lights were lanterns and torches moving to and fro with grim bands of searchers-humans all, men and women who bore either blades, handbows, and silver harp pins, or wands and the vacant expressions of folk listening to conversations only they could hear, raging in their heads.
Narnra paused, not sure at first which way to go. She knew roughly what direction led to the archway-but without that wizard it was closed, and she'd probably not be able to even find its exact location. Moreover, with all the corpses and spilled blood down here, it would be a horrible thing to have all the searchers depart and leave her groping in utter darkness with the rats. Her best chance lay in somehow joining a band of searchers, being accepted as one of them, reaching the city beyond the broken bridge with them… and, she supposed, starting a new life. With nearly nothing in a strange realm where she'd already been marked as a possible traitor by a royal wizard.
"Thank you, merciful gods," she muttered sardonically-then stiffened as two things happened at once: she remembered the silhouette leaping down the stairs, presumably chasing her but somehow not yet upon her… and a Harper suddenly veered away from a passing group and thrust a flaming torch at her. "Yours," he said shortly. "Caladnei's orders."
Narnra gaped at him then numbly, because she could think of nothing else to do, took the torch. It spat pitch, as they all did, and burned with a brilliance that warmed her cheek-very real and with enough hard-nailed cloth on it to last for hours. Of course, it made her a beacon in the dark cellars… but really, with a Mage Royal casting spells on her, wasn't she that already?
The Silken Shadow