Escape from Undermountain - Mark Anthony [87]
"Worry not, yesss?" the leader of the silversanns hissed reassuringly. "Put we together back your bodiesss when done we are. Yesss, yesss?"
The silversanns continued to close in, steel tools raised. Apparently they didn't understand that living creatures couldn't simply be taken apart like machines. And once they discovered that they couldn't just put their ssspecimens back together, it would be far too late. Artek gripped the hilt of his saber, wondering if the blade would have any effect against the hard plates that armored the creatures.
One of the silversanns stretched a wicked-looking probe toward Beckla.
"Get back, you metal worm!" the wizard cried. She shouted several arcane words, and blue magic crackled between her outstretched fingers. "Get back, or I'll melt you!"
The silversanns let out a chorus of shrill shrieks. For a second, Artek thought Beckla's threat had terrified them. Then, in astonishment, he realized that their shrieks were sounds of delight, not fear.
"Magic, yesss?" they cried excitedly, clustering around the wizard. "How cassst you did magic? Ssshow usss, yesss? Ssshow usss!"
The silversanns continued to babble, but Artek could catch little of what the creatures said in their hissing voices. However, Beckla bent toward them, cocking an ear. As she listened, a smile gradually spread across her face. Finally she said something to the silversanns and they let out piercing squeaks of joy. They scuttled a short distance back, then waited expectantly.
Artek leaned over to murmur in her ear. "What in the world did you say to them?"
"I told them I'd teach them how to do magic," she whispered back.
"You what?"
"You heard me, Ar'talen."
"I heard you, but I don't understand. I'm no wizard, but even I know that only living beings can wield magic."
Beckla nodded. "I know that, and you know that. But they don't know that." Her smile broadened into a grin. "As it turns out, the silversanns are absolutely fascinated by magic. It's their favorite area of research. They've seen some of the thanatars' prisoners work it before, and they want more than anything to learn it themselves. Of course, no matter how faithfully they duplicate the words and movements of a spell, it will never work for them. It can't. They're not alive."
Beckla gestured subtly toward the heaps of broken artifacts. "That's what all this stuff is for. Somewhere along the line, they developed a crazy notion that when magical objects are broken, their magic is released. They sleep near these heaps of junk in the belief that, over time, they'll absorb some of that magic."
Artek shook his head at this absurdity. "So what are you going to do?"
"You'll see," she replied mysteriously. She approached the waiting silversanns.
Corin, Guss, and Muragh looked at Artek questioningly, but he only shrugged his broad shoulders. He had no idea what the wizard intended to do.
"All right, then," Beckla said crisply, addressing the mechanicals as she might a class of new apprentices at a school for mages. "Casting magic really isn't all that difficult. It's simply a matter of using the proper inflection. Now, follow my movements as best you can, and repeat after me."
She weaved her arms in a complex pattern while uttering a string of words that, to Artek, sounded far more like nonsense than they did magic. The silversanns made a comic effort to mimic her hand movements with their whiplike antennae. A buzz rose from them as they repeated her words dutifully and, unfortunately, quite erroneously.
"K'hal sith mam!" Beckla shouted in finish, raising her arms above her head.
"G'sssar ziph mooli!" the silversanns repeated happily, waving their wiry sensory organs.
A shimmering aura of sapphire light sprang into being around Beckla's body. Artek thought he saw the wizard wiggle her fingers. A fraction of a second later, a blue aura surrounded each of the silversanns. The creatures shrieked in glee, their countless legs wriggling in abject ecstasy.
"Magic do usss, yesss?" they cried. "Wizardsss now we are, yesss? Ssspells cassst we! Yesss, yesss?"