Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [107]
He'd seen the man's agonized, spread-eagled body outlined by fire, ere he'd been whirled away, but…
'twas done.
Shaking his head to clear it, Besmer got up and stumbled on, never seeing the dark, wraith-like cloud descending out of the sky behind his shoulders.
*******
Waterdeep had been glorious, a feast of magics, and Evaereol Rathrane had grown strong enough to manifest hands that could snatch and hold and carry.
Greatness soon to come was more than a dream now.
Yet he still dropped things from time to time, and found it easier by far to drift along as a shifting, shapeless cloud, as he was drifting now, excited by his whelmed power but wary. The world had changed much since his days in Jethaere.
These humans would have marveled at Jethaere of the Towers, and might well have been less arrogant than to call their crowded, stinking harbor-huddle a "City of Splendors," but they rolled in magic – magic so carelessly and lavishly used as to seemingly be held of little value.
Yet Waterdeep had not been an unguarded treasurehouse. Rathrane still shuddered at the remembered pain of its wards and leaping enchantments and the spells hurled by furious mages who saw him and lashed out without a moment's hesitation. Flames too bright and too close still burned more than they succored.
He'd fled from pain, lashed and hooked and scorched, out over wilderlands once more, drifting on from where a frantic flight from guardiangargoyles had taken him in the painful aftermath of his last and worst attempt to snatch magic in Waterdeep. Wizards of Jethaere would never have spun spells in such a rough-and-tumble way, nor spent so much Art for clawing guardian beasts.
Would every last mage's tower be girt with such fearsome sentinels as well as the more subtle, exacting, and expected wards? Such fastnesses should be out here, yes, far from – Magic blossomed below, bright and sudden, and the shadowy thing that had been Rathrane of Jethaere smiled an unseen smile and sank swiftly toward that beckoning glow.
*******
Mhegras of the Zhentarim groaned as he swam out of darkness and blinked awake. He lay still and silent on his back, hearing little rustlings in tangled and interwoven branches above him. He was weak and sore, and when he strove to lift a hand, it was some time before his quavering fingers rose into view. "Bane preserve me," he whispered hoarsely, watching them tremble.
"Pray indeed to our Dark and Dread Lord," a familiar voice said sourly from close by, "for by his will we're delivered from death." Sabran, no doubt lying here too. Those Harpers, a grip like iron…
Mhegras thrust away that frightening memory with a whimper, and weighed the priest's words.
Bewilderment came. "H-he took direct interest in us?"
"Nay," Sabran snarled in low tones, "the spell that brought us back was mine, cast beforehand at the cost of a life for each of us, lives provided by those two idiot weavers in the squeaking wagon. Great Bane granted that spell to me. I didn't think much of your protective magics – rightly, as it turns out."
Mhegras scowled and tried to sit up. There was a moment of trees and sky whirling around, sickening weakness, and… he was lying on his back again, looking up at the sky, with fresh aches, and mists drifting through his thoughts. His neck…
He moved his head a little, to make the pain go away, but it got worse. He groaned again.
"Wait," Sabran hissed, "and be glad those two Harpers just broke our necks and threw us down in this ditch, that they didn't go chopping pieces off us or looting our pouches. If you give my magic time to finish its work, you'll be able to walk. If we can find something to eat, we'll soon feel as if nothing happened to us."
Mhegras felt his fingers itching. When he lifted them into view, he saw that they were twitching uncontrollably. Marvelous for casting spells! He let his hands fall back, clawed the ground beside him in sudden fury, and announced harshly, "When I get my hands on that Arauntar, he'll wish