Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [131]
Alustriel nodded. Her ghostly face tightened, gasped at the ceiling, and then said, "Ahh, better. Almost whole. Sister, farspeak Mirt and Asper. 'Tis less than kind to snatch folk half across Faerun without warning, and we want them properly clad and armed."
Laeral's lips twisted in a wry smile. "If there is such a thing as 'properly clad and armed' for attending a battlefield where spellfire's running wild."
"You could wear Khelben," Alustriel suggested lightly, her words only half-teasing.
The Lady Mage of Waterdeep smiled and shook her head. "He's needed more here keeping Waterdeep in order – and I'd not want to place him among so many foes of Art. Not for his protection, but for theirs.
He's all too apt to smite first and show mercy later."
Alustriel nodded. "I can feel Sharantyr now. She's in bad shape. We'd best not wait longer to translocate her, but we need an anchor point that won't land her among foes."
"If it's only to be for a short time," Laeral replied,
"we can just send her back to where she last relieved herself, on the trail. She walked, remember?"
"Haste matters most," Alustriel agreed, and her phantom face seemed to blaze more brightly.
Maratchyn watched in silent awe. The two Chosen of Mystra must be snaring raging spellfire energies and using them to teleport this distant Sharantyr person from wherever she was to an unknown anchor point – waste or discarded hair or the like that had once been part of her own body.
He shivered at the very thought. "Dangerous" was too mild a word. Why, th – "Done," Alustriel said calmly. "She lives. Are Mirt and Asper ready?"
"Moreso than I’ll ever be, I think," Laeral replied and turned to give Maratchyn a jaunty wave.
Her hand was still moving in that wry gesture when she vanished. Alustriel's ghost-face winked out in the same instant, leaving the apprentice blinking at where they'd been.
Maratchyn was still' drawing breath and trying to remember every last nuance of tone and look exchanged by his Lady Teacher and the High Lady when there was a sudden crackling of the air behind him, a presence that made him turn quickly.
The Lord Mage of Waterdeep was standing in the nearest doorway, in his customary black robes and with no less than three scepters of power clutched in one of his hands. The other held a quill pen from which a single drop of ink dripped – iridescent greengold ink, Maratchyn couldn't help but notice, as it splattered in all directions.
The Blackstaff did not appear to be in the best of moods. He fixed the lone apprentice with a very direct stare, and said, "I feel very great disturbances in the Weave, and Art surges through this chamber far more strongly than my wards should allow.
Master Maratchyn, have you any explanation for this? Should I be wary of your great powers of mischief or despairing of your clumsiness… or merely demanding the utmost of your no doubt finely honed powers of observation?"
Maratchyn swallowed. "I – ah – the Lady Alustriel, Lord Khelben. She appeared, conferred with the Lady Mage Laeral, and – well, they departed together. She said there was no need to involve you."
Khelben's eyes narrowed. "So glib, Master Maratchyn? I fear I'm going to have to visit your memories directly and see and hear just as you did.
You may well be telling the truth, but you must admit that it sounds a mite… farfetched."
"No disagreement there, Lord!" Maratchyn replied, heartily and meant it.
*******
Spellfire blinded Sharantyr and turned blue – a rushing blue fury that flashed through her, spun her head-over-heels, and whirled her up into its flood.
The ranger felt herself plucked up from the grass nigh Shandril, and hurled somewhere far, far away.
Somewhere that had something to do with a bloody lock of her own hair…
Suddenly she was elsewhere – an elsewhere that had moonlight and many tree branches, but entirely lacked spell-fire, lanterns, wagons, running men, or spell-hurling wizards.
What it did have was warm, yielding, gently snoring bodies – or at least one. Sharantyr landed hard atop it, and was aware of a male,