Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [135]
"Shan!" Narm screamed, staggering forward. "Sha – " His second cry ended in a gurgling of blood, and he lurched forward, clutching at his throat, as Voldovan ducked away and disappeared into the drifting smoke.
Shandril whirled around and stared at her man. Then she howled, "Noooo!" in a voice that must have deafened folk abed back in Triel, and hurled a river of bright fire at Narm.
It was a brighter sustained torrent than Asper had ever seen before – just looking at it made her eyes stream – and somehow different, shot through with spiraling bright motes that seemed larger and softer than sparks. It enfolded Narm and drove him fully upright, arms flung wide, and seemed to surge through him, pouring forth from mouth and nostrils … even from his eyes, as a storm of bright sparks.
Narm screamed again, a high, wordless cry of agony, and collapsed, falling over stiffly like a tree toppling into flames.
"Narm!" Shandril howled, "NARM! Answer me!"
The maid of spellfire crouched in her inferno, her face wet with tears, staring in despair at where the man she loved had stood. There came no reply from him, nothing but the roaring of flames. Her healing had served her beloved just as it had Beldimarn.
"No!" Shandril screamed at the skies. "No! Everyone DEAD! Death, death, all I do is slay!" Her voice mounted into a great shriek of grief and rage, and her body erupted in spellfire.
If Asper had thought the camp a place of blindingbright flame before, she knew better now. She had to turn her head away, eyes shut tight, against the nowscreaming brilliance, and shuddered atop Mirt, whimpering, as the ground beneath them flared into uncomfortable heat and slumped slightly. Closer to Shandril it must be melting and flowing, sinking into a pit… a pit that would claim them both if she didn't drag her Old Wolf to safe ground.
Evaereol Rathrane had never known power like this before. He was as large as a dozen dragons, a great glowing dark cloud with power enough now to solidify at will or even to make this gigantic form striding, earth-shaking reality. He dared not do so, just yet, as spellfire and something even stronger – these silver flames he'd never seen the like of before – raged below him. Soon, though, all this greatly changed world would tremble and bow down before Evaereol Rathrane, archwizard of archmages, mightiest of all weavers of Art! Smiling inside, the darkness that was Rathrane looked south and west, where a fell and cold awareness had awakened to his presence and now regarded him.
Larloch, he named that foe, and laughed at it, mindto-mind, knowing he could sweep away the lich at will… and knowing the distant lord of liches knew it, too.
Yes, he was now greater than the mightiest of Netheril had ever been, a colossus of flowing magic – and still the spellfire flowed into him from below, and he grew mightier. The little female who was its source was capering and wailing now, gone from rage to grief, but her pull on the Weave was as strong as ever, and the power – the power!
Ah, still it flowed, bright and searing, painful now as it flooded on into him. Endless, fiery, delicious…
Rathrane exulted, throwing up hands to the stars as if he could reach them, towering ever higher. He was shuddering helplessly in the grip of pain, now, as the spellfire flowed on, but he'd master it as he'd mastered it before.
His shoulders rose again, and he was tall enough to see small winking wisps of silver fire in a distant crater in the wilderlands rock that had not been there before, wherein a spread-eagled and broken Lady Mage of Waterdeep lay staring up at the same stars he stood among.
He could reach out and pluck her life as easily as a thought… but drew back, even as the thought quickened in him, out of mistrust of that silver fire.
There was something too fey about it, too… strong.
Bah! What could be stronger than he? Well, this pain, for one thing…
As he convulsed and moaned and collapsed in earnest,