Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [132]
Out of nowhere, a gunne flipped through the air from the ornate chair, curved aside before it hit me, and bounced off the wall, falling on the floor before me. It was a weird-looking gunne. But I didn't care about that right now.
Thick smoke from the rapid gunne fire blanketed the entire room. The air had a thick, bitter, burned smell to it. Through the haze, I could make out the moving outline of a single large manlike being, sitting upright in the chair. He was cursing me mightily-in perfect Elvish.
Elvish? What more could I be surprised at this evening? But I was sick to death of surprises.
"It's my turn, Gulner," I said.
I shaped the air with my hands, mouthed a few words, pointed, and gave the invisible foul-mouthed gunner my own best shot.:
The normal version of the spell called "phantasmal killer" has its merits. It takes the victim's most deeply buried nightmares and shapes them into a single illusory entity, a monster that exists only in the victim's mind. The victim, however, believes the monster is absolutely real, invulnerable, and unstoppable. And he sees the monster come for him. If he believes the monster has struck him, the victim dies of fright.
After years of dealing with the sort of filth and scum that watchmen in Waterdeep know all too well, I had yearned for an improved form of that spell. I'd dearly wanted to pay back some criminal acquaintances for the suffering they had inflicted-on the public, on my friends, and on me.
Last year, I'd created that spejl. But I had never cast it until now.
Two things happened rapidly in sequence. First, the manlike form in the chair gasped aloud as the spell took effect. He had little chance to throw it off or resist its effects; it was extremely powerful. And it lasted for a full hour.
Second, everything simply went weightless, including me.
I banged my head against the ceiling and saw thousands of stars and comets. I felt I'd been tossed into the air by a giant. The room tilted as the roaring of the wind died outside.
The figure in the chair cried out hoarsely, then screamed as if he were dying-which he was. I had only a glimpse of him through the smoke, trying to ward off something. I never saw him again.
I felt now that I was falling. The wind's roar picked up, building rapidly to a great, bone-shaking thunder.
I'd made a mistake. The big guy in the chair must have been controlling the flight of the pinnace. In the process of killing the big guy, my pet spell had killed me, as well.
The pinnace rocked as it fell. Walls banged into me as I struggled to get out of the room, up to the deck. I still had my spell of levitation active, and I could drift down with the wind if I could get away.
I have no clear recollection of how I got out and kicked away from the falling ship. I was able to slow myself down almost at once and hover in the air.
Light from great Selune's silver orb fell upon cloud tops below me. I realized I must be miles and miles up. I had a last look at a tiny, dark ship dwindling rapidly away below me, a faint light shining from a door in its deck. It vanished into the distant clouds and was gone.
But the duration of my levitation spell was running out. I could mentally shut the spell's power down, but I'd fall like a stone. I'd never been this high before, nor had I even heard of anyone who had been this high.
"Okay," I said to myself, "I have one more levitation spell, so if I dispense with this one, I can cast the other one before I hit the ground, and everything will be fine. I just have to keep my head and hold on to the little leather bootstrap, and I can't forget any of the words or get the gesturing wrong or be too slow. It's been a grand night in Waterdeep, but I want to go home."
I went on like that to myself as I reached into my pocket and felt for the material component. I had one tiny leather strap left and pulled it out.
And dropped it.
I grabbed for it but missed. I twisted around and stared