Realms of Valor - James Lowder [24]
Eerie green and white light flashed suddenly from behind her. As it lit up the Old Mage's face, Storm saw his look of surprise and whirled around, upsetting her chair. The eerie light came from a flickering oval of flame. It hung upright in the air, in the middle of the tiny, cramped room. Its presence defied the mighty magics that guarded Elminster's tower, magics, Storm knew, that kept the place safe from the archmages of the evil Zhentarim, the Red Wizards of Thay, and worse. No one should have been able to open a gate into the tower. But the oval of flame was, Storm decided, most certainly a gate. When the bard looked through the flickering magical doorway, she saw a long, stone-lined hall, stretching away into darkness. And something was moving in the gloomy passageway... Elminster strode forward, frowning, hands weaving spells out of the air. “Impossible,” he murmured. A shadowy figure was walking slowly toward them, out of the darkness of that phantom hallway. The creature was tall and very thin. Its eyes were two cold, glittering points of light set in dark pits. As it came nearer, Storm could see that the robes it wore hung in tatters, eaten away by rot. The bard's heart sank. This must be a lich, a wizard whose magic was so powerful that he lived on, beyond death. Few could fight a lich and hope to survive, few even among the ranks of the great archmages of Faerun. The lich came still nearer, and Storm met its fell gaze, staring into the cold, flickering lights of its eyes. They danced in the empty sockets of its skeletal face, measuring her, and then turned from her contemptuously to Elminster. “Death has come for you at last, Old Mage,” the lich whispered, its hissing voice surprisingly loud. It was still far down the hallway. “D'ye know how often I've heard those words? Every murderous fool in Faerun tries them on me at least once.” Elminster raised an eyebrow. “Or in thy case, Raerlin, twice.” With one hand he traced a glowing sign in the air. The lich gave him a ghastly, gap-toothed smile and kept coming. Elminster's other eyebrow went up. His hands moved swiftly in several intricate gestures. A barrier of shimmering radiance sprang into being across the mouth of the portal. Raerlin's hands moved in response, and the barrier burst into tiny motes of light that scattered like dancing sparks from a campfire, then winked out. The lich's fleshless skull managed, somehow, to sneer. “You thought yourself very clever, duping my two servants at the magefair, Elminster,” came that hissing whisper again, “but I am not so easily fooled or defeated.” The skull seemed to smile. “I was at the fair, too. Your blindness spell failed against me, of course, and you did not even see through my spell-disguise. Are such simple sorceries beyond your understanding now?” From the kitchen, muted by its stout, closed door, came the sudden rising, incongruous shriek of Lhaeo's kettle coming to a boil. Elminster's hands were moving again. Storm saw lines of crackling power form between his fingers before he cast forth a bolt at the lich. As the energy flashed away from his hands, it lit up his face in tints of growing worry. The lich laughed hollowly as Elminster's bolt crackled around its desiccated
form. Tiny lightnings spat and leaped around its body, but seemed unable to do any harm. The lich raised a bony hand and cast a spell of its own. Storm looked back at Elminster in alarm-and saw one of the books in the open closet behind the Old Mage glow suddenly with the same green and white radiance