Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [72]
In Candlekeep, near the sea, the Keeper of the Tomes looked up from pages of stamped and burnished electrum as the soft glow of the runes of power they bore flickered.
The First Reader had seen it too, and fallen silent in his translation. The two men looked at each other in the dark, dusty round room that was the innermost and most sacred of the Inner Rooms, and then stared out, unseeing, into the darkness. The glowing globe that gave them light to read by dimmed where it hung at the keeper's shoulder, brightened, and then dimmed again.
"Great art, somewhere, contending with great art," the First Reader said quietly, and the Keeper nodded.
"Aye," he said grimly, "and what changes will it bring this time?"
The question hung unanswered in the room with them for a long time before they could begin reading again.
Orlgaun wheeled again, and Manshoon shook where he sat on the broad, scaled back from the aftereffects of the mighty disjunction he had worked. The hand that had nearly slain him was gone, as were the other, lesser magics that had assailed him-but below on the rocks, the old mage and the younger maid still stood calmly. Their hands moved again in the gesture of spell-weaving, and the elf and the ranger still flew after him, low and beneath Orlgaun's body where he could not reach them, one on either side.
Manshoon snarled in frustration and tore another globe from the necklace he wore as the black dragon dove again toward his enemies. Orlgaun moved more slowly and heavily with each pass. Both spells and steel had struck the dragon, and struck deeply.
The black dragon had felt nothing worse than the sting of arrows for a long time. Nor have I met such resistance in a fair while, Manshoon thought darkly, as he hurled the globe he held. He then watched magic missiles rise up toward him in a bright dancing group of lights. He was powerless to stop them.
Behind him he heard Merith's triumphant song as the elf thrust his blade between two of Orlgaun's armored scales. Manshoon turned, raising his wand, but Florin was there, sword sweeping out. The blade burned across the lord's fingers like liquid fire, and Manshoon saw the wand whirl harmlessly away in the air amid droplets of his own blood just before the magic missiles struck.
The dragon rider's globe exploded with stunning force, showering everyone on the ground with a spray of dust and small stones. Larger fragments cracked sharply off the rocks they crouched behind.
Only Elminster and a sorely wounded Jhessail still stood in view. The other knights lay still under the dust or crouched behind cover tensely. The earth's shuddering nearly threw the weary Jhessail to her knees.
Under Narm’s heavy weight, Shandril was jolted into confused awareness of the tumult around her.
Where was she now? Wearily she wriggled into the light, scarcely aware that she was pushing away a body, and completely unaware that it was Narm. She saw dust swirl everywhere. In the open pit of tumbled rocks and coins before her Elminster stood calmly, facing to her right and looking upwards.
Shandril peered upward, and saw a dark form approaching rapidly. It was Merith, blade in hand.
He was flying somehow, and was hurrying. He seeks Jhessail, Shandril thought dully as she saw his dark, anxious face and where he was headed. Jhessail had just sagged down onto a rock, pain showing on her face.
But beyond the hurrying elf, in midair, Florin was flying with the aid of his shield, and as he hung from it he struck, again and again, at someone who was riding a gigantic black dragon. Whoever it was twisted this way and that under Florin's blows