The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [116]
Wards were flickering in Golskyn's chamber as strong magics lashed out and rebounded, and the feeble clarity spell struggled to expand like mist swirling in a gale. Through it, Mrelder caught a glimpse of his father standing fearlessly, hair singed and his tentacles holding his desk-its top scorched and smoldering-in front of him like a shield.
Golskyn was murmuring spell-prayers as fast as his lips could move, gesturing to bring down the wrath of the gods on something across the chamber. A foe that was, yes, high up near the ceiling: Spherical, and with-
Something flashed through the thinning smoke, and Mrelder felt himself stiffening. He fought to turn and lift his arm, panic flaring like a flame, but… he was caught… and frozen.
His hand slowed to a drifting thing, then stopped altogether, and Mrelder turned what was left of his will to breathing and turning his eyes, trying to see-
Wall and floor, rushing up to meet him swiftly as mongrel-men burst into the room and struck him aside.
Mrelder slammed into unyielding hardness and bounced, hearing a mongrelman grunt in pain behind him. Then there came a heavy crash as another blundered into a chair and fell through it to the floor.
Then came more bright red flashes, somewhere above him, and more groans. Weapons were dropped with heavy clangs and clatters, someone shouted in pain, and someone else shrieked in agony, cries that receded swiftly back out the door and ended in an abrupt wail that could only mark a plunge down the stairwell.
Golskyn said something cold and crisp and triumphant, and Mrelder felt that horrible shifting in his mind that could only mean one thing: his father was collapsing most of the wards laid on his chamber into a mighty spell to make it even stronger.
Mrelder's skin tingled, and a sudden, high singing began, so thin and high-pitched that it felt almost like a needle driven into his ears… and it went on and on.
All other sounds ceased, but for a few distant groans and the imperious tread of his father's boots, crossing the chamber to thrust bruisingly into Mrelder's ribs and roll him over.
"Well, you exhibited your usual scant usefulness," Golskyn of the Gods commented, staring scornfully down at the paralyzed sorcerer. Mrelder gazed helplessly back at him.
One side of the priest's head was scorched, his bared torso was a mass of sickening yellow-and-blue bruises, blistered burns, and blackened tatters of clothing largely burned away down to his belt, The little snake graft that sprouted from his wrist was thrashing about convulsively, biting the air in agony… but the priest's own surviving eye was its usual cold, confident self. The other one-the beholder orb-stared with deadly promise down at Mrelder, the eyepatch that customarily concealed it dangling around Golskyn's neck.
Beyond him, shrouded in flickering magics, a beholder-a small one, little larger than a round shield, and with only six eyestalks, but yes, a beholder!-hung motionless.
His father's head turned. "Well, Hoth?"
"Four dead. Ortarn here, Danuth and Velp yonder, and Skein's face was burnt off, even before he fell over the rail and broke his neck. The rest of us will live until we can heal each other. Shall I show the noble up?"
Golskyn started to chuckle, a harsh, mirthless sound that went on for some time. Mrelder tried again to move his hand and found that it responded now, but slowly, drifting in dreamlike torpor despite the fiercest exertion of his will.
Hoth ignored the sorcerer at his feet entirely, his eyes fixed on Golskyn as the priest's chuckle ran down. Gazing at the frozen beholder, the leader of the Amalgamation replied, "Of course. Tell him-"
"I found my own way up, as it happens," Beldar Roaringhorn said calmly from the doorway.
Hoth whirled around, but Golskyn snapped out a tentacle to coil around the man's arm and ordered, "Leave us, Hoth. Peacefully. The Lord Roaringhorn stands very much in our favor, just now."