The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [90]
A vast smile was unfolding in his mind amid silver fire… fire that swept over him in wordless reassurance.
"Tammert!" Maresta snapped. "What befalls?"
"Mystra," he managed to gasp. "She heard my prayer!"
* * * * *
White motes of light danced in Mrelder's darkening vision. His father's hand tightened on his throat… the winking lights swirled faster, flashing like tiny stars and clustering ever-brighter.
"Fool!" thundered Golskyn, giving the sorcerer a shake that let Mrelder sob in a breath but brought pain bursting through his head like a stabbing lance. "I waste my time chasing a magical trinket, only to have you lose your nerve and destroy it?"
"No," Mrelder managed to croak. "Not… destroyed."
The cruel grip loosened. "Then why did you cast it aside? Why hurl spells at it?"
Mrelder cautiously backed away, shoulders scraping along the wall. "My knowledge of the gorget was incomplete," he husked, head pounding. "Didn't realize… trying to use it… would mind-link me to Khelben Arunsun."
He waited for his father's explosion.
To his surprise, the ghost of a smile flitted over Golskyn's face. "Ah. And how fared Waterdeep's archmage, when you left him?"
"How fared?" Mrelder echoed, not understanding what his father was asking. "I… took no time to inquire after his health. My only thought was to sever the link: through it, he could find me. Find us."
"Indeed," Golskyn agreed, that odd smile still lingering on his face. "I find myself reluctantly impressed by this archmage of yours and his sensible precautions. After all, it would not do to let just anyone command a stone golem as tall as fifteen men-to say nothing of eight such golems. If such control was easily mastered, it would not take long for the mustered Walking Statues to smash down this entire city, every last building of it."
"Yes," Mrelder gasped. "Most magics this powerful bear many safeguards and wards."
"You could not be expected to know them all," the priest said soothingly. "In time you'll discover them. Now put on the gorget again, that we may learn more."
Dread shimmered icily down Mrelder's spine. He wasn't sure what terrified him more: the thought of donning the gorget or his father's silkily mild tone, the searing promise of silver fire or the calm before the tempest.
"I am… no match for Khelben Arunsun," he said at last. "He could take over my mind as easily as you could assimilate a giant rat's tail."
"An unfortunate comparison, but one we'll leave unexplored for the nonce," Golskyn replied, sounding calm, even amused. "Are you afraid of this archmage?"
Fear was something Lord Unity of the Amalgamation scorned, but dishonesty he simply would not tolerate. Knowing this, his son nodded reluctantly.
"Then consider this: Whatever doom Khelben Arunsun might visit on you is a mere possibility, whereas what I, Golskyn, will do here and now if you do not try to master the gorget is a cold and final certainty."
The priest strolled away, then turned back to face Mrelder, still wearing that faint smile. "Perhaps," he added, his tone still disconcertingly reasonable, "that serves to put matters into proper balance?"
Because he had no choice, Mrelder lifted the Guardian's Gorget with quaking hands and placed it around his neck. He sensed
Nothing.
The tendril of magic connecting him to the silver fire of the great wizard's mind was gone.
Mrelder breathed an intense sigh of relief. The shields he'd unintentionally raised fell away. With their passing, a faint glow of magic filled his thoughts.
The link was not quite gone, but it was changed. No longer a road that ran two ways, it was fading fast but sending Mrelder an image such as he might have seen in a scrying bowl-one whose powers were swiftly dimming.
Khelben Arunsun lay in slumber, beard singed and hands and face blackened as if by fire. What seemed to be deep green woods surrounded him, and a woman with long silver hair knelt over him, her eyes closed and her lips moving like someone praying.
The vision