The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [116]
He paused at the Portal, swept his elbows out to make the shards slash at him one last time…and to keep them out of the way as he knelt…and went to his knees, extending the platter at the full stretch of his arms and touching his forehead to the cold marble of the threshold.
Swift hands snatched the platter away, and others beheaded him with a single keen stroke.
A long, sleek arm snatched up the blood-gargling head by its hair. An oiled body stretched and thrust Darlakhan's head into a brazier, ignoring the flames that raced back down oiled flesh. "The last," that someone murmured, pain making the voice tight.
"Then know peace, Dread Sister," someone else said, touching her with the black Quenching Rod that drank all fire. The drum rolled one last time and fell silent, a long-nailed hand made a gesture, and black flames roared up out of a dozen braziers with a collective crackle and snarl.
Each brazier in the circle held a blackening, severed head. Each tongue of dark flame rose up in a twisting, flowing column to feed a dark sphere overhead.
The Sacred Chamber of Shar, the most holy room in the House of Holy Night, was crowded indeed. All of the cruel and powerful upper priestesses of Shar were gathered here in their black and purple, beneath the sphere of roiling shadows. All of them streamed blood from open wounds, all of their eyes were bright with excitement, and all of their attention was now fixed on the sphere that loomed so large above their heads, as tall as six mea
Something swam into view briefly, within the sphere: a human arm, slender and feminine, white skinned and clawing vainly at nothing. Then an elbow was seen, and suddenly, the head and shoulders of a feebly struggling human female swam into view. All that could be seen of her was bare, and she was thrashing about in the fire, seemingly blind. Despair was written large across her face, the eyes dark, staring pools, the mouth open in an endless, soundless scream.
There was a murmur of puzzlement and surprise from among the gathered priestesses…and the tallest among them, resplendent in her horned black headdress and her mantle of deepest purple, stepped forward and brought the long lash in her hand down with brutal force across the bare back of a man kneeling under the sphere. Sweat flew in all directions, he was drenched and gleaming.
"Explain, Dread Brother High," the Darklady of the House commanded, her voice sharp. "We were promised by you…and, in a sending, by the Flame of Darkness herself…that your striving would bring us great power and great opportunity. Even if this wench is some great queen of Faerun, I see no power nor opportunity here save the grubby achievement of seizing a land and its coffers. Explain both well and speedily…and live."
The senior priest of the House looked at the struggling figure in the sphere as he let his hands fall to his sides, then slumped back to the marble floor, exhausted. Through his gasps, the priestesses saw the bright flash of his smile.
"It is a success, your Darkness," he said when he could find breath enough. "This is an avatar of the goddess Mystra, though of much less power than most she sends forth. We cannot harm it without unleashing magics too wild for all of us together to hope to control, but while we keep it trapped thus, we can tap the Weave whenever it strives to, gaining magic to power spells studied…and cast…as wizards do. This avatar must have been tainted by its flirtation with Bane… there is a lasting weakness here, I believe."
"Time enough for such musings later," said Darklady Avroana firmly. Her voice was still cold and biting, but the eagerness on her face and the tapping of her whip against her own thigh rather than across the face of High Brother Narlkond betrayed her excitement and