The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [140]
He'd called on it too often in the early days of this spell-chaos, when he'd been frantic to find out what was happening, and why. Now he was just sitting in the endless gloom waiting for magic to obey him once more… or someone to force their way into the Phoenix Tower and kill him.
Each morning Tenthar went down into the under-pantry, cast a simple spell from his memory, and grimly watched it turn the stone walls purple or make them start to melt or be goaded into a mad display of sprouting flowers…or whatever new idiocy struck Mystra's whimsy that day. Each morning he hoped spells would return to normal and he could begin life as the Archmage of the Phoenix Tower again.
Every day his visit to the underpantry disappointed him.
Every day he grimly climbed back up into the cold and lonely kitchens, boiled himself some beans and cut a little more green mold off the huge wheel of cheese under the marble hood before he climbed the stairs to the big window, to study anew the spell he'd miscast. Every day he grew a little more despairing.
It had almost gotten to the point where, given the right goad, he'd use his medallion to fly away from this place. He could find some distant realm where no one would know his face, seek work there as a scribe, and try to forget that he'd ever been an Archmage and summoned monsters from other worlds.
Aye, for the ghost of an excuse he'd…
Something shattered in the next room, it seemed a dozen bells rang amid the musical clatter of glass. Tenthar was up and through the door in an instant, peering…ah!
The spelltale he'd laid upon the elven tree-gate in the Tangletrees… someone had just used it to travel south to the woods near Starmantle. That was it. He was sick of hiding and doing nothing.
"The elves are on the move," Tenthar Taerhamoos told the glass shards at his feet grandly. "I must be there…at least I'll be able to learn as much about this chaos of spells as they do." He cut himself a large wedge of cheese with his dagger, wrapped it up in an old blanket with his traveling spellbook, and thrust the bundle into a battered old shoulder bag. Settling the blade back in its sheath, Tenthar called up the flickering power of his medallion, and cast a spell he'd had ready for a long time.
"Farewell, old stones," he told his Tower, casting what might be his last look around at it. "I'll return… if I can."
A moment later, the floor where he'd stood was empty. A moment after that, another spelltale shattered in the room where no one was left to hear.
All too often, an archmage's life is like that.
Excitement burned within her, leaping to the back of the throat she no longer had in a way it hadn't for years. Gently, Saeraede. Lose nothing now out of haste.,.you're centuries past trembling like a maid, or should be.
Like a wisp of dark smoke in the darkness, Saeraede flew up a thin crevice at the back of the cavern, back to the main room above.
She'd prepared this spell long ago, and he'd disturbed none of her preparations. In a trice it was done, gray smoke flowing out to settle like old stone over the top of the shaft. Its veil would seem like a raised stone floor to anyone on the surface, the well mouth completely concealed…and her quarry would be trapped beneath its web just as surely as if it was solid stone.
Saeraede gave herself a bare breath of time to gloat before plunging back down through the cold dark stone. Now to let myself be freed by my savior prince… and bring him willingly to the slow slaughter.
She plunged through the cavern like an arrow coming to earth, Elminster frowned and looked up, feeling some magical disturbance…but could sense nothing, and after a long, suspicious time of probing into the dusty darkness, he resumed his cautious advance. That was more than time enough for Saeraede to steal up into one of the runes through the