The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [150]
His eyes rose, slowly and unwillingly, from the steel that barred his way to the huge and hulking warrior who held it. There was something like pity in Barundryn Harbright's eyes as he rumbled, "Why are wizards, with all their wits, so slow to learn life's lessons?"
The blade swept down and away, seeking its sheath, and a large and steadying hand came down on the wizard's shaking shoulder. "Mages tend to live longer, Arunder," Harbright said gently, "if they manage to resist their most attractive temptations."
The Sharrans were beginning to sweat now, from the sheer strain of aiming and holding steady as the Art they wielded punched aside old stones and earth, to lay open a fortress and slay the beings below. Elryn watched Femter wince and shake the smoking fragments of a ring off one finger, as Hrelgrath tossed aside his third wand and Daluth slid one failing scepter back into his belt.
"Enough," Elryn bellowed, waving his hands. "Enough, Dreadspells of Shar!" Something had to be saved in case they met with other foes this day…or, gods above, there was someone still alive down there.
The priests-turned-wizards turned their heads in the sudden peace to blink at him, almost as if they'd forgotten who and where they were.
"We have a holy task, Dark Brothers," Elryn reminded them, letting them hear the regret in his voice, "and it is not melting away earth and stone in a forgotten ruin in the heart of a forest. Our quarry is the Chosen, how fares he?"
Three heads peered at roiling dust. All five looked down the shaft where they'd begun, where the dust was but a few flowing tongues. There was rubble down there, and…
One of the Sharrans cried out in disbelief.
The Harper who'd claimed to be Azuth was looking calmly back up at them, standing more or less where he'd been when their barrage began. The three old men, still blinking at him in awe, stood around him. He, they, and the floor around the bottom of the shaft seemed untouched.
"Finished?" he asked quietly, looking up at them with eyes of steady, storm-smoke gray.
Elryn felt cold fear catch at the back of his throat and slide slowly down into the pit of his stomach, but Femter snarled, "Shar take the man!" and snatched a wand from his belt.
Before Elryn or Daluth could stop him, Femter leaned over the well and snarled the word that sent a streak of flame down, down into the gloom below, straight at the upturned face of the gray-eyed man.
The Harper didn't move, but his mouth somehow stretched wider than a man's mouth should be able to… and the flames fell right into him. He shuddered for a moment as all of the fire plunged into his vitals. By the stumbling of the three old men around him, it seemed some sort of magic was keeping them at bay, moving them as he moved.
A moment later the fireball burst with a dull rumbling. The Harper stood with an unconcerned expression on his face as smoke whirled out of his ears.
He gave the watching Sharrans a reproving look and remarked, "Needs a little more pepper."
The Dreadspells were screaming and fleeing wildly even before Azuth lowered his head and looked again across the riven cavern at Elminster. "I mean what I say," he said gravely. "You must get free of her."
"I…can't," Elminster gasped, staring into the dark eyes of Saeraede, as she reared up over him in triumph like some sort of giant snake, twining around him in large and tightening coils.
"And you never will," she breathed triumphantly, her cold lips inches from his. He could feel the chilling frost of her breath on his face as she purred, "With the powers of a Chosen and all the might Karsus left here, I can defy even such as him."
She lifted her head to give Azuth a challenging glare as she clamped one giant hand of solid mist around El's throat. Other tentacles of mist rose around them both in a protective forest, undulating and lashing the tossed and shattered stone slabs.
The last prince of Athalantar struggled to breathe