The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [34]
"Give me," she moaned, for the flood was long in coming. "Give… me…"
Power such as she'd never tasted before suddenly surged through the flames, setting her limbs to trembling and every last hair on her body to standing stiffly out from her crawling, tingling flesh. She struggled to breathe against the sudden tension hanging in her body and the room around her, heavy and somehow aware.
Still the dark flood did not come. Who was this Wanlorn?
The image in the loop of flame before her was still two half-open, slumberous eyes…but now something was changing in those encircling flames. Tongues of silver fire were leaping among the blue, only a few at first, but faster and more often, now washing over the entire scene for a moment, now blazing up brighter as the wondering dancer watched.
Suddenly the silver flames overwhelmed the blue, and two cold eyes that were not Wanlorn's opened In their midst. Black they were, shot through with twinkling stars, but the flames that swam from them like tears were the same rich blue as were spilling from Nasmaerae's own.
"Azuth am I," a voice that was both musical and terrible rang out of the depths of her mind. "Cease this prying…forever. If you heed not, the means of prying shall be taken from you."
The Lady of Castle Felmorel screamed then…as loud and as long as she knew how, as blue flames whirled her off her feet and held her captive and struggling upright in their grip. Nasmaerae was lost in fear and horror and self-loathing, as the blue flames of her own thought-stealing spell were hurled forcibly back through her.
She shuddered under their onslaught, fell silent as she writhed in helpless and spasmodic collapse, then howled with a quite different tone, like a lost and wandering thing. All the brightness had gone out of her eyes, and she was drooling, a steady stream plunging from the corner of her twisted mouth.
The eyes that swam with stars regarded the broken woman for several grim moments, then spat forth fresh blue flames to enshroud her in a racing inferno that raged for only moments.
When it receded, the barefoot woman was standing on the stone floor of the spell chamber, her fiery weavings shattered and gone. Her nightgown was plastered to her body with her own sweat, and her hands shook uncontrollably, but the desolate eyes that stared down at them were her own.
"You are Nasmaerae once more, your mind restored You may consider this no mercy, daughter of Avarae. I've broken all of your bindings…including, of course, the one that holds your Lord in thrall. Consequences will son be upon you, 'twould be best to prepare yourself."
The sorceress stared into those floating, starry eyes In helpless horror. They looked back at her sternly and steadily even as they began to fade away, dwindling swiftly to nothingness. All of the magical light in the chamber faded and failed with them, leaving only emptiness behind.
Nasmaerae knelt alone in the darkness for a long time, sobbing slightly. Then she arose and padded like a wan-eyed ghost along unseen ways she knew well, feeling turns and archways with her fingertips, seeking the sliding panel that opened into the back of the wardrobe in her own bedchamber.
Thrusting through half-cloaks and gowns, she drew in a deep, tremulous breath, let it out in a sigh, and laid her fingers on her most private of coffers, on the high, hidden shelf right where she'd left it.
The maids had left a single hooded lamp lit on the marble-topped side table, the needle-slim dagger caught and flashed back its faint light as she drew it forth, looked at it almost casually for a moment, then turned it in her hand to menace her own breast.
"Esbre," she told the darkness in a whisper, as she drew back her hand for the stroke that would take her own life, "I'll miss you. Forgive me."
"I already have," said a voice like cold stone,