The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [46]
Elminster's raised, warding hand flickered with a radiance of its own, then was itself again. His spell still lurked, though, awaiting another attack… or two, if this stag-headed foe struck swiftly.
The last few slinking shadows rushed to the stag-headed being and seemed to flow up and into it. El used its moment of immobility to launch an attack of his own, tossing a dagger into the air that his Art made into thirty-three blades. He swept them all, whirling and darting, down upon his foe.
Antlers dipped swiftly as the figure of shadows ducked away, emitting what might have been a low growl or might have been an incantation. The thing stiffened and sent out a high, shrill cry that might have been a human woman taking a blade in the back (for Elminster had heard such a sound before, in the city of Hastarl, several centuries ago), as blades bit deep. There was a flash of unleashed magic, motes of light raining to the ground like water dashing off a warrior's shield in a heavy rain, and the whirling, stabbing blades were abruptly gone.
El pressed his advantage, winning this spell duel was certainly needful if he wanted to keep his life…no mage bent on capture hurls lightning…and it would be the act of a fool to stand idly awaiting the next spell Silent Antlers here wanted to bury him with.
He smiled thinly as his fingers traced an intricate pattern, their tips glowing as the casting concluded.
Many, many of the things he'd done since that day when a mage-ridden dragon had pounced on Heldon and torn his life asunder could be viewed as acts of a fool.
"I'm a fool goaded by fools, it seems," he told his half-seen assailant pleasantly. "Do you attack all who pass this way, or is this a personal favor?"
His only answer was a loud hiss. He thought it ended with the stag-headed being spitting at him, but he couldn't be certain. His spell took effect then, with a roar that drowned out all other sounds for a time.
Blue flames blossomed around those night-black, spiderlike fingers and on the antlers beyond. The screams came in earnest this time.
El risked time enough to look all around, in case a lurking shadow was on the prowl…and so, glancing back over his own shoulder, he escaped being blinded when a counterspell set the night aflame.
It consumed his wardings in an instant, sending him staggering back among the smoke of shattered spells. Heat blistered his left cheek, and he heard hair sizzle as tears washed the sight from his left eye.
Softly and carefully through the pain, Elminster said the waiting word that awakened the final effect of the spell he'd already cast…and the blue flames cloaking the extremities of his foe blazed up in an exact echo of those that had just struck him.
The shriek that split the night was raw and awkward, born of real agony. El caught a brief glimpse of antlers thrashing back and forth before the flames died and heard harsh gasping receding eastward, amid the swish and crackle of grasses being trampled.
Something large fell in the grass, at least twice. When silence came at last El glided three quick steps to the west and crouched, listening intently to the night.
Nothing. He could hear the long grass stirring in the breeze, and the faint cry of some small wild creature dying in the jaws of another, far off to the south.
At length, El wearily drew the last enchanted dagger he owned…one that did nothing more than glow upon command…and threw it in the direction the sounds had gone, to strike and there illuminate the night.
He took care not to approach its glow too closely and to keep bent low over the grass… but nothing moved, and no spell or prowling shadow came leaping out of the night. When he looked where the dagger's light reached, all that could be seen was a broken trail leading a little way to a confused heap of crumbling and smoking bones, or antlers… or perhaps just branches. Something collapsed into ash as he drew nearer, something that had looked very much like a long, slim-fingered hand.
Dangling strips of paint quivered, fell, and were followed enthusiastically by the