The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [79]
Baron Maethor swallowed. He dared not approach the man-high conflagration that had been "King" Nadrathen, but this challenger-mage was on his knees blindly vomiting silver flames onto the smoking floor. Galadorna could be free of over-ambitious mages yet.
"Hand me your blade," he murmured to an aide without looking, extending his hand for it. Just one throw would be enough, if…
A tall, slender feminine figure stepped from behind that conflagration, bare thighs above high black boots flashing through slashes in midnight-black robes. "I think I shall rule Galadorna," Dasumia said sweetly, blue motes still swirling about one of her hands. "Ascending my throne in this Year of Mistmaidens – this very hour, in fact. And you shall be my seneschal, Elminster of Galadorna. Rise, Court Mage, and bring me the fealty of yon surviving lords and barons…or an internal organ from each, whichever they prefer."
Nine: Glad Days In Galadorna
The wise ruler leaves time among audiences and promenades for receptions of daggers…usually in the royal back.
Ralderick Hallowshaw, Jester
from To Rule A Realm, From Turret To Midden
published circa The Year of the Bloodbird
Dark fire snarled and spat, and the slender elf in dark robes staggered back, groaning. Ilbryn Starym's three hundredth or so encounter with the wards of dark fire around the Castle of the Lady had not gone well. Her power was still too great, even in her absence… and where by the Trees Everlasting was she, anyway?
He sighed, glared up at the dark, slender towers so high above him in the twilit sky, and…
Was sent almost sprawling by a hard and sudden impact. He whirled to do battle with whatever fell guardian had charged him and found himself staring at the receding boots of one of the two buffoon-mages who were also encamped outside the walls of Dasumia's fortress.
Beldrune's excited shout floated back to the furious elf. "Baerast! Hearken!"
Tabarast looked up from a fire that just wouldn't light, shaking his scorched fingertips, and asked somewhat testily, "What is it now?"
"I was scrying Nethrar," Beldrune of the Bent Finger panted, "as the dream bid me, and there's news! The Lady Dasumia has just taken the throne and named the Chosen One as her seneschal. Elminster is Court Mage of Galadorna now!"
Ilbryn stared at the trotting mage's back for a moment, then broke into a fluid dash that swiftly brought him abreast of Beldrune. He reached up, caught hold of one bobbing shoulder in its fashionable slashed and pleated claret-hued silk, and snapped," What?
Spun around to face blazing elven eyes by fingers that felt like talons of steel, Beldrune groaned, "Let go, longears! You've fingers like wolf jaws!"
Ilbryn shook him. "What did you say?"
Tabarast fumbled in a belt pouch, dropped a shower of small, sparkling items, and held one up between finger and thumb, muttering something.
A lance of shining nothingness coalesced out of the air and thrust forward, unerring and as swift as leaping lightning. It took Ilbryn right in his ribs, shattering his shielding spell in a cascade of small and wayward cracklings and snatching him off his feet.
He hit the phandar tree with brutal force, ribs snapped like dry kindling crushed in a forester's fist. Ilbryn sobbed and choked and writhed, fighting for breath, but the spell held him pinned to the trunk. If it had been a real lance, he'd have been cut in two… but that knowledge afforded him scant consolation. Through red mists of pain he glared almost pleadingly at the two human mages.
Tabarast regarded the trapped elf mage almost sorrowfully and shook his head. "The problem with young elves is they've got all the arrogance of the older ones, with nothing to back it up," he observed. "Now, Beldrune, speak up for the hasty youngling here. What did you say?"
Curthas and Halglond stood very straight and still, their pikes just so, for they knew their