The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [86]
She held up her hands in a summoning once more, and the whips lashed out at her in earnest this time. Her body jerked under the blows, and a wisp of blue silk fell away. She hissed encouragement to Ingrath and Delver, who struck harder, their whips cracking. A lash wrapped around her, baring one of her breasts.
At their next blows, the first weals marked Dasumia, and she groaned at them to strike harder still. The guardsmen obeyed tentatively at first. Then with spirit as she shouted at them to strike ever harder, staring up at them as she had more than once overwhelmed Elminster with her will.
Delver and Ingrath reeled, then bent to their task, putting all their fear of dying here and resentment at her entrapping them behind each blow. Blood-drenched blue silk and smooth flesh beneath rapidly vanished under a rain of blows from whips that glistened dark with blood.
Abruptly Dasumia threw back her head and howled at them to stop. Delver, weeping hysterically, failed to do so…and the helmed horror behind him snaked out a gauntlet and caught his arm in a grip that halted his frantic flailing in mid-swing.
She looked more like a beast skinned for the roasting spit than a naked woman, now, but as Dasumia drew her arms down and put her hands on her hips to explain the next part of the ritual, she might have been imperiously gowned and giving orders to kneeling courtiers. She showed no trace of pain despite the blood coursing down her limbs, moving easily and with her usual wanton sway of the hips as she ordered Ingrath onto the altar, to lie on his back.
Anger was rising in Elminster. Anger and revulsion. He had to do something. He had to make this stop.
El tried to recall what he'd once heard a drunken worshiper of Bane say about this sort of ritual. Sacrifices being cut to death by priests flailing with sharp swords, was it? Or a floating Hand of Bane crushing sacrifices in its grip… aye, that was it.
Dasumia had mounted the guardsman on the altar and was crying out, "Strike! Strike!" to Delver, who was moving reluctantly forward with his whip to obey her, when El knew he could watch no longer.
The whip cracked down, trailing blood at each swing, and El found himself tingling with rage and with risen power…power throbbing at his very fingertips.
He was a Chosen of Mystra, however hazily he recalled what that had meant. "Mystra," he murmured, "guide me."
However evil his Lady Master had turned out to be, he could not watch her blood raining down any longer while he did nothing, and two good men drew closer and closer to their deaths. That black hand behind the altar would slowly rise, then reach out to crush them…as it was moving now!
Horrified, Elminster reached out with his will, using the one spell he could unleash without speaking or moving. Hopefully he could remain an anonymous corpse for a few moments more. He moved not against the hand…that would come next…but to disable the foes who were sure to come diving down on him the moment he was discovered. He could feel the webwork of linkages, now, coursing out from the altar. With infinite care he detached one linkage from a helmed horror, shifting it to a section of ceiling beyond the floating thing rather than severing it outright. If he could get one step further before being discovered…
Dasumia stiffened and sat up, ignoring the continuing bite of the lash. She glared around the temple, seeking the intruder. El shrugged and broke the bindings of the second helmed horror with savage abruptness.
Dark and terrible eyes bored into him. Then, slowly, Dasumia's lips twisted into a smile. She sat back on the altar, reclining again on one elbow with an air of amusement, and watched him.
Silently, their limbs jerking, Delver and Ingrath began to shuffle toward Elminster. Obviously in thrall, they thrust the bloody whips they carried back over their shoulders, ready for the first lashing strike. The barbs that had so mutilated Dasumia glistened red with her blood as the guardsmen lurched nearer