The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [90]
El threw one ponderous arm up in front of his eyes and throat, and with the other grabbed blindly, felt Dasumia's struggling form, closed his grasp mercilessly, and hauled her like a rag doll back up in front of him as a shield.
As searing shards cut into him in three places or more, El heard Dasumia gasp, a sound that was cut off sharply. When he lowered his shielding arm, he saw that she was biting her lip, blood trailing down her chin and eyes closed in her contorted face. Jagged shards had transfixed her in a dozen places, and she was shuddering. The blue-white motes of magic leaking from her might be contingencies… or might be something else. As he watched, a shard drooped, dangled, then broke off and fell, visibly smaller. Another seemed to be melting into her, and another…gods!
The sudden pain made Elminster drop his foe. Her ravaged body fell onto his great bulk…and the real pain began. A burning… smoke was rising from where she lay sprawled on his mounded flesh, and she was slowly sinking.
Acid! She'd turned her blood to acid, and it was eating away at him and at the shards. Well, the watching gods knew he'd spare flesh in plenty to lose, but he had to get clear of her. He snatched at her, threw her as hard as he could at the floating Hand of Bane, and had the satisfaction of seeing her strike it limply and stick for a moment before her own weight peeled her free, to fall from view behind the altar. Wisps of smoke curled up from the hand as a little left-behind acid ate at it, too.
El sat back grimly and sighed. Unconscious she might be, but he lacked the strength to crush her. Perhaps if he pushed her into the pit and shouldered those two loose pews into it on top of her…
Nay, he could not be so cruel. And so, when she awakened, Elminster Aumar would die. He was almost out of spells and still trapped in this grotesquely enlarged form, probably unable to fit through the passages that had brought him here. He could do little more to stop the evil Lady Master whom Mystra had sent him to serve. Her magic overmatched his, as his outstripped that of a novice. She would make a magnificent and able servant of Mystra, a better Chosen than he, if she were only biddable enough to obey anyone.
He shut his eyes against the banner of Bane and called up a mental image of the blue-white star of Mystra. "Lady of Mysteries," he said aloud, his voice echoing in the now-silent temple, "one who has been thy servant cries to ye in his need. I have failed thee, and failed in my service to the one called Dasumia, but see in her strength that could well serve thee in my place. Succor this Dasumia, I pray, and…"
Sudden, searing cold shocked him into an inarticulate cry. He could feel himself trembling uncontrollably as magic stronger than he'd ever felt before surged through him. Numbly he waited for whatever killing strike Dasumia would deal him, but it did not come. Instead, a warmth gently grew within the ice, and he felt himself relaxing, even as a strange crawling sensation swept over him. He was healed, he was growing smaller and lighter and himself again, and a face that he could barely see through flooding tears was bending over him.
Then he heard a voice speaking to him tenderly, a voice that belonged to the Queen of Galadorna but no longer held the cold cruelty of Dasumia. "So you pass the test, Elminster Aumar, and remain the first and dearest of my Chosen…even if your brains are too addled to recognize when a ritual of Bane is being perverted, bringing pleasure to his altar instead of pain, and shedding the blood of someone willing." A fond and musical laugh followed, then the words, "I am proud, this night."
Gentle arms enfolded him, and Elminster cried out in wonder as he felt himself lifted up, in a soaring flight that should have smashed them both into the ceiling but did not, reaching high and clear into the stars instead.
The roof of the House of the Unicorn burst apart, towers toppling, as