Elminster Enraged sos-3

by Ed Greenwood

  She worked slowly and carefully, opting for calm precision and near silence rather than the swift, bold gestures that went with a shouted battle incantation.

  Either would work, for one who knew the Art well enough. And Weave or no Weave, she knew her magic.

  It was a very old spell, powerful but essentially simple. Some Netherese mages had called it “the Awakening,” when they weren’t being too fanciful in namings that sought to claim older magics as their own. The Awakening, stronger and less limited than other such magics. It was rarely used these days, when wizards had become walking repositories of minor magics worn on the fingers, toes, earlobes, and everywhere else, and its casting would unleash the unintended unless they stripped away and left behind all of that enchanted clutter.

  They got it from us, those arrogant archwizards, Symrustar said tartly.

  “Aren’t all human archwizards arrogant?” El thought.

  The answer came with a tone of amusement. Those particular arrogant archwizards.

  Elminster sent her mind guest a silent smile. She had already removed the scepters and everything else magical she carried or wore, and left them in a cleft in the cavern below this one. She’d known the spell she would need, and the one that would be necessary after that, too.

  “Rise, Alorglauvenemaus,” she whispered, after the first incantation was done. “Time to dance!”

  Then she rolled over and ran for the cavern wall, hard by the nearest side of the opening into the cavern. In any cave, stalactites could fall like daggers when explosions set the stone to really shaking.

  Right on cue, the Nine Hells erupted in the dragon’s lair.

  It began with an ear-splitting crash, and a wild volley of crackling, ricocheting lightning bolts that blinded her and lashed on down the chute of melted, smoothed rock that descended to the Underdark. Bolts bounced and crashed and ripped the air as they went. By then, great gouts of emerald and ruby red radiance had flared, chasing the bolts, and the stones were shaking and groaning, splitting here and there and raining down dislodged fragments of themselves, large and small, in slumping roars that were lost in a greater, rising rumble that went on and on, almost drowning out the deep-throated roars of draconic rage.

  In the thick of it all, Alorglauvenemaus was being tumbled this way and that, scorched and flung up against the sharp, scale-shattering ceiling by what was being unleashed beneath it. Startled and then bewildered and then enraged, it cursed loud and long in the tongue of dragons, great roars that echoed amid the heedless explosions, fury that turned inevitably to fear.

  It had to get out. It had to flee while it still could.

  Seared and scorched, buffeted and torn by scores of magics all clawing at it and the stone walls and each other, it scrambled and clawed its way up out of its lair. Its surging and whirling hoard pelted it with coins and shards of gems and hurtling swords as it sprang out, whirling with a great lash of its tail to glare back at where it had been, seeking its unseen foe.

  The cavern was a raging chaos of erupting magics, spells that tore at each other, stabbed through each other, and shaped incongruous effects amid the tumult. The air was full of a whirling hail of tinkling, clashing coins, ricocheting in a singing, shrieking storm through which larger things hurtled and crashed.

  Elminster’s very old spell simply awakened all magic in a small area of effect-in this case, the heart of the hoard the dragon had been lying on-the choice magics it had gathered from a thousand tombs and magetowers and battlefields.

  Light of the Seldarine! Did the Srinshee teach you this? Symrustar was truly shocked, her awe plunging El’s head into tingling mind fires of excitement.

  The tumult rose higher. In the cavern on the other side of a groaning wall of solid rock that had seemed thick and enduring enough a few moments ago, wands, rods, and scepters galore were spitting their discharges into a great shrieking and flashing maelstrom of Art. Explosion after explosion shattered treasures and hurled them against the cavern walls. Wards were breaking, small metal prisons failing, and more magics were escaping and flaring into life. A staff spun up into the air to spit ravening rays in all directions, seared stalactites plummeted, and glowing gems swirled through the buffeting storm like an angry swarm of bees.

  Baffled and furious, Alorglauvenemaus peered vainly into the chaos, seeking a cause, the cause, an enemy it could fight and rend and exact proper payment in blood from, for this violation and destruction.

  Magic lashed at it and burned it, crashed down upon it and clawed at its scales, battering it with such mounting pain that the dragon finally fled for good, springing out into the chill air outside. Who was meddling with its magic? Who?

  Were there others, out here, abetting the foe within?

  Surely no puny “walking meat” creature could have mounted this!

  The dragon spread newly tattered wings and flew in a tight circle, so as to glide along the face of the peak that held its lair, peering narrowly …

  No. No living thing was lurking, none could be seen but a few tiny, cowering birds on their usual ledges. No foe here …

  Well, if that enemy or enemies was inside, and had come from below, it would come out sooner or later-and Alorglauvenemaus would be waiting for it. Or if it intended to steal, taking gold or gems back down to the depths it had come from, it would have to await the fading of all this unleashed magic to get to those treasures. And when that fading came, so too would Alorglauvenemaus, setting aside mercy and forbearance. No thieving from a mighty black dragon-not when it could seize the bones of thieves by force.

  Alorglauvenemaus wheeled in the air to glide past the mouth of its lair again. Soon …

  Manshoon smiled. Lord Crownrood, chancellor of the realm, had found the need to confer with certain sober-minded and just nobles of Cormyr as to the conduct of the leading families-and court and Crown, too-of the kingdom, in these troubled times.

  The invitations had gone forth, and the time and place had been set. Andolphyn, Loroun, and Blacksilver would accept, of course.

  Lurking like a shadow in their minds, Manshoon would see to that. Just as he’d seen to Crownrood’s conceiving of the meeting in the first place. It would be interesting to see which of the larger fish not already in his net would rise to take his hooks, and end up caught.

  Patience. Deft and stylish patience. He’d never seen the appeal of fishing before-the steaming platter of results had engaged him rather more-but now he was feeling how fun it could be. Truly slow meddling, subtle manipulations … he was beginning to see the long game Elminster had enjoyed so much.

  Damn the Old Mage and damn Mystra, too, but a certain Manshoon was enjoying the slow and subtle. At last.

  Numbed by some of the earliest lightnings but otherwise unhurt, El stretched her arms, clawed the air experimentally with her long fingers-and ducked around the edge of the cleft leading into the cavern, keeping low.

  Wand blasts were still bursting against the ceiling far across it, sending increasingly large chunks of rock crashing down into the already-scattered hoard pile. Alorglauvenemaus was going to be … quite irate.

  “Well, that makes two of us,” El whispered aloud, surprised at the tremor of rising anger in her own voice. She was tired of constant battle … though there was doubtless a lot more of it ahead of her.

  Bare-skinned and unhampered in the slightest, Elminster raced into the cave, his eyes fixed on a particularly large chest of sapphires that was lodged in a great heap of coins at an upthrust angle, like the prow of a ship breaking a tall wave. Its lid had broken open, revealing its gleaming contents. Rings scattered here and there among the spilled stones winked merrily as other magics raged around the cavern, as if in applause-or sympathy. Ah, she missed the Weave, that would have let her feel which magics lay here, what was yet slumberous and untouched, and if there was any measure of sentience among the Art in this lair at all …

  El had to touch that chest as she spoke the last word of the incantation, then get back out of th
e cavern again, unscathed.

  The coins were smoking hot in places, making her gasp with pain, and something that gave off a purple-green glow heaved slowly under a dune of coins as she dashed across it, a heaving that spat a great curling fireball at the ceiling-but with a whimper, El reached the chest, put her hand on its jet-and-silver side, and gasped out the one word she needed to say. And the chest took flight, rising out of the glittering hoard like a heavy, reluctant dragon taking wing, but soaring faster and faster …

  As El scampered back to her cleft, flinging herself into a headlong dive when a fresh fury of wand bursts curdled and rent the air, the chest obeyed her will, hurtling out into the air high above Hullack Forest.

  You still love to dice with death, El, Symrustar commented wryly, in a mind voice laced with a fleeting flash of emotion. Admiration? Or contempt?

  El knew not, but she knew what she felt: anger. Anger at having to do such dancing, all the time, at the bidding of others.

  Just now, a wyrm who was old and wise enough to know better.

  Hah. Even before she landed in a bruising roll on hard rocks on the safer side of the cleft, El knew the ancient black dragon had succumbed to its essential nature. Outside in the mountain air, it was giving chase, diving after its errant gems with a roar. El forced the chest to turn sharply, and climb, then turn again and dive, trying to keep it out of the jaws of Alorglauvenemaus for as long as possible.

  She wanted the dragon well away from its lair, because dragons could really move when they wanted to-and it would not go well for her if it came racing back, its retrieved chest in its jaws, and caught her in its lair or on the exposed mountainside, clambering down to greater cover and safety.

  So take nothing from its hoard at all, the better not to be traced. Retrieve only what she’d brought from the riven drow citadel, and get gone, out onto the cliffs and down, down into the concealing forests of Cormyr!

  A wise idea, Symrustar said wryly. The dragon returns.

  The great flapping bulk of the dragon was growing larger, though it was probably still distant enough to be over the Wyvernwater.

  El gave the chest a sudden twist with her mind, followed by a strong soaring, then a plunge.

  The dragon whirled. Evidently it had lost its grasp on the chest. El made the distant gem container plunge again in the air. In hot pursuit, the dwindling speck of the pursuing dragon descended. Smiling, El made the chest zig and zag, soar and plunge, turning it again and again in screamingly tight curves. After all, even ancient black dragons deserve a good wingstretch …

  Directing those aerial acrobatics all the while, she rushed through the cavern and out, then began the careful climb down the mountainside.

  You should have cast a second flight spell on yourself, Symrustar mindspoke, after the second finger-bleeding slip.

  “I should have done a lot of things these last dozen centuries,” El replied, watching a jaunty parade of stones dislodged by her boots plunge down, down to jagged rocks far below. Among those waiting stone points were treetops, hrast it! “I’ve never been the sharpest blade in the armory-and have spent a lot of time being one of Faerun’s utter dullards.”

  Well, so she had. Perhaps she’d been succumbing to her own essential nature. Or perhaps she’d just been trying to stay alive, as more selfish, reckless, and evil beings galore lashed out at her or at folk and places she loved and was moved-or sworn-to defend. Hrast them all …

  By the obvious scars on the rocks around and below, the dragon had repeatedly clawed away foliage and the most easily climbed spurs of rock, to make its lair as inaccessible as possible to anything that couldn’t fly.

  However, it was easier-if one had nerves of battle steel-to descend than come up from below. All you needed was the strength, agility-and resolve-enough to jump to the next mountainside over, in the right spot where a long ago storm or perhaps dragon battle had toppled a peak into a shower of great boulders that had tumbled down between the two heights to wedge between them, in a rugged, misshapen natural bridge.

  El found what she judged to be the best spot, then leaped. After all, there would be time enough to work a feather fall, before she was dashed to blood-splattering pulp on those waiting rocks, much lower down …

  She hoped.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A FATE RICHLY EARNED

  Elminster landed hard, skidding helplessly on loose scree, and crashed into a boulder.

  The pain was wincingly intense. Drow ribs, it seemed, were no stronger than human ones.

  She clung there, her teeth clenched, embracing the agony that pulsed at her every breath, until her arms and legs had stopped shaking.

  Cool as winter ice, Prince of Lost Athalantar? Despite its edge, Symrustar’s mockery was … aye, affectionate. Of course, El. I love you, and you are all I have left, now. For my little while.

  El sent warmth to surround and soothe that forlorn mind voice, then forced herself to climb down from the boulder and work her way into the stone-choked cleft. Off the open face of the mountainside and away from a returning dragon’s eyes, and not a moment too soon …

  She lost herself in the slow, careful, and seemingly endless work of finding the next handhold and the next, deciding where to let go and fall, and where to rest and use the tiniest jet of silver fire to heal broken and bleeding fingers or restore shattered feet and ribs-and once, after an unexpected slip, most of the bones in her new body.

  You’re not taking very good care of it, Symrustar teased. That made the rest of the descent much easier, because El spent much of it dredging up half-forgotten curses and rude descriptions to hurl at her mind guest, in what became a mirth-filled game for them both, as the fading echo of the spirited elf he’d met so long ago in Cormanthor protested in mounting mock horror at what she was being called, and declared herself scandalized and ruined and worse …

  And then the endless climb was almost done, with no dragon plunging out of the sky to spew acid or bite or slash with cruel claws, and Cormyr was no longer a great green carpet spread out before her, but individual trees thrusting into the sky nearby, forming a closer horizon.

  El paused in a crouch on the last ledge above the ground. She was about five man-heights up from the scrub and dead trees that descended to the ditch, and the lower three of those five weren’t rough mountain rock, but rather a flaring slope of loose earth and gravel, washed down the peak by many a storm and scored with countless channels carved by rushing water that had fled and was gone. She could see shadows under the closest trees, the ones that stood hard by the winding ribbon of Orondstars Road. Those shadows lay on the sometimes sun-dappled, usually gloomy forest floor of the very easternmost edge of Hullack Forest. The vast woodland that would probably be her bedchamber during the night ahead, as she slept within whatever spell-spun defenses she could mount. It would be best to get as far from the dragon’s lair as she could, being as all dragons could smell or sense magic to some small, oft-unreliable degree. And she’d better start without more delay, and-

  There. Right there. She could drink from that spring and then just step in under the leaves and-

  Hold, what’s this?

  Out of the very spot under the trees she’d chosen, a man stumbled into view, exhausted and drenched with sweat. He clutched a dagger, blood streaming down his arm to drip from his knuckles and fingertips. He was about done in, staggering along on sheer determination. Hunter’s garb, light leather but very well made, almost a uniform-

  A ring on the middle finger of either hand! A war wizard!

  El spun around, lowered herself until she hung from her fingertips from the ledge, and let go, twisting in the air.

  She landed in a half-turn on the slope, skidded, caught a foot in unyielding stone and ended up rolling head over heels, to a muddy halt in the ditch, crushing some nettles along the way, to look up and see the war wizard-

  Sobbing his last, his dagger falling from his failing hand, as three blades ran him through from as many directions.


  Too late, hrast it! Too often too late!

  El hissed out rising fury, fists clenching. A fourth man came running out of the forest gloom, his sword drawn back to deliver a vicious chop to the throat of the Crown mage who was already vomiting blood, dying on his feet, only held up by the swords still through his body.

  Why, gods, is that so frequent a fate for those who try to work good, or stand for order? El thrust out a hand and sent them lightning, her anger making it snarl rather than just crackle down her fingertips. Her long, eye-searing bolt sprang across the ditch and the road and the second ditch beyond, flashing brightly into the gloom, where it struck the men and their swords and split to race among them, roiling and ricocheting as they shouted and convulsed, caught in its brief bright coils.

  The war wizard slumped, his head lolling, scarcely touched by the lightning at all … already dead. His four attackers staggered and screamed and danced, their arms and legs spasming involuntarily, their hair standing on end, and their eyes and mouths wide with pain. Then something flashed forth from the war wizard’s chest, bursting open the leather of his jerkin. Something bright, that spat many lightnings. A death-lightning amulet!

  Elminster’s bolts were gentle in comparison, already fading-but the war wizard briefly became a rigid, spinning top that stabbed bolts of lightning in all directions. El was glad of being breast-down in mud and nettles, because the men in the trees-there were six or seven of them, or even more, coming at a run to share in the slaying, not just the four he’d seen-were taking a fierce punishment.

  When the amulet was spent, and the stiff body of its wearer had toppled in silence to the dead leaves and fallen boughs, only three men still stood at the edge of the forest, all of them reeling and groaning, sorely wounded. Everyone else lay sprawled and still.

  El found her feet, clambered over the ditch and the road and the ditch on the other side, and ran into the trees, toward the sharp seared-boar smell of cooked men she knew she’d find.