The Making of a Mage

by Ed Greenwood

  The mage bound the book to her stomach with the length of climbing-cord she wore wound around her waist and retrieved what weapons she could find before she flew back to the balcony. Her companions eyed her with awe and new respect for a long moment before they stepped forward to reclaim their blades and embrace her sweat-soaked body in rough thanks.

  “I hope it’s worth all this,” Dlartarnan said shortly, eyeing the tome and hefting the familiar weight of his sword. Then he turned away in disgust, striding back down the passage they’d taken to reach the chamber of balconies. “I hope this place holds something I can value as highly—a handful of gems, perhaps, or—”

  His voice trailed away, and he lowered his sword in confusion. The room on the other side of the doorway now was not the dark room where they’d first found the lights, but a larger, brighter chamber they’d never seen before.

  “More wizard tricks!” he snarled, whirling. “What do we do now?”

  Tarthe shrugged. “Seek another balcony, perhaps. Ithym, look into yon room first—without putting yourself or anything else across the threshold—and tell us what you see.”

  The thief peered for long breaths, and then shrugged. “A tomb, I think it. That long block, there, is a stone casket, or I’m a dragon. There’re at least two other doors I can see—and windows behind those screens … they must be: the light changes, like cloud-drifted sunlight, not like conjured light.”

  They stared at the oval silhouette screens, and the draperies behind them, glowing, backlit. The room was still and empty of life or adornments. Waiting.

  “Ondil’s tomb,” Tharp said in tones of slow doom.

  “Aye, but a way out, if all else fails,” Tarthe replied, voice calm, eyes darting all round. His gaze fell on Elmara, standing silent in their midst, and he shook his head slightly in disbelief. He’d seen it all happen, but he still wasn’t sure he believed it. Perhaps some of those ridiculous tavern tales old adventurers loved to tell were true, after all.

  “Let’s try to get to another balcony,” Gralkyn suggested. “I can reach at least four of them—more if El flies a rope to their rails.”

  “Aye, we must get out of here, now,” Ithym said, “or no one at the inn will ever hear about our wizard destroying a beholder, a mind flayer, and a dragon—just to get something to read!”

  As Gralkyn swung over the rail and dropped lightly onto the balcony below, the laughter from above him was a little wild.

  ELEVEN

  A BLUE FLAME

  The most awesome thing a wizard can hope to see in a lifetime of hurling down towers, calling up fiends, and turning rivers into new beds? Why, the blue flame, lad. If ever ye see the blue flame, ye will have looked on the most awesome sight a mage can behold—and the most beautiful.

  AUMSHAR URTRAR, MASTER MAGE

  SAID TO AN APPRENTICE AT MIDSUMMER

  YEAR OF THE WEEPING MOON

  The cold hand of doom was tightening around the Brave Blades again. They could all feel it. They’d tried nine balconies now, and every door led somehow into the same silent tomb chamber. It lay across their paths like a waiting pit, patient and inescapable.

  “Magic!” Dlartarnan spat, crouching down on a balcony and leaning on his drawn broadsword. “Always magic! Why don’t the gods smile on a swung sword and a simple plan?”

  “Mind, there!” Asglyn said sharply. “Tempus puts valor of the sword before all else, as well you know, and presuming to know better than any god, Dlar, is a fast leap into the grave!”

  “Aye,” the priest of Tyche agreed. “My Holy Lady looks well on those who complain little, but take advantage of what befalls and make their own good fortune!”

  “Well enough,” Dlartarnan grunted. “To please both your gods, I suppose I’d best lead the way into this tomb, and be the first to go down. That will make Tempus and Tyche both happy.”

  Without another word he rose from his haunches and strode into the tomb chamber beyond, his blade gleaming in his hand.

  The other Blades exchanged glances and shrugs, and followed.

  Dlartarnan was already across the chamber and at the nearest of its two closed doors, prying at the frame with his blade. “ ’Tis locked,” he snarled, putting his weight behind his blade, “but if—”

  There was a loud snapping sound. Blue fire burst from the door, racing briefly up and down the frame. Smoke rose from the blackened thing that had been Dlartarnan of Belanchor before it fell to the floor. The warrior’s ashes rolled away in dark gray swirls as his bones bounced on the flagstones. The skull rolled over once and came to a stop grinning up at them reproachfully. They stared down at the remains, stunned.

  “Tyche watch over his soul,” the Hand of Tyche whispered, lips trembling. As if in answer, Dlartarnan’s twisted, half-melted sword fell out of the door. With a cry like the sob of a young maiden, it struck the flagstones and shattered.

  Elmara swayed, then fell to her knees and was sick. The comforting hand Ithym put on her shoulder trembled violently.

  “Perhaps a spell to try to open the other one?” Gralkyn suggested, voice high.

  Asglyn nodded. “I have a battleshatter that may serve,” he said quietly, “Tempus willing.”

  He bent his head briefly in prayer, leveled one hand at the remaining door, and murmured a phrase under his breath.

  There was a splintering crash. The door shook, but did not burst. Dust fell from the ceiling here and there, and a long, jagged crack split the flagstones with a sharp sound that smote their ears like a hammer. The Blades reeled back, staring, as the crack raced out from the base of the tomb toward the door. Asglyn was running away, face tight with fear, when sudden fire blazed up from his limbs.

  “Nooo!” he cried, sprinting vainly across the chamber. “Tempussss!” Flames roared up to scorch the domed ceiling high overhead, and when they died away, the priest of Tempus was gone.

  Into the shocked silence, Tarthe said, “Back—out of this place. That magic came from the tomb!”

  Tharp was nearest the passage back to the balcony, so it was only a breath later that he plunged through the doorway—and froze in midstride, limbs trembling under the attack of some unseen force. The Blades watched in horror as the warrior’s bones burst up out of his body in a grisly spray of blood and vanished near the ceiling. What was left collapsed in a boneless heap, blood raining down around it as Tharp’s helm and armor rang on the floor.

  The five remaining Blades looked at each other in horror. Elmara moaned and closed her eyes, face pale—but no less white than Tarthe’s, as he reached out a reassuring arm to grip her shoulder. Othbar, the Hand of Tyche, swallowed and said, “Ondil slays us with spells spun from his tomb. Undeath and fell magic will take us all if we do not set our feet right.”

  Tarthe nodded, face sharp with fear. “What should we do? You and Elmara know more of magic than the rest of us here.”

  “Dig our way out of the chamber?” Elmara asked faintly. “The doors and windows he must have covered with hanging spells that wait to slay us, but if he’s not expected us to pry at the flagstones, he may have to rise from his rest to hurl spells at us.”

  “And when he rises, what then?” Gralkyn asked fearfully. Ithym nodded grimly, echoing the question.

  “We strike with everything we have,” Tarthe said, “both spell and blade.”

  “Let me cast a spell first,” said Othbar. His face was very white and his voice shook. “If it works, Ondil will be bound into his tomb for a time, unable to work magic—and we can try to get out.”

  “To have him sending spells and beasts after us for the rest of our lives?” Ithym asked grimly.

  Tarthe shrugged. “We’ll have the chance to gather blades and spells enough to fight him if he does, where now he slaughters us at whim. Ready weapons, and I’ll try these flagstones. Othbar, say out when you’re ready.”

  The priest of Tyche fell to his knees in fervent prayer, bidding the Lady remember his long and faithful service. Then he pricked his palm wit
h a belt knife, and caught the falling drops of blood in his other hand, intoning something they could not understand.

  A moment later, he crumpled to the flagstones, arms flopping loosely. Gralkyn took an involuntary step forward—and then recoiled, as something ghost-white rose in wisps from the priest’s body. It roiled in silence, growing taller and thinner—until a ghostly image of Othbar stood facing them. It pointed sternly at the four surviving Blades, and then at the windows. They watched in awe as Othbar’s shade strode to the casket and laid its palms on the stone lid.

  “What? Is he—?” Ithym was shaken.

  Tarthe bent over the body. “Yes.” When he straightened, the warrior’s face looked older. “He knew the spell would cost him his life, I would guess, by what he said,” Tarthe said, and his voice quavered. “Let’s begone.”

  “By the windows?” Ithym asked, tears in his eyes as he looked back at the ghostly figure standing by the tomb.

  “It’s the way he pointed,” Tarthe said heavily. “Ropes first.”

  The two thieves undid leather jerkins to reveal ropes wound many times around their bellies. Elmara took hold of one end of each rope, and the thieves spun around and around until the ropes lay in loose coils on the floor. Ithym caught up two ends and tied them together.

  Then, gingerly, the two thieves approached a window, looking back over to sure there was nothing visible that might spring at them. Ithym carried the coil of rope on his shoulder, and Gralkyn held one end of it in his hands as he approached the window.

  He touched the end of the rope to the ornate wrought iron of the window screen, and then to the draperies beyond. Then he followed, gingerly, with one gloved hand. Nothing happened.

  The oval window screens depicted scenes of flying dragons, wizards standing atop rocky pinnacles, and rearing pegasi. With a shrug, Gralkyn chose the nearest one with a pegasus on it and swung the screen aside on its hinges. They made a slight squeal of protest, but nothing else befell. His blade parted the draperies beyond—to reveal bubble-pocked glass, and through it, a view of the sky and the wilderlands. Cautiously the thief probed the window opening with his blade, peering about for traps. Then he said, “These were not made to open. The glass is fixed in place.”

  “Break it, then,” Ithym said.

  Gralkyn shrugged, reversed his blade, and swung hard. The glass burst apart, shards flashing and tinkling everywhere.

  Sudden motes of light shone in the air where the window had been, spiraling, slowly at first … and then faster …

  “Back!” Elmara shouted in sudden alarm. “Get ye back!”

  The light of the activating spell flared before her words were half out—and a force of awesome power snatched both thieves out through the small opening, rope and all, smashing their limbs against the walls as they went, as if they were rag dolls being stuffed through a hole too small for them. Ithym had time for one despairing scream—long, raw, and falling—before hitting the rocks.

  Tarthe drew a shuddering breath, shook his head, and turned to the young mage. “Just the two of us, now.” He nodded at the book strapped to Elmara’s chest. “Anything there that might help?”

  “Ondil’s magic sealed it. I would not like to try to break his spells here in his own keep—not while Othbar’s sacrifice holds.” Elmara looked at the silent and motionless image holding the coffin shut—and noted its flickering, fading extremities. She pointed. “Even now, the lich tries to break out of its coffin.”

  Tarthe’s eyes went to the flickering hands of the image. “How long do we have?”

  Elmara shrugged. “If I knew that, I’d be Ondil.”

  Tarthe waved his sword. “Don’t jest about such things! How can I tell you haven’t fallen under some spell or other and become Ondil’s slave?”

  Elmara stared at him, then slowly nodded. “Ye raise a wise concern.”

  Tarthe’s eyes narrowed, and he drew a dagger, eyes fixed on the young sorceress. Then he turned and threw it back through the opening where Tharp had died. It spun into the passage beyond and was gone—unseen in the sudden flash and whirl of a hundred circling, clanging blades, darting about in the space that had been empty moments before.

  “The magic continues,” Tarthe said heavily. “Do we try to dig a way out in earnest?”

  Elmara thought for a moment, and then shook her head. “Ondil is too strong—these magics can be broken only by destroying him.”

  “So we must fight him,” Tarthe said grimly.

  “Aye,” Elmara replied, “and I must prepare ye before the fray.”

  “Oh?” Tarthe raised an eyebrow and his blade as the sorceress approached.

  Elmara sighed and came to a halt well beyond his reach. “I can fly yet,” she said gently. “If this tower stays aloft through Ondil’s own magic, ye too must be able to take wing if we slay him—or ye will fall with the tower, and be crushed when it shatters below.”

  Tarthe swallowed, then nodded and put his blade on his shoulder. “Cast your spell, then,” he said.

  Elmara was barely done when sudden radiance flared behind her.

  She spun around—in time to see Othbar’s image vanish, along with the lid it had been holding down. She sighed again. “Ondil found a way,” she murmured. Suddenly she nodded as if answering a question only she could hear, and her hands flashed in frantic haste, working a spell.

  Tarthe looked uncertainly at her and risked a step forward, sword raised. Inside the stone casket lay a plain, dark wooden coffin, seemingly new—and on it, three small, thick books.

  “Touch them not,” Elmara said sharply, “unless ye are ready to kiss a lich!”

  The warrior took a step back, blade up and ready. “I doubt I’ll ever be ready for that,” he said dryly. “Will you?”

  “What must be, must be,” the sorceress said curtly. “Stand back against yon wall now, as far off as ye can get.”

  Without looking to see if this direction had been obeyed, she stepped up to the casket and laid one hand firmly on a spellbook.

  The dark wooden lid vanished. With inhuman speed, something tall, thin, and robed sprang up from where it had lain, the spellbooks tumbling down around it.

  Icy hands clutched at Elmara, caught, and seared the living flesh in their grasp.

  Instead of pulling back, Elmara leaned forward, smiled tightly into Ondil’s shriveled face and said the last word of her spell. The lich found himself holding nothing—in the brief instant before the ceiling of the chamber smashed down atop him, burying the coffin.

  The sorceress reappeared beside Tarthe, shoulders to the wall, eyes on the coffin. Dust and echoes rolled around them both as Elmara rubbed at her seared wrists and watched the stones of the central ceiling begin to rise up in a silent stream, back whence they’d come. Tarthe looked at her, then at the casket, and then back at the mage. His face wore a look of awe—but also, for the first time in quite a while, hope.

  Something dusty and shattered rose up out of the casket when the stones were all gone, and it stood facing them, swaying. Slowly it lifted the slivered bones of one arm. Its skull was largely gone, but the jaw remained, chattering something as it fought to move its bent arm to point at them. A cold light burned in the one eyesocket that was whole. The jagged edges of the topless skull turned as the lich looked at Tarthe—and then Elmara whispered a word, and the ceiling came crashing down on it again.

  Nothing rose out of the casket this time, and Elmara stepped cautiously forward to peer down into the open coffin.

  In the bottom lay dust, smashed and splintered bones among the tatters of once-fine robes and the three spellbooks. Some of the bones shifted, trying to move. A ruined arm rose unsteadily up to point at Elmara—who coolly reached in, grabbed it, and pulled.

  When she had the clutching, clawing arm free of the casket, she flung it down on the floor and stamped on it repeatedly until all the bones were shattered. Then she looked into the casket again, seeking other restive remains. Twice more she hauled out bones and stamped
on them—and at the sight of her dancing on them, Tarthe broke into sudden shouts of laughter.

  Elmara shook her head and reached into the coffin, touching the spellbooks and murmuring the words of one last spell. The books quietly disappeared.

  Behind her, Tarthe’s laughter ended abruptly. Elmara whirled around in time to see a smiling robed man thicken from a shadowy outline into full solidity above a winking curved thing of metal on the floor … Tharp’s helm.

  It was a cruel smile, and its owner turned to Elmara, who stiffened, recalling a face burned forever into her memories. The magelord who’d ridden the dragon and burned Heldon!

  “Ah, yes, Elmara—or should I say Elminster Aumar, Prince of Athalantar? Tharp was my spy among the Brave Blades from the very beginning. Very useful you’ve been, too, finding all sorts of malcontents and hidden magic and gold. Yes, the magelords thank you in particular for the gold … one can never have enough, you know.” He smiled as Tarthe’s hurled dagger spun through him to clash and clatter against the far wall of the chamber.

  An instant later, flames roared through the room. The blazing body of Tarthe Maermir, leader of the Brave Blades, was flung into the far wall, and Elmara heard the warrior’s neck snap. The magelord looked down at the burning corpse and sneered. “You didn’t think I’d be foolish enough to reveal where my true self stood? You did? Ah, well …”

  Elmara’s eyes narrowed, and she spoke a single word. The sound of a body heavily striking a wall came to her ears—and the magelord’s image vanished.

  A moment later, the man appeared nearby, slumped against the wall. He gazed coldly up at Elmara, who was stammering out a more powerful incantation, and said, “My thanks for destroying Ondil. I shall enjoy augmenting my magic with his. I am in your debt, mageling … and so it is my duty and pleasure to rid us of your annoying attacks, once and for all!” A ring on his finger winked once, and the world exploded in flames.