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 pa.s.sage beyond and was gone-unseen in the sudden flash and whirl of a hundred circling, clanging blades, darting about in the s.p.a.ce 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.
Hands still moving in the feeble, useless gestures of a broken spell, Elmara found herself hurled out the shattered window where the two thieves had gone, a coil of flames crackling and searing around her. She roared in pain, the flames clawing at her, and twisted about as she fell so as to appear helpless for as long as possible before she called on the powers of her still-working flight spell. The book strapped to her stomach seemed to ward off the flames, but her ears were full of the sizzle of her burning hair.
Below lay the shattered bodies of the two thieves, and a large blackened area where lumps still gave off smoke-all Briost had left of the youngest Blade and the horses he"d guarded. Scant feet above them, Elmara bent her will and darted away, soaring just above the ground, smoke trailing from her blackened clothes. She wept as she flew, but not from the growing pain of her burns.
The small open boat held a man and a woman. The old, grizzled man in the stern poled it steadily on through thick sunset mists.
He eyed the young, hawk-nosed woman who stood near the bow, and asked quietly, "Be going to the temple, young lady?"
Elmara nodded. Motes of light sparkled and swam continuously about the large bundle she held with both hands against her chest, veiling its true nature. The old man eyed it anyway, and then looked away and spat thoughtfully into the water.
"Have a care, la.s.s," he said, resting his pole so the boat drifted. "Not many goes, but fewer comes back to the dock next morn. Some we never find at all, some we find only as heaps o" ashes or twisted bones, and others blind or just babbling at nothing, dawn "til dusk."
The young, hawk-nosed maid turned and looked at him, face expressionless, for a long time. Then she lifted her shoulders, let them fall in a shrug, and said, "This is a thing I must do. I am bidden." She looked ahead into the mists and added quietly, "As are we all, too often, it seems."
The old man shrugged in his turn as the island of Mystra"s Dance loomed up out of the scudding mists before them, a dark and silent bulk above the water.
They regarded it, growing larger as they approached. The old man turned the boat slightly. A few breaths later, his craft sc.r.a.ped gently along an old stone dock, and he said, "Mystra"s Dance, young lady. Her altar stands atop the hill that"s hidden, beyond the one above us. I"ll return as we agreed. May Mystra smile upon ye."
Elmara bowed to him and stepped up onto the dock, leaving four gold regals in the old man"s hand as she pa.s.sed. The ferry man steadied his boat in silence, watching the young lady"s determined stride as she climbed the hill. The full glory of the setting sun was past now, and purple dusk was coming down swiftly over the clear sky of Faerun.
Only when Elmara had disappeared over the crest of the bare summit did the boatman move. He turned away and leaned on his pole strongly. The boat pulled away from the dock, and the old, weathered face of its owner split in a sudden grin.
The grin widened horribly as the face above it slid down like rotten porridge. Fangs grew down to pierce the sliding flesh. The flesh dripped off a too-sharp chin and fell away to slop and spatter in the bottom of the boat, and the scaly, grinning face whispered, "Done, master." Garadic knew Ilhundyl was watching.
Elmara stopped in front of the altar: a plain, dark block of stone standing alone atop the hill. The wind sighed past her. She offered a heartfelt prayer to Mystra, and the wind seemed to die away for a breath or two. When she was done, she unwrapped Ondil"s Book of Spells, its binding still bright around it, and placed it reverently on the cold stone.
"Holy Lady of All Mysteries, please accept my gift," Elmara mumbled, uncertain as to what she should say. She stood watching and waiting, prepared to stand vigil the night through if need be.
A bare moment later, a chill ran down her spine. Two ghostly hands, long-fingered and feminine, were rising up out of the stone. They grasped the tome and began to descend again. Sudden, blinding radiance burst from the book, and there was a high, clear singing sound.
Elmara winced and shaded her eyes. When she could see again, the hands and the book were gone. The breezes blew across the bare stone, just as it had been when she found it.
The young priestess stood before the altar for a long time, feeling strangely empty, and weary-and yet at peace. There would be time to choose a path ahead on the morrow... for now, she was content just to stand. And remember.
The folk of Heldon and the outlaws in the ravine outside the Castle, the Velvet Hands lying in the alley, the Brave Blades ... so many dead. Gone to meet the G.o.ds, leaving her alone again....
Lost in reverie, Elmara only gradually became aware of a brightening glow from down the hill, behind the altar.
She stepped forward. The glow was coming from a slim female figure that stood twice as tall as she. The apparition was gowned and regal and stood in the air well clear of the ground. Her eyes were dark pools, and a smile fell across her face as she raised her hand and beckoned. Then she turned and began to walk away, striding on empty air down the hill. After a moment, Elmara followed through the tugging breeze, down the windblown slope, then around another hill, and on. They came out onto a pebble beach on the far side of the isle from the dock, but the glowing figure ahead walked on, straight into-no, above!- the waves, striding out to sea.
Elmara slowed, eyeing the water"s edge. Gray waves rolled endlessly up onto the pebbles, and then sucked them back. The water ahead was glowing where Mystra had walked above it.
Unbroken by the rolling waves, a shining path lay across the waters ahead of her. The G.o.ddess was growing distant now, still striding across the waves.
Gingerly, Elmara walked into the surf, and found her boots still dry. A fine mist covered her, but her feet did not plunge through the waters . . . she was walking on the waves! Emboldened, she began to hurry now, striding along in haste to catch up.
They were walking out to sea, leaving the island well behind. The breezes blew past, cool and steady, driving the sea to sh.o.r.e. Elmara hurried until her breath was coming in gasps, not quite daring to run on the moving waves . .. yet drew no closer to the glowing figure ahead.
El was just beginning to wonder where they were hurrying to when a cold, clear voice from just ahead of her said, "You have failed me."
Ahead, the glowing figure dimmed, fading quickly above the dark waves. Elmara started to run in earnest now, but the radiant waves in front of her grew darker and darker, until the path was gone, and the figure too-and she was suddenly walking on the water no more, but plunged into icy depths.
She rose, struggling, cold water crawling in her throat and nose as she coughed and thrashed ... and a wave slapped her in the face. She spat out water and clawed her way around, so the next swell lifted her under the shoulders and carried her along.
Back toward the island, now only a dark spot on the running gray seas. She was alone in the chill waters, at night, far from land....
In the breeze howling its way over the hilltop there came a sudden whirl of sparkling lights, rising up into a singing cloud of winking radiance. From its heart stepped a tall, dark-robed figure.
He strode to the bare stone block, looked down at it for a moment, and said coldly, "Rise!"
There was a sigh and a stirring from the stone in front of him, and wisps of pearly light began to stream from it, tugged by the quickening wind. The radiance swirled, thickened, and became a translucent figure-a woman who held a tome. She extended the book to the robed man, who stretched forth his hand in a quick gesture. Brief lightnings played around the book, and then died. Satisfied, the man took it.
The ghostly face leaned close. Its entreating whisper was almost a sob. "Now will ye let me rest, Mage Most Mighty?"
Ilhundyl nodded once. "For a time," he said curtly. "Now-go!"
The spirit"s shadowy form wavered above the stone block, as if it were whipped in a gale, and her faint voice came again. "Who was the young mage, and what is her fate?"
"Death is her fate, and so she is nothing, of course," Ilhundyl said, and there was a clear edge of anger in his cold tones. "Go!"
The lich moaned and sank back into the stone; the last that could be seen of her before she faded utterly was a pair of spread, beseeching hands.
Ilhundyl ignored them, hefted the weighty book in his hands, and smiled coldly across the breezy night at the third hilltop, where only rubble remained of the shattered True Altar of Mystra. If he had learned one thing in all his years of spell work and ruthless advancement, it was that the Mistress of Magic valued magical might above all. Wherefore Ilhundyl proudly wore the "Mad Mage" t.i.tle men whispered behind his back. Soon, soon he"d be the most powerful, the Magister over all Faerun-and then they"d be too busy screaming to whisper and work against him.
He stiffened, peering into the night. A blue flame was rising from the shattered stones on the other hilltop, flickering but growing ever brighter ... and taller.
Ilhundyl"s mouth was suddenly dry. A woman twice as tall as he stood looking across the empty air between them. A tall, regal lady of blue flame, her eyes dark and level as they met his.
Sudden fear rose to choke him. Ilhundyl muttered a hasty word and sketched a sign in the air, and the winking lights rose bright around him, bearing him away....
Elmara groaned, coughed weakly, and opened her eyes. Dawn had come to Faerun again . . . and, it seemed, had found her still in it. She was lying half in water and half on sand, with the endless crash of the surf all around. Fingers of foaming water ran up the sand past her. El watched its flow, feeling weak and sick, and then tried to lift herself. Sand sucked at her, then she was on hands and knees . .. whole and unhurt, it seemed, just a little dizzy.
The beach was deserted. A cool, salty onsh.o.r.e breeze blew past her and made her shiver. She was naked except for the Lion Sword, still on its thong around her neck. Elmara sighed, and wobbled to her feet. There was no sign of houses or docks or fences . . . just stunted trees, rocks, and a tangle of gra.s.ses, old stumps, and bushes where the beach ended and the living things began.
She took a step forward, then froze. In the sand in front of her, someone had scratched one word: "Athalantar."
El looked down at the word in the sand, and then at her bare limbs, and shivered. She coughed, shook her head, lifted her chin, and strode away from the water, heading toward the rising sun.
In a place where guardian spells glowed night and day, deep in the Castle of Sorcery, a man settled down to read.
"Garadic," he said coldly, and sipped his drink.
The scaled minion reluctantly shuffled forward out of the shadows and gingerly opened Ondil"s Book of Spells, where it lay on a lectern at the far end of the chamber from his master. Always-vigilant protective spells ma.s.sed and swirled around the lectern, but no lightnings nor creeping death came. The revealed page was blank.
"Bring it," was the next cold command.
When the lectern stood before his high, padded chair, Ilhundyl set down the goblet of emerald wine and waved the scaled, shambling thing away. He turned the next page himself.
It was as blank and creamy as the flyleaf before it had been. He turned it back. So was the next... and the next... and the next. .. every one of the pages was blank! Ilhundyl"s face froze, and a frown crept in around his eyes.
He spoke a word that made all the radiances in the room dim. The floor glowed briefly, and there came a grating sound, as a flagstone there moved back to reveal a hole. Very quickly, as if it had been waiting, a slyly questing tendril rose from unseen depths below. It touched the book delicately, almost caressingly, and then enfolded it-only to recoil, disappointed, and sink down again. That meant there were no hidden writings, nor portals or linkages to other s.p.a.ces and other tomes. The book was empty.
Sudden rage seized Ilhundyl then. He rose from his seat in black anger, striding through portals that slid open and curtains that parted at his approach. His furious walk ended half the castle away, before a large sphere of sparkling crystal. It stood atop a black pedestal, alone in a small room of many lamps.
He glared into the depths of the sphere. Flames and flickerings appeared and coiled there, fueled by his anger. Ilhundyl stared into the crystal as the flames within it slowly grew, reaching flickering talons up its curving sides, and suddenly he was shouting. "I"ll blast her bones! If she"s drowned, I"ll raise her-and then smash her bones like hurled eggs, and make her beg for release! No one tricks Ilhundyl! No one!"
He spat a word of summoning, and halfway across the Castle of Sorcery, where he cowered in concealing shadows, the winged and warty shape of Garadic rose hastily and flapped down the swiftest ways to his master"s side.
Ilhundyl glared into the crystal, summoning up the young, hawk-nosed face from his memory. The fires swirled and shifted, clearing, and he gathered himself to hurl a scything blade of his will, to chop the young worm"s legs off at the knees and let her scream and crawl until Ilhundyl came-and gave her real cause to scream and crawl!
But when the fires of the crystal spun into focus, the visage looking calmly back at him was not the one Ilhundyl sought. He gaped in astonishment.
The wrinkled, bearded face dropped its habitual expression of mild curiosity to smile gently at him, nodded in greeting, and said, "Fair day, Ilhundyl; gained a new spellbook, I see."
Ilhundyl spat at the Magister. The spittle hissed and smoked as it struck the crystal. "The pages are blank-and you know it!"
The Magister smiled again, a trifle tightly. "Yes . . . but the young mage who offered it to Mystra did not. You told her not to look inside, and she obeyed you. Such honesty and trust is sadly lacking in this world today-isn"t it, Ilhundyl?"