The mutating flesh shuddered and spasmed suddenly, then undulated away from him in snakelike coils. Belkram snarled, snatched out his belt dagger, and went after it, slashing wildly with both his weapons.
He was still slashing and hewing ribbons of the stuff away in all directions when a bright swarm of magical bolts swam down into the clearing and raced at him.
Once, Belkram had taken a dagger through the palm of his hand. The attacking bolts felt like seven such daggers in swift succession. The pain smashed the breath out of him as the force of the striking magic missiles drove him back into an untidy heap on the ground. It was like being struck in the short ribs over and over again, Belkram thought, struggling to get his breath. Through swimming eyes he saw some of those glowing mages still standing on the air above the keep. Itharr… he'd been going to help Itharr…
Rage burned in Itharr Jathram all the time. Slow and buried deep, but there all the time, like coals glowing under turf for the night. Once in a while-not often, but eventually-that building rage rose and warmed and boiled up… and the burly, quiet Harper slew things.
He'd said as much to Storm, that first day at her farm, sitting on two stumps in the forest behind her house. "Lady," Itharr had told her softly, "you must know this. I'd not be the best citizen in a land at peace. From time to time, I find… I must kill."
Storm had merely nodded, sober eyed, and said as gently, "I can see it in you. Yet know this, Itharr. You are welcome in my house, now and to the end of your days."
And for that, Itharr would love her forever. Her face then, and her words, came back to him now as he stood struggling in a grip much stronger than his own and felt the white heat of his rage blinding him. Those jaws snapped just shy of his cheek once more, as he twisted his neck desperately aside and snarled his defiance. His arms-and the weapons he thought he still held, though numbness was creeping over him, and he could no longer be sure-were pinned to his sides in an ever-tighter rope of flowing flesh. These shapeshifters could kill merely by wrapping part of themselves around you and crushing!
He tried to throw himself sideways, but the Malaugrym held him, swaying like a tree in a high wind, and he knew he struggled in vain. "Tymora, aid me now," he hissed, ribs aching under the increasing pressure, and the shapeshifter laughed out loud. Eyes dark with fury, Itharr tried again to overbalance the thing and bring them both to the ground, but the Malaugrym held him upright with easy strength and tightened its grip still more.
He was fighting for breath now, a far-off and faint roaring rising in his ears. Soon it would overwhelm him, Itharr Jathram knew, and he'd go down, raging still, into the darkness that waited for everyone.
The pipe winked more slowly this time. Sylune wondered if it would work once more if need be. Well, she'd best make sure she didn't need it.
The Malaugrym were learning. Instead of hurling more than enough magic at their foe and having it all go to waste when the pipe teleported Old Elminster away, they'd split up-a few blade barriers had taught them the wisdom of that-and were sniping at him from here and there around the ruins now, hoping to force him to transport himself away from one attack and right into another.
It had almost worked twice now. Sylune took quick stock of the spells left in the various devices that festooned the body she'd taken to calling "Old Elminster"- not a hard task, as so little was left-and decided to use invisibility.
She ducked through an arch, making sure one of the shapeshifters saw her, became invisible-the nice thing about these rings was their speed and silence-and darted right back through the archway again. She saw the shapeshifter confidently weaving a spell that would hurl a swarm of fireballs through the archway, to burst on the other side of the wall, and grinned. Two other Malaugrym were creeping through the ruins and should arrive at the other side of the wall at just about the right time.
Now to find Shar's blade. Belkram had laid it in her hand; he'd need her healing ring, too.
It might have to serve both Belkram and Itharr, if she could get this body where it had to go in time. Sylune was sprinting across the clearing, slipping on the dew driven out of everything around by all the fire spells, when a beam of flame swept across her path, too close to miss.
Someone could see Old Elminster. That was it, then, she thought, as the body plunged into roaring flames with hands clasped over its eyes to try to keep some sight. Old Elminster staggered and almost went down; Sylune kept the shuddering limbs going, trailing smoke, toward the trees.
Doom would be on them all soon now. She heard fresh laughter and the delighted exclamations of newcomers overhead but did not bother to look up. Of course the more craven Malaugrym would wait until the kill was certain and then come to watch.
The body's eyes were still swimming with tears. She could not see whatever it was that burst nearby on her left, flinging Old Elminster to the right like a rag doll. The body struck something-flesh-and she realized that it must be Itharr and the shapeshifter, still straining together. She snatched at the belt the body wore, found the burning-hot dagger as the burnt leather crumbled away and fell into ashes, and slashed at the ropy flesh she could not see, again and again, cutting at one spot, trying to make it release its hold on the trapped Harper.
Then the ground came up and struck the body's forehead. Bouncing helplessly on the turf, Sylune saw a fading flash and knew that a ruthless Malaugrym mage had decided his kinsman was expendable, and struck them all with a corrosive bolt. Would this body's limbs hold together? At least she felt no pain and could drive the body to do things when injured that no living man could have managed-but was getting up and reaching that sword and ring one of them?
7
Daggerdale, Kythorn 16
"This is the great Elminster?" The Shadowmasters were laughing openly now, and quite a group was gathering in the air above the last tower. Forty or more looked down into the smoldering clearing where the blackened shell of Irythkeep more or less still stood, and watched the spindly ashen figure that had once sported robes and a beard stumbling toward the trees. Far too many of the blood of Malaug lay sprawled and lifeless or barely alive about the clearing, but no matter. The Great Foe was going to die!
And when the gods tired of playing in Faerun, there'd be no one left to stand against the might of the Malaugrym… and at last Toril would be theirs. Gates winked in the air, and more kin arrived, swarming out across the air to stand above the clearing and look down.
"If we blast his body away from the knees up, will the feet keep walking?" one amused youngling asked, but another said, "No, no. Move what he seeks away just as he's about to grasp it, and keep moving it so it's always just ahead of him and he never gets it!"
"Don't toy with him!" an elder's voice roared out of empty air. Someone without magic, using the scrying portal's powers to speak through it. "Slay him now, or he'll win free somehow, and we'll have won nothing!"
The youngling who'd suggested blasting all but the Old Mage's feet turned to laugh at the voice, a sneer on his face. But then his form changed, his features holding a moment of shocked disbelief before they melted away into rubbery dun-purple nothingness and he fell away, tumbling helplessly toward the stones far below.