The somehow familiar voice came from behind a slowly advancing wall of drifting silver sparks, a spell every bit as deadly as the spellblade that had slain the guards. Aumlar eyed its inexorable promise of doom and sighed. He should know that voice.
The lure he'd prepared to overwhelm Shandril Shessair had to be used now, on this more immediate foe-or there wouldn't be another night or day beyond that, or any more of either days or nights, for Aumlar Chaunthoun. Oh, Blood of Mystra indeed!
He murmured the word that sprang the trap, sprang back across the wagon, and in midair said aloud, as recognition came to him at last: "Pheldred!"
"In full glory! Well met again, Aumlar, after all these years. I've come to pay you back for maiming me."
"Of course-if you can," the Zhentarim told his unseen attacker calmly. "It must be hard to win respect in the ranks of the Red Wizards when your arms keep changing into manacles. My best curse; how did you manage to break it?"
"The same way you set it. The hard part was finding what fiend you'd bound into it and by what names I could command it. I went through years of torment for that, Aumlar. Now, so will you!"
"I think not," the Zhentarim snapped, as the first of his wands rose into view and fired, its burst shredding Pheldred's deathwall spell and revealing the floating man behind it. Dark hair, glittering black eyes, dark maroon robes, two plain finger-rings of course, a dagger and a whip thrust through a richly made belt… nothing unexpected there. Good; the Red Wizard was right inside the wagon. He could feel those crackling shieldings around Pheldred, so they couldn't be illusory. Right in-as the old, old saying put it-the very jaws of his trap.
Aumlar smiled as wands that obeyed his will rose into view on all sides of the Thayan, and began to fire.
Shields flared instantly into wailing brightness around the floating wizard, who sneered. "Really, Aumlar, is that the best you can do? I expected rather more than this from such a widely feared flower of the Zhentarim!"
A shield failed with a sound like shattering crystal, followed by the one beneath it.
Aumlar spread his hands and replied mockingly, "Pray accept my apologies, Pheldred. These feeble efforts of mine were intended to punish but not slay a young lass untutored in magic. If you'd announced your arrival, I'd have prepared something more suitable, but perhaps my paltry wands are about right for dealing with a Red Wizard? There goes another of your shields, and-oh, my-another!"
The Thayan snarled, his dark eyes snapping with anger, as his third and fourth shieldings collapsed. His hands were moving in the gestures of a spell Aumlar didn't recognize, but the Zhentarim did not intend to stand still and be blasted. He started to clamber and walk through the scattered goods along one wall of the wagon, aiming to get around Pheldred to the entrance, where he could control when his unwanted guest departed. With even a shred of blessing from Mystra, he could end this menace from his past without even losing his dreamwhisper spell, and The Mystra he'd just cursed. Umh. Ah, well…
Grinning fiercely, Pheldred finished his spell just as another of his shieldings disintegrated. Those that were left expanded sharply outward, hurling back the beams of the wands in spark-spitting chaos.
Smoke arose from at least one singed carry-bag on the wagon floor, but Aumlar was too busy worrying about the Thayan's magic to see which bag it was. Pheldred's spell wasn't just a new set of shields, it was something that sought to drink in the ravages of his wands and twist their energies to forge another spellblade, this one shimmering longer and larger and brighter already.
One of Aumlar's wands burst with a tiny "pop," like a candle snuffed by an overenthusiastic servant. A thread of smoke trailed up from its splintered end. There was no sign of the explosion that might have turned the wagon into a crypt for both wizards. Pheldred must have drained it, and Another wand died, and the Red Wizard's smile widened. Aumlar was almost between him and the entrance, now, but the Thayan showed no signs of alarm or of movement beyond turning in midair to face his foe. His hands were moving again.
Aumlar's face tightened, and he bent his will to calling forth everything from the wands. Even the spellfire-wench couldn't handle much power flowing into her too swiftly, and if Pheldred was going to drain them all anyway…
The floating wizard started to glow, and his spellcasting gestures faltered and stiffened in pain. Aumlar gave him back his own fierce, cruel smile, delighting in the first signs of pain and doubt in those dark, glittering eyes.
"Zhentarim dog!" Pheldred spat, his spell finished.
"Thayan worm," Aumlar replied mockingly, stepping swiftly sideways again. There had been no flash or crash yet, and he wasn't sure what this latest spell was supposed to accomplish-but in case it struck more swiftly than the still-solidifying spellblade, he didn't want to be standing immobile and so offering himself to it.
Something flickered at the corner of his eye, and he leaped in the opposite direction even before turning to look at it. The Red Wizard laughed as Aumlar landed hard on a heap of coffers and a keg and scrambled hastily upright again.
This new spell was a dark, spiraling force of some kind that had brushed the wagon walls at its forming. Now it was tightening and shrinking rapidly as it spun, closing down around the only Zhentarim wizard in the wagon.
Aumlar slashed it to ribbons with three of the wands, spinning them around just for an instant to sever Pheldred's spell in three places, then sweeping them back to strike the Thayan again.
The floating Red Wizard gasped as the beams fired by the wands struck his shields once more. His body shuddered in the flickering heart of his diminishing defenses, and he groaned aloud. Then slowly-as if fighting to do so in the gathering radiance around him-he moved his hands in the gestures of yet another spell.
Aumlar cast a quick glance back at Pheldred's dark spiral, saw its last shreds fading away, and bent all his will on searing through the Thayan's shields before Pheldred could do anything else.
The glow around the floating man flared to painful brightness, and the Red Wizard seemed to be struggling in pain or to do something he just couldn't manage. A wand burst with the sort of explosion Aumlar had been dreading, but its racing force was sucked into the crackling force racing around Pheldred, and The Red Wizard was suddenly spinning across the wagon, — screaming in pain, as bright, forces rushed everywhere, struck the wagon walls like waves crashing on rocks, and came racing back again to shock together in the bright heart of nothingness.
Pheldred was gone, teleported away to somewhere safer, scorched and hopefully worse. Aumlar Chaunthoun flung himself to the floorboards as magical forces snarled and fought above him, and prayed loud and long to Mystra for his deliverance, pleading for divine forgiveness for his every slighting oath and careless transgression… while the back of his robes smoldered and melted away, his hair sizzled, and the top of his wagon quietly ceased to be.
The day might belong to raging Tempus the Wargod, but Mystra certainly seemed to be listening attentively today.
Fierce Magic Beyond Withstanding
We warriors burn and pillage and plunder what we can reach, but when wizards make war, all Faerun stands in harm's way.
"It's past time for pretending to sell spices," Malivur said softly, his green eyes gleaming back the blazing fire of the scene in the depths of his scrying-whorl.
The ginger-bearded seller of clockworks nodded. "In this, we're agreed. He's weak and not looking to see who strikes at him while those flames rage. There'll be no better time. 'Tis best for the Cult, and us two-and all civilized Faerun-if Aumlar Chaunthoun goes down into dust and darkness right now."