The silver-haired sorceress dropped her eyelids lazily and leaned her chin onto one hand in an insolent pose, smiling lazily at Azmyrandyr. "You're the one I've come for," she said, in the manner of a high-coin lass taking the hand of her patron at a revel.
She's laughing at me, Azmyrandyr thought. The bitch is laughing at me!
Azmyrandyr's sudden flare of rage was white-hot, and left him snarling in wordless fury as Orth's missiles struck ruthlessly. . and seemed to do nothing. All gods above, was she immune to everything?
As if she could read his mind, the Simbul stretched like a lazy cat, and lifted sardonic eyebrows as she gazed coldly and amusedly into his eyes.
Azmyrandyr lifted his hands to smash her into obliv shy;ion, and realized that all he had left were the magic mis shy;siles she seemed immune to. He clapped one hand over the ring he wore on the other, and cried aloud, "Aid! We are beset by a sorceress! Aid in the West Tower!"
The ring winked into life under his fingers, a ruby flame welling up.
Azmyrandyr had once seen a zulkir employ the ges shy;ture and the murmured word the Simbul used then, and all hope drained out of him in an instant. Her eyes had been on him. The tingling was taking hold of him. Azmyrandyr of the Twelve Talons was the target of her skeletal deliquescence.
Deep within himself, Azmyrandyr heard the ring send his plea for aid rolling out, but it seemed to pass into hushed silence not far beyond the walls and floor. That cursed barrier, no doubt, but even if magic was blocked hadn't they yet made simple noise enough in the fray for the priests in the chapel below, preaching dawnrise to the rest of the apprentices, to hear?
"Aid!" he roared, as loudly as he could, not caring if his voice broke raw. After all, how much longer would he have to use it?
It was beginning already. Through a gathering red haze Azmyrandyr saw Rilder's spectral axe swoop down and hack, hard, right into the Simbul's face. It flashed right through her, as if she were no more than a ghost. Of course, the bitch would have an ironguard up, but wait, wasn't the axe no more than a blade of spell force, and not metal at all? That must mean-
The groan and shiver that would be his last rose up in Azmyrandyr, his throat and nostrils collapsed, and he could speak no more, could barely think as the shudder shy;ing began. Of course, he thought dazedly as he began to fall, that was why the missiles struck the apprentices from behind, not from her at all….
The last thing Azmyrandyr of the Twelve Talons ever properly heard, through the rising, surflike surging in his ears, was the thunder of running, booted feet. He seized on the satisfaction that brought, wrapping him shy;self in the thought that either the insolent Witch-Queen of Aglarond would take real harm this day, overwhelmed by foes, or he'd not fall alone, while others lived on to take this his fortress and lord it here over his bones.
Not that he had any of those left, now.
Rilder frowned, in real puzzlement as well as grow shy;ing alarm and fury. The sorceress was casting a magic missile spell as calmly as if she were standing at home, alone in a practice chamber. All the while his axe was racing through her, circling with all the speed he could urge it to, and cleaving down again, biting right through her, and being ignored. How could this be?
How by dark, soul-chilling kisses of Shar, Lady of the Night, could this bloody well be?
He didn't realize that he'd snarled that aloud until he heard her laugh. Strangely, that laughter seemed to come from right behind him.
That meant… that meant… well, it meant something, but the thought was lost to Rilder as his master Azmyrandyr-hard and cruel indeed, but a pillar of dark strength that somehow Rilder would have never expected to see topple-slumped into a boneless, spreading puddle of flesh in front of him, flowing greasily out across the floor in front of Rilder's toes.
The apprentice was already drawing back in mount shy;ing disgust-his flowing master was warm-when he saw that his racing axe was going to cleave right through the central, sinking lump that had been Azmyrandyr. His master was collapsing, yes, but not col shy;lapsing quite fast enough to avoid-
Rilder winced as his conjured weapon slashed through the flowing thing, cutting a deep channel. Blood, and other wet, bubbling substances started to well up in its wake. A severed hand, still recognizable from the winking ring despite its long, trailing sausages of fingers, tumbled away.
Rilder was desperately trying to be sick all over the spreading mass of his master when a volley of blue-white bolts tore through him from behind. Things changed for Rilder Palengerrast in that instant. It was no longer necessary for him to vomit if he wanted to spatter the chamber in front of him with all that had once been inside Azmyrandyr's most loyal apprentice. He fell forward, never knowing that he was doing so.
"Sweet Shar preserve us!" one of the two running apprentices gasped. All that was still whole of Rilder were his toppling legs. What flopped bloodily above that was torn into more holes than a sponge. Small stars marked more tiny, fist-sized explosions as the stupidest apprentice fell.
"Must've … been carrying … feather tokens … or the like," the other apprentice husked out, becoming uncom shy;fortably aware that he was completely out of breath to cast spells, as they came rushing down on a woman he'd never seen before but had an uncomfortable feeling he knew from her swirling silver hair. She'd been calmly standing behind Rilder, and had now turned her head to smile at them both over one shoulder.
The apprentices crashed to a hasty, unsteady halt. "Holy Shar, be with us now!" the first apprentice whis shy;pered, and for perhaps the first time in his life, truly meant it.
The other apprentice spun on his heel and pelted right back down the passageway they'd sprinted up, weaving desperately from side to side. "I'll raise the alarm!" he shouted back, in case Marlus was so angry at being left alone to face the legendary Simbul that he turned and fed a burst of spellbolts to his colleague.
Marlus, however, was too busy recognizing the spell that the sorceress was casting, and throwing himself flat on his face, to be angry about anything.
"Behold your alarm," the Simbul remarked pleas shy;antly, then lifted a surprisingly pleasant singing voice into a little ditty "Come one, come all, to the murderous ball.. "
The fireball that crisped fleeing Ilnabbath shook the fortress and sent tongues of hot flame over his head, but Marlus rolled onto his side the moment it was done and calmly cast the spell he'd been saving for Ilnabbath, later: feeblemind.
His reward, as he scrambled up to watch the sorceress start to drool, was a look of withering contempt from the Witch-Queen of Aglarond. This seemed like a good time to gulp in despair, so Marlus Belraeblood did so.
Temple Master Maeldur stepped back hastily and threw up a hand to shield his eyes. "A fireball? This is more than an apprentice trying to fell his master! Go you, Staenyn, to rouse our visitors. One of them at least outstrips Master Azmyrandyr in the Art. Hurry back, I may well need you!"
He slapped at the fortress guards trying to shoulder past. "Hold! Let me cast some protections on you. Yon's a sorceress of some power."
"I'm growing impatient," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond called, watching the puddle that was Azmyrandyr grow broader and shallower. “Give me battle, worms of Thay!"