The cold hands tightened. Somehow Labraster man shy;aged to keep silent, but he was shaking uncontrollably as the hands clutched him cruelly here, there, and all over. Silence fell again.
Auvrarn Labraster would have prayed fervently-though silently-then, if he'd had any idea which god he should be praying to. Whichever one, if any, who'd have him.
His healer paid him no heed, but threw back that unseen head and howled, the roar deafening in the small, echoing space. Labraster glanced down at himself in the din to make sure he hadn't been given wings, or a tail, or-no. The Waterdhavian who'd spent far too much time as Blandras Nuin closed his eyes firmly and lay back on the stone. If a god-whoever might hear-would just take all of this pain and confusion away. …
A thought struck him that left him cold and cowering indeed. The hands were trailing up and down him again, seeming to caress rather than claw. What if they were the hands of a god?
"And what is your view, Thaltar?"
"Insofar as I'll admit to having formed one, Dlamaerztus, I think it important that all of you know that it's but an immediate reaction-a feeling in the gut, if you will-and not a reasoned and sustainable position."
"Wisdom of Mystra, man, this isn't a debating club," said a third mage at the table disgustedly, as he shook out his sleeves. Despite several hot glares, his next action was to unconcernedly take up his thin, foot-long cigar again from a holder on the shining wood before him that looked like what it was, a petrified human hand cupped eternally in a pose that allowed it to receive stray and weary cigars, pipes, and even writing quills. The mage blew a smoke ring as he sat back in his chair, with the air of a man exhausted from delivering a long and modestly brilliant speech.
"Norlarram," Dlamaerztus said testily, "I don't know why you attend these meetings, given the preparations and defenses we must all make, if you're not prepared to seriously discuss our unfolding plans. I know I don't attend for the pleasure of having you blow cigar smoke into my face all evening."
"No?" Norlarram of the Five Hungry Lightnings returned coolly, another smoke ring leaving his lips. "Why exactly do you attend these gatherings, then, Dlammur? Is it just to keep an eye on the rest of us with shy;out having to spend long afternoons casting eleven sep shy;arate spying spells? I've awaited-nay, anticipated-the bright light of worthy verbal contributions on your part these past four meetings, as you've striven to chide and curb us as if we were children and you our teacher. I find myself, now, still waiting for that brilliance to shine upon us all."
The largest and fattest of the twelve robed men seated around the table rumbled into angry life. "This again! Look, everyone, as we are all Red Wizards, we must all know how to write, and read, and think. We all have ambition, or we'd not be here. We all have far too little time to spare for anything we look upon with pleasure. So I ask the table in generaclass="underline" must we listen, at our every gathering, to idle, cutting witticisms by men who think themselves clever?"
"Or complaints from men who think themselves wiz shy;ards?" Norlarram asked his cigar in arch tones. Someone snorted in mirth, a sound overridden by someone else's growl of anger.
"I can't see, try as I might, how this wrangling and stirring of ill feelings is going to ease-or even permit-our working together," Thaltar observed calmly. "Why don't we simply leave off speaking words clever or oth shy;erwise until Iyrtaryld describes his latest plan? I suspect it is more than just my own view that will be formed, or reshaped, in light of what he has to say."
"Finally something I can agree with," the fat wizard put in quickly. "Belt up, all of you, and give Iyrtaryld our silence to fill."
"With this, I find myself in agreement," a thin, pale wizard whose hair and brows were wintry white said then, turning eyes whose pupils were the yellow of but shy;tercups to look up and down the table. "Give Taryld the floor."
A little silence fell, and into it a soft voice not heard before at this meeting said, "Ahem.. well, now."
Its owner rose and looked coldly around the table. His beard thrust forth into Faerun like an up-curling spike from the point of his otherwise shaven chin, beneath eyes that glittered with malice and restless ambition. "I've worked out the last details of the enchantment that will enable one of us to pass on the burden to the next without letting the magic fall, and so keep the mouth extant as days pass. My trials suggest that the addition of this spell also mitigates any backlashes that may occur when the spell does fail."
"'May occur'? Were there not always backlashes at the end of the spell?" Norlarram asked quickly.
Iyrtaryld shrugged. "More than half the time, but not always."
"And when not, how so?"
"We could find no tactic in the use or handling of the spell to cause, steer, or prevent a backlash. The form, intensity, and even presence of this discharge seem truly random."
"So, behold then. ." the always brisk-some would have said "impatient"-Dlamaerztus prompted.
Iyrtaryld smiled, but no humor reached up to touch his eyes. "Behold, then," he said in coldly satisfied tones, "the Hungry Mouth."
Those last two words triggered an illusion spell the soft-voiced mage had prepared beforehand, showing them a whirling, moving oval construct in the air, a maw hovering above a field. Its compulsion was strong enough to suck up streams of sand and rock dust into itself, though, at a glance they seemed to be flowing the other way, drooling down out of the hungry mouth as it roved almost restlessly up and over a little rise. It drew several startled sheep into itself, whirling them away in a swift, blurred snatching.
"Vast herds of creatures, both wild and shepherded, roam the lands east of Raurin, and beyond that are realms both ancient and rich, whose folk are many. Shrewdly placed, our roving mouth can graze on these at will, delivering to us an endless supply of slaves. We can eat what can't be compelled to labor for us."
"Making us powerful indeed in Thay," one mage mur shy;mured.
"And hence, noticed and inevitably challenged," Nor shy;larram said sharply. "Leaving us to pursue what plan?"
"I would know first," Thaltar put in smoothly, "what will occur if our mouth sucks up an unleashed spell-or a hostile mage able to cast many spells, commencing immediately?"
There was a general murmur, out of which the voice of Dlamaerztus rose like a trumpet. "So the naysayers begin to chisel away at this brightest of our dreams again, being anxious here and cautious there, querying and caviling, rushing ev-"
"In spellcrafting," the fat wizard said loudly, his voice rolling over the rising torrent of contesting voices like a great wave, "those who are not anxious, cautious, and querying are soon known as 'the dead.' "
"Shadow of Shar!" someone snarled. "Are we to be list-"
There was a sudden groaning of grating, shifting stone, and the table in their midst heaved up into the air.
Wizards shouted and scrambled to find a grip on something or just to stay more or less upright as chairs tumbled and clattered, and the stone floor surged up in a gray wave before breaking into fragments.
A furious Dlamaerztus pointed at the fat mage and screamed, "Quaerlesz, this is your doing!" From his pointing finger sprang a sudden flurry of blue-white, streaking bolts.
Even as the spellbolts struck some sort of unseen bar shy;rier around Quaerlesz and burst into bright flares of nothingness, the air filled with deadly outbursts of slay shy;ing magic.
Cones, rays, and volleys of conjured bolts stabbed out, crisscrossing and annihilating each other amid tumbling showers and sprays of spell sparks. Red Wizards, it seemed, were a less than trusting breed.