The fourth followed in rapid succession. Then Entreri threw the base of the chair. It was a meager missile that would hardly have hurt the wizard even without the magical defense, but one that took yet another layer off the stoneskin.
Entreri paid for the offensive flurry, though, as Merle Pariso's next lightning bolt caught him hard and launched him spinning sidelong. His shoulder burned, his hair danced on end, and his heart fluttered.
Desperate and hurt, the assassin went in hard, dagger slashing. "How many more can you defeat?" he roared, stabbing hard again and again.
His answer came in the form of flames, a shroud of dancing fire covering, but hardly consuming, Merle Pariso. Entreri noted the fire too late to stop short his last attack, and the dagger went through, again hitting harmlessly against the stoneskin-harmlessly to Pariso but not to Entreri. The new spell, the flame shield, replicated the intended bite of that dagger back at Entreri, drawing a deep gash along the already battered man's ribs.
With a howl the assassin fell back, purposely turning himself in line with the door, then dodging deftly as the predictable lightning bolt came after him.
The rolling assassin looked back as he came around, pleased to see that this time the wooden door had indeed splintered. He grabbed another chair and threw it at the wizard, turning for the door even as he released it.
Merle Pariso's groan stopped him dead and turned him back around, thinking the stoneskin expired.
But then it was Entreri's turn to groan. "Oh, clever," he congratulated, realizing the wizard's groan to be no more than a ruse, buying the man time to cast his next spell.
The assassin turned back for the door but hadn't gone a step before he was forced back, as a wall of huge flames erupted along that wall, blocking escape.
"Well fought, assassin," Merle Pariso said honestly. "I expected as much from Artemis Entreri. But now, alas, you die." He finished by drawing a wand, pointing it at the floor at his feet, and firing a burning seed.
Entreri fell flat, pulling what remained of his cloak over his head as the seed exploded into a fireball, filling all the room, burning his hair and scorching his lungs, but harming Pariso not at all. The wizard was secure within his fiery shield.
Entreri came up dazed, eyes filled with heat and smoke as all the building around him burned. Merle Pariso stood there,
laughing wildly.
The assassin had to get out. He couldn't possibly defeat the mage and wouldn't survive for much longer against Pariso's potent magics. He turned for the door, thinking to dive right through the fire wall, but then a glowing sword appeared in midair before him, slashing hard. He had to dodge aside and get his dagger up against the blade to turn it. The invisible opponent-Entreri knew it to be Merle Pariso's will acting through the magical dweomer-came on hard, forcing him to retreat. The sword always stayed between the assassin and the door.
On his balance now, Entreri was more than a match for the slicing weapon, easily dodging and striking back hard. He knew that no hand guided the blade, that the only way to defeat it was to strike at the sword itself, and that posed no great problem for the warrior assassin. But then another glowing sword appeared. Entreri had never seen this before, had never even heard of a wizard who could control two such magical creations at the same time.
He dived and rolled, and the swords pursued. He tried to dart around them for the doorway but found that they were too quick. He glanced back at Pariso. Barely, through the growing smoke, he could see the wizard still shrouded in defensive flames, tapping his fireball wand against his cheek.
The heat nearly overwhelmed Entreri. The flames were all about, on the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Wood crackled in protest, and beams collapsed.
"I will not leave," he heard Merle Pariso say. "I will watch until the life is gone from you, Artemis Entreri."
On came the glowing swords, slashing in perfect coordination, and Entreri knew that the wizard almost got what he wanted. The assassin barely, barely, avoiding the hits, dived forward under the blades, coming up in a run for the door. Shielding his face with his arms, he leaped into the fire wall, thinking to break through the battered door.
He hit as solid a barrier as he had ever felt, a magical wall, he knew. He scrambled back out of the flames into the burning room, and the two swords waited for him. Merle Pariso stood calmly pointing the dreaded fireball wand.
But then to the side of the wizard a green-gloved disembodied hand appeared, sliding out of nowhere and holding what appeared to be a large egg.
Merle Pariso's eyes widened in horror. "Wh-who?" he stuttered. "Wha-?"
The hand tossed the egg to the floor, where it exploded into a huge ball of powdery dust, rolling into the air, then shimmering into a multicolored cloud. Entreri heard music then, even above the roar of the conflagration, many different notes climbing the scale, then dropping low and ending in a long, monotonal humming sound.
The glowing swords disappeared. So did the fire wall blocking the door, though the normal flames still burned brightly along door and wall. So did Merle Pariso's defensive fire shield.
The wizard cried out and waved his arms frantically, trying to cast another spell-some magical escape, Entreri realized, for now he was obviously feeling the heat as
intensely as was Entreri.
The assassin realized that the magical barrier was likely gone as well, and he could have turned and run from the room. But he couldn't tear his eyes from the spectacle of Pariso, backpedaling, so obviously distressed. To the amazement of both, many of the smaller fires near the wizard then changed shape, appearing as little humanoid creatures, circling Pariso in a strange dance.
The wizard skipped backward, tripped over a loose board, and went down on his back. The little fire humanoids, like a pack of hunting wolves, leaped upon him, lighting his robes and burning his skin. Pariso opened wide his mouth to scream, and one of the fiery animations raced right down his throat, stealing his voice and burning him from the inside.
The green-gloved hand beckoned to Entreri.
The wall behind him collapsed, sparks and embers flying everywhere, stealing his easy escape.
Moving cautiously but quickly, the assassin circled wide of the hand, gaining a better angle as he realized that it was not a disembodied hand at all, but merely one poking through a dimensional gate of some sort.
Entreri's knees went weak at the sight. He nearly bolted back for the blazing door, but a sound from above told him that the ceiling was falling in. Purely on survival instinct, for if he had thought about it he likely would have chosen death, Entreri leaped through the dimensional door. Into the arms of his saviors.
Chapter 12 FINDING A NICHE
He knew this town, though only vaguely. He'd made a single passage through the place long ago, in the days of hope and future dreams, in the search for Mithral Hall. Little seemed familiar to Wulfgar now as he made his plodding way through Luskan, absorbing the sights and sounds of the many open air markets and the general bustle of a northern city awakening after winter's slumber.
Many, many gazes fell over him as he moved along, for Wulfgar-closer to seven feet tall than to six with a massive chest and shoulders, and the glittering warhammer strapped across his back-was no ordinary sight. Barbarians occasionally wandered into Luskan, but even among the hardy folk Wulfgar loomed huge.
He ignored the looks and the whispers and continued merely to wander the many ways. He spotted the Host-tower of the Arcane, the famed wizard's guild of Luskan, and recognized the building easily enough, since it was in the shape of a huge tree with spreading limbs. But again that one note of recognition did little to guide the man along. It had been so long ago, a lifetime ago it seemed, since he had last been here.