The mantle of the Court Mage of Galadorna, let fall by Nadrathen scant moments ago, was rising from the floor again, to hang upright as though a rather tall man was wearing it.
As the wondering court watched, a body faded into view within the mantle…a hawk-nosed, raven-haired human wearing nondescript robes and a faint smile. "Nadrathen?" he asked. "Called the Rebel Chosen?"
"King Nadrathen of Galadorna, as it happens," came the cool reply. "And who might you be? The shade of a court mage past?"
"I am called Elminster…and by the Hand of Azuth and the Mercy of Mystra, I challenge thee to spell duel, here and now, in a circle of my rais…"
"Oh, by all the fallen gods," Nadrathen sighed, and black flames suddenly exploded out of his hands with a roar, racing in a thick cylinder, like a battering ram, at the newcomer.
"Die, and trouble my coronation no more," the new king of Galadorna told the sudden inferno of black flames that erupted where his spell had struck. All over the chamber murmuring armsmen were crouching low behind pillars and railings or slipping out doorways, and away.
Black flames howled up to the ceiling…and were gone, snarling up to some lofty otherwhere. The man in the mantle of court mage stood unchanged, save that one eyebrow was now raised in derision. "Ye have some aversion to rules of combat or defensive circles? Or were ye in some haste to remodel this part of thy castle?"
Nadrathen cursed…and stone blocks were suddenly raining down all around them, plunging down from empty air to shake the chamber with their thunderous landings. Stone shards sprayed in all directions as the floor shattered, more armsmen fled, shouting in fear.
No stones struck either Nadrathen or Elminster, it was the turn of the Rebel Chosen to lift his brows in surprise.
"You come well shielded," he granted grudgingly. 'Ulmimber…or whatever your name is…do you know what I am?"
"An archmage of accomplished might," Elminster said softly, "named by Holy Mystra herself as one of her Chosen…and now turned to evil."
"I did not turn to evil, fool wizard. I am what I have always been, Mystra has known me for what I am from the first." The king of Galadorna regarded his challenger bleakly, and added, "You know what the outcome of our duel must be?"
El swallowed, started to nod, and then suddenly grinned. "Ye're going to talk me to death?"
Nadrathen snarled, "Enough! You had your chance, idiot, and now…"
The air above them was suddenly darker and full of a host of ghostly, faceless floating figures, cowled and robed, trailing away to nothingness as they swooped, thrusting cold and spectral blades at the hawk-nosed mage.
As those blades transfixed Elminster, they slid in without gore or resistance … and became dwindling smoke and sparks, taking their wielders with them.
Nadrathen gaped in astonishment. His words, when he could find them, came in a gasp. "You must be a Ch…"
Behind the self-styled king of Galadorna, unseen by either dueling mage, a long-fingered female hand had slid into view, protruding from the still-solid, upright back of the riven Unicorn Throne with blue motes of risen magic dancing around it. Those long, flexing fingers now leveled a deliberate finger at the back of the unwitting Rebel Chosen.
Nadrathen's eyes widened, bulging for one incredulous moment before all his glistening bones burst together out the front of his body. Behind them as they bounced, a bloody, shapeless mass of flesh slumped to the floor, spattering El's boots and the throne with gore.
El sprang back, gagging, but the bones and the horrible puddle that had been Nadrathen were already afire, blazing from within. Blue-white, wasted magic swirled above flames of bright silver as men cried out in disgust and fear all over the chamber. El watched a thread of silver rise straight up from those flames to pierce the ceiling and burn onward.
He never saw the sunlight stab down into the throne room from high above, he was staggering back to fall heavily on his knees by then, as magic that was not his own shocked into him, surging throughout his spasming, weeping body.
Baron Maethor swallowed. He dared not approach the man-high conflagration that had been "King" Nadrathen, but this challenger-mage was on his knees blindly vomiting silver flames onto the smoking floor. Galadorna could be free of over-ambitious mages yet.
"Hand me your blade," he murmured to an aide without looking, extending his hand for it. Just one throw would be enough, if…
A tall, slender feminine figure stepped from behind that conflagration, bare thighs above high black boots flashing through slashes in midnight-black robes. "I think I shall rule Galadorna," Dasumia said sweetly, blue motes still swirling about one of her hands. "Ascending my throne in this Year of Mistmaidens — this very hour, in fact. And you shall be my seneschal, Elminster of Galadorna. Rise, Court Mage, and bring me the fealty of yon surviving lords and barons…or an internal organ from each, whichever they prefer."
Nine: Glad Days In Galadorna
The wise ruler leaves time among audiences and promenades for receptions of daggers…usually in the royal back.
Dark fire snarled and spat, and the slender elf in dark robes staggered back, groaning. Ilbryn Starym's three hundredth or so encounter with the wards of dark fire around the Castle of the Lady had not gone well. Her power was still too great, even in her absence … and where by the Trees Everlasting was she, anyway?
He sighed, glared up at the dark, slender towers so high above him in the twilit sky, and…
Was sent almost sprawling by a hard and sudden impact. He whirled to do battle with whatever fell guardian had charged him and found himself staring at the receding boots of one of the two buffoon-mages who were also encamped outside the walls of Dasumia's fortress.
Beldrune's excited shout floated back to the furious elf. "Baerast! Hearken!"
Tabarast looked up from a fire that just wouldn't light, shaking his scorched fingertips, and asked somewhat testily, "What is it now?"
"I was scrying Nethrar," Beldrune of the Bent Finger panted, "as the dream bid me, and there's news! The Lady Dasumia has just taken the throne and named the Chosen One as her seneschal. Elminster is Court Mage of Galadorna now!"
Ilbryn stared at the trotting mage's back for a moment, then broke into a fluid dash that swiftly brought him abreast of Beldrune. He reached up, caught hold of one bobbing shoulder in its fashionable slashed and pleated claret-hued silk, and snapped," What?
Spun around to face blazing elven eyes by fingers that felt like talons of steel, Beldrune groaned, "Let go, longears! You've fingers like wolf jaws!"
Ilbryn shook him. "What did you say?"
Tabarast fumbled in a belt pouch, dropped a shower of small, sparkling items, and held one up between finger and thumb, muttering something.
A lance of shining nothingness coalesced out of the air and thrust forward, unerring and as swift as leaping lightning. It took Ilbryn right in his ribs, shattering his shielding spell in a cascade of small and wayward cracklings and snatching him off his feet.
He hit the phandar tree with brutal force, ribs snapped like dry kindling crushed in a forester's fist. Ilbryn sobbed and choked and writhed, fighting for breath, but the spell held him pinned to the trunk. If it had been a real lance, he'd have been cut in two… but that knowledge afforded him scant consolation. Through red mists of pain he glared almost pleadingly at the two human mages.
Tabarast regarded the trapped elf mage almost sorrowfully and shook his head. "The problem with young elves is they've got all the arrogance of the older ones, with nothing to back it up," he observed. "Now, Beldrune, speak up for the hasty youngling here. What did you say?"