"Ye want me to follow, do ye?" Elminster murmured, looking at the well. He glanced around the room, taking in the peeling mirror, the row of wardrobes…the open one holding an array of feminine apparel…the lounge, and the rest … then walked straight to the well.
"Very well," he said with a sigh. "Another reckless leap into danger. That does seem to be what this job most entails."
And he clambered over the edge of the well, dug his hands into the first of a row of handholds in the stone and tapped with the toes of his boots for another, found it, and started down. He might need his hellbent flying spell for getting back out again.
She laid out the three gowns on the stone at the bottom of the shaft as gently as a nurse stroking a sick child, and as gently set loose stones from the rubble over them. The exacting effort cost her much energy, but she worked swiftly, heedless of the cost, and darted away before her quarry got to the top of the shaft to look down.
A moment later she was sinking into one of the runes that sustained her, hiding her misty self entirely. She had been hungry too long, and the incessant chiming was even getting on her nerves.
Brandagaeris had been a mighty hero, tall and bronzed and strong, she had fed on him for three seasons, and he had come to love her and offer himself willingly … but in the end she had drained him and gone hungry again. That was her doom, once her own body had fallen to dust, what remained was a magic that needed to feed on the living…or dwell within, and necessarily burn out the innards of a young, strong, vital body. Brandagaeris had been one such, the sorcerer Sardon another … but somehow mages, clever as they were, lacked something she craved. Perhaps they had too little vitality.
She hoped this Elminster wouldn't be another such disappointment. Perhaps she could win his love, or at least his submission, and not have to fight him long to taste what power a Chosen held.
"Come to me," she whispered hungrily, her words no more than the faintest of sighings above the deep-graven rune. "Come to me, man-meal."
Seventeen: A Fine Day For Travel
Travel broadens the mind and flattens the purse, they say. I've found it does rather more than that. It shatters the minds of the inflexible, and depletes the ranks of the surplus population. Perhaps rulers should decree that we all become nomads.
Then, of course, we could choose to stay only within the reach of those rulers we favor…and I can't conceive of the chaos and overburdened troops and officials that would be found in any realm in which folk could choose their rulers. Thankfully, I can't believe that any people would ever be crazed enough to do that. Not in this world, anyway.
"You're doing just fine, brave Uldus," Dreadspell Elryn said soothingly, prodding their trembling guide with the man's own sword. Brave Uldus arched away from the blade, but the noose around his neck…held tight and short-leashed in the fist of Dreadspell Femter…kept him from entirely missing its sharp reminder. Dreadspell Hrelgrath was walking along close by, too, his dagger held ready near the ribs of their unwilling guide.
"Shar is very pleased with you," Elryn told the man, as they went on along the almost invisible game trail, deeper into the Dead Place. "Now just show us this ruin … oh, and Uldus, reassure me again: it is the only ruin or building or cave or construct you know about, anywhere in these woods, is it not?"
Choking around his noose, Uldus assured him that it was, oh, yes, Dread Lord, indeed it was, may the Nightbringer strike me down now if I lie, and all the watching gods bear witness…
Femter didn't wait for Elryn's sign this time before jerking the noose tight enough to cut Uldus off in mid-babble. The guide silently clawed at his throat, stumbling, until Femter relented enough to let him breathe again.
"Iyrindyl?" Elryn asked, without turning his head.
"I'm watching, Dread Lord," the youngest Dreadspell replied eagerly. "The first sign of walls or the like, I’ll cry hold."
"It's not walls I'm seeing," the deep drawl of Dreadspell Daluth put in, a few strides later, "but an elf-alone, and walking with a drawn sword in his hand, yonder."
The Sharran priests stopped, unnecessarily clapping their hands over the mouth of their guide, and glared through the trees. A lone elf looked back at them, disgust written plain on his face.
A moment later, Elryn snarled, "Attack!" and the Sharrans surged forward, Elryn and Daluth standing still to hurl spells. They saw the elf sigh, take off his cloak and hurl it high over a tree branch, then turn to face them, crouching slightly. "Damned human adventurers!" he cried. "Haven't I killed enough of you yet?
Ilbryn Starym watched the wizards run toward him…charging wizards? Truly, Faerun was plunging deeper into madness with every passing day…took up the blade that was battle-booty from the last band of fools, and said a word over it. When he threw it like a dart at the onrushing men, it glowed, split into three, and leaped away like three falcons diving at separate targets.
At the same moment, a tree just behind the line of running wizards turned bright blue and tore itself up out of the earth with a deafening groan, hurling earth and stones in all directions. Someone cursed, sounding very surprised.
An instant later, a sheet of white lightning broke briefly over the running mages, and a man who seemed to have a noose around his neck convulsed, clawed at the air for a few moments and shrieked, "My reward!" and fell to earth in a twisted heap. The wizards ran on without pause, and Ilbryn sighed and prepared to blast them to nothingness. His three blades should have done something.
One of the running mages grunted, spun around, and went down with something glowing in his shoulder. Ilbryn smiled. One.
There was a flash, someone cried out in surprise and pain, and the three remaining wizards burst through the still-shimmering radiance and came on, one of them shaking fingers that trailed smoke. Ilbryn lost his smile. Some sort of barrier spell, and it had taken both of his other blades.
He raised his hands and waited. Sure enough, now that they were close enough to him that the army of Ilbryn and the army of half a dozen mages could count each other's teeth, the panting wizards were coming to a halt and preparing to hurl spells at him.
Ilbryn cloaked himself in a defensive sphere, leaving only a keyhole open for his next spell. If his measure of these dolts was correct, he'd not have overmuch to fear in this battle … even with the wizard who'd taken his blade slowly crawling to his feet and the two who hadn't come running strolling slowly closer in the distance.
Abruptly the air in front of Ilbryn's sphere was filled with blue flowers, swirling about as they drifted to earth. An elf mouth crooked into a smile. By the startled oaths coming to his ears, that hadn't been supposed to happen. Perhaps he was caught up in some school of wizardry's battle test of the inept apprentices. He waited politely to see what else would come his way.
A moment later, he blinked with new respect. The earth was parting with a horrible ripping sound, between the boots of one of the mages…and racing toward Ilbryn, zigzagging only slightly as it came. Trees, boulders, and all were hurled aside in the chasm's swift advance, and Ilbryn readied his lone flight spell, just in case. He'd have to time this just right, collapsing the sphere and bounding aloft more or less in one smooth sequence.
The chasm swerved and snarled on past, trailing the awed yells of a wizard who seemed astonished he'd cast it. Ilbryn's eyes narrowed. What sort of madmen were these?