Wild laughter rose around him, high and sharp and exultant. Saeraede! She was wrapped around him, clinging in a web of glowing mists that grew thicker and brighter as she gorged herself on magic, a ghost of bright sorcery.
Sunlight was stabbing down into the riven cavern, now, but the dancing dust cloaked everything in gloom…everything but the rising giant built around Elminster's feebly writhing form. The rune-flames were twisting in midair to flow into Saeraede, and she was rising ever higher, a thing of crackling flame. El strained to look up at her…and two dark flecks among the magical fire became eyes that looked back at him in cold triumph.. until a mouth swam out of the conflagration to join them and gave him a cruel smile.
"You're mine now, fool," she whispered, in a hoarse hiss of fire, "for the little while you'll last…."
"Lord Thessamel Arunder, the Lord of Spells," the steward announced grandly, as the doors swung wide. A wizard strode slowly through them, a cold sneer upon his sharp features. He wore a high-collared robe of unadorned black that made his thin frame look like a tomb obelisk, and a shorter, more lushly built lady in a gown of forest green clung to his arm, her large brown eyes dancing with lively mischief.
"Goodsirs," he began without courtesies, "why come you here to me once more this day? How many times must you hear my refusal before the words sink through your skulls?"
"Well met, Lord Arunder," said the merchant Phelbellow, in dry tones. "The morning finds you well, I trust?"
Arunder gave him a withering glare. "Spare me your toadying, rag seller. I'll not sell this house, raised by mighty magic, nor any wagon length of my lands, no matter how sweetly you grovel, or how much gold you offer. What need have I for coins? What need have I for gowns, for that matter?"
"Aye, I'll grant that," one of the other merchants grunted. "Can't see him looking like much in a good gown. No knees for it."
"No hips, neither," someone else added.
There were several sputters of mirth from the merchants crowded at the doorway, the wizard regarded them all with cold scorn, and said softly, "I weary of these insults. If you are not gone from my halls by the time I finish the Ghost Chant, the talons of my guardian ghosts shall…"
"Lady Faeya," Hulder Phelbellow asked, "has he not seen the documents?"
"Of course, Goodsir Phelbellow," the lady in green said in musical tones. Favoring them all with a smile, she stepped from her lord and drew forth a strip of folded vellum, "and he's signed them, too."
She proffered them to Phelbellow, who unfolded them eagerly, the men behind him crowding around to see.
The Lord of Spells gaped at the paper and the merchants, then at Faeya. "W-what befalls here?" he gasped.
"A sensible necessity, my lord," she replied sweetly. "I'm so glad you saw the good sense in signing it. A most handsome offer…enough to allow you to retire from your castings entirely, if you desire."
"I signed nothing," Arunder gasped, white-faced.
"Oh, but you did, lord…and so ardently, too," she replied, eyes dancing. "Have you forgotten? You remarked at the time upon the hardness and flatness of my belly that made your penmanship such ease. You signed it with quite a flourish, as I recall."
Arunder stiffened. "But … that was…"
"Base trickery?" one of the merchants chuckled. "Ah, well done, Faeya!"
Someone else barked with laughter, and a third someone contributed a murmur of, "That's rich, that is."
"Apprentice," the Lord of Spells whispered savagely, " what have you done?
The Lady Faeya drew three swift paces away from him, into the heart of the merchants, who melted aside to make way for her like mist before flame, and turned back to face him, placing her hands on her hips.
"Among other things, Thessamel," she told him softly, "I've slain two men this last tenday, who came to settle old scores since your spells failed you…and word spread of it."
"Faeya! Are you mad? Telling these…"
"They know, Thess, they know," his lady told him with cold scorn. "The whole town knows. Every mage has his hands full of wild spells, not just you. If you paid one whit of attention to Faerun outside your window, you'd know that already."
The Lord of Spells had turned as pale as old bones and was gaping at her, mouth working like a fish gasping out of water. Everyone waited for him to find his voice again, it took quite a while.
"But… your spells still work, then?" he managed to ask, at last.
"Not a one," she said flatly. "I killed them with this." She drew forth the tiny dagger from its sheath at her hip, then threw back her left sleeve to lay bare a long, angry-looking line of pine gum and wrapped linens. "That's how I got this."
"Were these merchants also coming to…to…?" Arunder asked faintly, swaying back on his heels. His hands were trembling like those of a sick old man.
"I went to them," Faeya told him in biting tones, "to beg them to make again the offer you so charmingly refused two months ago. They were good enough to oblige, when they could well have set their dogs on me: the apprentice of the man who turned three of them into pigs for a night."
There were angry murmurs of remembrance and agreement from among the merchants around her. Arunder stepped back and raised a hand to cast a spell out of sheer habit…before dropping it with a look of sick despair.
His lady drew herself up and said more calmly, "So now the deal's done. Your tower and all these lands, from high noon today henceforth, belong to this cabal of merchants, to use as they see fit."
"And-and what happens to me? Gods, woma…"
Faeya held up a hand, and the wizard's ineffectual gibbering ended as if cut off by a knife. Someone chuckled at that.
"We, my lord, are free to live unmolested in the South Spire, casting spells…so long as they harm or work ill upon no one upon this holding…as much as we desire … or are able to. You, Thess, receive two hundred thousand gold pieces…that's why all of these good men are here…all the firewood we require, and a dozen deer a year, prepared for the table."
Without a word, Hulder Phelbellow laid a sack upon the side table. It landed with the heavy clink of coins. Whaendel the butcher followed him, then, one by one, all of the others, the sacks building up until they were reaching up the wall, atop a table that creaked in protest.
Arunder's eyes bulged. "But… you can't have gold enough, none of you!"
His lady rejoined him in a graceful green shifting, and laid a comforting hand on his arm. "They have a backer, Thess. Now thank them politely. We've some packing to do…or you will be wearing my gowns."
"I–I…"
Her hitherto gentle hand thrust hard into his ribs.
"My lords," Arunder gulped, "I don't know how to thank you…"
"Thessamel," Phelbellow said genially, "you just did. Have our thanks, too…and fare thee well in the South Spire, eh?"
Arunder was still gulping as the merchants filed out, chuckling. The noises he was making turned to whimpers, however, when their withdrawal revealed the man who'd been sitting calmly behind them all the while, the faint glow of deadly magics playing along the naked broadsword that was laid across his knees. That blade was in the capable grasp of the large and hairy hands of the famous warrior Barundryn Harbright, whose smile, as he rose and looked straight into the wizard's eyes, was a wintry thing. "So we meet again, Arunder"
"You…!" the wizard's snarl was venomous.
"You're my tenant now, mage, so spare me the usual hissed curses and spittle. If you anger me enough, I'll take you under my arm down to the stream where the little ones play, and spank your behind until it's as red as a radish. I'm told that won't hamper your spellcasting one bit." One large, blunt-fingered hand waved casually through the air past Arunder's nose.