She had distinctly seen pale flesh peel and wrinkle back to unhood a green-gray eye … and there was another, and a third. These were forests of eyestalks.
And the only creatures she knew of that had many eyes on stalks were beholders, the deadly eye tyrants of legend. The others knew the same tales and were sprinting through the settling dust toward her now, all thoughts of tomb plunder and laden sacks of treasure forgotten.
Behind the hurrying adventurers, as Nuressa watched, eyes winked and came to life and began to focus.
A glow suddenly encircled one eye, then another… and burst into beams of golden light that stabbed out through the dust, parting it like smoke, to scorch the heels of hurrying Folossan and the wall beside Iyriklaunavan. Amandarn darted past Nuressa, stinking of fear, and the warrior woman pressed herself against the wall so as not to block the passage of her other two desperately hurrying companions. The elf then the dwarf clattered past, cursing in continuous babblings, but Nuressa kept her eyes on the pillars. Four columns of awake and alert eyes were peering her way now, radiances growing around many of them.
'Gods,' she gasped, in utter terror. Oh let them be fixed here, unable to follow….
A ruby beam of light from one eye stabbed at Nuressa and she ducked away, sparks erupting along the edge of her war sword. Sudden heat seared her palm. As a dozen golden beams lanced through the dust at her, she threw the blade over her head, back behind her out of the chamber. She wheeled in the same motion to flee headlong after it, diving for safety as something burst near her left ear with a sound like rolling thunder. Stones began to fall in a hard and heavy rain.
It feels odd, to stand on air, neither solid like stone, nor the slight yielding of turf under one's boots. In dry and dusty darkness … where by Mystra's sweet kisses was he?
Memory flowed around him like a river, cloaking him against madness for so long that it would not answer his bidding now. There was a tingling in his limbs. Great power had struck him, forcefully, only moments ago. A spell must have been hurled his way … so a foe must be near.
His eyes, so long dry and frozen in place, would not turn in their sockets, so he had to turn his head. His neck proved to be stiff and set in its pose, so he turned his shoulders, wheeling his whole body, as the walls drifted slowly past, and dust fell away from him in wisps and ropes and huge clods.
The walls drifting … he was sinking, settling down through the air, released from … what?
Something had trapped him here, despite his clever walking on air to avoid traps and guardian spells. Something had seized on the magic holding him aloft and gripped it as if in manacles, holding him immobile in the darkness.
A very long time must have passed.
Yet something had shattered the spell trap, awakening him. He wasn't alone, and he was descending whether he wanted to or not, heading toward … what?
He strained to see and found eyes looking back at him from all sides. Malevolent eyes, set in columns of pale eyestalks that danced and swayed with slow grace as they followed his fall, radiances growing around them.
Some strange sort of beholder? No, some of the stalks were darker, or stouter, or larger all around than others … these were beholder eyestalks, all right, but they'd come from many different beholders. Those radiances, of course, could only mean him harm.
He still felt oddly … detached. Not real, not
Light flared and flashed, and Elminster felt new agony. His dry throat struggled to roar, his hands clawed uncontrollably at the air, and his guts seemed afire and yet light and free.
He looked down and found silver fire raging and sputtering around him, spilling restlessly out of his stomach along with something pale, bloody, and ropy that must be his own innards. Fresh fire flashed, and a searing pain and sizzle marked the loss of his hair and the tip of an ear along the right side of his head.
Anger seized him, and without thinking Elminster lashed out, raking the air with silver fire that shattered and scattered a score of reaching magical beams on its way to claw at struggling eyestalks.
Eyes melted away, winking and weeping and thrashing with futile radiances sparking and flickering around them. El wasted no time watching their destruction, but turned to point at another pillar and sear its column of eyestalks from top to bottom.
He knew not what magics preserved all these severed eyestalks, but Mystra's flames could rend all Art, and flesh both alive and undead. Elminster turned to scorch another column of angry eyes. He was still sinking, his guts sagging out in front of him, and with each bolt of silver fire something beyond the pillars glowed in answer. Eye- born beams of deadly magic were stabbing at him in earnest now, failing before the divine fire of Mystra. The angry crackle and the surflike rising and falling roar of much unleashed magic was howling about the chamber like a full- throated winter storm, shaking the wizard's long-unused limbs.
A last column of eyes darkened and died, to droop and dangle floorward, weeping dark sludge that mirrored Elminster's own tile-drenching flow of vital fluids. He clawed at his own innards, tucking them back inside himself with hands that blazed with silver flames, and was still about it, feeling sick and weak despite the roused, surging divine power, when his boot heels found something solid at last. He stumbled, all balance gone, staggered, and almost fell before he got his feet planted firmly. Dust swirled up anew around him, crackling angrily as it met surging silver fire. Beyond the pillars, runes graven on the steps and casket of what must be a tomb flashed and crackled with flames of their own, mirroring every roar of Mystra's fire.
Gasping as agony caught at him, El bent his efforts to healing the great wound in his middle, ignoring the last few flickering eyes. The flowing silver fire would, he hoped, catch and rend their spells before he was harmed. His blood had fallen in a dark rain on the tiles during his descent, and he felt emptied and torn. The last mage of Athalantar snarled in wordless anger and determination.
He had to get himself whole and out of this place before the stored silver fire faded and failed him, retreating to coil warmly around his heart and rebuild itself. Whatever had entrapped him before could well do so again if he tarried, and his present agony had been caused by only one eyestalk attack. He turned slowly, bent over with silver flames licking between trembling fingers, and held his guts in place as he moved haltingly toward the place where dim daylight was coming from.
Eyestalks flashed forth fresh beams of ravening magic to scorch floor tiles inches behind Elminster's shuffling boots. Sealing the last of his great wound, he slashed behind him with a sheet of silver flame, shielding himself from more attacks.
Behind him, unseen, the surviving eyestalks all went limp and dark in the same instant. In the next breath, the runes on the tomb acquired a steady, strengthening glow. Small radiances winked amid the metallic curtain above it, climbing and descending like curious but excited spiders, flaring forth ever stronger.
Elminster found his way out into the waiting light, half expecting arrows or blades to bite at him while he was still blinking at the dazzling brightness of full daylight. Instead, he found only four frightened faces staring at him over a distant remnant of wall.
He tried to call to them, but all that emerged was a dry, strangled snarl. El coughed, gargled, and tried again, managing a sort of sob.
The elf behind the wall lifted a hand as if to cast a spell, but the dwarf and the human male flanking him struck that hand aside. A furious argument and struggle followed.
El fixed his eyes on the fourth adventurer…a woman watching him warily over the crazed and crumbling edge of a great sword that had been struck by lightning or something of the sort not very long ago…and managed to ask, 'What..
'Year of the Missing Blade, in early Mirtul,' she called back, then, seeing his weary lack of comprehension, added, 'In Dalereckoning, 'tis seven hundred and fifty-nine.'
El nodded and waved his thanks, on his stumbling way to lean against a nearby pillar and shake his head.
He'd been exploring this tomb…a century ago?… seeking to learn how the mightiest archwizards of Netheril
