on its hinges.
Too much power, he would have thought, to burn in any prank.
The wards showed him nothing lurking within their reach. Hmmph, perhaps that nose-in-the-air elf had left a timed magic behind and miscast on the timing. He couldn't think of anything fast enough to smite open a door and leave the reach of the wards so swiftly…and magic mighty enough to breach the door from afar would leave traces behind in the wards. So would a teleport or other translocation. The door's own magics should prevent a spell cast on it from surviving to take effect at any later time… so who…or what…had forced the door open?
Mardasper called on the power of the wards to close and seal the mighty door. After it had boomed shut, he stared at it thoughtfully without touching it for a long time, then murmured words he'd never used before, had never thought he'd have to use…the words that would force the awakened ward to expel any magic-wielding sentient in contact with it. The wards blazed white behind his eyes, finding nothing. If spellcasting beings were lurking nearby, they were either well out in the night-shrouded forest…or here, in the Tower, inside the wards already.
Mardasper looked at the door and swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. If there was an intruder in Moon-shorn, he'd just sealed himself in with it.
Gods above. Well, perhaps it was time to earn his title as Guardian of the Tower. There was a lot of useful… and misunderstood, fragmentary, or forgotten-magic herein, potential realm-shattering weapons in the right unscrupulous hands. 'Mystra be with me,' he whispered, opened the door that led into the main stair, and started to climb.
The mist chimed only occasionally, and very softly, as it drifted across the parchment-strewn table like an eel ghosting its way among the rocks of an ocean reef. Occasionally it would pounce on a gem or a twisted filigree item placed as a paperweight by Tabarast and Beldrune, and a cold turquoise light would flare briefly. When the power drunk was very strong, the mist would swirl up in triumphant, flamelike bursts of white, winking motes of light that would dance above the table in triumph for a moment before dimming and dwindling into a drifting, serpentine mist once more.
From knickknack to gewgaw it darted, flaring as it drank, and growing ever larger. It was in mid-swirl when the door of the room suddenly opened, and the Guardian of the Tower peered in. Something in here had flashed, spilling a tongue of white light through the keyhole….
Mardasper paused on the threshold and sent a seeking spell rolling out across the room. The mist faded and sank down behind the table, becoming nigh-invisible… and when the spell streamed through it, it allowed itself to be scattered rather than to resist and be found.
The spell washed into every corner of the room, then receded. In its wake, the wind sighed softly back together, not chiming even once.
Mardasper glared into the room, the flame from his blazing eye seeking what his spell could not see. There
His accursed eye saw it immediately: a breeze that was no breeze, but a living, drifting, incorporeal thing. In furious haste Mardasper lashed at it with a shatterstar spell…a magic designed to rend and burn ghostly and gaseous things.
The expected flames flared up, and the agonized scream with it. But the Guardian of the Tower was unprepared for what followed.
Instead of collapsing into sighing oblivion, the blazing, exploding mist drew together suddenly, rising with terrifying speed into the shape of a human head and shoulders…a head that was only eyes and long hair, trailing down onto a bust.
Mardasper took a pace back, who was this ghost-woman?
Fingers that were more smoke than flesh moved in intricate gestures, trailing the flames of the guardian's spell, and Mardasper frantically tried to think what spell he should use…this ghost that should not be able to withstand his shatterstar was casting magic!
An instant later, the ghostly outline of the sorceress grew a jaw and began to laugh…a high, shrill mirth that was almost lost in the sharp hiss of acid raining down on the guardian … and the shrieking death that followed.
Mardasper's melting, smoking bones tumbled to the floor amid a torrent of acid that made the floor erupt in smoke.
Over it all rose a cold, mirthless, triumphant laugh. Some might have judged that wild laughter to be almost a scream, but it had been a long time since the whirlwind had laughed aloud. It was a little out of practice.
Seven: Deadly Spells Forbear Thee
Evil is no extravagance to those who serve themselves first.
It was a cool day in late spring…the third greening of Toril to come and go since two mages had met in the Riven Stone…and the sky was ablaze in red, pink, and gold as the sun, in a leisurely manner, prepared to set. A tower rose like an indigo needle against that sky of flame, and out of the west something small and dark came flying to bank in a wide loop around that tower.
Heads looked up at it: a flying carpet, with two humans seated upon it, their figures dark against the fiery sky wherever the rays of the setting sun hadn't turned them the hue of beaten copper.
'Beautiful, is it not?' Dasumia purred, turning from surveying the tower. A green glint that El had long ago learned presaged danger was dancing in her eyes. She slid forward onto her elbows, cradling her chin in her hands, and regarded the tower with an almost satisfied air.
'Lady, it is,' Elminster said carefully.
A teasing eye rolled up to stare into his own orbs. Ye gods, trouble indeed, Mystra defend.
His Lady Master pointed at the tower and said, 'A wizard named Holivanter dwells there. A merry fellow, he taught the beasts he summoned to build it all sorts of comical songs and chants. He keeps talking frogs, and even gave a few of them wings with which to fly.'
The carpet banked smoothly around the tower on its second orbit of the spire. The tower rose like a fairytale needle from neat, green walled gardens. Ruby-hued lamps glimmered in several of its windows, but it seemed otherwise tranquil, almost deserted.
'The house of Holivanter … pretty, isn't it?'
'Indeed, Lady,' El agreed and meant it.
'Slay him,' Dasumia snapped.
El blinked at her. She nodded, and pointed down at the slim tower with an imperious hand.
El frowned. 'Lady, I…'
Little flames seemed to flicker in Dasumia's eyes as she locked her gaze with his. One elegant eyebrow lifted.
'A friend of yours?'
'I know him not,' El replied truthfully. There was no way he could send a warning, or a defense, or healing, the man was doomed. Why betray himself in futility?
Dasumia shrugged, drew forth a dark, smooth rod from a sheath on her hip, and extended it with languid grace. Something caused the air to curdle in a line, racing down, down..
… And the upper half of Holivanter's tower burst apart with a roar, spraying the sky with wreckage. Smaller purple, amber, and blue-green blasts followed as various scorched magics within the tower exploded in their turns. El stared at the conflagration as its echoes rolled back from nearby hills, and debris hurtled at them. Blackened fingers spun past the carpet, trailing flame. Holivanter was dead.
Dasumia rolled back onto one hip and propped herself up with one arm, the other toying with the rod. 'So tell
