giant warrior had raised his blade and moved to challenge it even before Paeregur's cry, his companions could only see his back, and hear a faint sighing…was that a sizzle, at the heart of it? A gurgle?…in the instant before his blade fell from his hand. The gauntlet went with it, and nothing was left behind: the vambrace ended in a stump. Then, slowly, Phostral turned to face his companions.
His helm was empty, his head entirely burnt away, but something was filling it or at least holding it where it should be, above the armored wall of the warrior's chest. The thing that had been Phostral staggered toward them, moving slowly and tentatively. The mage stepped back and started to stammer out a spell.
Instantly the gigantic armored form turned toward him and toppled, crashing down on its face…or where its face had been…as a white whirlwind boiled up out of it, chiming. Paeregur shouted in fear, waving his sword and knowing it would avail him nothing…but Lhaerand shrieked and sprinted the length of the spur, with the mist-thing in cold and chiming pursuit.
The mage never tried to turn and fight. He ran as fast as he could and leaped, high and far, out over the road to somewhere above the cliffs beyond…where he howled all the way down to a wet and splintering end.
So that was a despairing death. Paeregur swallowed. What better would a heroic one be?
And how would any minstrel know, once he was bones and ash?
The whirlwind came back along the spur slowly, chiming almost coyly…as if it was toying with him.
The tall warrior set his jaw and raised his sword. When he judged the mist was near enough, he slashed at it and danced to one side, then planted himself to drive a vicious backhand back through its chiming whiteness.
Unsurprisingly, his blade met nothing, though its edge seemed to acquire a line of sparks. Even as he noticed them, in his frantic trot along the spur, they winked out.
He circled, tripping on someone's helm and almost falling, to lash out with his blade again. Once more he clove nothing, gasped his way aside from looming mist, and slashed through it again with the same utter lack of effect. The mist swirled, leaping over his head, and he dodged aside to avoid having it fall on him. It continued its sinuous rush, curving around his vainly thrusting blade to dart in along his sword arm.
At the last instant, it turned into him rather than grazing past…and blazing agony exploded through him. Paeregur was dazedly aware that he was screaming and staggering away vainly slapping at empty air with his arm.
His only arm.
Nothing remained on the other side but a twisted mass of seared flesh and leather, all melted together. There was no blood … but there was no arm left at all. His sword arm. Paeregur looked wildly about as the ribbon of mist floated almost mockingly past, and saw his sword lying atop a huddled mess that had once been a priest of Tymora. Much good Lady Luck had brought them all, to be sure. He ran unsteadily, not used to one side of him being a lot lighter than the other, over to his blade and scooped it up.
He was still straightening when the burning pain came again and he fell heavily onto his tailbone on the rock, watching an empty boot spin away. It had taken his leg.
He struggled to rise, to move at all, his remaining boot heel kicking vainly against the uneven stone, and waved his blade defiantly. The mist closed in and he made of himself a desperate whirlwind, spinning around and around with his blade constantly slashing the air. He rang it off the stone around him twice, once hard enough to chip the edge, and cared not. He was going to die here … what good is a pristine blade to a dead man?
The mist came at him again in an almost gloating dive, its chiming rising around him as he twisted and slashed desperately. When the burning came again, it was in his intact thigh and he was rolling helplessly over, flailing at nothing with his useless sword. One limb at a time…it
Was he going to be reduced to a helpless torso, unable to do anything but stare as it slew him very slowly?
A few panting breaths later, as he stared up at the uncaring stars through swimming eyes, he knew the answer was going to be…yes.
He wondered just how long the mist would make him suffer, then decided he was past caring. Almost his last thought was a rueful realization that all who die slowly enough to know what is happening must come to a place beyond caring.
He was … he was Paeregur Amaethur Donlas, and he had come to his cold end here on a rock in the wilder- lands of the accursed High Duchy of Langalos in the early summer of the year seven hundred and sixty-seven (as Dalereckoning ran) with no one to mourn or mark his passing, and his dead comrades all around him.
Well, have my thanks, all you vigilant gods.
Paeregur's last thought was that he really should remember the name of that star… and that one, too….
The Crypt of the Moondark family was overgrown with brambles, creepers, and contorted, curving trees deformed by warding enchantments that were still strong after centuries. The Moondark house, a happy mingling of elf and human blood, had been known for its fell sorcery, but no Moondarks had walked Faerun for something like one hundred and sixteen winters … and Westgate was quite content about that. No more powerful spells that might challenge a king or discomfit self-styled nobles, and no more need to be polite to half-bloods who were graceful, handsome, learned, bright, all too merry…and all too insistent on fairness and honesty in ruling. There was even a sign, much more recent than the spell-locked gates: 'Behold the ending of all who insist too much.'
Elminster smiled grimly at that little moral notice. It was the first thing to crumble into dust at the touch of his most powerful spell. The long-untested wards beyond were the next thing. Dawn was almost upon Westgate, and he wanted to be safely inside the tomb-house before folk took to the streets.
The guards at the corner were still yawning and dozing against the outer wall of the crypt as Elminster slipped inside. On his short walk along the statue-flanked path to the doors of the pillared tomb house, El's magic burnt away an astonishing number of magical triggers and traps. An odd thing for one in the service of Mystra to practice … but then Mystra dealt in a healthy array of 'odd things.' What he was here to do was one of his most important tasks as a Chosen, one he spent a lot of time at these days. One that seemed to awaken an almost girlish glee in the Lady of Mysteries.
Elminster Aumar would do anything to see her smiling so.
The door wards, falling beam trap, and weave-of-jutting-blades traps were all to be expected, were anticipated, and were dealt with in but a few seconds. The fact that folk from time to time had to enter a family tomb for legitimate purposes…burials, not thefts… meant that such defenses had to be of a lesser order. In a matter of a few calm breaths Elminster was inside the dark chamber, with the door shut and spell-sealed behind him, and a radiance of his own making awakening everywhere along the low, cobwebbed ceiling.
Moondarks lay crumbling on all sides of him in stacked stone coffers that must have numbered nearly a hundred. The oldest ones were the largest, carved with ornate scenes along the sides, their lids effigies of the deceased, the more recent ones were plain stone boxes, some lacking even names. Thankfully none were stirring in undeath, he was running late as it was and never liked to hurry the fun part.
The bright and wealthy Moondarks had even been considerate enough to leave a funeral slab in the center of the crypt…a high table on which the coffin of the most recently dead could lie during a last service of remembrance, before it was muscled onto one of the stacks of the dead that lined the walls, to be left undisturbed forever. Or at least until a clever Chosen of Mystra happened along.
Elminster hummed a tune of lost Myth Drannor as he laid out his cloak on the empty slab…a large but nondescript lined leather cloak that wasn't much of any color anymore and sported more than the usual assortment of patches. The inside of the cloak bore several large, crude pockets, though they seemed flat and empty as El patted them affectionately then turned away to wander around the chamber peering at dark corners, particular caskets, and even the underside of the funeral slab.
When he returned from his stroll, he slid his fingers into an upper pocket and drew forth a lacing-wrapped flask full of an amber liquid. Holding it up, he murmured, 'Mystra, to thee, as always. A pale shadow of the fire of thy touch.' A long, gasping pull later, El stoppered the flask, sighed contentedly, and put it away again…in a pocket that still looked empty.
He dug in the next empty pocket with both hands and drew forth a wand in a shabby, almost crumbling wyvernskin case. He'd spent two careful spells and a lot of running around trailing the case along the rough stone blocks of an old castle wall getting the case to look this elderly. He was even prouder of the wand, discolored by decades of handling that he'd accomplished in a few minutes with goose grease, sand, and soot. Now, Eaergladden Moondark had died destitute, begging his kin for a few coppers with which to buy a roasting-fowl.. but who save
