shaft hummed past low overhead, joining the first.
The hiexel didn't look to be enjoying these visitations too much, but Elminster hadn't time to survey its sadness…or do anything else but charge to his feet, leap over a fallen tree, and whirl around behind its rotting trunk. He bobbed up into view right away, betting that the two archers wouldn't have had time to put fresh arrows to their strings just yet. He had to see them.
Ah! There! He loosed a stream of magic missiles at one, then ducked down again, hearing the approaching thud of booted feet running hard in his direction.
It was time to get gone and be blessed quick about it!
He sprinted away, downhill and dodging from side to side, hearing crashing in his wake that heralded the coming of someone large, heavy, armored, and sword-waving. He didn't stop to exchange pleasantries, but whirled around a tree to let the grizzled armsman have some magic missiles full in the face. The man's head jerked back, wisps of smoke burst from his mouth and eyes, and he ran on blindly for another dozen paces before stumbling and crashing to the ground, dead or senseless.
'Dead or senseless.' Hmm, 'twould do as a motto for some adventuring bands, to be sure, but…
It was time to circle around and take care of that second archer, or he'd be fleeing through the forest feeling phantom arrows between his shoulder blades for the rest of the day … or until they brought him down.
El trotted a goodly way off to the right and started to work his way back toward the ruin, keeping as low and as quiet as possible. It didn't matter if he spent hours worming his way closer, so long as he wasn't seen too soon. He had to get close enough to…
A grim-looking man in leathers, with a bow ready-strung in his hand, stepped into view around a gnarled phandar not twelve paces away. He couldn't help but see a certain hawk-nosed mage the moment he lifted his eyes from the arrow he'd just dropped. El lifted his hand to shoot forth his last magic missiles spell.
A moment later the archer exploded into whirling bones and fire. El had a brief glimpse of two dark eyes… if they were eyes…in a confused whirlwind of mist. Then whatever it was had gone, and scorched bones were thudding down onto the moss.
The Slayer?
It had to be. The talk had been all of something that burned its victims when it killed, this was it. 'Well met,' Elminster murmured to the empty woods, and went cautiously forward. He knew he'd already find nothing but ashes and bones of the rest of the adventurers, but just in case …
Sprawled garments, weapons, and bones were everywhere he looked, as he drew near the overgrown keep. The ruins seemed deserted again. A tense silence hung over them, almost as if something was waiting and watching for his approach. El stole back to the gaps in the wall he'd looked into before. That big chamber, where he'd seen the wardrobes and … a mirror? That would bear another look, to be sure.
He peered very cautiously into that vast room again and met those dark eyes once more, the mist they were at the heart of swirling around a wardrobe as its doors banged open. Then the mist flared into blinding brilliance and he couldn't see what was taken out of the wardrobe. Whatever it was, the whirlwind spun around and around it, almost as if deliberately hiding it from his view in its bright and chiming tatters, as it sped away across the room. El almost clambered in the gap after it to see better, but paused prudently when the glowing mist did.
It lingered in the farthest, darkest corner of the room for a moment, hovering above what looked like a well, then plunged down into that ring-shaped opening and out of sight.
'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
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
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,
