The Temptation of Elminster

'Careful,' Elryn murmured, the moment he heard the creak of leather that marked Dread Sister Klalaera bending forward to bring her lash down hard on someone's shoulders… probably his. 'There's no need for anyone to strike alone in the fray, if we work together, and…'

'Avoid making pretty little speeches,' Klalaera snapped. 'Elryn, shut your mouth and lead the way! There's nothing between us and the ruins save a couple of stumps, a lot of waste lumber, your own fears, and…'

'Us,' a musical voice murmured, an elven voice. Its owner rose up from the other side of the ridge, a scab- bardless sword made of wood held in both his hands. 'A walk in the woods these days holds so many dangers,' Starsunder added. 'My friend here, for instance.'

The human mage Umbregard rose up from behind the ridge on cue and favored the Sharrans with a brief smile. He held a wand ready in either hand.

The Overmistress snapped, 'Slay them!'

'Oh, well,' Starsunder sighed theatrically, 'if you insist.' Magic roared out of him then in a roaring tide that swept aside wand-bolts, simple conjurations, and the lives of struggling Hrelgrath and dumbfounded Vaelam alike.

Femter screamed and fled blindly back into the trees…until Klalaera's unseen magic jerked him to a halt as if a noose had settled about his neck, and spun him around, thrashing and moaning, for the slow stagger back into the fray.

Beams of light were stabbing forth and wrestling in the roiling air as Elryn and a snarling Daluth sought to strike down the elf mage, and Umbregard used his own wands to disrupt and strike aside their attacks.

Daluth shouted in pain as an errant beam laid bare the bone of his shoulder, flesh, sinews, and clothing all boiling away in an instant. He staggered back a pace or two, at about the same time as Umbregard went over backward in a grunt and a shower of sparks, leaving the elf standing alone against the Sharrans.

The Overmistress of the Acolytes found her coldest, cruel smile and put it on. It widened slowly as Starsunder's shielding spell darkened, flickered, and began to shrink under the bolts and bursts streaming from the wands of the Dreadspells.

'I don't know who you are, elf,' Klalaera remarked, almost pleasantly, 'or why you chose to get in our way… but it's quite likely to be a fatal decision. I can slay you right now with a spell, but I'd rather have some answers. What is this place? What magic lies here that makes it worth you losing your life over?'

'The only thing that amazes me more about humans than their habit of splitting up fair Faerun into separate 'places,' one seemingly having no connection to the next,' Starsunder replied, as casually as if he'd been idly conversing with an old friend over a glass of moon-wine, 'is their need to gloat, threaten, and bluster in battle. If you can slay me, do so, and spare my ears. Otherwise…'

He sprang into the air as he spoke, leaving Sharran wand-blasts to ravage elfless stumps and ferns, and collapsed his shield into a net of deadly force that clawed at the Overmistress.

She writhed in the air, sobbing and snarling, until her desperate mental goading dragged the wild-eyed Femter over to stand beneath her. Then she collapsed her own defenses…and Starsunder's attack, still gnawing at them…down into the helpless Dreadspell, in a deadly flood that left him a tottering, blinded mass of blood and exposed bone.

The joints of Femter Deldrannus failed, and he sought his last, eternal embrace with the earth, ignored by all. He hadn't even been given time to scream.

A gasping Overmistress tumbled away through the air as her flight spell began to collapse.

Elryn roared in wordless victory as his wand-bursts found Starsunder at last, spinning the elf around in a swarm of biting bolts. Umbregard was struggling to rise, his face sick with pain as he watched his friend beset.

Daluth leveled his own wand at the human mage at point-blank range, across the smoking bodies of fallen fellow Dreadspells, and smiled a slow and soft smile at the horrified human.

Then he spun around and smashed Dread Sister Klalaera out of the air with all the might the wand in his hand could muster.

It crumbled away, leaving him holding nothing, as the lash all of the House of Holy Night hated and feared so much blazed from end to end and spun high into the trees, hurled by a spasming body in black leather that was crumpling into smoking ruin.

Crumpling…then snarling into a standing stance once more, surrounded by crackling black flames, the face that had been Klalaera's working and rippling beneath dead, staring eyes as her lips thundered, 'Daluth, you shall die for that!'

The voice was thick and roaring, but the two surviving Dreadspells recognized it, Elryn's head snapping around from the task of rending the convulsing, darkening body of the elf mage.

'You are cast out of the favor of Shar…die friendless, false priest!' Darklady Avroana thundered, through the lips that were not hers.

The bolt of black flame that the body of the Over-mistress vomited forth then swept away the errant wizard- priest, an old and mighty tree beyond him, and a stump that dwarfed them both, shaking the forest all around and hurling Elryn to the ground.

The last Dreadspell was still struggling to his feet as Klalaera's dangling body, still streaming black flames, floated forward. 'Now let us be rid of meddling mages, elf and human both, and…'

The sphere of purple flame that came out of nowhere to hit what was left of the Overmistress tore her apart, spattering the trees around with tatters of black leather.

'Ah, fool, that's one thing none of us will ever be rid of,' a new voice told the dwindling, collapsing sphere of black flames that hung where Klalaera had been.

Elryn gaped up at a human who stood holding a smoking, crumbling amulet in his hand, a black cloak swirling around him. 'Faerun will always have its meddling mages,' the newcomer told the dying knot of flames in tones of grim satisfaction. 'Myself, for instance.'

Elryn put all of his might into a lunge at this new foe, swinging his belt mace viciously and jumping into the air to put all his weight behind the strike.

His target, however, wasn't there to meet the blurred rush of metal. The newcomer slid a knife into the priest's throat with almost delicate ease as he stepped around behind the last Dreadspell, and said politely, 'Tenthar Taerhamoos, Archmage of the Phoenix Tower, at your service…eternally, it appears.'

Choking over something ice cold in his throat that would not go away as the pleasant world of trees and dappled shade darkened around him, Elryn found he lacked the means to reply.

Purple flames exploded over the Altar of Shar with a sudden flourish, scorching the bowl of black wine there. The chosen acolyte held the glowing knife that was to be slaked in it aloft and kept fervently to his chanted prayer, not knowing that bursts of purple fire weren't part of this most holy ritual.

So intent was he on the flowing words of the incantation that he never saw the Darklady of the House stagger and fall past him across the altar, her limbs streaming purple fire. Wine hissed and sputtered under her as she thrashed, faceup and staring at the black, purple-rimmed circle that adorned the vaulted ceiling high above. Avroana was still arching her body and trying to find breath enough to scream as the prayer reached its last triumphal words … and the knife swept down.

With both hands the acolyte guided the consecrated blade, the runes on its dark flanks pulsing and glowing, down, down to the heart of the bowl, the very center of…Darklady Avroana's breast.

Their eyes met as the steel slid in, to the very hilt. Avroana had time to see triumphant glee dawning in the acolyte's eyes amid the wild horror of realizing his mistake before everything grew dim forever.

Gasping, Starsunder managed to raise himself on one arm, his face creased with pain. Large, weeping blisters covered all of his left flank…save where melted flesh glistened in dangling droplets and ropes of scorched sinew. Umbregard half staggered and half ran to his side, trying not to look at the Archmage of the Phoenix Tower, his foe of many years.

Fear of what Tenthar might do, standing so close at hand behind him, was written clearly on Umbregard's face as he knelt by Starsunder and carefully cast the most powerful healing spell he knew on the stricken elf. He was no priest, but even a fool could see that an unaided Starsunder hadn't long to live.

The elf mage shuddered in Umbregard's arms, seemed to sag a trifle, then breathed more easily, his eyes half closed. His side still looked the same, but the organs only partially hidden beneath the horrible seared wounds were no longer wrinkled or smoking. Still…