she stared all around, suspiciously. The silence waited patiently, unbroken.
She took a cautious step toward the throne. It remained empty, unadorned, and silent. She bent her will. Her floating hammer struck the empty seat, tapped it, then under her direction tapped floor-slabs all about it and ceiling stones high above. Nothing happened. She kept at it until the hammer's power faded and it dwindled away to nothingness.
Silence hung around her, waiting.
With a sigh, Laeral raised a detection spell, knowing she'd find the throne ablaze with many spells, one atop another. She frowned, took a step forward, and wondered if she dared raise her last flight spell, in case a pit trap or falling block lay waiting.
With a roar, the roof fell in anyway.
Chapter Seventeen
Laeral Jay over stone and under stone. Great blocks from the ceiling had crashed down beside her, atop her, and all around. Dust curled slowly away.
Shrieking pain stabbed from her right leg and from low on her left side. The falling stones must have broken bones.
Echoes of the collapse died away in far, unseen corners of the hall. Her wits had left her for no more than a breath or two. Above her, a tilted stone slab was wedged against another, fallen in a peak that had saved her from crushing death-so far. Past them, by the feeble radiance of her globes of light, she could see the empty stone seat.
Laeral willed her dancing lights to grow fainter, an easy task with pain tearing her concentration to tatters. She lay silent, biting her lip. She was pinned helplessly, unable to move. It would be a long, cold death, after all.
Laeral wondered dully how much longer she'd live. One mistake, just one… and a swift lesson: death takes mages as easily as stable hands.
Please, Mystra: Let it be quick.
Laeral gathered her weakening will for one last sending, to tell her faraway apprentice where her secret spell-books and treasures lay and bid him farewell. The effort cost her the last of her conjured light. She froze in the sudden darkness.
A new sound filled the dusty chamber.
Cold, familiar laughter. Radiance, conjured by another, was born and grew stronger in the room. By it she saw Blaskyn step out of the shadows, the Helm of Hiding gleaming under his arm. He chuckled again, peering toward her.
Hastily Laeral shut her eyes to slits and lay very still. From the first, he had been very good at the blasting spells.
'So ends my apprenticeship,' Blaskyn said triumphantly. 'The throne's 'mastery of wizardry' shall be mine!'
He strode past Laeral to the stone seat, wearing that easy grin Laeral knew so well.
Then, suddenly, Blaskyn stopped and turned. 'She held the rod, her most precious magic,' he muttered. His hands moved in quick, sure gestures.
Laeral closed her eyes, raging inwardly. He was far more a master of magic than he'd ever led her to believe.
Laeral felt the rocks above her deftly lift away-a telekinesis spell, no doubt. Crushing weight rose from her, gently and silently. The rocks pinning her down were gone.
With iron will, Laeral resisted the urge to shift to a position of easier rest, stilling the pain. Dead she must appear-or dead she surely soon would be.
She felt the rod twitched from her half-open fingers. 'Unbroken? Good,' Blaskyn's voice came, from very close above her. Laeral kept her face, twisted in pain, motionless. 'Hmm… her rings.'
She felt the rings stripped from her fingers, her ex-apprentice sighing in disgust at the blood on them.
Deft fingers wandered over her body, finding the daggers in her boots and the sheath in her bodice where the wand had been. She heard rocks grating as they were moved, and then Blaskyn's disgusted voice again.
'Broken. Well, that leaves only this.' The crude, plain pendant she'd worn so long was roughly jerked from around her neck, its thong snapping. 'It's some sort of magic; I know that much.'
Laeral lay still as his hands wandered over her body. All the Art she had left were a few spells still in her head and a certain magical token, a lone earring hidden in her hair. He'd find it, all too soon, then leave her to die.
Probing fingers found the roughness where her leg was broken and stabbed at it, seeking hidden treasure.
Cruel hands jerked her chin up, shaking her head until Laeral opened pain-racked eyes and stared into the cold, level gaze of her ex-apprentice.
Blaskyn smiled. 'Still alive, eh? Well, you'll live long enough to tell me where all your magic lies hidden-and long enough, perhaps, for… other things!'
Laeral whimpered. Mockingly caressing hands shifted her leg with brutal haste. The broken ends of bone grated together. She tried to scream as he shook her, but could manage only a sob. Blaskyn chuckled at the sound and cruelly dropped her back among the stones.
Red mists of pain rose and fell before her eyes. Through them, Laeral saw Blaskyn walk to the throne, turn to salute her mockingly, and sit down with a triumphant sneer.
His face changed. It seemed to glow with white fire. His smile slid away from his lips almost immediately. Pearly radiance shone from the stone, growing stronger. In utter silence Laeral watched cold white fire race up and clown his limbs.
Blaskyn's flesh sank inward, his skin withering and sagging on suddenly revealed bones. He screamed.
Her horrified gaze locked with his, Laeral saw his eyes catch fire and burn. The whites darkened and receded to become points of glowing light.
As his gums and lips shriveled, Blaskyn screamed hollowly, 'Laeral! Mistress! Help
Teeth sprayed from his agonized mouth. His cry died away into dry choking. His body shook and strained. He seemed unable to rise from the blazing throne.
Silence fell. What had once been her apprentice seemed to grow calmer-or less conscious. Laeral shifted herself to as comfortable a position as she could manage, wondering if Blaskyn was dead.
All at once, the slumped body on the throne1 began to smile. Lipless jaws worked, and then shaped words. 'Ah… ah… a good body, this. Better than the wench, though she taught it but a pitiful amount of Art. It will serve.'
What had been Blaskyn stood up stiffly. Her rod, daggers, and all fell to the floor with a clatter, the rings rolling slowly off into the darkness.
All too soon, the sunken face loomed up over Laeral.
