Elminster Enraged

Right on cue, the Nine Hells erupted in the dragon’s lair.

It began with an ear-splitting crash, and a wild volley of crackling, ricocheting lightning bolts that blinded her and lashed on down the chute of melted, smoothed rock that descended to the Underdark. Bolts bounced and crashed and ripped the air as they went. By then, great gouts of emerald and ruby red radiance had flared, chasing the bolts, and the stones were shaking and groaning, splitting here and there and raining down dislodged fragments of themselves, large and small, in slumping roars that were lost in a greater, rising rumble that went on and on, almost drowning out the deep-throated roars of draconic rage.

In the thick of it all, Alorglauvenemaus was being tumbled this way and that, scorched and flung up against the sharp, scale-shattering ceiling by what was being unleashed beneath it. Startled and then bewildered and then enraged, it cursed loud and long in the tongue of dragons, great roars that echoed amid the heedless explosions, fury that turned inevitably to fear.

It had to get out. It had to flee while it still could.

Seared and scorched, buffeted and torn by scores of magics all clawing at it and the stone walls and each other, it scrambled and clawed its way up out of its lair. Its surging and whirling hoard pelted it with coins and shards of gems and hurtling swords as it sprang out, whirling with a great lash of its tail to glare back at where it had been, seeking its unseen foe.

The cavern was a raging chaos of erupting magics, spells that tore at each other, stabbed through each other, and shaped incongruous effects amid the tumult. The air was full of a whirling hail of tinkling, clashing coins, ricocheting in a singing, shrieking storm through which larger things hurtled and crashed.

Elminster’s very old spell simply awakened all magic in a small area of effect-in this case, the heart of the hoard the dragon had been lying on-the choice magics it had gathered from a thousand tombs and magetowers and battlefields.

Light of the Seldarine! Did the Srinshee teach you this? Symrustar was truly shocked, her awe plunging El’s head into tingling mind fires of excitement.

The tumult rose higher. In the cavern on the other side of a groaning wall of solid rock that had seemed thick and enduring enough a few moments ago, wands, rods, and scepters galore were spitting their discharges into a great shrieking and flashing maelstrom of Art. Explosion after explosion shattered treasures and hurled them against the cavern walls. Wards were breaking, small metal prisons failing, and more magics were escaping and flaring into life. A staff spun up into the air to spit ravening rays in all directions, seared stalactites plummeted, and glowing gems swirled through the buffeting storm like an angry swarm of bees.

Baffled and furious, Alorglauvenemaus peered vainly into the chaos, seeking a cause, the cause, an enemy it could fight and rend and exact proper payment in blood from, for this violation and destruction.

Magic lashed at it and burned it, crashed down upon it and clawed at its scales, battering it with such mounting pain that the dragon finally fled for good, springing out into the chill air outside. Who was meddling with its magic? Who?

Were there others, out here, abetting the foe within?

Surely no puny “walking meat” creature could have mounted this!

The dragon spread newly tattered wings and flew in a tight circle, so as to glide along the face of the peak that held its lair, peering narrowly …

No. No living thing was lurking, none could be seen but a few tiny, cowering birds on their usual ledges. No foe here …

Well, if that enemy or enemies was inside, and had come from below, it would come out sooner or later-and Alorglauvenemaus would be waiting for it. Or if it intended to steal, taking gold or gems back down to the depths it had come from, it would have to await the fading of all this unleashed magic to get to those treasures. And when that fading came, so too would Alorglauvenemaus, setting aside mercy and forbearance. No thieving from a mighty black dragon-not when it could seize the bones of thieves by force.

Alorglauvenemaus wheeled in the air to glide past the mouth of its lair again. Soon …

Manshoon smiled. Lord Crownrood, chancellor of the realm, had found the need to confer with certain sober-minded and just nobles of Cormyr as to the conduct of the leading families-and court and Crown, too-of the kingdom, in these troubled times.

The invitations had gone forth, and the time and place had been set. Andolphyn, Loroun, and Blacksilver would accept, of course.

Lurking like a shadow in their minds, Manshoon would see to that. Just as he’d seen to Crownrood’s conceiving of the meeting in the first place. It would be interesting to see which of the larger fish not already in his net would rise to take his hooks, and end up caught.

Patience. Deft and stylish patience. He’d never seen the appeal of fishing before-the steaming platter of results had engaged him rather more-but now he was feeling how fun it could be. Truly slow meddling, subtle manipulations … he was beginning to see the long game Elminster had enjoyed so much.

Damn the Old Mage and damn Mystra, too, but a certain Manshoon was enjoying the slow and subtle. At last.

Numbed by some of the earliest lightnings but otherwise unhurt, El stretched her arms, clawed the air experimentally with her long fingers-and ducked around the edge of the cleft leading into the cavern, keeping low.

Wand blasts were still bursting against the ceiling far across it, sending increasingly large chunks of rock crashing down into the already-scattered hoard pile. Alorglauvenemaus was going to be … quite irate.

“Well, that makes two of us,” El whispered aloud, surprised at the tremor of rising anger in her own voice. She was tired of constant battle … though there was doubtless a lot more of it ahead of her.

Bare-skinned and unhampered in the slightest, Elminster raced into the cave, his eyes fixed on a particularly large chest of sapphires that was lodged in a great heap of coins at an upthrust angle, like the prow of a ship breaking a tall wave. Its lid had broken open, revealing its gleaming contents. Rings scattered here and there among the spilled stones winked merrily as other magics raged around the cavern, as if in applause-or sympathy. Ah, she missed the Weave, that would have let her feel which magics lay here, what was yet slumberous and untouched, and if there was any measure of sentience among the Art in this lair at all …

El had to touch that chest as she spoke the last word of the incantation, then get back out of the cavern again, unscathed.

The coins were smoking hot in places, making her gasp with pain, and something that gave off a purple-green glow heaved slowly under a dune of coins as she dashed across it, a heaving that spat a great curling fireball at the ceiling-but with a whimper, El reached the chest, put her hand on its jet-and-silver side, and gasped out the one word she needed to say. And the chest took flight, rising out of the glittering hoard like a heavy, reluctant dragon taking wing, but soaring faster and faster …

As El scampered back to her cleft, flinging herself into a headlong dive when a fresh fury of wand bursts curdled and rent the air, the chest obeyed her will, hurtling out into the air high above Hullack Forest.

You still love to dice with death, El, Symrustar commented wryly, in a mind voice laced with a fleeting flash of emotion. Admiration? Or contempt?

El knew not, but she knew what she felt: anger. Anger at having to do such dancing, all the time, at the bidding of others.

Just now, a wyrm who was old and wise enough to know better.

Hah. Even before she landed in a bruising roll on hard rocks on the safer side of the cleft, El knew the ancient black dragon had succumbed to its essential nature. Outside in the mountain air, it was giving chase, diving after its errant gems with a roar. El forced the chest to turn sharply, and climb, then turn again and dive, trying to keep it out of the jaws of Alorglauvenemaus for as long as possible.

She wanted the dragon well away from its lair, because dragons could really move when they wanted to-and it would not go well for her if it came racing back, its retrieved chest in its jaws, and