Then he finished the spell, completing the last gestures with nary a tremble. It was done, now, and the howling darkness of his creation snatched all of his fellow Zhentarim out of the shattered room before him.
The Abyss would take them; they would be whirled away into it, there to fend for themselves, hopefully taking that cursed something that was afflicting them with them.
The darkness was roaring now, hungrily, whirling away wild-eyed and shouting Zhentarim, and wispy wraiths that came clawing up out of the eyes and mouths of two of them too. Then Eirhaun, struggling to grow a tail and fins to go with his mismatched, feebly-flapping wings-was whirled up and away with a name on his lips.
“Sarhthor, curse you!” he cried. “ Ar auhammaunas dreth truarr! ”
And to his horrified and helpless fury, Sarhthor felt himself plucked up from behind the desk and snatched across empty, crackling air into his own waiting darkness.
The Abyss opened many-fanged jaws and hungrily swallowed them all.
Azuth, Mystra, and fire in the Weave!
It was the only curse Ghoruld Applethorn could remember in his blind agony.
His scrying crystal had burst in front of him, spraying his face with deadly shards.
He roared in pain, spewing out thick, choking blood as he reeled back, blinded and sliced open in a hundred places.
His limbs trembled uncontrollably; it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He shook from shock and pain, he knew, but also from fear.
Fear of the doom he’d so narrowly escaped. That awful pull of the Abyss… the bone-melting tugging that awakened yearnings he’d never thought he could feel, never dreamed of.
He could have been mind-ruined, or worse: snatched away to the Abyss forever, fair Cormyr and all his schemings lost to him in an instant, even the knowledge that he was Ghoruld Applethorn, and could work with the Art, torn from him.
He fumbled for the healing potions on their shelf, found them, and-wishing some of them were strong drink instead-started frantically uncorking and quaffing.
“What’s going on? ” Jhessail hissed, as the Knights cowered. Everything above them shook as if angry gods were beating on it with great clubs. Another shower of dust and small stones pelted down on and around them.
Florin shook his head, having no answer to give her. Pennae and Laspeera clung to his arms as he crouched over them, trying to shield them and knowing how useless his gallantry was. If the ceiling came down, they’d be entombed together, to gasp out their last breaths in the crushing dark…
The air around them felt alive. Crackling with unseen sparks, slithering and coiling restlessly.
“Magic,” Pennae muttered, sounding disgusted. “But whose? And what?”
“Orders, Lady?” Dauntless growled, as if seeking reassurance. Tight-lipped, Laspeera merely shook her head.
As they all felt a sudden, horrible tugging, a compulsion that clawed at them and awakened a yearning to rise and drift up, up-Doust arched his back under Islif’s hands, and groaned like a man lost in lust-a restlessness raged inside everyone, that made Jhessail whimper, and Pennae and the ornrion whisper soft curses.
All around the Knights, the darkness started to glow, radiances that outlined doors and formed great nets and curtains, like sparks frozen in the air.
“What-what is it?” Dauntless mumbled, eyes wide in wonder.
“Magic-all the magic that’s down here, old wards and preservations and portals, too-shining forth,” Laspeera said slowly. “But what could
…?”
She fell silent in startled awe as lights kindled deep in the stone walls around them, illuminations to match the Dragonfire illusion before them.
Nine swords, vertical with hilts uppermost, were glowing deep in the rock… and drifting soundlessly forward, through it, out into the air above them.
And from the illusory treasure, the nine glowing guardian swords drifted to meet them, right above the heads of the crouched and kneeling Knights.
Met, and then the illusions slowly faded into the nine swords that had come out of the stones. They promptly brightened into dazzling brilliance.
Laspeera, Dauntless, and the Knights of Myth Drannor all gaped up at this magnificence-deadly though it probably was-a mere handspan above their noses.
Then there came a great groan from overhead, a deep, thunderous complaint that heralded doom. As they tensed, huddled together, the Oldcoats Inn slowly, ponderously, and inescapably… collapsed onto their heads.
Chapter 16
Some kings delight in seeing traitors die
Writhing in torment as the realm watches
And many subjects cower, not daring to decry.
Some wizards delight in enspelling all foes
Bringing down the nastiest dooms they can hatch
Twisting men into monsters in agonized throes.
But wise bards and sages turn away, grim
From such gloating; for the unfolding past tells
The high price of such entertainment a-glim.
M any a shocked and staring eye in Halfhap saw the great black whorl erupt out of the walls of the Oldcoats Inn. Spitting black lightning, it spun slowly, like a gigantic drain of black swamp water being emptied, carrying the upper floors of the inn atop itself like a great cracked cap before it started to spin faster and faster, tightening in on itself until…
It vanished, the upper floors of the inn crashing down upon the ravaged ground floor, so that all collapsed into tumbling, smoking rubble.
The very air above Halfhap tingled, winking with half-seen sparks and shadows that echoed the turning of the vanished whorl for a few long, silent breaths ere fading.
Leaving the town gaping in stunned silence at the heaped rubble that had been the Oldcoats Inn, a great cloud of dust hanging thickly above it.
They did not have to regard unadorned rubble and slowly drifting dust for long.
There came a flash of white light, a winking that left in its wake a stout, bearded man who bore a great gem-headed staff. His robes were black, with a great baldric of interlaced purple dragons, and his face was grim and terrible.
Vangerdahast stood in the heart of the rubble and turned slowly, peering all around. Then he laid the fingers of one hand over the dragontail ring he wore on the other and called, “Laspeera? Laspeera! ”
Silence fell; he cloaked himself in it and awaited an answer.
That did not come.
After a long and silent time the Royal Magician of Cormyr shook his head sadly and said to the empty air, “I fear we’ve lost her, Beldos. She’s under half a building, right in front of me, and not moving or answering.”
He threw back his head, and the watching folk of Halfhap could see that his face was wet with tears.
