Thayan, the dust sprang away from him, swirling swiftly to outline the outer curve of a cylinder of clear, hard space around the Red Wizard.
The elf accompanying Taern waved mockingly at Roe shy;blen and said, 'Wall offeree; ring shaped.'
Taern gave the elf a glance of mingled amusement and disgust, and started to weave a spell of his own. The elf grinned back and began his own casting. Alustriel gave them all a look of weary exasperation and merely lifted her hand. Blue-white bolts blossomed from her fingers and streaked up through the dust, seeking the gaping hole where the Ten Tapestries Chamber had once boasted a ceiling. Her glowing mis shy;siles turned there, in the dust- choked ruin that had once been a parlor on the floor above, and came arrow shy;ing back down inside the Red Wizard's defensive ring. She saw an amulet at his throat flash as the missiles struck. Roeblen seemed unharmed, his hands never slowing in the casting of his latest spell. The cylinder around him glowed a bright blue and sang, the ringing noise swiftly rising into a scream as the radiance blazed into a bright, iridescent green. The light quickly faded, taking the wall offeree with it into oblivion.
Taern smiled at the Red Wizard in satisfaction and lifted his hands to weave another spell as the elf let out a sudden, startled squawk and cartwheeled away across the room, outlined in red radiance. Alustriel saw the sparkling stone Azmyrandyr had thrown wink once as the elf's boots left the rubble where he'd been stand shy;ing.
'Wild magic,' she called warningly, just as Roeblen of Thay's right arm started to grow.
The Red Wizard stood still as his arm became impos shy;sibly long, thick, and scaled, reaching fifty feet or more across the ravaged room to snatch with thigh-long claws at Alustriel. No human should have been able to stand upright attached to the weight of its huge bulk, let alone lift and move it, but the spell-spun limb swooped down on the High Lady as if it weighed nothing.
Alustriel's eyes narrowed. She'd never seen the likes of this spell before, and almost found herself looking at Roeblen and awaiting his proud announcement of the enchantment he'd used. No such words came, and as the claws descended, she fed it magic missiles. They vanished into it without apparent effect, the distant Red Wizard's amulet pulsing as each bolt died.
The claws tore at her, and she found them very real and solid indeed. Ducking away and lashing at the talons with her hair-each of the claws was now as long as she was tall-she managed to swallow a scream as they closed on her left shoulder and crushed it to bleeding jelly.
The pain drove Alustriel to her knees, retching. She heard Taern cry out her name, then gasp and call on Mystra.
Rolling over on stony rubble and writhing in pain as that scaly limb came down to tear at her again, Alustriel stared at her dangling, useless left arm. Where her shoulder should have been there was nothing. It was hard to see through the silver smoke streaming from the wound, but the raging fire had left her little more than clinging ashes of her gown. She could see a lot of smooth, bared flesh, flesh that was changing as she watched. In an eerie webwork, scales were forming on her skin, spreading swiftly outward from her wound.
The claws missed on their next snatch, thanks to her tumbling, and when Alustriel found her feet again, she thrust the staff at them. Roeblen snatched at it, trying to take it away from her, and she let it go. She hissed out the words that would awaken a fleshfire spell before leaping at the scaly limb.
She caught at greasy scales, slipped, then clung. Her body blazed up into bright fire. Grimly she dug her fin shy;gers in around the edges of the scales and hung on as the smaller scales on her own flesh faded away and a stench like old swamp water arose from the darkening limb around her.
Roeblen roared in pain-and the High Lady of Silverymoon was falling, her blazing arms clutching noth shy;ing. She landed heavily, slithering on stones, and found herself looking into the startled face of yet another Red Wizard.
Roeblen, his scaly limb, and her staff were gone, and the elf was moaning against a distant wall. Taern was staring at her with hope, alarm, and despair at war across his face. The pain was ebbing.
Alustriel gave the newcomer a wolfish smile and charged, her body blazing. 'Welcome to Silverymoon,' she spat, silver flames making her words a bubbling horror, and she saw that horror rise swiftly in the Red Wizard's eyes as he stammered out an incantation, ges shy;turing frantically.
He finished his casting a bare instant before she slammed into him, clawing at his face. She knew she'd hit him by the way the fire faded from her limbs as they rolled together. Alustriel had no clothes or weapons but her knees, teeth, and right hand. He was shorter but heavier than she was, and had no desire to be here at all. He'd flee, bringing in the next being in the cycle Roeblen had spoken of, unless she got a good grip on his throat, and..
The Red Wizard twisted away desperately as she spat silver fire into his face and tore free. Alustriel was left holding a scrap of purple cloth as sudden light blazed into being above her, taking the Thayan mage away.
She held up the cloth to keep from being blinded, and read aloud the name embroidered in a circle there, around a sigil, unfamiliar to her: 'Thaltar.'
When the light faded and she saw another hand beyond the cloth, she launched herself forward onto whoever it was, and found herself panting and grap shy;pling with Auvrarn Labraster.
There was fear on the merchant's handsome face as he fended the High Lady off with one arm and peered around. She saw him take in Taern advancing on him, the ruination all around, then the furious gaze of Alus shy;triel of Silverymoon but inches from his face. Auvrarn also obviously did not want to be there. In feverish haste he thrust three fingers into a breast pouch under his chin, desperately seeking something.
Alustriel punched him in the throat.
Coughing and gagging, Auvrarn Labraster rolled away from her, hoarsely trying to curse. She hurled herself upon him, not wanting him to have time to get at whatever small but fell thing awaited in his pouch. They rolled over and over as she clawed at his face, sob shy;bing every time their struggle put weight on the ruin of her shoulder.
At last Labraster struck aside her clawing hand and got both of his hands on her throat. They stared into each other's eyes, hissing in fury, as his fingers started to tighten. Her hair swirled around them, slapping across his eyes and thrusting up into his nostrils.
The merchant gagged and snarled and shook his head violently back and forth, not loosening his grip around the throat of Silverymoon's Bright Lady. He never felt tresses of silver hair tear something off the chain around Alustriel's neck and knot that something into his own hair, but he did feel her surge upright. She thrust upward to her feet with astonishing strength, dragging him with her. Two rough hands slapped across both his ears, making his head ring. Before Labraster could even cry out, the hands took hold of his ears and tried to twist them off.
Auvrarn Labraster screamed and let go of Alustriel's throat, staggering and ducking as tears of pain poured forth. Twist and flail though he might, those hands stayed with him, twisting.
In desperation, he threw himself to the ground and rolled-and the hands were gone. Labraster heard a man grunt nearby, land heavily on loose stone, and roll away. He wasted not an instant on seeing who it was, but snatched the teleport ring from the pouch on his breast and fumbled it onto his finger.
Another hand was at his throat again, and he punched out with desperate force, connected solidly, and heard Alustriel gasp. He twisted blindly away again. Cloth tore at his breast, then Auvrarn Labraster hissed the word he needed to say, and was thankfully gone.
As Taern clambered across shifting stones to where his lady knelt, she lifted a face still wet with tears to him, and struggled to speak through a throat dark with bruises. She held a scrap of dark cloth clenched in her hand.
'My lady!' Taern Hornblade gasped, kneeling beside her bare, blackened body. One of her arms still dangled uselessly, and pain creased her face, but she smiled at him and said huskily, 'Kiss me, Taern.'
He touched his lips to her forehead with infinite care. Alustriel made a disgusted sound and hauled him down to her mouth, mumbling, 'No, Taern, I mean really kiss me. I'm too weak to resist you now. . and there's not much left of me that you can hurt.'
Something small toppled from the floor above then, and plunged down to burst amid the stones. Blue light shy;ning played about the chamber. As Taern crouched over his lady to shield her, Alustriel looked down at the scrap of torn fabric in her hand and murmured to the empty air, 'Well, it's up to you now, sister.'
