He was just in time. The wall of force flickered into being just as the first hurtling stones reached it. Despite knowing the magic had turned aside arrows, hurled pikes, and even a charging horse on previous occasions, Thaltar backed away, flinching, as a deafening barrage of stone struck it. When the silence fell and the room stopped rocking, he launched himself grimly into a run, sprinting around one end of his spell-spun barrier, head shy;ing for the foe he'd just crisped.
He had to be sure. He had to
Thaltar clambered over loose, shifting stone in claw shy;ing haste, climbed into the eddying smoke and dust, and peered into the open area beyond. He could see nothing yet, and waited tensely, listening to stone creak as it cooled.
His hands were raised and another battle spell was ready in his mind, but if he should need that, it was more than likely he'd be turning to flee as swiftly as he'd ever run in his life, from one cache of magic to another, snatching up what he'd need to keep himself alive against a wounded and raging Witch-Queen of Aglarond.
Time stretched; stillness gathered. It was dark in the chamber beyond. Reluctantly-for doing so would betray his presence and whereabouts-he cast a dancing lights spell high and far, to shine down on the settling soot and dust. The room seemed ash-cloaked and lifeless.
Heart sinking, Thaltar Glaervar waited with increas shy;ing foreboding to see what his spellblast had wrought. Wisps of smoke were drifting lazily up from charred fin shy;gertips at the back of the chamber, but that cooked corpse was almost certainly one of the apprentices.
A part of the distant rear wall sighed into collapse then, and the sudden movement brought fear's icy clutch to Thaltar's heart. The Red Wizard tensed anew when there came groans from under and behind that wall, but they were male voices.. and they were too far away to be what concerned him. He was seeking something much nearer, in the scorched stones just below where he crouched.
It was a long time before the air was clear enough to see what he'd been peering at so intently. The headless, ashen form of the other apprentice, leaning against the rock where it had been driven by the blast, became visible first.
He peered, ducking his head to see better. Sitting on its back facing him, just about
Smoke drifted away with almost taunting lassitude, then was gone.
The impatient Red Wizard found himself staring at a figure of ashes. Smoke still curled up from the feature shy;less, hairless figure; he knew that at a touch the charred remnants of flesh would fall away from the bones beneath, and the bones in turn collapse.
But one smoldering arm still held a wand aloft. It was unmarked by fire, and therefore almost certainly still magically potent, and it was pointed at him.
Thaltar left a frightened little gulp in his wake as he ducked down his side of the rocks, sliding helplessly for a few seconds. He lay there panting for a moment or two, staring up at the scorched ceiling, and in his mind saw again the utter ashen ruin of the body.
No, the Simbul was dead. No will or wit remained to trigger that wand. He told himself that several times on his careful clamber back up the scorched rocks, to look down again. Everything was as it had been. The smok shy;ing, ashen form with the wand in its hand had not moved.
Thaltar let out a long sigh of relief, then cast a careful spell. When he used its magic to whisk the wand away, the hand that had gripped it crumbled into drifting ash. He brought the wand to a gentle landing not far from his foot, in a cleft where it couldn't possibly roll to touch him, and cast another spell.
A storm cloud of flickering purple darkness came into being above the ashes, and at his soft command, burst into a brief rainfall-a torrent that crashed down on the ashes that had once been the Simbul. The hissing and bubbling was almost deafening. Thaltar watched the sitting figure slump to ashen bones then to nothingness, and kept on watching until the acid of his spell had eaten its way deep into the stones that had underlain the destroyed sorceress, and the hissing was done.
Only then did he look down at the wand. He watched the motionless stick of wood for a long time before he bent, snatched it up in triumph, and cried forth a shout that echoed back from the battered walls and ceilings around, 'And so at last the Witch-Queen is laid low!'
The other ring on his finger winked, and he was gone from that place, ignoring the groans of dying Red Wizards.
The sphere of crystal floating over the table winked and sparkled into life. Sixteen people sat straighter in their chairs and tried to look impassive. Eleven of them shook out the sleeves of their purple, red-sashed robes, and two of them ran nervous hands over their black skullcaps and squared their shoulders so that the purple Eye of Shar on their breasts hung unwrinkled. Rings winked and glittered up and down the table like votive temple candles flickering in a breeze.
The sphere flashed again, as if in a signal, and one of the two women at the table leaned forward and said calmly, 'Let us begin. We face a problem that, if unat shy;tended, will perhaps soon be a crisis. Two of those absent this night will never sit at this or any other table again. Roeblen and Azmyrandyr are dead.'
There was a stir around the table, murmurs of excite shy;ment that stilled as the woman spoke again.
'They were destroyed, we believe, by the spells of the Witch-Queen of Aglarond, and we must assume that these murders were more than her long-running cam shy;paign to rid Faerun of all Red Wizards. They may be just that, but we here must for our mutual safety take the view that they are blows struck deliberately at us-just as when Dove Falconhand of the Seven Sisters appeared far from her usual haunts to slaughter many of our dark elf allies in Scornubel, where Qilue Veladorn also struck out at us, shortly thereafter. Qilue was soon afterward seen in Skullport with her sister Laeral, spying on some of our operations. This was barely a day before one of our number was hampered in his activities in Silverymoon by another of the Seven, the High Lady Alustriel. Significantly, the operative in that case called upon the services of three Red Wizards to aid him in battle against the Chosen. Roeblen and Azmyrandyr were two of those mages.'
Eyes up and down the table strayed to where Thaltar Glaervar sat, looking as impassive as he knew how. Many knew who the third mage was, and would now be wondering…
'The link that fires our suspicions,' the woman con shy;tinued, 'is that the operative who so narrowly escaped Alustriel in Silverymoon was almost slain by spells that destroyed the home in which he was living in disguise, shortly after several witnesses saw a silver-haired woman-and I need hardly say that silver hair is a dis shy;tinctive mark of the Chosen-on the premises. This befell not long before the deaths of Roeblen and Azmyrandyr.'
The speaker paused, then, but no one murmured any shy;thing into the tense silence that cloaked her glancing up and down the table, and finally up at the globe hanging above them. Her dark eyes flashed with excitement as she leaned forward still more, placing her elbows on the table, and added, 'Wherefore we are gathered to warn all, and discuss what should best be done to counter future attacks upon us by the Chosen. We know not the extent of their knowledge of us, but again, for safety's sake, must assume that they know all.' Her gaze flicked up and down the table again ere she added the formal phrase, 'Let one speak now who brings wisdom to the matter at hand.'
One of the Red Wizards seated near to her stirred and said, 'If the Seven know less than all about us, one here at this table stands in the greatest danger. Protecting him with our risen power, in a covert trap, would seem to be our logical course.'
The wizard did not bother to look at Thaltar, but heads turned to regard him up and down the table.
The woman met Thaltar's eyes, and said gravely, 'Lord Skloon uses the word 'logical,' and I find myself in no disagreement with that. How do you feel about living, for an indeterminate time to come, in the midst of battle- ready colleagues who must needs watch your every move if they are to protect you?'
Thaltar shrugged. 'If it is needful, Speaker Amalrae,' he said calmly, 'I have no particular objection. I fill chamber pots in the usual manner, I live a relatively quiet life of study, and as all here know, Red Wizards have no secrets.'
This deadpan sally was received around the table with an amusement that could be felt more than heard. Thaltar leaned forward as Amalrae had done, and added quietly, 'I do think it may be needful-and that the Red
