down. On nothing.
The globules crashed to the floor in a red rain that spattered the stones and put the hissing fire out. Amid the sudden smoke of its dying, the floor ran with small puddles that moved together with purposeful speed.
The many-fanged monster peered suspiciously around the room and came slowly free of the ceiling to gather itself into a floating sphere of questing eyes and gnashing teeth. It echoed the dumbfounded astonishment of the distant Zhentarim who'd created it; he'd never seen anything of the like before. Was this a spell? Were the two pilgrims of Tyr doppelgangers who'd learned a new trick? Or… something else?
The floating monster glared around the ruined chamber, but nothing moved except the thick, dark red fluid on the floor. Two holy symbols lay amid the moving gore, and tin cups and scabbarded swords and knives leaned where the pilgrims had left them, but their clothes were gone. The monster bent its gaze again on the moving liquid.
Slowly, as if with great effort, the red fluid was gathering, joining into two ever-widening pools. The creature watched for a long time; the pools became two rising, glistening red humps. Purposefully the fanged thing flew across the chamber to hang above one pool, and extended a forest of mouths with questing tongues, intending to suck up the pool.
With surprising speed, the pool leapt upward to meet it, roaring in a red column that plunged into all the waiting mouths. The fanged creature darkened, shuddered-and flew apart in a wet explosion of staring eyeballs and slime.
Gelatinous fragments of its riven body were flung to the far corners of the rubble-strewn room… but before they could stain the walls or floor, these wet remnants faded silently away into the air, as if they had never been.
The swordcaptains standing around Nentor Thuldoum nearly swallowed their tongues in startled fear when the wizard let out a sudden raw scream, clawed blindly and convulsively at them all, and then flung himself back in his seat, clutching at his head. The wordless wet gargle in his throat rose again into a screaming, a high keening that went on and on… and men pulled back from the reeling Zhentarim and drew their blades. They shivered.
'What should we do, Lord?' a swordcaptain asked, hurrying to where Swordlord Amglar sat watching, his back against the ancient bulk of the Standing Stone.
The commander looked up expressionlessly at the anxious officer and shrugged. 'Either this passes, or it doesn't. If the latter, we'll put arrows through him from well away until he falls silent, and then burn the body.' Amglar reached for the wineskin and goblet that sat on the grass beside him, and his lips curved into a mirthless grin. 'Wizards are all like that, inside,' he told the swordcaptain softly. 'If their control is ever broken, all the screaming and wide-eyed raving bursts out, for us all to see.'
The man shivered. 'What does that to wizards, Lord?'
Amglar shrugged. 'It's but magic sweeping away restraint. Mages are just men and maids like all the rest of us. The problem with our kindly Zhentarim is that they all seem to forget that.'
In a ruined chamber deep in the night-cloaked woods, two columns of dark, glistening liquid grew slowly darker and more solid, shifting into manlike shapes. One sharpened into the likeness of the shorter pilgrim while the other was still a glistening humanoid, eyes and mouth just swimming into view on a face of red slime.
'That body?' the unfinished one asked disgustedly.
'Again?'
'You'd prefer this?' The shorter pilgrim flickered and slid, its clothes and bristles melting away into ivory- skinned voluptuousness. A breathtakingly beautiful female human caressed itself provocatively, posing with its hands in a magnificent fall of flame-red hair.
'Where'd you see that?' the unfinished one asked.
The second Malaugrym smiled. 'Well, it's a long story…' Tower of Ashaba, Shadowdale, early Flamerule 17
'Is there more moongleam?' Elminster asked hopefully, holding out his goblet.
Chin on hand, Shaerl shook her head. 'Not this side of the cellars, and I'm in no state to climb stairs now. Not after-gods, Old Mage, it's been six bottles! Doesn't wine touch you?'
'No,' Elminster told her. 'I just like the taste.'
Shaerl rolled her eyes. 'Of course. Silly of me even to think you'd get tipsy, or take headaches from wine, like mere mortals.'
'Look ye, lass, it took me the better part of a year to get the spell right-and after all that, Mystra laughed and changed me with a wave of her hand! I could have saved myself hours-nay, days-of painstaking research!'
'Aye,' Shaerl agreed dryly. 'I can see how long and hard it would have been, drinking every night away to see how long it took you to start reeling, and if 'twas different than the night before.'
'That's not how I did it, lass!' Elminster growled at her.
Shaerl spread her hands in apology and sighed. 'I'd have more sympathy, El, if I didn't look in the mirror every morn and see myself getting older, fast. Not all that long ago I was ordering my gowns slit thigh-high to catch the eyes of young blades at feasts, and having gowns made to match so my parents wouldn't see until the coach was around the first bend, and I could strip them off! Now I couldn't even get into any of those gowns… if I still dared to dress like that!'
'Why don't ye dare dress like that?' the Old Mage asked, trying to peer around the edge of the table to see her ankles. 'A few years and a child don't ruin one's legs!'
'But they do add to one's belly. Never mind about me… you know what I'm talking about, Old Mage. You've had centuries-and may well have centuries more. I'll be lucky to see sixty summers.'
' 'Tis not the shining thing ye think it, this longevity,' Elminster told her gravely. 'I bury friends every day, it seems… and one grows so tired of it all. If ye didn't need me so sorely in the days ahead, 'twould be so easy to just bid it all good-bye and lie down in a tomb somewhere to dream the ages away… but ye always need me.'
'I do?' Shaerl asked challengingly, but hastily added, 'No offense, Old Mage.'
Elminster waved a dismissive hand. 'Not ye personally-thou art one of the bright spots, lass. Cormyrean noble ladies who can think for themselves are rarer than they should be! I meant the Realms in general, and Shadowdale in particular. There's something here that the gods need very badly just now-and I must guard it from them.'
'Ah, with us caught in the middle, as usual,' Shaerl said sarcastically. 'Wonderful.'
'Ye wanted adventure when ye left the castle of thy father,' Elminster reminded her. 'So ye took the oath to Azoun and joined Vangerdahast's service, were sent to Shadowdale and promptly married the man ye were sent to spy on… so here ye are. Too late by far to criticize the bed ye made for thyself, dear.'
'I know,' Shaerl replied in exasperation. She got up, leaning on the table for support, and then strode restlessly about the room. 'It's just-'
She threw up her hands in surrender, whirled around, and ran to the old wizard, flinging her arms around him.
'I'm just so scared, El,' she said, tears standing in her eyes as she stared into his. Her lower lip trembled. 'Every time Mourn goes out that door, I think it's the last time I'll see him alive. Zhentil Keep attacks us every gods-be-damned spring… and now the entire world seems torn apart, with gods everywhere and orcs and brigands, and magic going wild! Mourn needs me to be strong, I know, when what I want to do is run away from it all, just the two of us, and-'
'The two of us? Ye and this old wizard? Miss, I'll remind ye that ye're married!' Elminster said primly.
'I meant Mourngrym, you dolt,' Shaerl said scornfully, voice wavering on the edge of tears.
'I know ye did, little one,' Elminster said. He folded her gently into his arms. That brought the explosion of sobs he'd known it would. He held the lady of Shadowdale, murmuring comforting promises and stroking her hair until her tears were spent.
She lifted her head from his breast at last, red eyed and wild haired, and blinked at him tremulously, morose thanks in her eyes.
'Ah, ye're done!' Elminster said brightly. 'Now, how about that wine?'
'Ooohh!' In mock rage Shaerl snatched up a cushion from the chair and belted him with it.
'That's better,' the Old Mage said gruffly, through the rain of blows. 'Beat the wits out of the only archmage left to defend Shadowdale, that's a smart girl.'
