'You cannot!' she shrieked in final frustration.
Like a striking cobra, her hand lashed out and knocked the wand from his shaking hand. She could see the fear in his eyes as he backed toward the exit. Saura briefly considered murdering the man with a magic missile or some other spell that would be clean and sterile. Then she reconsidered. Sometimes, Saura preferred cold steel. As gracefully as any hunting cat, Saura drew her knife and went to work.
Three days after murdering the shopkeeper and making off with the tome, Saura stood in front of Nusair, holding a bag that contained the great artifact. The walls of the library surrounded them once again, and Saura bent a knee to her benefactor.
'I have returned, Master,' she said.
The trip back to Bezantur was not nearly as long as the trip to Skuld. Nusair had equipped Saura with a stone imbued with a spell of recall, which allowed her to teleport back to her home base whenever she wanted. Of course, all that was predicated on the safe retrieval of The Scalamagdrion.
'Have you brought it?' He asked.
He should have known better. Saura would never have come back without the artifact. Failing on such a mission would have cost her her life, or worse, her position at Darkul Tower.
Still, she humored him. 'Yes, Master. I have brought your prize.'
Saura stood and dropped the bag on the room's great table, partially spilling the ancient tome onto the well-worn surface. Her master's eyes lit up and she could not suppress the feeling of victory that spread through her.
'Now for your part of the bargain,' she said.
Nusair walked to the book, turning his back to the beautiful apprentice. He pressed his hand against the bag that held it.
'Yes… about that…' he started.
Saura's feeling of triumph fell through the floor.
That night, Nusair slipped from between the silken sheets in his bed. He let his lips brush lightly against Saura's ear one last time. She knew how to please him better than anyone.
He briefly considered taking her with him to the library, letting her share in his victory. But that would be foolish. Why should he give her any more power than she already had? There were certain pleasures worth holding on to, no matter what the cost. Besides, he'd be damned if he would be one of the few Red Wizards to officially induct a Rashemi into his red circle. He'd be a laughing stock, and any chances of serving Master Nevron more closely would be dashed as surely as if he had hidden The Scalamagdrion with the intent of taking it for himself. That decided, as quietly as he could, Nusair threw on his red robes, and snuck from his sleeping room toward his library, leaving her dozing peacefully in his bed.
The Red Wizard opened the door to his library and looked upon the darkened chamber. On the table rested The Scalamagdrion, shrouded in darkness, its cover glowing with a faint red light. He thought about starting a fire to heat the cold room, but his own impatience wouldn't let him. He whispered a quick incantation and tiny flames leaped from his fingers to light the candles that graced the table and walls, casting out just enough light to read by.
Copper bindings wrapped about the ancient tome like the crushing arms of a monstrous drake. It seemed to Nusair that the forms of dragons, terrible to behold, writhed and undulated on the cover, each one seeming to snap at unseen victims, their talonlike claws and razor teeth glinting magically in the candlelight. Yet, strangely the cover bore no such markings.
For a moment, Nusair hesitated. But the promise of the book was too much. He had come too far to fear some petty illusion. Inside the bindings waited riches and power beyond even his imagination. The book would be his defining discovery. Once he unlocked its secret and gave the book to Nevron, he might well be catapulted to the highest levels of Thayan power circles… perhaps even to command a tharch or become a trusted lieutenant to the Zulkir of Conjuration himself.
Intent on unlocking his hard won discovery, Nusair swallowed the momentary pang of fear that had worked its way into his throat. He reached out with shaking hands to touch, however tentatively, the artifact. The book's age and power pulsed under his fingers, and he drew back.
The tome had been crafted long before even the coming of Mulhorand to Toril, in the dark and mysterious palaces and winding spires of Imaskar or perhaps Netheril, where brown deserts and wastes were all that remained-reminders of power gone awry. But that was long ago, and the roots of the long dead regimes were buried with the kings and pharaohs of old. The ambitious Red Wizard had better things to do than worry about long dead civilizations.
He reached out once again and gripped the cover in his trembling hands then allowed his fingers to crawl across the strange cover to the latch holding it closed. There, he flipped open the leather tongue securing it. Suddenly, he found his breath coming in short gasps of air. What had he to fear? Only words written on pages awaited him, he chided himself. But still, all his instincts told him to leave the book closed. Let sleeping dragons lie, the old saying went.
'Bah!' Nusair exclaimed aloud to the empty room. He was a Red Wizard, and ridiculous wives' tales and irrational fears would not cow him. He took a deep breath then slowly, deliberately, opened the tome. He leaned forward to peer downward upon the thing that he had labored so long to recover. A loud, deep groan, like a dying man's final pained breath, escaped the pages of The Scalamagdrion as the front cover struck the worn oak table.
Without more than that single groan as a warning, a monstrous reptilian creature leaped from the pages of the tome, its body growing to crush the table, sending splinters of oak flying in all directions. The dragon was twice as tall as
Nusair, with massive muscled arms and stunted wings. Its tail stretched another body length behind and was tipped in a bladelike plate. The dragon's gray-silver scales glinted like platinum in the firelight. Its jaws opened and revealed razor teeth that sparkled like diamonds.
'Loreat Levethix,' the beast hissed, its voice scratching across its tongue and its breath hot on Nusair's face.
Nusair gasped. His heart accelerated, threatening to burst from his chest. He recognized the dragon's words at once-Die Wizard.
Then the room was plunged into silence.
Nusair fell back before the beast, scrambling to put distance between himself and its grinning jaws. The Scalamag-drion stared down at him with terrifying malevolence and advanced, watching Nusair's every move.
Nusair reached into his mind for the spells that he had prepared. Grasping on one that would roast the creature in a hellish fire, the Red Wizard muttered the words that would call the Weave to him. N6thing happened, his voice lost in the magic silence cast out by the dragon. Cursing to himself, Nusair rushed for the door.
He never made it.
The dragon launched itself between the Red Wizard and the door, coming down on the wooden floor with a loud crunch that shook the entire tower. The beast swung its massive claws at Nusair, but the wizard was too quick. He dodged to the left then dived to the ground. The beast's dagger-claws whistled as they passed within inches of Nusair's head. The Red Wizard rolled onto his back and tried to stand. Just then the second claw raked across his chest.
Both flesh and magic robes alike gave way before the terrible attack. Nusair bellowed a silent scream at the top of his lungs, as blood sprayed the floor behind him and ribs cracked like so many twigs under foot.
Gasping for air, he looked upward at his assailant, pain thundering in his temples. The Scalamagdrion arched its back up and away, preparing to strike again, but with its jaws. It glared down on him. It seemed to relish the look of horror on Nusair's face, as its razor-sharp teeth gleamed in the remaining candlelight. Nusair shuddered in fear and prepared himself for the inevitable.
Just then, the Red Wizard remembered the magic ring that he always wore as a last resort. He didn't need to speak to activate the device-only a simple flick of the wrist. And so he did, desperate for anything to work against his murderer. Four blue globes of shining light launched from the ring and shot, like arrows, the short distance to the dragon's armored breast. The balls impacted on the creature in bright explosions of white light.
But Nusair's elation at the attack's success disappeared as the dragon's glimmering scales absorbed the globes of magical energy. Then, as quickly as the missiles hit the dragon, they reappeared, emerging from its very
