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the skull, lurching into an
ungainly charge in its wake. His eerie foe bobbed again, and the stool hurtled
harmlessly past it and
shattered against a wall. The skull's hollow laughter rang out around the old,
wheezing merchant.
Then the skull spat something at him that glowed with tiny, sparkling motes of
light. Panting in his
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haste, Mirt dived aside and rolled on the floor-but not fast enough: some of
the spittle struck his arm
and shoulder.
Aaargh-acid! Gods, but it burned! Roaring in pain, the Old Wolf twisted on the
floor and clutched his
shoulder. It felt like slow-moving fire was crawling along his flesh: Mirt
whimpered at the pain and
writhed helplessly.
Unseen, the skull soared past him, heading for the stairs. The grand stair
climbed from the entry hall to
a gallery on the floor above, where many statues stood. Among them were
warriors of Cormyr, a
mermaid rampant upon a wave, and a sleeping dragon. As the skull floated amid
these, a dagger
suddenly spun at it, striking chips from the curved bone of its jaw- before
glancing off.
The lich lord turned menacingly and saw a servantwoman on tire landing, her
face white with fear. She
was frantically trying to raise a sword that was far too heavy for her.
A tongue of flame slid out of one of the skull's eye sockets, and the woman
moaned in fear. She swung
the sword weakly at the flames, shrank back, and cried, "Tempus aid me!"
Iliph Thraun laughed aloud and struck at the woman with its whip of flames.
She screamed, waving the
sword ineffectually as the fire raged around her. The lich lord lashed the
woman with flames until she
crumpled and fell, hair smoldering. Then it flew on into the upper levels of
Tessarits Tower.
At the top of the next flight of stairs, Narm and Shandril sat together on a
bench, weapons in hand,
uncertain of what to do as crashes and cries came up to them from below. At
first, they didn't see the
silently floating skull drifting up the darkened stairs. Then Narm scrambled
up with a startled curse and
hurled a hasty swarm of bright bolts at it.
Shandril stared at the skull. "What is it?" she asked of the world at large as
Narm's missiles hit home.
Bright pulses struck bone and burst and flared around the skull, but it seemed
to ignore them. It opened
its mouth and spat spellfire at Shandril.
Narm leapt between Shandril and the reaching spellflames, shuddering as
spellfire struck him and
swirled around his shoulder. The young mage staggered, but the skull rose
quickly to direct its stream
of flames over him-and into Shandril's breast.
Shandril gasped in surprise. It was spellfire! Then her face hardened, and her
eyes and hands began to
flame. "Yes! Yesss "' the skull hissed, as she hurled the conflagration back
at it. Narm lifted a face tight
with pain to peer at the skull, and he gasped-it was feeding on the spellfire
Shan was using on it.
Shandril hurled streams of spellfire at the thing. It chuckled, teeth
clattering hollowly. She set her jaw
and wove the blaze into a bright net of flames, cutting the air with so many
arcs of fire that the skull
could not avoid them.
The skull plunged into the fiery net and spun there among the strongest
flames. Where spellfire touched
it, the burning fury darkened and died. The residue slid weirdly into the
fissures and gaps in the bones-
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all except the eye sockets and gaping mouth, which poured an ever-increasing
stream of spellfire back
at her.
Spellflames engulfed the girl, raging and roaring. Shandril shuddered under
the attack-every inch of her
seemed to be trembling uncontrollably-and then struggled to advance against
the skull's stream of
spellfire. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, her face contorted with pain.
"Shan! Nooo!" Narm screamed, but she seemed not to hear. He gulped, took two
running steps, and
leapt, reaching for the skull. His hands slid over smooth hardness and into
the eye sockets. There they
found burning, excruciating pain. Narm threw back his head and howled, as
roaring blackness rushed
up to claim him. Despairing, wreathed in the skull's fire-Shandril's stolen
spellfire, Narm fell screaming
into that onrushing darkness.
Shandril stared its Narm toppled heavily to the floor, body blazing. His
screams ceased abruptly as his
limbs flopped loosely on the stone. Then he lay very still.
Silence fell. The skull's attack had ceased even as Shandril's did. In horror,
she stared down at her
husband. The skull glided slowly forward to hang over her. It leered down,
glowing, opened its mouth
in echoing mirth-and then fell suddenly quiet, hangi motionless, its flames
flickering and fading
In a dark room deep in the High Hall of Zhentil Keep, Sarhthor, mage of the
Zhentarim, sat at a black
table and stared at a tiny skull that hovered above it. The skull was carved
from human bone-from a
bone of one Iliph Thraun, lord among liches. Small radiances swirled around
it, chasing each other in
little currents and eddies as Sarhthor bent his will against the far-off lich
lord.
Sweat ran down his face, and his hands trembled as he stared fixedly at the
carved skull. Wrestling with
the cold will of Iliph Thraun across a great and echoing distance, Sarhthor
reached deep and found
strength he hadn't known was there- and held the lich lord from attacking
Shandril.
Weeping, Shandril hurled herself on Narm, as she had done long ago in Thunder
Gap. Dragonfire had
ravaged him then-but this was spellfire. Lips to lips, flesh to flesh, she
embraced him frantically,
pouring healing spellfire into him.
Above them, the skull quivered, and its eyes flashed flame. Then it shook
again, more feebly, and hung
motionless.
The door opened suddenly without a knock, and Fzoul Chembryl, High Priest of
the Black Altar of
Bane, strode in. "What are you doing?" he asked coldly.
The miniature skull sank down to land softly on the table, and a weary
Sarhthor looked up at him.
"Lord Manshoon left this means to compel the lich lord with Art, and gave me
orders to use it in his
absence to prevent the lichnee from passing out of our control," he explained.
The wizard shook his head and wiped sweat out of his eyes. "I'm not the mage
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he is-and perhaps I lack
some detail or secret to make this work, too; I can't seem to contact Iliph
Thraun properly. The lich is
there, all right-but it seems almost as though something greater stands
against us, fighting me."
"Elminster?" Fzoul snapped, wondering who else could be interfering with the
skull in Manshoon's
absence. "Nay, nay; something greater. Bane, perhaps." Sarhthor said that with
a straight face but inner
pleasure; the priests of the Black Altar never like to be reminded of their
rebellion against church
authority-and how the Dark One himself might feel about it.
"Our Lord?" Fzoul's voice was harsh. He tried to scoff, bit it didn't sound
convincing. The two men
stared coldly at each other for a breath or two.
Then Sarhthor shrugged, and waved at the miniature skull lying motionless on
the tabletop. "Try for
yourself. My skill is not great enough to know clearly who it is."
Sarhthor took care to hide all signs of his inward smile as Fzoul silently but
savagely spun around and
stalked out.
The lich lord hissed suddenly, and its eyes lit with flame. Freed of the
restraint from afar, it sank down [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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