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shrugged, and followed.
* * * * *
Elminster looked up sharply. A metal sword blade ringing off stone has a particular sound. Distinctive
enough to make a hunted human rise, close his spell-book, and stand listening intently. Then he smiled.
One elf hissing curses at another has a distinctive sound too.
He tried to remember what the Srinshee had told him about the layout of this place. The castle was...
nothing, beyond the news that this chamber was 'at its heart.' Hmm. The elves hunting him could be three
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breaths away, or an hour's hard climbing and peering. That they were hunting him was certain; why else
would one of them want another to keep quiet?
El stood there, spellbook under his arm, thinking hard. He could translocate away once by calling on
the scepter, but he hadn't had a chance to regain his own teleport spell yet. The only place in Cormanthor
he could think of to go was the Vault of Ages, and who knew what defenses it would have to prevent
thieves just teleporting in and out? To hide would be best. The more blood that ended up on his hands,
the harder for his friends here to stay his friends, to let him stay, and to carry out whatever work Mystra
had planned for him. Agile, alert elves, however, weren't the easiest folk to hide from. Mystra had given
him one slaying spell, not a dozen. He'd have to plunge into the midst of a roused and ready band of
human-hunters, to touch one and slay.
A ghostly form swooped past him, trailing a faint echoing sound that might have been wild laughter, and
the last prince of Athalantar grinned suddenly. Of course! Take ghost form!
He took two quick steps to see where the ghost dis-appeared to this time, and was rewarded: high up
on one wall was a crevice. Far too small for him, but not too small for a spellbook.
If he cast the spell as Myrjala had shown him, he could shift back and forth between solid and
wraith-like form for brief periods becoming his solid, normal self for no more than nine breaths at a
time, or less. Longer would break the spell, and his fourth time be-coming solid would also end the
magic.
El became a flitting shadow and soared aloft. As he rose to the crevice, there came a scuffing sound
from somewhere nearby, as if a boot had slipped on rock. Ev-idently he hadn't any time to waste.
Something dark but pale-faced rushed out of the gloom at him, seemingly enraged. El almost tumbled
and fell in fright, but then ducked aside. The ghost looped once, impressively, then scudded on out of
sight around a corner, heading for other rooms. Evidently the Dlardrageth ghosts liked wraithlike
intruders even less than solid mortals.
Reaching the crevice, El drifted inside. It opened into a small, cramped room the remnants of a much
larger chamber whose roof had long ago collapsed. There were bones under the rubble here, elven
bones, and El doubted the ghosts would leave him alone if he took up residence in here for long. Still, he
hadn't much choice. As he peered around, the air seemed to fill with a faint purplish haze. What was it?
Magic, aye, but what?
Whatever it was, he felt no different, and was still a weightless flying shadow. He drifted to the other end
of the little room.
Beyond its far wall, through the socket holes that had once held beams, a ghost could reach another
huge chamber this one open to the sky, and holding the first cautious elf, scrambling in over some
rubble with sword raised. Ivran Selorn, if El's memory served him rightly; a blood-hungry youngling.
There was a jagged hole at one end of the collapsed room through which he could plunge, if he felt like
dying on broken stones below. Through it, El could see the route that linked the open chamber where
Ivran was, and the room where he'd been studying. The hole opened onto a cascade of rubble that
spilled down into a round room once at the base of a now-fallen tower. A passage ran out of Ivran's
room into an antechamber, and thence through the tower room. From there a narrow, rubble-choked
passage linked up with the room El's spellbook still lay in. The route was not a long one, and Ivran bold
and eager was moving swiftly.
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That left a certain Athalantan boy very little time. El went to his knees in the room with the bones, turned
solid, and yanked down his breeches. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]