Laeral saved her breath for counterspells, dispelling in turn another charm, an attempt to telekinese her farther into the room, and a spell that made her eyes water and blur ere she foiled it. She was still backing away when roaring flames enveloped her.
The odor of singed hair hung around her, but the protective shield Laeral always wore saved her from serious harm. It flickered to the verge of exhaustion. She moved quickly to one side-but even as the last of the hungry flames rolled away into nothingness, bony hands were moving again. Laeral felt the naked feeling of her magic being stripped away.
Hastily she cast another shield of cold fire around herself. This must be what a target in an archers' shooting gallery feels like!
As her foe advanced, Laeral reached to her bodice sheath and drew forth the only wand she carried. Hard-eyed, she blasted the lien with magic missiles.
They struck home, but the undead mage calmly continued its advance. Laeral fired again, her mystic bolts swarming around the black robes. Expressionlessly the lich raised a bony hand and struck back with similar missiles of its own.
Blazing agony lanced into her in five places. Laeral screamed and shuddered involuntarily at the pain, doubling over. The lich advanced.
"Thy name, she-mage?" it asked again, in dry, almost mocking tones.
Laeral made no reply. Setting her teeth, she snatched one of-her daggers from its boot sheath and rose from her knees. She hissed a spell of her own devising. As the dagger spun through the air, her Art snarled around it. It grew longer, flashing and whirling as it went, becoming- a sword.
Gleaming steel whipped end-over-end through the gloom to strike the lich's shoulder. Bone crumbled amid spurting dust, and one skeletal arm fell away from the lich to the floor, collapsing there in dusty splinters.
The lich advanced as though nothing had occurred. "If this continues," it told her calmly, "I shan't be able to guard the throne-and ye'll have won."
Laeral rolled her eyes. What children's tale had all of this come from? She dodged aside desperately as the lich cast lightning at her again and snapped out a counterspell.
The lich reeled, its bony arms writhing into coiling snakes for an instant before its unlife overcame the magic. It gave her a gap-toothed grin-and lightning again.
Laeral snapped out a countering enchantment. In midair the racing bolt curved back toward its source. Bony arms moved in haste, but the undead mage was still working a spell when hungry blue-white fire found it.
The lich writhed amid smoke and fell to its knees, pointing a bony arm. "Behold-the throne!" it said hollowly and toppled into a clattering chaos of unattached bones. The flames of its eyes winked out.
Too easy, Laeral thought, scattering the remains with an unseen servant spell. Much too easy. The bones lay where she pushed them, harmless.
The mage drew forth another token. It grew into a great hammer in her hand. She used a servant spell to carry it to the bones and wield it from afar, crushing the lich's skull into shards. There came no response.
In the silence that followed, Laeral took a scroll from her belt and conjured dancing lights. By their radiance she stared all around, suspiciously. The silence waited patiently, unbroken.
She took a cautious step toward the throne. It remained empty, unadorned, and silent. She bent her will. Her floating hammer struck the empty seat, tapped it, then under her direction tapped floor-slabs all about it and ceiling stones high above. Nothing happened. She kept at it until the hammer's power faded and it dwindled away to nothingness.
Silence hung around her, waiting.
With a sigh, Laeral raised a detection spell, knowing she'd find the throne ablaze with many spells, one atop another. She frowned, took a step forward, and wondered if she dared raise her last flight spell, in case a pit trap or falling block lay waiting.
With a roar, the roof fell in anyway.
Chapter Seventeen
MUCH FIRE IN HELL
This is good fun, wizakd. I would see all of it, magic ok no. Proceed.
As ye wish, [images glowing]
Laeral Jay over stone and under stone. Great blocks from the ceiling had crashed down beside her, atop her, and all around. Dust curled slowly away.
Shrieking pain stabbed from her right leg and from low on her left side. The falling stones must have broken bones.
Echoes of the collapse died away in far, unseen corners of the hall. Her wits had left her for no more than a breath or two. Above her, a tilted stone slab was wedged against another, fallen in a peak that had saved her from crushing death-so far. Past them, by the feeble radiance of her globes of light, she could see the empty stone seat.
Laeral willed her dancing lights to grow fainter, an easy task with pain tearing her concentration to tatters. She lay silent, biting her lip. She was pinned helplessly, unable to move. It would be a long, cold death, after all.
Laeral wondered dully how much longer she'd live. One mistake, just one... and a swift lesson: death takes mages as easily as stable hands.
Please, Mystra: Let it be quick.
Laeral gathered her weakening will for one last sending, to tell her faraway apprentice where her secret spell-books and treasures lay and bid him farewell. The effort cost her the last of her conjured light. She froze in the sudden darkness.
A new sound filled the dusty chamber.
Cold, familiar laughter. Radiance, conjured by another, was born and grew stronger in the room. By it she saw Blaskyn step out of the shadows, the Helm of Hiding gleaming under his arm. He chuckled again, peering toward her.
Hastily Laeral shut her eyes to slits and lay very still. From the first, he had been very good at the blasting spells.
"So ends my apprenticeship," Blaskyn said triumphantly. "The throne's 'mastery of wizardry' shall be mine!"
He strode past Laeral to the stone seat, wearing that easy grin Laeral knew so well.
Then, suddenly, Blaskyn stopped and turned. "She held the rod, her most precious magic," he muttered. His hands moved in quick, sure gestures.
Laeral closed her eyes, raging inwardly. He was far more a master of magic than he'd ever led her to believe.
Laeral felt the rocks above her deftly lift away-a telekinesis spell, no doubt. Crushing weight rose from her, gently and silently. The rocks pinning her down were gone.
With iron will, Laeral resisted the urge to shift to a position of easier rest, stilling the pain. Dead she must appear-or dead she surely soon would be.
She felt the rod twitched from her half-open fingers. "Unbroken? Good," Blaskyn's voice came, from very close above her. Laeral kept her face, twisted in pain, motionless. "Hmm... her rings."
She felt the rings stripped from her fingers, her ex-apprentice sighing in disgust at the blood on them.
Deft fingers wandered over her body, finding the daggers in her boots and the sheath in her bodice where the wand had been. She heard rocks grating as they were moved, and then Blaskyn's disgusted voice again.
"Broken. Well, that leaves only this." The crude, plain pendant she'd worn so long was roughly jerked from around her neck, its thong snapping. "It's some sort of magic; I know that much."
Laeral lay still as his hands wandered over her body. All the Art she had left were a few spells still in her head and a certain magical token, a lone earring hidden in her hair. He'd find it, all too soon, then leave her to die.
Probing fingers found the roughness where her leg was broken and stabbed at it, seeking hidden treasure. The pain! Unable to stop herself, Laeral shuddered, whimpering.
Cruel hands jerked her chin up, shaking her head until Laeral opened pain-racked eyes and stared into the cold, level gaze of her ex-apprentice.
Blaskyn smiled. "Still alive, eh? Well, you'll live long enough to tell me where all your magic lies hidden-and long enough, perhaps, for... other things!"