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El sighed, threw back his head, and stepped forward. Seven nodes blinding in their magical might. Predictable or not, he could not ignore such power and remain Elminster. He smiled, shook his head ruefully... and took another step.
He might well die here, but he could not turn away.
The human was coming nearer. The Great Foe would soon be within reach...but also close to the runes that were too powerful to safely approach.
Too close.
He would probably get only one chance, so it would have to be a shattering blow that even a great god-touched mage could not hope to survive. After all these years, a few days or even months more would matter not at all. The slaying stroke did.
The strike that would reveal him and harm the Foe all at once had to be one that destroyed...or at least ruined his foe into something powerless but aware-aware of the pain he would then deal to it at leisure, and of who was harming it during that long, dark time ... and why.
So wait a bit more, like a patient ghost in the shadows.
Two dark eyes that blazed like two inky flames of fury peered from the depths of one of the darkest clefts in the rear of the cavern and watched the wary wizard step forward to his doom.
Years consumed by the ache to avenge, the gnawing need that ruled him night and day … years that had all come down to this.
"Yes, Vaelam?" Dreadspell Elryn asked, his voice dangerously soft and silky. A long, tense creeping advance to a ruin where powerful foes were almost certainly waiting for them had not improved his temper-especially after one of his boots had found its first muddy, water-filled old burrow hole. That had occurred three paces before his other boot found the second. He'd lost count, since then, of how many creeper thorns had torn at him and raked across his hands and face ... and all of it, of course, watched sneeringly from afar by the cruel upperpriestesses of the House, among them the Darklady herself.
Vaelam was practically dancing with excitement, his eyes large and round. The foreguard of the Sharran "wizards" was a thin, soft-spoken priest, both careful and thorough in his duties. He was more excited, now, than Elryn had ever seen him.
"Dark Brother," he hissed excitedly, "I've found something."
"No," Elryn murmured, frowning, "Really? You do surprise me."
"It's a stone," Vaelam continued, astonishingly not catching Elryn's thick sarcasm at all...or displaying uncommonly swift skill at hiding his recognition of it. "A stone with writing on it."
"Writing that says . .. ?"
"Well, ah, just one letter actually...but one as long as a man is tall. It's a 'KT
"No!" Femter gasped sarcastically. "Could it be?"
"Brother, it is," Vaelam confirmed. He seemed genuinely oblivious to their derision.
"Show us," Elryn ordered curtly, and raised his voice a trifle. "Brothers, move slowly, keep apart, and watch the trees around. I don't want us crowded together when someone strikes from hiding. If we arrange things so that one fireball might take care of all of us, a hostile mage might not be able to resist his opportunity, hmm?"
"Aye," Daluth murmured, at the same time as someone else...Elryn couldn't tell who...muttered, "Thinks of everything, our Elryn."
Dark thoughts or not, the "wizards" of Shar reached the stone slab Vaelam had found without incident. It lay between two mossy banks, almost entirely covered with years of rotting, fallen leaves, but the K could clearly be seen. The deep-graven letter sprawled across a little more ground than one of the ornate temple chairs would cover, the stone slab seemed both old and huge.
Elryn leaned forward, not bothering to hide his own swift-rising excitement. Magic. This had to have something to do with magic, strong magic ... and magic was what they were here for.
"Uncover it all," he ordered and stood back prudently to watch as this was done. The stone proved to be as long across, or longer, than a man laid out straight on his back, and twice that in the other direction, as well as being...at the one point where the ground dipped, along its edges...at least as thick as the length of a short sword.
When they were done uncovering it, the Sharrans stared at the massive slab . .. and it lay there patiently looking back at them.
It knew who would blink first.
After the silence grew uncomfortably long and the lesser priests started snatching sidelong glances at their leader, Elryn sighed and said, "Daluth, work the spell that wizards use to reveal magic. I can see no trigger to this...but there must be one."
Daluth nodded and did so. Elryn was as shocked as everyone else when he raised his head slowly and said, "No magic at all. None upon yon slab or around it. Nothing but what few things we carry, within reach of my spell."
"Impossible," Elryn snapped.
Daluth nodded. "I agree … but my spell ca
As Elryn stood glaring at him, there was a common gasp of relief...of held breaths let out...from the other Sharrans, and they strode forward to stand on the slab as if it had been calling to them.
Elryn whirled, a shout of warning rising to his lips... a shout that died unuttered. The priests under his command strode across the slab, scraped their boot heels on it, stomped and strolled, staring about at the trees as if the slab was an enspelled lookout that gave them some sort of special sight. No bolts of lightning burst from the stone to slay them, and none of them shifted shape, screamed, or acquired unusual expressions on their faces.
Instead, one by one, they shrugged and fell silent, blinking at each other and back at Elryn, until Hrelgrath said what they were all thinking: "But there must be some magic here, some purpose for this...and it can't be the lid of a tomb, or you'd need a dragon to lift it on and off."
Daluth raised a brow. "And because we have no dealings with dragons, no one does? What if this is some sort of storage box built by a dragon, for its own use?"
'In the midst of a forest? Right out in the open and down low, not girt about with rock? Admitting my unfamiliarity with wyrms, that still feels wrong to me," Femter replied. "No, this smacks of the work of men... or dwarves working for men, or mayhap even giants skilled at stonemasonry."
"So what or who doth the 'K' refer to?" Vaelam burst out. "A king, or a realm?"
"Or a god?" Daluth echoed quietly, and something in his voice brought all eyes upon him.
"Kossuth? In a forest?" Hrelgrath said in puzzled tones.
"Nay, nay," Vaelam said excitedly. "What was the name of that mage in the legend, who defied the gods to steal all magic and become himself lord over all magic? Klar ... no, Karsus."
And as that name left the young Sharran's mouth, he vanished, gone in the instant ere he could draw breath. The slab where he had stood, so close between Femter and Hrelgrath that they could easily have jostled elbows with him, was empty.
Those two brave and steadfast priests sprang and sprinted away from the slab with almost comical haste, as Daluth nodded grimly, his eyes fixed on the spot where Vaelam had stood, and Elryn said slowly, "Well, well …"
The four remaining priests stared at the slab in silence for a few tense moments before the most exalted Dreadspell said almost gently, "Daluth, stand upon the letter and utter the name Vaelam did."
Daluth cast a quick glance at Elryn, read in his face that this was a clear and firm order, and did as he was bid. Femter and Hrelgrath shifted uneasily as they watched their most capable comrade wink out of existence, and the appropriate one couldn't suppress a low groan of fear when Elryn said, "Now do likewise, Hrelgrath."
Hrelgrath was trembling so with fear that he could barely shape the name "Karsus," but he vanished as swiftly and utterly as his predecessors. Femter shrugged and strode onto the slab without waiting for an order, looking back for Elryn's nod of assent when he'd planted his boots squarely in the center of the giant letter. The nod was given, and another false wizard disappeared.