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"Let's hope it's long enough, a little time," Elryn agreed, "when it comes. Two each?"
They gave the floating sword another long look, slipped carefully past it, and Daluth took the two staves under one arm and pulled out a wand he'd found earlier in the other. The healing circlets bulged in his scrip.
Elryn looked down at Daluth's ready wand, smiled tightly, and quoted the saying, "We dare not trust anyone save Holy Shar herself." As he spoke, he raised the wand already in his own hand into view so that Daluth could see it.
"I mean this for perils I may find beyond the teleport," Daluth said carefully, "not for...closer dangers." His voice changed, sharpening in alarm. " 'Ware the sword!"
Elryn whirled around to find the sword hanging just as before. He was still turning as he heard Daluth add calmly, "Karsus."
The senior Dreadspell sprang wildly sideways, just in case Daluth had found the urge to trigger his wand irresistible and sprawled on a heap of enspelled clothing. Glowing mesh flickered under him as he slithered painfully down it, traveling over an array of sharp points, hastily Elryn clawed his way upright, snatched another look at the sword, and found it still motionless.
He looked around the room, down at the red footprints already begi
Elryn of Shar looked at the shoulders of one, frowning in consideration … then shrugged and began to strip off his own clothes. He'd best hurry, if he was to be swift enough to keep the others out of mischief...or, knowing this lot, just from wandering off without him. Struggling in the growing dimness while trying to keep his eye on the sword floating nearby, Elryn was briefly glad they'd found no mirror that he'd have to look at himself in. He could imagine Avroana's mirth as she watched him battling the unfamiliar garment...and when at last he stood on the letter on the floor, and with one wary eye on that floating blade, uttered the name "Karsus," it was just this snarled side of a heartfelt curse.
The smoking stump of what must have been an old and large duskwood gave mute testimony to the effectiveness of something one of the younger Dreadspells had awakened. Elryn stared at it with dark anger rising in him, but before he could say anything, Femter was thrusting a ring at him excitedly.
"Dark Brother, look! This ring...against the best seeking Brother Daluth can cast...completely cloaks the dweomers of all magic in contact with its wearer! One could go into the presence of a king armed for a beholder war and strike with impunity."
"Such bold stratagems are usually more effective in ballads than in real life," Elryn replied severely, "to say nothing of prudence." He looked for Daluth and found him carefully taking forth one circlet after another from his scrip.
"Ah," the leader of the Dreadspells a
Several more trees suffered in the moments that followed. The healing items all proved to be of more effectiveness than a single use. Two of the staves proved to have no more battle- worthy spells than the ability to spit forth the streaking bolts men called "magic missiles," but the others could unleash beams of ravening fire and explosive bursts of magic … and two of those seemed able to drain touched magic items and even the spells of their wielders upon command, to power their most destructive attacks.
"What shining luck!" Vaelam laughed, blasting a helpless shadowtop sapling to ashes.
"Luck? Holy Shar led us to this spot, Dark Brother," Elryn said severely, playing to the priestesses watching from afar. "Shar guides us always … you will do well never to forget that."
"Of course," Vaelam said hastily, then laughed heartily as the staff in his hands snarled again...and another tree vanished in roiling flames that fell away into streamers of smoke diving down to the leaf mold all around.
"Vaelam of Shar," Elryn said sharply, "stop that wasteful destruction at once. I'd rather not have this forest aflame around us or every druid and mage within a hundred miles appearing around us to give battle. Have you forgotten Iyrindyl's fate already?"
Vaelam grimaced, but he couldn't seem to stop fondling and hefting the staff, like a warrior who's just been handed a superb blade.
"My apologies, Dark Brother," he said, chastened, "I-I got caught up in its power." He licked his lips, firmly grounded the staff, and asked, as if seeking approval, "Do you know how tempting it is just to blast down everything that irritates or stands against you?"
"Yes, Vaelam, as a matter of fact, I do," Elryn replied, and wiggled the wand in his hand...the wand pointed at Vaelam's face...ever so slightly to draw the younger man's eyes. As Vaelam saw, and paled, the senior Dreadspell continued grimly, "It's just one of many such temptations."
Erlyn smiled tightly and thrust the wand back into his belt. "Aye," he added slowly, setting out at a steady pace in the direction of the ruins. "One of many."
He gestured curtly for the Dreadspells to follow. Reluctantly, they did so. Vaelam stopped to cast a longing look back at the stone slab, and the woods beyond it...and found himself looking right into the coldly smiling eyes and leveled staff of Daluth, who was watchfully bringing up the rear.
Vaelam managed a halfhearted smile, but Daluth's eyes grew no warmer. The youngest surviving Dread-spell swallowed, turned, and trudged off toward doom.
"Now, this curling of the leaf, on the other hand, tells you that this is a si..."
Starsunder paused in mid-word and straightened up suddenly, almost knocking his head against Umbregard's. The human mage stumbled hastily back out of the way as the elf threw out his hands.
Still standing dramatically stiff with his arms spread, the moon elf threw back his head and opened his mouth as if trying to taste the sky.
Silence fell. Umbregard watched his statuelike friend for what seemed like a very long time before he dared to ask, "Starsunder?"
"You expect someone else to jump into this body just because I stop moving?" came the mild reproof, as Star-sunder turned his head, spun around, and took hold of Umbregard's arm all in one smooth motion. "Do you know of some body snatching, wizardly peril I'm unaware of?"
"W-where are we going?" Umbregard asked in lieu of a reply, as the slender moon elf practically dragged him around and between trees, dark green half cloak swirling.
"Where we're needed, and urgently," Starsunder said almost absently, urging the human he was towing into a trot.
"And where..." Umbregard was puffing now, even though they were descending a fern-covered slope rather than climbing,"...might that be?"
"In a forest almost as old as this one, across an arm of the sea," Starsunder replied, his voice as calm and his breathing as steady as if he'd been lounging at ease on a giant leaf rather than racing through the woods, leaping fallen trees and roots, and swinging around forest giants. "No place that humans remember a name for."
"Why?" Umbregard almost shouted, sprinting as fast as he ever had in all his life, with the slim elf still half astride faster than he and threatening to drag his arm out of its socket.
"Trees are burning," Starsunder told him with a frown, "suddenly, as if struck by lightning or firestorm, where there's no storm in the sky to do such harm... and here we are!"