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Ghostly lips seemed to tremble and gasp. When her voice soared out once more, it held the high, singing note of one who has triumphed over pain. "I am Saeraede … Saeraede Lyonora. I am bound here, so long I know not how many years have passed."
At the last few words, she seemed to grow dimmer and sank back into the rune as far as her shoulders.
"Who bound ye here?" Elminster asked, casting a quick look at the empty, watchful darkness all around. Aye, that was it, he could not shake the feeling that he was being watched ... and not merely by the dark and spectral eyes floating near his feet.
"I was bound by the one who made these runes," the whispering shade told him. "Mine is the will and essence that empowers them, as the seasons pass."
"Why were ye bound?" El asked quietly, staring into eyes that seemed to hold tiny stars in their depths, as they melted pleadingly into his.
Her answer, when it came, was a sigh so soft that he barely heard it. Yet it came clearly: "Karsus was cruel."
The eyebrows of the last prince of Athalantar flew up. He knew that name. The Proudest Mage of All, who in his mad folly had dared to try to seize the power of godhood and suffered everlasting doom.
The name Karsus meant peril to any mage of sense. Elminster's eyes narrowed, and he stepped back and forthwith murmured a spell. Bound spirit, undead, wizardly shade or living woman, he would know truth when she spoke it...and falsehood. Of course, this Saeraede was likely to have been a sorceress of some accomplishment, perhaps an apprentice or rival of Karsus, for her to have been chosen for such a binding. She would know he'd just cast a truthtell.
Their eyes met in shared knowledge, and Elminster shrugged. She would answer as truthfully as she could, concealing only by her brevity. Like dueling swordsmen, they'd have to weigh each other's words and fence carefully. He cast a spell he should have used before entering the shaft, calling up a mantle of protection around himself, and stepped forward again.
Unseen beyond the faint shimmer of his mantle, fresh fury flared in eyes watching from the deep darkness at the back of the cavern.
"What will or must ye do, if freed?" El asked the head.
"Live again," she gasped. "Oh, man, free me!"
"What will freeing ye do to the runes?"
"Awaken them once each," the ghostly head moaned, 'and they'll then be exhausted."
"What powers have the awakened runes?"
They call up images of Karsus, who instructs all who view them in ways of magic. Karsus meant them for the education of his clone, hidden here."
"What became of it?" El asked sharply, hurrying to hear her answer as the truthtell ran out.
Dark, star-shot eyes stared steadfastly into his. 'When awareness returned to me after my binding...a long time had passed, I think...I found it headless and wizened on the throne. I know not how it came to be that way."
His spell had failed before the second word had left those phantom lips, but somehow El believed her.
"Saeraede, how do I free ye?" he asked.
"If you have a spellquench or another unbinding, cast it upon me … not on the rune, but on me."
"And if I lack such magics?"
Those dark eyes flickered. "Stand over me, so that your mantle touches the rune, and I am within it. Then cast a magic missile, and let its target be the rune. In what follows, you should be unharmed...and I, freed. Be warned: 'twill cost you your mantle."
"Prepare thyself," Elminster told her, and stepped over her.
"Man, I have been waiting for an age, it seems, I am well prepared. Touch not the rune with your boots."
The last prince of Athalantar made sure his feet were clear of the glowing sigil, and made a careful casting. Blue-white radiance surged around him, roiling and tugging, the rune beneath him flared to blinding brilliance, and he heard Saeraede gasp.
Her breathing was ragged and swift as she surged up into the collapsing mantle beside him. As El stepped back, he saw wild delight in her face. All of the magic seemed to be rushing into her, and with each passing moment she grew more solid ... more substantial. Her flickering, wraithlike form grew whole and acquired a dark gown. She was broad of shoulders, slim-waisted, and as tall or taller than he, her hair was an unbound, waist-length flow of velvet black, her brows startlingly dark tufts above eyes of leaping green. Her face was proud and lively...and very, very beautiful.
"Hail, savior mage," she said, eyes glowing with gratitude, as the last fires of magic fled into her. A single tongue of flame escaped from between her lips as she spoke. "Saeraede stands in your debt." She hesitated, reaching out one slender hand. "May I know your name?"
"Elminster, I am called," El told her, keeping a careful pace out of reach.
"Elminster," she breathed, eyes sparkling, "oh, have my thanks."
She hugged herself, as if scarcely believing that she was whole and solid once more...and stepped forward off the rune. Her feet seemed to have grown spike-heeled, pointed black boots.
The moment she moved off it, the rune erupted. A column of white fire burst up from it, twice the height of a man, and smoke surged out in all directions from its snarling. Elminster took a pace back, eyes narrowing...and something unseen in the darkness of a deep crevice stirred and made as if to spring forth ... but remained where it was, not all that far from the mage's unsuspecting back.
"Saeraede," El snapped, keeping his eyes on the unfolding magic, "what is this?"
"The magic of the rune," she replied, smiling at him. "Karsus prepared it to impress intruders. 'Tis harmless, a parade of illusions. Watch."
She turned to look at the column of flame, folding her arms, mild interest on her face. As she did so, the surging smoke seemed to freeze and thicken.
The archway of glowing runes solidified out of the smoke and air with startling swiftness. It occurred behind the fiery column, framing it, a wall that looked every bit as old and as solid as those of the cavern around...but hovered a few feet above the smooth stone floor. The runes around the arch matched those graven on the floor, save that all were afire, and even spitting lightning … the risen lightning of awakened magic, now crawling between them almost continuously.
Saeraede stood calmly watching, and El, struck by a sudden thought, glided to her elbow and indicated the empty throne. "Will ye sit, lady?"
Saeraede gave him a dazzling smile, raised a hand in wordless thanks...not quite touching him...and sat upon the throne. No change in it, or her, was apparent to El's intent eyes. Hmmm, well. Nothing learned there.
As Saeraede crossed her legs and leaned back in ease upon the stone seat, the column of flame grew a face...a youthful face ringed by tousled hair and the stubble of a beard aborning, its eyes two points of blazing gold. They were fixed on the throne, and when Elminster swung his left arm in a sudden, wild flourish, the eyes did not move to follow it.
The air in the cavern was suddenly alive with a singing tension. The proud mouth opened, and the voice that issued from it crashed and rolled like thunder through Elminster's mind as well as through the cavern. "I am Karsus! Behold me, and fear. I am The Lord of Lords, a God Among Men, Arcanist Supreme. All magic is my domain, and all who work it or trifle with it without my blessing shall suffer. Begone, and live. Tarry, and the first and least of my curses shall begin its work upon you forthwith, gnawing memories from your brain until naught is left but a sighing shadow."
Elminster looked sharply at Saeraede at those last words, but she sat calmly watching as the hair on the flaming head spat a halo of lightning out to the runes, the echoes of its mighty voice still rolling around the cavern as they faded, leaving it shaking and dust-ridden. They burst into showers of sparks and fell, taking the illusion of the arch and its wall with them.