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"But... your spells still work, then?" he managed to ask, at last.
"Not a one," she said flatly. "I killed them with this." She drew forth the tiny dagger from its sheath at her hip, then threw back her left sleeve to lay bare a long, angry-looking line of pine gum and wrapped linens. "That's how I got this."
"Were these merchants also coming to...to...?" Arunder asked faintly, swaying back on his heels. His hands were trembling like those of a sick old man.
"I went to them," Faeya told him in biting tones, "to beg them to make again the offer you so charmingly refused two months ago. They were good enough to oblige, when they could well have set their dogs on me: the apprentice of the man who turned three of them into pigs for a night."
There were angry murmurs of remembrance and agreement from among the merchants around her. Arunder stepped back and raised a hand to cast a spell out of sheer habit...before dropping it with a look of sick despair.
His lady drew herself up and said more calmly, "So now the deal's done. Your tower and all these lands, from high noon today henceforth, belong to this cabal of merchants, to use as they see fit."
"And-and what happens to me? Gods, woma..."
Faeya held up a hand, and the wizard's ineffectual gibbering ended as if cut off by a knife. Someone chuckled at that.
"We, my lord, are free to live unmolested in the South Spire, casting spells...so long as they harm or work ill upon no one upon this holding...as much as we desire ... or are able to. You, Thess, receive two hundred thousand gold pieces...that's why all of these good men are here...all the firewood we require, and a dozen deer a year, prepared for the table."
Without a word, Hulder Phelbellow laid a sack upon the side table. It landed with the heavy clink of coins. Whaendel the butcher followed him, then, one by one, all of the others, the sacks building up until they were reaching up the wall, atop a table that creaked in protest.
Arunder's eyes bulged. "But… you can't have gold enough, none of you!"
His lady rejoined him in a graceful green shifting, and laid a comforting hand on his arm. "They have a backer, Thess. Now thank them politely. We've some packing to do...or you will be wearing my gowns."
"I-I..."
Her hitherto gentle hand thrust hard into his ribs.
"My lords," Arunder gulped, "I don't know how to thank you..."
"Thessamel," Phelbellow said genially, "you just did. Have our thanks, too...and fare thee well in the South Spire, eh?"
Arunder was still gulping as the merchants filed out, chuckling. The noises he was making turned to whimpers, however, when their withdrawal revealed the man who'd been sitting calmly behind them all the while, the faint glow of deadly magics playing along the naked broadsword that was laid across his knees. That blade was in the capable grasp of the large and hairy hands of the famous warrior Barundryn Harbright, whose smile, as he rose and looked straight into the wizard's eyes, was a wintry thing. "So we meet again, Arunder"
"You...!" the wizard's snarl was venomous.
"You're my tenant now, mage, so spare me the usual hissed curses and spittle. If you anger me enough, I'll take you under my arm down to the stream where the little ones play, and spank your behind until it's as red as a radish. I'm told that won't hamper your spellcasting one bit." One large, blunt-fingered hand waved casually through the air past Arunder's nose.
The wizard blinked in alarm. "What? Who...?".
"Told me so?" Harbright lifted his chin in a fond smile that was directed past Arunder's shoulder.
The Lord of Spells whirled around in time to see Faeya's catlike smile drifting out the door they'd come in by, together. The rest of her accompanied it, a vision in forest green.
Lord Thessamel Arunder moaned, swayed on his feet, and turned, on the verge of tears of rage, to run away from it all...only to come to an abrupt halt, with a squeak of real alarm, as he found himself about to run right into the edge of Harbright's glowing blade.
His eyes rose, slowly and unwillingly, from the steel that barred his way to the huge and hulking warrior who held it. There was something like pity in Barundryn Harbright's eyes as he rumbled, "Why are wizards, with all their wits, so slow to learn life's lessons?"
The blade swept down and away, seeking its sheath, and a large and steadying hand came down on the wizard's shaking shoulder. "Mages tend to live longer, Arunder," Harbright said gently, "if they manage to resist their most attractive temptations."
The Sharrans were begi
"Enough," Elryn bellowed, waving his hands. "Enough, Dreadspells of Shar!" Something had to be saved in case they met with other foes this day...or, gods above, there was someone still alive down there.
The priests-turned-wizards turned their heads in the sudden peace to blink at him, almost as if they'd forgotten who and where they were.
"We have a holy task, Dark Brothers," Elryn reminded them, letting them hear the regret in his voice, "and it is not melting away earth and stone in a forgotten ruin in the heart of a forest. Our quarry is the Chosen, how fares he?"
Three heads peered at roiling dust. All five looked down the shaft where they'd begun, where the dust was but a few flowing tongues. There was rubble down there, and...
One of the Sharrans cried out in disbelief.
The Harper who'd claimed to be Azuth was looking calmly back up at them, standing more or less where he'd been when their barrage began. The three old men, still blinking at him in awe, stood around him. He, they, and the floor around the bottom of the shaft seemed untouched.
"Finished?" he asked quietly, looking up at them with eyes of steady, storm-smoke gray.
Elryn felt cold fear catch at the back of his throat and slide slowly down into the pit of his stomach, but Femter snarled, "Shar take the man!" and snatched a wand from his belt.
Before Elryn or Daluth could stop him, Femter leaned over the well and snarled the word that sent a streak of flame down, down into the gloom below, straight at the upturned face of the gray-eyed man.
The Harper didn't move, but his mouth somehow stretched wider than a man's mouth should be able to... and the flames fell right into him. He shuddered for a moment as all of the fire plunged into his vitals. By the stumbling of the three old men around him, it seemed some sort of magic was keeping them at bay, moving them as he moved.
A moment later the fireball burst with a dull rumbling. The Harper stood with an unconcerned expression on his face as smoke whirled out of his ears.
He gave the watching Sharrans a reproving look and remarked, "Needs a little more pepper."
The Dreadspells were screaming and fleeing wildly even before Azuth lowered his head and looked again across the riven cavern at Elminster. "I mean what I say," he said gravely. "You must get free of her."
"I...can't," Elminster gasped, staring into the dark eyes of Saeraede, as she reared up over him in triumph like some sort of giant snake, twining around him in large and tightening coils.
"And you never will," she breathed triumphantly, her cold lips inches from his. He could feel the chilling frost of her breath on his face as she purred, "With the powers of a Chosen and all the might Karsus left here, I can defy even such as him."
She lifted her head to give Azuth a challenging glare as she clamped one giant hand of solid mist around El's throat. Other tentacles of mist rose around them both in a protective forest, undulating and lashing the tossed and shattered stone slabs.