Elminster in Hell

-Chest and shoulder," Mhaere added, and he could hear the satisfaction in her voice. "He fled back through the hole in the flames, and they were gone, just like that, and him with them."

Durnan stalked across the room like a hairy panther and pounced on something small on the floor. "Dropping something as he left you," he growled in bafflement, as he picked it up. He was holding a silver harp pin.

"Papa," Tamsil said in her high, clear voice, "I don't ever want to see that man again. How can we stop him ever coming back'"

"The only way you can ever really stop any foe," Durnan muttered, staring at the pin in his hand. "I must find him-and he must die."

My, my, mystra's memories certainly make your toril seem an interesting place. I'm not seeing the magic i seek yet, though, am i?

Chapter Ten

HARPERS HUNT BY MOONLIGHT

The Lady Mage of Waterdeep bent over the silver harp pin on the table, lying amid the eerie, softly raging glows of her spells, and murmured, "There. In a moment, we'll see-"

Obligingly, the pin exploded, bolts of lightning snarling hungrily across the room as the world went white and Laeral's body was hurled helplessly away.

A certain Old Wolf scrambled up out of his chair as the lightning that should have slain Aleena melted and toppled a brazier instead. It was still falling across Mirt's seat when Laeral smashed into him and drove him back into the tangle. They crashed to the floor together, bouncing with tooth-jarring force. Flames flickered briefly here and there around the room and then went out.

Pi

Having absorbed most of the unleashed magic, it was slowly fading back into invisibility. The ceiling above was decorated with a collection of scorch marks that told him little disasters like this one had occurred a time or two before. He wasn't sure if that was reassuring-after all, Blackstaff Tower still stood.

"Lass?" he asked roughly, struggling to get out from under. "Are you well?"

He was answered by three sets of moans and curses, one of them from atop his breast. He took gentle but firm hold of the Lady Mage and thrust her up into the air so he could slide to freedom. "What befell?"

"There was a trap on that pin," Laeral said, panting. She rolled off his hand and found her own wincing way to her knees, "left behind deliberately to harm anyone using spells on it. No Harper would do such a thing. Someone is trying to mislead us all into thinking a Harper killed Resengar."

Mirt nodded. "This fails to surprise me," he said, turning his head to see how Asper and Aleena fared. Beside him, Laeral toppled silently over onto her face.

Flames flared up from her body as it struck the floor, writhing, and Mirt roared out a heartfelt curse and a cry for aid. As he rolled the Lady Mage over, Asper ran for the door-and the alarm-gong on the wall just outside it.

Only his smallest belt flask held water, and Mirt dashed it into Laeral's face and pawed at her nose and cheeks to try to keep the flames at bay-greenish-yellow tongues of hot fire that seemingly rose from nothing. Magical fire, of course, damned wagonloads of praise be to Mystra, and all that. It ignored all of his ineffectual attempts to douse it; though it somehow didn't spread to him, the Old Wolf was heartily glad when the room suddenly filled with stern-faced Tower apprentices.

He was thrust aside in an instant, and the room erupted in tense castings and snapped orders and suspicious

II peering. Their health assured, Asper, Mirt, and Aleena vere thrust into chairs in the most distant corner of the room and sternly bidden to wait and not stir.

Just now, none of them felt like doing anything but sitting dazedly and letting the numb tingling die away. Young apprentices were still scurrying in with more chairs. Hard questioning lay in the future of Laeral's three unexpected late-night guests.

Amid the nervous tumult, a tall figure limped into the room. Aleena rose in a flurry of clanking armor to run to him.

"Gently, 'Leen," Piergeiron cautioned as she rushed to throw her arms around him. Scowling apprentices reached out to claw her back. Piergeiron made straight for the nearest chair, wobbling a little as he came. His face was tight and white with pain.

"Well, young lion?" Mirt said, looking into his eyes.

Those eyes were oddly green, a strangeness that seemed to grow as the Open Lord of Waterdeep collapsed into the chair and gasped, "Perhaps I'll live." As his daughter reached him at last and rained kisses on his face, he caught hold of both chair arms and shook himself, wincing.

"Weak as a gutter kitten," he hissed, waving Aleena back to her chair. "Now, will all the watching gods- or any of the rest of you-kindly tell me just what is going on?"

Mirt held up a hand to forestall anyone else saying anything and turned to the apprentice standing watchfully beside his chair. All four of them had acquired such sentinels, he noted, and they did not look entirely friendly,

"How fares the Lady Laeral?''

"That's not for me to say, merch-" the young wizard began, his voice as cold as the edge of a drawn blade. He fell silent in astonishment as a long, slender hand took hold of his arm from behind, and its owner followed, giving him a quelling look.

"I, too, perhaps will live a bit longer," Laeral told them, a wry smile on her lips. "A clever trap beneath the Harper enchantments-or at least, what I thought were Harper spells." She gave Piergeiron a friendly nod and turned her head to regard Mirt. "You were about to say something important, I believe?"

Mirt nodded and looked in turn to Piergeiron. "Tell us what you last remember-of what befell before you' ended up here."

The paladin drew in a deep, quavering breath, lifted his head to stare thoughtfully at the spell-scorched ceiling, and said, "I was... charmed by a spell, cast by one who came on me unawares, in private. A man, by the mind-touch, young and full of rage and excitement. He forced from my mind the names, faces, and abodes of all the lords of Waterdeep."

Around the circle of chairs and apprentices, there was a silent bristling, a sudden tension that was almost n gasp.

"He thanked me... mockingly," Piergeiron said slowly, remembering, "and then came around from behind me to bow-all sweeping arms and snooty flourishes, a parody of a courtier-and swept a sword from behind his back and ran me through. He wore a mask, and I don't think, if he'd removed it, I would have known him. His blade went through me-"

AJeena hissed in disgust and fear, and her father tlirew her a smile as he continued,"-and struck the back of my chair. That broke the charm, and I roared at him and rose. He tried to slash open my throat, but I managed to draw my own blade-"

Aleena was already holding it out to him, hilt first, in its scabbard. Piergeiron gave her another smile, took it, and laid it across his knees.

".-and he seemed disinclined to cross swords. He threw a spell into my face-force bolts that burned, like daggers stabbing. It threw me to my knees. He (led into the next room. I got there crawling-just in time to see his back foot vanishing through a gate."

"An oval of flickering fire?" Asper asked. "Cold flames? Shrank away after that?1'

Piergeiron gave her a thin smile. "Indeed. Is he a friend of yours?"

Asper gave him a withering look, and his smile broadened. "Forgive me, Lady," he said, "that was unworthy of me-and an insult to you. I fear my jests are apt to be awkward."

"Yet, look you here, Paladinson," Mirt growled, beckoning one of the Tower apprentices over. The wizard blinked back at him until Laeral gestured that he should heed the summons; Mirt gave him a false, sweet smile and plucked the silver harp pin from the man's hand, holding it out to Piergeiron with a flourish. "This matter does question friendships, as it happens."