Spellfire

Then a great hand loomed in the air before Manshoon, and before he could even groan, Orlgaun’s flight had swept him into it with stu

A broken wand and a dagger spun down out of the air as the dragon screamed shrilly and thundered past above them. Merith turned in the wind of its passing and said, “Now!” almost laughing, as he dispelled the protective barriers about the mage. Jhessail nodded, lifted a wand of her own, and breathed its word of command gently over it, her eyes on the mage. Magic missiles hissed forth, twisting and turning in the air to follow the slumped mage clinging to the back of the great black dragon. The huge disembodied fist hung in the air by his shoulder and moved with him. Elminster followed it with his eyes and frowned in concentration, but a smile was playing about a corner of his mouth.

Orlgaun swept around again, and Manshoon rose in his saddle, roaring his rage and pain as he spat the necessary word and the wand spewed lightnings. The fist struck at him again, and Manshoon was hurled back against Orlgaun’s rough scales by the blow. He had a brief glimpse of the foe in armor flying up and at him, again, that long sword swinging…

Orlgaun saved him, striking out in fear with one wing at the darting creature that had so hurt it before. The point of Florin’s blade skittered harmlessly across the dragon’s scales. It struck at him and then, with a flapping of wings, rolled swiftly away.

Far below, Jhessail said the last words of a spell of flight as she touched her husband’s forehead. Merith kissed her before he sprang aloft, blade flashing, to join the fray.

As he knelt by the moaning forms of Torm and Rathan, Lanseril was calmly using his own art to summon insects to attack the enemy mage. Ten paces away, Narm stared at him helplessly as the battle raged overhead. The great dragon slashed at Florin with its claws, cartwheeling across the sky with mighty beats of its wings. Merith Strongbow was flying after it as fast as he could, while the unca

Lanseril finished his spell, pointed at Manshoon carefully, and then turned his attention again to healing his companions. Jhessail raised her wand again and then staggered as the lightning struck. The ground shook as something the mage had hurled exploded in front of Elminster, and Narm shielded Shandril desperately with his own body as stones flew. A stone struck his shoulder, and then his back, with numbing force, and he had not even time to sag before something else hit him on the temple. His eyes saw red, deepening steadily into… darkness…

Half a world away, Khelben Arunsun and Malkhor Harpell, great mages both, looked at each other across the aged parchment between them as they felt roiling art echoing in their blood. With one accord they turned to the crystal ball that stood at hand. The room about them, high in Blackstaff Tower in the great city of Waterdeep, fell silent as the two mages stared intently into the crystal, and the great lords gathered there waited to learn what had occurred.

In Candlekeep, near the sea, the Keeper of the Tomes looked up from pages of stamped and burnished electrum as the soft glow of the runes of power they bore flickered.

The First Reader had seen it too, and fallen silent in his translation. The two men looked at each other in the dark, dusty round room that was the i

“Great art, somewhere, contending with great art,” the First Reader said quietly, and the Keeper nodded.

“Aye,” he said grimly, “and what changes will it bring this time?”

The question hung unanswered in the room with them for a long time before they could begin reading again.

Orlgaun wheeled again, and Manshoon shook where he sat on the broad, scaled back from the aftereffects of the mighty disjunction he had worked. The hand that had nearly slain him was gone, as were the other, lesser magics that had assailed him-but below on the rocks, the old mage and the younger maid still stood calmly. Their hands moved again in the gesture of spell-weaving, and the elf and the ranger still flew after him, low and beneath Orlgaun’s body where he could not reach them, one on either side.

Manshoon snarled in frustration and tore another globe from the necklace he wore as the black dragon dove again toward his enemies. Orlgaun moved more slowly and heavily with each pass. Both spells and steel had struck the dragon, and struck deeply. The black dragon had felt nothing worse than the sting of arrows for a long time. Nor have I met such resistance in a fair while, Manshoon thought darkly, as he hurled the globe he held. He then watched magic missiles rise up toward him in a bright dancing group of lights. He was powerless to stop them.

Behind him he heard Merith’s triumphant song as the elf thrust his blade between two of Orlgaun’s armored scales. Manshoon turned, raising his wand, but Florin was there, sword sweeping out. The blade burned across the lord’s fingers like liquid fire, and Manshoon saw the wand whirl harmlessly away in the air amid droplets of his own blood just before the magic missiles struck.

The dragon rider’s globe exploded with stu

Under Narm’s heavy weight, Shandril was jolted into confused awareness of the tumult around her. Where was she now? Wearily she wriggled into the light, scarcely aware that she was pushing away a body, and completely unaware that it was Narm. She saw dust swirl everywhere. In the open pit of tumbled rocks and coins before her Elminster stood calmly, facing to her right and looking upwards.

Shandril peered upward, and saw a dark form approaching rapidly. It was Merith, blade in hand. He was flying somehow, and was hurrying. He seeks Jhessail, Shandril thought dully as she saw his dark, anxious face and where he was headed. Jhessail had just sagged down onto a rock, pain showing on her face.

But beyond the hurrying elf, in midair, Florin was flying with the aid of his shield, and as he hung from it he struck, again and again, at someone who was riding a gigantic black dragon. Whoever it was twisted this way and that under Florin’s blows until suddenly he straightened with a roar of triumph and there was a flash. Florin was hurled end over end through the air like a husk doll. The dragon turned ponderously under its rider’s urging, and thundered down out of the sky at Elminster.

The old mage stood alone. No, not alone, thought Shandril, as she felt roiling fire deep within her where there should have been nothing left. It glinted briefly in her eyes. Not while I live. She struggled to her knees, set her teeth, and pointed her arms at the mage on the dragon. She felt sick and as weak as a newborn kitten, and her head throbbed piercingly, but she could feel the fire flowing within her. Let it be as it was before, she thought. Whoever you are, evil one, burn! Burn! How dare you harm my friends!

She had screamed that last aloud, she realized dimly, as the last of the spellfire roared up out of her in a bolt of crackling fire that drained her utterly. Her knees gave way, and she could not even see if she had struck true as she fell on her face on the rocks.

Manshoon stared at the bolt in astonishment, an instant before it hit him. And then all he could do in the teeth of the blinding roar was scream.