Страница 97 из 111
"Rauldron may enter," Ambelter called, making his voice loud, imperious, and grandly welcoming. "We shall speak alone, ere you admit the others."
The doorpriest knew by now to close the door firmly between each arrival, and keep the other priests well back from it. Long-laid and powerful enchantments made scrying into this chamber difficult; no one would be casually eavesdropping from outside. Wherefore Rauldron, like all of the others before him, was doomed.
The Spellmaster of All Aglirta smiled as the doors opened to admit a slightly frowning priest. Handsome, dark-haired, and keen-featured, with eyes that darted everywhere. Yet empty-handed, and alone. Ambelter's smile broadened. This was truly like skewering flatfish from a feast platter…
"Welcome, Lord Rauldron," he began, gesturing toward the front bench. "Though unfamiliar to you, I have been charged with a most sacred mission by Caronthom 'Fangmaster' and Raunthur the Wise. It involves you and all of the other important priests of our faith, and-"
The doors were closing. Ambelter strode to the bench, deliberately exposing his well-shielded back to his guest. When he was seated, Rauldron should be in just the right spot for an easy Dwaer-drain. Why, he was getting quite deft at this…
The fire snatched the Spellmaster off his feet, shredding his shieldings as if they were nothing more than mist, and flung him headlong into the bench with bone-shattering force.
Luckily, Ingryl's own hand was already on his Dwaer, and his hastily spun shield drove the bench before him, shattering it into great shards as it smashed into the next bench, and that one in turn to the next.
In the grinding heart of their destruction, Ingryl Ambelter whirled, his rage and Dwaer-fire rising together.
Lord of the Serpent Rauldron gri
And then his foe's Dwaer-attack fell on him with the crushing force of a hammer, stabbing through his crackling, flaming shieldings in a dozen places.
The Spellmaster shrieked in fear and spun frantic Dwaer-fire around himself, whirling it in a spiral that-yes, thank the Three! -caught up the bolts reaching for him and whisked them around and around him to augment his own armor.
Ambelter's own slashing counterbolt went hopelessly awry, twisted by the maelstrom of magic around him, and cracked its way along the front wall of the room, slamming the door open and scorching its way into the far corner, where it clawed mightily at the stones and spent itself.
His foe lashed him with a Dwaer-spell that rent his whirlwind as if it was nothing-a nothing that flashed blindingly and rocked the chamber again with the shrill shriek of its dying. The Spellmaster flung himself aside and spun himself a better shield, hurling another bolt at his foe-or so he desired Gadaster to think.
In truth, this bolt was but a shell of the one he'd hurled before. It took the same flashing path as its predecessor, as the man who was not Rauldron strode forward, weaving another Dwaer-spell, but veered out the open door while just a small and snarling offshoot raced on to the corner.
The other priests were in the audience chamber outside, eyeing each other in open fear as the battle raged in front of them-and Ambelter's draining bolt fell on them like the clutching fingers of a desperate man, splitting to strike every man there.
One of them had time to hurl a magic back into the chamber, a net of fanged serpent-mouths that Gadaster casually destroyed. He sent back a flood of lightning, and as the priests stood rooted, struggling against Ambelter's draining magic, that river of lightning struck them all at the knees, hurled them to the stone floor, and slew them. Ambelter's drain-tendrils greedily took their lives.
Even as Gadaster struck at him again and the Spellmaster was forced to retreat, his shieldings faltering and failing in showers of sparks and blossoming darkness, Ingryl Ambelter felt new energies-the stolen vitality of the priests on the threshold-come raging into him, followed by something else.
Something large, and deep, and dark. Something that made him tremble at its very touch. More power than he'd ever tasted before, shuddering into him, making him strong, and cold, and… and…
INGRYL AMBELTER, a god whispered in his head.
"Y-yes?"
YOU KNOW ME, AS ALL MEN KNOW ME.
"Yes, Dark One!"
YOU HAVE SEIZED POWER ENOUGH. I AM PLEASED. BE NOW THE "GREAT SERPENT," IF IT AMUSES YOU TO BE SO.
And the Thrael opened out around him, thrumming and vast and-thrilling. In the heart of clashing Dwaer-fire, even as Gadaster's attack stabbed into him and agonies that should have slain him surged through him, Ingryl Ambelter beheld… and gasped. So this was what he'd been missing! Not just Stones of trapped and frozen power, but a living web of magic, with awareness of its own, great-
And suddenly that great weight of darkness was gone from his mind, without even bothering to utter, "Or else."
Ingryl Ambelter rose out of what he now realized had been an awestruck daze, and gathered his newfound power around himself. So this is what it was, to be a Great Serpent!
With a bellow of exulting laughter, the Spellmaster of All Aglirta hurled a bolt that should easily destroy his former master, Dwaer and all!
A flash was born beyond his spread fingertips, and then a mighty roar arose and went on and on, as the far wall of the scorched chamber vanished, the ceiling fell into his bolt and suffered the same fate, and sunlight flooded in to show him room after passage after great chamber of the building beyond vanishing into rubble and emptiness, the sheared-off edges slowly collapsing inward with ground-shaking thunder.
The sunlight also flashed back from something small and bright and whirling, that hung in the air much closer to him. At a spot where Gadaster-in the Bowdragon maid's stolen body-might well have been.
Ingryl peered at it, and then nodded grimly. Gadaster had teleported away and left behind a shimmering wildfield-just as he himself had done when fleeing his lair, to keep the cursed Band of Four from following. Should he try to use his Dwaer to trace and follow, he'd be whirled away to a random elsewhere.
Ah, but what if he called on the Thrael instead?
Shimmering in his mind, it waited, but Ingryl saw in a moment both its lure-he could spend oblivious days racing along its flows, examining this new magic, and that-and its unsuitability.
No doubt he could trace his foe's teleport, given hours of looking or lucky anticipation of where Gadaster might be headed, so that he looked first in just the right place… But what, during those hours, would his onetime master be doing? Teleporting again almost immediately, for one thing…
Bah! What need had he now, to concern himself with such trifles? Let the skull-wizard strut around in his stolen wench-body! Ingryl Ambelter might have had to worry about a walking skeleton with wiles and a Dwaer, but the Great Serpent could laugh at the worst Gadaster Mulkyn could do!
Ambelter's own Dwaer blazed with a fierce, triumphant flame in his hand, and he laughed as he looked down at it, half-drunk on the dark, whispering power raging in him. It would always rage there, making him as restless and as mighty as he was now…
Letting him do-this!
He gave in to the whispering urgings and grew, transforming himself, towering up over what was left of the riven temple walls, becoming serpentine and giant, a Great Serpent in truth.