Part 37 (2/2)
Mystra be with me.
Or...will I join her?
Elminster swam back to consciousness again. The pain was even worse, this time.
The armor was torn and crumpled where it wasn't missing. He was burned in all those bare places, yet s.h.i.+vering. He lay on the cold hard smoothness, feeling life run out of him...slow, sticky, and inexorable.
The faint glows of the tombs were gone...or was his sight merely dimming as he started to die?
No, there was new light.
Fey witchlight.
Alusair had arrived, and her ghostly glow with her.
”Hail, fair princess,” he murmured, trying to smile.
Metal clinked and tinkled; Alusair was fighting to pluck away shards of Duar's shattered armor that kept falling through her fingers.
”d.a.m.ned magic!” she hissed. ”Once I could command this entire palace-and now I can't farruking pick up a stlarning plate of armor!” plate of armor!”
”How...mighty...fallen,” Elminster offered, choking on welling blood.
”Hey, now, Old Mage,” the ghostly Steel Princess replied tenderly, her face floating perhaps a hand's length away from his, ”rest easy. If you're fated to die here, at least you'll die clowning around in stolen armor-and if we kiss and cuddle as much as I can manage, you'll go in the arms of a la.s.s trying to make love to you. Isn't that what most men want?”
”Not...dead...yet,” Elminster managed. ”But so d.a.m.ned...weak...”
Which was when a feeble whisper rose from the open door in front of them both, and something dark slithered into view. A wraith, a dark cloud barely able to lift itself far enough off the flagstones to drift, creeping like smoke toward them.
”And how d'you think I I feel?” it asked testily. feel?” it asked testily.
It was a voice they both knew.
Vangerdahast.
The whisper was coming from all that was left of him. He was obviously a Dragon no longer. And just as obviously barely alive-or barely undead-too.
”Elminster,” Alusair said insistently, ”use the codpiece! Heal yourself, before it's too late!”
Elminster blinked at her, nodded almost absently, obeyed-a glow that brought some measure of relief promptly was.h.i.+ng over him-and went back to staring at the dark wraith-thing on the floor. It was looking back at him with what seemed to be a lopsided grin.
”Again,” the ghostly princess commanded, and Elminster obeyed, the pain ebbing still more.
”Vangerdahast?” he asked in disbelief, peering hard.
”Aye,” came the growled reply. ”There'd be a lot less of me if Myrmeen hadn't loved me enough to force the last of her life into me. Yet she did, so this is all that's left of Vangerdahast, once Royal Magician and Court Wizard of Cormyr. Ruler of a dark and empty closet of a crypt, these last few years. Ever since that snake who stole my ring sealed me in.”
”Who?” Elminster demanded weakly. ”Who did it?”
”His name,” Vangerdahast hissed, ”I know not. Nor did I see his face. Yet he works here at the palace-I feel the ring near too often for his station to be anything else-and schemes to bring down the Obarskyrs, and fartalks Sembians who send him coin and give him commands, and orders foolheaded young n.o.bles to do the butchery. Which will befall at a council of some sort, by his recent talk.”
Alusair and Elminster exchanged glances. ”And what else did you overhear?”
”Nothing useful. I can hear only through the ring, and only for moments ere I collapse into wisps, exhausted, and must spend agonizingly long gathering myself together again.”
”Is...” Elminster realized how helpless he felt. ”Can I help ye, somehow?”
”Leave me the codpiece. I can feed on that and gather myself to carry it. I'll scare a few guards when they see a disembodied codpiece floating feebly along the pa.s.sages.”
Alusair chuckled. ”I can carry small things, briefly; I could carry your cod.”
”Then let's be going places,” Vangerdahast said faintly. ”How soon's this council?”
”Highsun on the morrow,” El and Alusair chorused grimly.
The dark, wispy cloud that was Vangerdahast somehow managed to look disgusted.
”Always charging in at the last instant, aren't you?” he asked Elminster. ”When it comes to my Cormyr, couldn't you dispense with the dramatics, for once? Just once?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.
RUNE, RUNE, GONE A AWAY.
Alusair had never thought the palace cellars were so big big before. She had very little strength and solidity left to call on, to try to drag the crawling, badly wounded Elminster along. before. She had very little strength and solidity left to call on, to try to drag the crawling, badly wounded Elminster along.
The chill of her touch was obviously causing him pain; he was gasping as well as s.h.i.+vering, his face twisted. They'd left Vangerdahast behind a long time before, or so it seemed, but, were only-what?-three pa.s.sages along.
As they turned into a fourth, Alusair sighed at what they'd all been reduced to. ”Are you going to last as far as where the healing magics are cached?”
<script>