Ed Greenwood - Shadows of Doom

"Besides," the undead mistress of Spellgard added as she led the way from the balcony along a narrow, dark hall, waving aside cobwebs, and down a crumbling stair, "there are things I must tell you before I grow tired of your fearful looks, you young three. I'm an archlich, not one of your evil lichnee. I don't eat people, or chill the life from them, or steal their spells or souls, or suchlike. It's quite safe to touch me."

"Aye," Elminster agreed absently. Saharel favored him with a look. Elminster's companions all saw it, in the darkness, by the light the archlich had begun to shed. Her hair and white flesh seemed to glow with a faint silvery radiance.

They noticed another curious thing. As Saharel walked along, her arm now linked with Elminster's, she seemed to grow more substantial with each passing breath. Her silvery skin seemed to expand into the smooth curves of a tall, beautiful woman. Her face now seemed almost whole, and her eyes more the orbs of a living maiden than two weird, twinkling lights in the empty eye sockets of a skull.

"If I may ask," Sharantyr ventured as they turned into a rubble-strewn gallery and walked on over the fallen, dusty ruins of arched double doors into a darker chamber, "what did that look mean, Lady? Or is it something private between you?"

The archlich, who swept along like a silvery beacon in the gloom before her, looked back. "It was, once. This old rogue of yours had the temerity to break my defensive spells and walk in upon me one night. In time, we… came to be lovers."

One silvery hand, not quite all flesh yet, stroked Elminster's cheek. Itharr shivered despite himself as they strode on in the darkness, and his hand crept to the hilt of his sword.

"It seemed the best way to end our rivalry," Elminster murmured.

Saharel laughed. "So calculating, Old Spellhurler? You seemed rather… warmer, at the time."

Elminster came to a sudden halt. Three swords grated out of their scabbards in response, but Saharel scarce had time to look her reproach their way before Elminster swept her into a tight embrace and kissed her. The tensely watching Sharantyr reflected, with sudden rueful amazement, that this is what bards meant when they sang "kissed deep, and with passion." Their lips met and clung, and Saharel began to moan and murmur in Elminster's embrace, and move against him, her tall body swaying.

Itharr coughed loudly and said to Belkram, "Did you notice, back in the dale, that the price of potatoes was a full two coppers above what the merchants were selling them for in Shadowdale?"

"Aye," Belkram agreed brightly. "That I did, and commented on the fact to one shopkeeper. A bad harvest, he told me, and higher transportation costs. They ship entire wagonloads of manure up from Sembia, you know, to dress their fallow fields."

"Wagonloads? Sembia has that to spare?"

"Well, all those people, crowded together in the coastal cities. It can't all flow out to sea, you know. When the gratings and sewers and all back right up, they set to work with shovels, and start thinking of the High Dale. Then, of c-"

"Do you gentle sirs mind?" Elminster asked testily. "You're worse than Azoun's jesters! I'd like to kiss my old friend a time or two in dignified silence… if it's not too much trouble."

Three mouths opened to reply, but their chance was forever swept away from them in the tumult that abruptly followed.

The floor ahead of them erupted into a rising pillar of red, swirling flames-flames that wailed with the tortured voices of unseen men. The room shook, and dust and small stones fell from the unseen ceiling above.

Three swords flashed back reflected firelight before blue-white, blinding lightning spat out of the pillar and snaked three long, frighteningly fast fingers out to kiss the drawn steel.

Three swords blazed with cold fire, and three throats screamed in agony. Dazed and burned, scarcely clinging to life, Sharantyr and the two Harpers dropped their smoking weapons, staggered, and fell.

Deep laughter roared and echoed from the flames, and a voice that boomed around the chamber bellowed, "Ah, but it feels good indeed to fell those dear to you, Elminster of Shadowdale! I'll make you suffer before I steal the very wits from you!"

"Manshoon!" Elminster said in disgust to the archlich in his arms. "He'll never grow up, I fear. All this grand voice and needless cruelty… like a small child playing at being a wizard."

"A small child, Elminster, is what you'll be," the booming voice continued, an edge of anger in it now, "after I send a mindworm into your mouth to eat its way up into your brain and steal all your thoughts, to make them mine!"

Elminster made a rude sound and waggled his fingers in a certain old gesture much used by small children everywhere. Gently he disengaged himself from Saharel and took out his pipe.

A bolt of lightning snatched it away from him.

"Oh, no, you don't, 'Old Mage.' I watched you earlier. Think yourself clever, don't you, with your rings and your spheres and your little pipe? Stumbling along from droll little joke to impressive little phrase, hiding your lost Art behind cryptic words and wands that are almost drained now, aren't they? What a feeble fool you've become! Scarce worth my taking on the spells to defeat you." As the great voice rolled across the room, the faint cries in the flames died away. Manshoon's cruel magic had drained the last life energy from certain unwitting Zhentarim mages-those he deemed his most powerful rivals-all over Faerun. Their energies had brought him here to triumph. The flames drifted nearer and grew brighter. "You can't trick me, Elminster. And you can't hope to stand against my magic. This is the end of you, finally. The defeat and utter destruction of the much-vaunted Elminster at the hands of the Zhentarim he hates so much. At the hands of Manshoon."

There followed much laughter. Sharantyr, lying in darkness with the healing ring Elminster had put there earlier glinting on her finger and the stench of her burned hair heavy in her nostrils, heard it faintly as she struggled back to consciousness.

"You won't trick me as you did Bellwind. I'll take your power and your knowledge both, through the worm, and not link our minds. You cannot escape, Elminster. You are doomed."

"Oh, no," came a soft reply. "Doom will come here, indeed, but I believe you have mistaken the being who will fall."

Not far from the shaken, smoldering Old Mage stood the archlich, tall and erect, a silvery glow around her wasted, bony form. She stood proud and fearless, and from her outstretched hands streams of silver radiance erupted, arcing toward the pillar of flame.

"That is not your only mistake, Manshoon," the soft voice continued. "Your first was coming uninvited into my home. Here, my power is supreme."

The silvery radiance was expanding into a gigantic shield of light, englobing the flames. Bolts of lightning and great blades of shimmering white force sprang out of the fiery pillar, but the silver glow absorbed them, growing ever larger and stronger. The very air crackled with power.

"Your second and greatest mistake, Manshoon," Saharel continued calmly, "was in daring to attack my beloved, a man who is also my guest and thus under my protection. And your third, if you must speak of fools at Art, was to so dismiss his magic-and mine."

Silver radiance shrouded the flames now and hid them from view. The light grew and grew until it seemed like the moon itself shone in the chamber. Saharel stood like a small, silvery flame, flickering at the base of it all. Her voice wavered with her light and came more faintly.

"It is given to every archlich to choose his or her passing, and to spend all the force of life and love and Art in a task. Mine is thy death, Manshoon."

The silvery shroud grew suddenly blinding in its brightness. On the floor, Belkram cried out and covered his eyes.