Mark Anthony - Realms of the Underdark

The doppleganger was dead, so preservation of these humans-their bodies, at least-more or less intact was important. They foiled all magic with ease, and there seemed no way to overcome their wills. And yet, to flee from battle with them now, before an audience of Skulkans, galled.

The beholder's advance slowed, and then stopped. It rose a prudent distance above the ruin and hung there, considering.

"Right, then, I'm off," Mirt said heartily, turning to go. "It's not the season for beholder-hunting, anyway, and I've business to see to, that I left-"

One of Xuzoun's eyes flashed. A stone the size of a gauntleted fist rose from the rubble and flashed toward the old moneylender, flying as hard and straight as any arrow. These humans might have shields to foil magic, but what if the stone were flying fast enough, and aimed true, when the magic that flung it was stripped away? Turning slowly end over end, the stone shot on.

"Old Wolf-down!" Asper screamed, seeing it. Mirt had heard that tone from her a time or two before in his life, and flopped to his belly without delay. The stone whistled past close overhead and shattered with a sharp crack against a wall beyond.

The beholder was descending, and at the same time a slab of stone the size of a small cart was rising above Durnan. He ducked away, but it followed, lowering itself with care, chasing him. The Master of the Yawning Portal spat out a curse and started a sprinting scramble across the rocks of the ruin. The beholder smiled as it drifted after him.

If the great weight of the stone pinned the running lord without having to strike him down and do harm, he'd be trapped and helpless-a prisoner until Xuzoun was ready to steal his mind and take over his body. If it worked with the one, why then there were stones aplenty here, and only two humans more.

Wheezing to his feet and regarding the stone pursuing Durnan with horror, Mirt was startled by a loud rattling of rock behind him. He wheeled around with a snarl-was one of those watching gamblers trying to change the odds? — and found himself staring at a scaly blue monster that looked like a huge and sinuous crocodile. Its head reared up to regard him as it raced over the broken rubble on a small forest of fast-churning legs.

It was a behir, a man-eating lizard-thing that could spit lightning bolts!

"Ah, just what we need!" Mirt snarled despairingly, raising his belt dagger and knowing what a useless little fang it was against such onrushing death. "Some right bastard of a mage must be toying with us!"

Setting himself the same way a weary bull lowers its head to face a fast-scudding storm, the fat old Lord of Waterdeep prepared to fight this new foe. The behir opened its jaws impossibly wide as it came, so that Mirt was staring into a maw as large as a spacious doorway. A forked tongue wriggled in its depths in a fascinating dance that plunged at him more swiftly than any man could run.

Asper screamed out Mirt's name and sprinted toward him, a small knife from her boot flashing in her hand- but she was too far off to do more than watch. The reptile snapped its jaws once, tilted its head toward Mirt to deliver what he could only describe as a wink, and surged past the astonished moneylender to spit lighting into the open mouth of the beholder.

Xuzoun screamed-a high, sobbing wail like too many cries Mirt had heard human women make-and spun away over the ruins, lightning playing about its body. Its eyestalks jerked and coiled spasmodically, and it was trailing smoke when it struck a leaning pillar and crashed heavily to the ground. The rushing behir was upon it in a breath, coiling over its foe as it snapped its jaws and tore away eyestalks in eager, merciless haste. The three humans watched, a little awed, and then in unspoken accord came together in the center of the stony devastation to watch the beholder die.

"Is there any hole here small enough that we can get into it and hold off that thing?" Asper asked softly, watching the scaly blue head toss as it tore away beholder flesh. A last bubbling wail from the thing beneath its claws died away.

None of them saw a crystal sphere materialize silently beside the riven eye tyrant, flicker with the last vestiges of a spell glow… and then crumble to dust, which drifted away.

"A few, no doubt," Durnan replied grimly, watching the carnage, "but none of them would shield us in the slightest from its lightning."

Asper sighed, a long, shuddering sound, and tossed her head. Her eyes were very bright as she said softly, "I thought so," and raised her little knife as if it was some great magical long sword.

When the crocodilelike head turned from its feasting, it saw the little knife, Mirt's belt dagger beside it, and the similar dagger Durnan held ready, and its eyes flashed golden with amusement. The great jaws opened, and a hissing roar came out. The jaws worked and rippled with effort, and for a moment, Asper thought it was trying to speak. Then it tossed its head in disgust, drew in a deep breath, and tried again, turning its eyes on Mirt. They all heard its rattling roar quite distinctly: "Thank Transtraaaa…"

Then it lowered its head, folded its legs against its body, and slithered away. They watched it wind its snakelike way out of the ruins into the street beyond. The audience of surviving gamblers shrank back to make way for it. It vanished around a corner-Spider-silk Lane, Durnan thought-and left them alone with a torn-open, quite dead beholder.

"I wonder what she'll ask you in payment?" Durnan asked the Old Wolf.

Mirt growled a wordless reply, shrugged, and then turned to his lady as if seeing her for the first time. "Hello, Little Fruitbasket," he leered, extending his lips in a chimplike pout to be kissed.

Slowly, Asper stuck her tongue out in eloquent reply, and made the spitting-to-the-side mime that young Waterdhavian ladies use to signal disgust or emphatic disapproval.

And then she winked and grinned.

Mirt started to grin back, but it faded quickly as he saw the danger signal of Asper's eyebrows rising, and the accompanying glitter in the dark eyes boring into him. A moment later she asked softly, "Just who is this 'Transtraaaa' woman, anyway?"

Mirt gave her a sour look. "Pull in the claws, little one: she's no woman, but a lamia."

It was the turn for Durnan's eyebrows to rise. "Slave-trading, Mirt?"

The fat moneylender gave him a disgusted look, and turned to start the long trudge back up the alley. "Ye know me better than that," he rumbled. "Slaving's work for those who've no scruples, less sense, and too much wealth. Nobles, for instance."

Durnan groaned. "Let's not start that one again. We rooted out all we could find, and Khel set spy spells… there'll always be a few dabblers, no doubt, but nothing we can't handle-"

Lightning roared across the ruins to split the stones at his feet.

"Oh? Care to try to handle me, tavernmaster?" The voice echoed and rolled around them, made louder by magic: the taunting voice of an arrogant young woman of culture and breeding.

The three lords looked up whence the lightning had come and saw a lone figure standing on the catwalk where Asper had inspected a line of washing not so long ago: a slim, haughty figure in a dark green cloak whose folds showed the shape of a long sword beneath it. The uppermost part of the figure was all flashing eyes and curling auburn hair, piled high around graceful shoulders.

"Young Nythyx," Mirt roared, "Come down from there!"

In reply, two gloved hands parted the cloak from within to reveal the glowing, deadly things they bore: Netherese blast scepters, crackling with simmering lightning. "Come up and get me, 'fat man," Nythyx Thunderstaff sneered. "I don't take orders from drunken old commoners."

Durnan looked up at her, eyes narrowed. "You're a slaver, then?" He strode calmly toward the mouth of the alley, and after a moment Mirt and Asper followed.