Филип Этанс - Shadows of Amn

"Oh," Jaheira breathed, "by the Lady …"

"Gather them up!" Elhan shouted, then barked another series of orders in a language Abdel didn't understand—Elvish, no doubt.

He crawled away, Jaheira holding him, as a dozen pairs of hands quickly, deliberately sifted through the dead leaves, snatching up the jagged pieces of metal that were worth Bodhi's life.

"Candlekeep," Abdel said, turning his face to Jaheira's. "I'm taking Imoen back to Candlekeep."

Jaheira sobbed once, then gathered her wits quickly.

"Where is she?" Abdel asked.

Elhan stood at the edge of the Swanmay's Glade, the tall trees of Suldanessellar in front of him.

"Do it," he told the mages in Elvish. "Open it."

Elhan was ringed by several of Tethir's most powerful mages, and several of her weakest. Elves as young as twenty years stood side by side with elves who'd seen two thousand summers pass. Though some could wield power others couldn't even imagine, they were all equal now, in both power and purpose. They had but to hold—one each of them—a fragment of the fabled Rynn Lanthorn.

"Suldanessellar must be open to us once more," Elhan said.

He looked up at the typically fair morning sky and saw clouds of deep black roiling against a bruise-purple overcast. Irenicus had sealed them off from Suldanessellar in preparation for this new assault on the Tree of Life, but they'd finally—thanks to a most unlikely ally—managed to gather enough of the fragments of the Rynn Lanthorn to break the back of Irenicus's enchantment and allow them back into the city that had been held captive so long.

Elhan scanned the line of mages around him. Chanting words that were old when humans first emerged from caves to stare in dumb fascination at the stars, the mages brought the fragments together.

The elf prince drew his moonblade and stepped forward. He reached up and touched the tingling, cold barrier. It was a palpable, if invisible thing, and the feel of it, even now mere moments before its destruction, sent waves of nauseous hatred through him.

"Bring it down, loyal ones," Elhan said. "Bring it down!"

The fragments came together in the righteous hands of the elf mages, and a rumbling vibration rippled the ground under Elhan's feet. Some of the mages fell over, a couple of them even dropped their parts of the lanthorn, but it didn't matter.

A wind blasted down from above, and Elhan had to close his eyes against the force of it. He was driven down to one knee.

It'll be over soon enough, sister, he thought, letting his mind touch Ellesime's.

One of the mages screamed, and another shouted, "The lanthorn!"

Elhan opened his eyes and saw that the pieces of the artifact had come together and fused into a still incomplete whole. One of the mages reached out to touch it, and a bolt of green lightning arced out from it, bridging the three paces between it and the mage's hand. The mage was thrown back with a shower of sparks, and there was another louder, stronger rumble that knocked Elhan to the ground.

It's open, Ellesime's voice sounded in his head, but it's not over.

Abdel could feel the vibration in the bottom of his feet, could feel the dizzying aftereffects of the teleportation, could feel his friends falling far behind him, could feel an old anger rising in him, could feel that yellow haze that always came before he spilled someone's blood, but none of those things managed to spill through into his conscious mind. He was running to get Imoen. He would take her back to Candlekeep this time and see that the blood of Bhaal was drained from her as it would be drained from him, one way or another.

Irenicus had his back to him, but Abdel was making no effort to quiet his pounding footsteps and gasping, exhausted breathing. The necromancer spun, turning a wild, wide-eyed visage in Abdel's direction. The necromancer smiled, spread his arms wide as if he meant to embrace the charging sellsword. Abdel almost ran him through, then ran him over, but Jon Irenicus blinked out of existence only to reappear a few yards to one side. The necromancer had the nerve to laugh at him.

Abdel fell face first and skidded in the rough gravel, coming to rest against a tilted slab of marble. He stood quickly, ignoring the bleeding abrasions on his forearms. He spun on Irenicus, who stopped laughing and offered up an impatient snarl.

"She dies!" the necromancer screamed. "I will be an elf again. I will win. I will send her to the hells before you join her yourself, and you'll burn there together. Your father's blood can't stop it, your pitiful friends can't stop it, all the elves of Tethir can't stop it!"

"Where is she?" Abdel shouted, his voice low, hard, and commanding. "What have you done with Imoen?"

"Your sister," Irenicus laughed, "has achieved her true purpose. She walks Faerun in the guise of your father's avatar. Bhaal is dead, but his blood lives on, his power lives on, and I have twisted it, turned it to my will to kill Ellesime of Suldanessellar and rip from that damn tree what I need to live forever."

Abdel, sword in hand, continued his charge at Irenicus.

The necromancer held up a hand and said, "Don't you want to see? Don't you want to see it?" His voice descended into incoherent babbling.

Abdel pulled his sword back, determined to see if the necromancer could live without a head, when something hit him in the chest. It was as if he'd run into a stone wall, and the wall kicked back. Abdel flew backward through the air some immeasurable distance. Wind whistled through the sellsword's ears, then Irenicus's voice: "Don't you want to see your father's face?"

Abdel hit the ground hard, but he held on to his sword. He felt something in his lower back give, heard a crack, and his legs went instantly numb. The word no! raged through his mind. The necromancer had broken his back. Abdel lay sprawled on the gravel ground, looking up into the downward-tilted face of a disapproving marble elf.

He managed to prop himself up on both elbows, and there, a good fifty yards away, was Jon Irenicus, waving his fists at the sky and running toward Abdel.

"You'll die before you see it, then!" the necromancer wailed. "I'll see you in Hell where I'll take your soul and meld it with the essence of the tree, and I'll be a god!"

Abdel screamed at the blazing morning sky in incoherent rage, and Irenicus answered with another string of harsh, guttural, chanting words. Abdel looked at the necromancer again, who had stopped a bit closer than half the distance he'd started from and pointed one long, bony, shaking finger at Abdel. Spittle flew from the corner of his babbling mouth.

Abdel felt a wave of overwhelming nausea. A haze of gray fell over his vision, and his head spun. He turned to one side and retched, but nothing came up. He felt a chill run up his spine, and his ears began to ring.

"Die!" Irenicus shrieked, his voice ragged and shrill. "Die, gods damn you, die!"

Abdel didn't die, but it took a long time for the sickness to pass.

"The s-son of B-Bhaal," Irenicus stuttered. "You are the son of Bhaal. I've killed a thousand men with that spell … a thousand mortals." The necromancer cackled, falling to one knee. His eyes were red, still bulging and looking painful, as if they might burst. "It should have killed you. It has never failed to kill anyone—except Ellesime. Oh, you will serve me and serve me well."

Something popped in Abdel's spine, and sensation returned to his legs in a wave of prickling fire. He stood, tightened his grip on his sword, and fixed his furious gaze on Jon Irenicus.

"You've had all the fun with me you're going to have, necromancer," Abdel growled.

"Abdel!" Jaheira screamed from some distance away.