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in
concentration, but a smile was playing about a corner of his mouth.
Orlgaun swept around again, and Manshoon rose in his saddle, roaring his rage
and pain as he spat the necessary word and the wand spewed lightnings. The
fist
struck at him again, and Manshoon was hurled back against Orlgaun's rough
scales
by the blow. He had a brief glimpse of the foe in armor flying up and at him,
again, that long sword swinging . . .
Orlgaun saved him, striking out in fear with one wing at the darting creature
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that had so hurt it before. The point of
Florin's blade skittered harmlessly across the dragon's scales. It struck at
him
and then, with a flapping of wings, rolled swiftly away.
Far below, Jhessail said the last words of a spell of flight as she touched
her
husband's forehead. Merith kissed her before he sprang aloft, blade flashing,
to
join the fray.
As he knelt by the moaning forms of Torm and Rathan, Lanseril was calmly
using
his own art to summon insects to attack the enemy mage. Ten paces away, Narm
stared at him helplessly as the battle raged overhead. The great dragon
slashed
at Florin with its claws, cartwheeling across the sky with mighty beats of
its
wings. Merith Strongbow was flying after it as fast as he could, while the
uncanny fist struck again in midair and their beleaguered foe cast down
lightnings once more.
Lanseril finished his spell, pointed at Manshoon carefully, and then turned
his
attention again to healing his companions. Jhessail raised her wand again and
then staggered as the lightning struck. The ground shook as something the
mage
had hurled exploded in front of Elminster, and Narm shielded Shandril
desperately with his own body as stones flew. A stone struck his shoulder,
and
then his back, with numbing force, and he had not even time to sag before
something else hit him on the temple. His eyes saw red, deepening steadily
into
. .. darkness. ...
Half a world away, Khelben Arunsun and Malchor Har-pell, great mages both,
looked at each other across the aged parchment between them as they felt
roiling
art echoing in their blood. With one accord they turned to the crystal ball
that
stood at hand. The room about them, high in Blackstaff Tower in the great
city
of Waterdeep, fell silent as the two mages stared intently into the crystal,
and
the great lords gathered there waited to learn what had occurred.
In Candlekeep, near the sea, the Keeper of the Tbmes looked up from pages of
stamped and burnished electrum as the soft glow of the runes of power they
bore
flickered.
The First Reader had seen it too, and fallen silent in his translation. The
two
men looked at each other in the dark, dusty round room that was the innermost
and most sacred of the Inner Rooms, and then stared out, unseeing, into the
darkness. The glowing globe that gave them light to read by dimmed where it
hung
at the keeper's shoulder, brightened, and then dimmed again.
"Great art, somewhere, contending with great art," the First Reader said
quietly, and the Keeper nodded.
"Aye," he said grimly, "and what changes will it bring this time?"
The question hung unanswered in the room with them for a long time before
they
could begin reading again.
Orlgaun wheeled again, and Manshoon shook where he sat on the broad, scaled
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back
from the aftereffects of the mighty disjunction he had worked. The hand that
had
nearly slain him was gone, as were the other, lesser magics that had assailed
him but below on the rocks, the old mage and the younger maid still stood
calmly. Their hands moved again in the gesture of spell-weaving, and the elf
and
the ranger still flew after him, low and beneath Orlgaun's body where he
could
not reach them, one on either side.
Manshoon snarled in frustration and tore another globe from the necklace he
wore
as the black dragon dove again toward his enemies. Orlgaun moved more slowly
and
heavily with each pass. Both spells and steel had struck the dragon, and
struck
deeply. The black dragon had felt nothing worse than the sting of arrows for
a
long time. Nor have I met such resistance in a fair while, Manshoon thought
darkly, as he hurled the globe he held. He then watched magic missiles rise
up
toward him in a bright dancing group of lights. He was powerless to stop them.
Behind him he heard Merith's triumphant song as the elf thrust his blade
between
two of Orlgaun's armored scales. Manshoon turned, raising his wand, but
Florin
was there, sword sweeping out. The blade burned across the lord's fingers
like
liquid fire, and Manshoon saw the wand whirl harmlessly away in the air amid
droplets of his own blood
just before the magic missiles struck.
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