Spellstorm by Ed Greenwood Page A

the spellstorm, and worked the same spell that had forced a passage through it before.
    The moment the fogs parted again to let him through, he started to run, and the Red Wizard was right behind him, staff flickering into fresh life.
    Some of the others started to back away from Elminster and toward the fleeing pair, warily trying to keep an eye on both and each other.
    Laragaunt’s voice rose in sudden fear, words rushing out of him in increasingly frantic haste, and more heads turned his way.
    In time to see the fog roll in to close over the wildly gesturing mage and the Red Wizard in his wake. That staff flashed once, and falteringly spat lightning about the length of a man’s forearm … and then fell from view as its owner howled in despair.
    As that howl died waveringly away, roiling fog hid both men from view.
    After a few moments of silence, the gibbering began. Wordless slobbering that rose into wild, shrieking laughter; high, discordant, and somehow full of despair, even before it turned into sobbing.
    Keening wails died away as the witless men wandered, stumbling in different directions through the fog.
    “Mystra forfend ,” one of the women outside the mansion door gasped.
    “Be welcome in my home,” Lord Halaunt growled. “So come in, if you’re coming. With the door open, there’s a decidedly unpleasant draft. Come in, or go back out into the spellstorm, I care not. Sounds like they’re having fun out there, those two.”
    A tall, bald-headed, strikingly beautiful woman in an ankle-length gown of emerald green glared daggers at him, with eyes that matched her gown but had vertical, snakelike black-and-gold pupils. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
    “I planned nothing. I escaped with my life from a fire I still don’t recall any details of, and came home here to clear my lungs—only to find all sorts of strangers seem to want to visit me. Come for the Lost Spell, have you? Well, accusing me of things is a poor way to start negotiating with me, Scalyface.”
    Shaaan’s face tightened in anger, and she raised one pointing finger and hissed something that made a snakelike tattoo that spiraled up her forearm move, undulating around and up to fill her palm.
    As the tattoo snapped back into its former location, a bright green glow erupted from the end of her long-nailed finger and raced through the air at Lord Halaunt. Right in front of his face it … faded away, and—nothing happened.
    Shaaan’s eyes went a little wild.
    There were in fact no scales on her face, which bore subtle shiny areas if one peered closely.
    “I see you managed to restore your looks in the wake of the fire,” Manshoon murmured, from close behind her. “Pity about your hair.”
    She turned hastily to face him and backed away, hissing wordless hatred.
    He gave her a brittle, mocking little smile, hissed out the same incantation she had, and pointed his finger at his own head before shrinking back in mock dismay.
    “You shall pay for this!” Shaaan hissed at him.
    Manshoon yawned in her face—then swayed back swiftly as she struck out at him, trying to rake at his eyes. He was just out of reach.
    “Much as I enjoy free entertainment,” a dark-haired, handsome man in fine clothing—his gold belt buckle was worked into an intertwined “MT” monogram, his stylish overvest of supple black leather was trimmed with long rows of matching rubies, and the shirt beneath it was of the finest silk—commented, “our host has invited us inside, and I’d not mind a glass of something, after all that time in the hot sun, hurling futile spells. Can we take hold of our tempers, please?”
    Somewhere out in the fog, one of the feebleminded men wailed like a child lost in grief.
    “If I lose my temper, Maraunth Torr,” Manshoon said coldly, “you shall not be unaware of the fact.”
    Maraunth Torr yawned, in perfect mimicry of Manshoon’s treatment of the Serpent Queen, and the vampire reddened and snapped, “Such mockery