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now."
El looked at the devastation once more, and then back at the Master, stonefaced. "Aye. Something
po-tent, is it?"
"Something very useful. Properly used, it can make its caster nigh-invincible." The Masked showed his
teeth in a mirthless grin and added, "Like myself, for instance." He uncoiled himself from his reclining
posi-tion and said, "Lie down just here, where the waste ends and the living forest begins. Nose to the
ground, hands spread out. Move not."
When the Master spoke like that, one didn't hesitate or argue. Elminster scrambled down onto his face
in the dirt.
Once he was there, he felt the icy touch of the Mas-ter's fingertips on the back of his head. They only
felt so cold when a spell was being slipped into his mind, stealing in without need for studying or
instruction or...
Gods! This magic would fuel any spell you already possessed, doubling its effects or making a twin of it.
To do so, it drained life-force from a tree.
Or a sentient being.
And it was sosimple. Powerful, aye, one had to be a very capable mage to wield it, but the actual doing
was so hideously easy. It left utter lifelessness in its wake. Andelves had wrought this?
"When," El asked the moss under his nose, "would I ever dare to use this?"
"In an emergency," the Master said calmly, "when your life or the realm or holding you were
defend-ing was in the most dire peril. When all else is lost, the only immoral act is to avoid doing
something you know can aid your cause. This is such a spell."
El almost turned his head to glance up at the masked elf. His voice, for the first time in twenty years, had
sounded eager, almost hungry.
Mystra,El thought,he loves the thought of utterly smashing a foe, regardless of the cost!
"I can't think, Master, that I'll ever trust my own judgment enough to be comfortable using this spell," El
said slowly.
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"Comfortable, no; not one thinking, caring being would be, knowing what this magic can do. Yet
capable you can become. That's why we're here. Up, now."
El rose. "I'm going to practice?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. You'll be unleashing the spell in earnest against an enemy of Cormanthor.
By decree of the Coronal, this spell is only to be used in direct defense of the realm or of an imperiled
elven elder."
El stared at the ever-present enchanted mask his master wore, wondering for perhaps the ten
thou-sandth time what its true powers were and just what he'd find beneath it, if he ever dared snatch it
away.
As if that thought had crossed the elf s mind, the masked mage stepped back hastily and said, "You've
just seen our spell web destroy a high house. It was an abode used by certain conspirators in the realm
who desire that we trade with the drow. They are so hungry for the wealth and importance the dark ones
have promised will flow to them personally that they'll be-tray us all into becoming vassals of some
matron of Down Below."
"But surely " Elminster began, and then fell silent. Nothing was sure about this tale beyond the fact that
his masked Master was lying. That much Mystra had given him in the meadow. He could now tell when
the thin, cold voice of the elven sorcerer was straying from the truth.
It was doing so with almost every word.
"Soon," the Masked went on, "I'll transport us to a place that is specifically warded against me. It is a
place I can enter only by blasting my way through its shields, alerting everyone within to my arrival and
wasting much magic besides."
The elven sorcerer's pointing finger shot out to indi-cate El. "You, however, can step right in. My magic
will bring a chained orc to your side a vicious despoiler of human and elven villages whom we captured
while he was roasting elven babies on spits for his evening meal. You'll drain him to power your spell, and
then hurl your antimagic shell augmented by this magic in both area and efficacy, of course into the
house you'll be facing. I can then summon a few loyal armathors with ready swords, and the deed will be
done. The traitors will lie dead, and Cormanthor will stand safe for a while longer. With that deed under
your belt, you should be ready for presentation to the Coronal at last."
"The Coronal?" Elminster felt almost as much excite-ment as he put into that gasp. 'Twould be good,
indeed, to see old Lord Eltargrim again. Still, that did nothing to drive away the uneasy feeling he had
about this whole arrangement. Who would he really be slaying?
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