The thunder of destructive magic roared on unabated as the junior Dreadspells laughed and exulted in the sheer rush of power under their command. Walls toppled, smashing wardrobes flat, as the floors that supported them melted away and tumbled into an ever-lengthening chasm. Trees all around groaned and creaked as the ground shifted.

Daluth kept his own wands trained straight down, at the self-styled Azuth and his companions. He'd seen the casual waves of a hand that had wrought what it took most archmages long and complicated rituals to achieve. God or avatar or boldly bluffing archmage, whatever it was must be destroyed.

Elryn aimed his scepters to Fire through the opened, dust-choked space in the wake of the three staves... which were now, one by one, shuddering to exhaustion, to be tossed aside in favor of Netherese scepters whose blasts were almost as potent. Chosen or not, no lone wizard could stand unscathed in the face of such destruction. Elryn snarled as a scepter crumbled to dust, and snatched forth another to replace it. No, there was no chance at all that a man could survive this. Why, then, was he so uneasy?

The end of the cavern vanished in tumbling stones and the flash and rock spray of spell-wrought explosions. Floor slabs bounced upward as a shock wave rolled through them, toppling the throne. More rocks broke away and fell from the ceiling, bouncing amid the roiling fury there, on his knees, a dazed Elminster watched through pain-blurred eyes as the collapse of the ceiling continued in a rough line heading toward him, chunks of stone larger than he was crashing down or being hurled aside in an endless roaring tide.

Someone or something aloft must be trying to slay him, or destroy the runes … not that he faced any dearth of foes nearer at hand.

Saeraede, who must have lied to him about everything except who put the runes here, was riding him like a mounted knight, her claws around his throat and searing his back with talons of icy iron. He knew before he tried that no amount of rolling or smashing himself into a wall could harm or dislodge her, how can one crush or scrape away a wisp of ghostly mist?

Move he must, though, or be buried or torn apart by the snarling, smoking bolts and beams of magic that were gnawing their way through earth and stone to reach him. El groaned and crawled a little way along heaving stones...until the runes of Karsus erupted into white-hot columns of flame, one by one. As they licked and seared the collapsing ceiling, magic played all around the cavern, purple lightning dancing and strange half-seen shapes and images forming and collapsing and forming again in an endless parade.

The last prince of Athalantar smashed his nose and shoulder into a floor-slab that was heaving upward to meet him, and rolled over with a gasp of pain and despair. As he clawed at the edges of the stone with bloody, feeble fingers, trying to drag himself upright again, the stone melted away into smoke and rending magic burst into him.

Ah, well, this is it ... forgive me, Mystra.

But no agony followed, and nothing plucked at his flesh, to melt and sear and reave… .

Instead, he was rolled over as if by the empty air, and glowing nothingness enclosed him in ropes of radiance. Dimly, through his tears and the roiling motes of light, Elminster saw magic rushing toward him from all sides, being drawn to him, veering in its dancing to race in.

Wild laughter rose around him, high and sharp and exultant. Saeraede! She was wrapped around him, clinging in a web of glowing mists that grew thicker and brighter as she gorged herself on magic, a ghost of bright sorcery.

Sunlight was stabbing down into the riven cavern, now, but the dancing dust cloaked everything in gloom...everything but the rising giant built around Elminster's feebly writhing form. The rune-flames were twisting in midair to flow into Saeraede, and she was rising ever higher, a thing of crackling flame. El strained to look up at her...and two dark flecks among the magical fire became eyes that looked back at him in cold triumph . .. until a mouth swam out of the conflagration to join them and gave him a cruel smile.

"You're mine now, fool," she whispered, in a hoarse hiss of fire, "for the little while you'll last… ."

"Lord Thessamel Arunder, the Lord of Spells," the steward announced grandly, as the doors swung wide. A wizard strode slowly through them, a cold sneer upon his sharp features. He wore a high-collared robe of unadorned black that made his thin frame look like a tomb obelisk, and a shorter, more lushly built lady in a gown of forest green clung to his arm, her large brown eyes dancing with lively mischief.

"Goodsirs," he began without courtesies, "why come you here to me once more this day? How many times must you hear my refusal before the words sink through your skulls?"

"Well met, Lord Arunder," said the merchant Phelbellow, in dry tones. "The morning finds you well, I trust?"

Arunder gave him a withering glare. "Spare me your toadying, rag seller. I'll not sell this house, raised by mighty magic, nor any wagon length of my lands, no matter how sweetly you grovel, or how much gold you offer. What need have I for coins? What need have I for gowns, for that matter?"

"Aye, I'll grant that," one of the other merchants grunted. "Can't see him looking like much in a good gown. No knees for it."

"No hips, neither," someone else added.

There were several sputters of mirth from the merchants crowded at the doorway, the wizard regarded them all with cold scorn, and said softly, "I weary of these insults. If you are not gone from my halls by the time I finish the Ghost Chant, the talons of my guardian ghosts shall..."

"Lady Faeya," Hulder Phelbellow asked, "has he not seen the documents?"

"Of course, Goodsir Phelbellow," the lady in green said in musical tones. Favoring them all with a smile, she stepped from her lord and drew forth a strip of folded vellum, "and he's signed them, too."

She proffered them to Phelbellow, who unfolded them eagerly, the men behind him crowding around to see.

The Lord of Spells gaped at the paper and the merchants, then at Faeya. "W-what befalls here?" he gasped.

"A sensible necessity, my lord," she replied sweetly. "I'm so glad you saw the good sense in signing it. A most handsome offer...enough to allow you to retire from your castings entirely, if you desire."

"I signed nothing," Arunder gasped, white-faced.

"Oh, but you did, lord...and so ardently, too," she replied, eyes dancing. "Have you forgotten? You remarked at the time upon the hardness and flatness of my belly that made your penmanship such ease. You signed it with quite a flourish, as I recall."

Arunder stiffened. "But … that was..."

"Base trickery?" one of the merchants chuckled. "Ah, well done, Faeya!"

Someone else barked with laughter, and a third someone contributed a murmur of, "That's rich, that is."

"Apprentice," the Lord of Spells whispered savagely, " what have you done?

The Lady Faeya drew three swift paces away from him, into the heart of the merchants, who melted aside to make way for her like mist before flame, and turned back to face him, placing her hands on her hips.

"Among other things, Thessamel," she told him softly, "I've slain two men this last tenday, who came to settle old scores since your spells failed you...and word spread of it."

"Faeya! Are you mad? Telling these..."

"They know, Thess, they know," his lady told him with cold scorn. "The whole town knows. Every mage has his hands full of wild spells, not just you. If you paid one whit of attention to Faerun outside your window, you'd know that already."

The Lord of Spells had turned as pale as old bones and was gaping at her, mouth working like a fish gasping out of water. Everyone waited for him to find his voice again, it took quite a while.