Spellstorm by Ed Greenwood Read Free Book Online Page A

it seemed to work on men well enough,
    “W-who are you?” one of the chained captives gasped, when he’d stopped shrieking long enough to pant his way back to framing words.
    The dark-haired, handsome, and imperious man who was the source of the agonies being visited on the four captive arcanists smiled coldly. “My name is Maraunth Torr, but it’s no doubt unfamiliar to you. I am an archmage of some power, and arcanists of Thultanthar seem to believe powerful wizards who do not hail from their city are … mythical. But then, the arrogant fools of Thultanthar believe so many incorrect things. Such a pity. It always leads to their undoing.”
    And as those gentle words left his lips, he gestured lazily and sent fresh ragged lightnings through the iron frames that held his captives fast. Skin sizzled with a reek akin to roast boar, and a sound almost lost amid the din of their raw, throat-stripping shrieks.
    Maraunth Torr gave them a wintry smile and strolled back to his goblet of wine and the maps he’d been studying when his flying-chain spell traps had entwined and bound them—so easily that they might just as well have been common thieves bereft of magic. More easily, perhaps, for thieves might have been more suspicious of adornments, around the doorway of a room where powerful enchanted items were stored, that took the shape of chains than these four dolts had been.
    When their screams had died away into panting groans, he raised his goblet and remarked to it, “I remain curious as to why arcanists of Thultanthar would dare to intrude into a wizard’s tower in the wilds near ruined Starmantle that’s widely known to be formidably guarded.”
    Weak moans and nigh-incoherent pleas for mercy were the only replies he got, so the archmage drank deeply, sighed out his pleasure as the Shalassalur burned its silken way down his throat, and strolled back to match gazes with his nearest captive.
    “Well?” he asked mildly. “I should hate to, ah, have to press you on this point.”
    “I—we—ahhh …”
    “A promising beginning,” Maraunth Torr said amiably, “but my patience is not infinite. Pray continue.”
    “We were following orders,” the closest wizard blurted out.
    “And who gave you these orders?”
    “Our commanders,” the third wizard down almost sobbed.
    “Who are?”
    “Ah … er …”
    “Come, come, you are like guilty children, caught but playing for time,” Maraunth Torr told them, almost tenderly. “Be more forthcoming, and be so swiftly. Or, as they say, else.”
    “You’ll have heard of the fate of our city,” the nearest wizard told him. “Not many of rank survived its destruction. We answer now to three—their names may mean nothing to you—Lelavdra, Manarlume, and Gwelt. The Three, we call them.”
    “We begin to get somewhere,” Maraunth Torr said approvingly. “And these orders were?”
    “To plunder the country mansion of Oldspires, in Cormyr.”
    “Why?”
    “We, ah, former Thultanthans need to rebuild our magical power, and swiftly, for Faerûn has become dangerous, seemingly full of too many mighty mages.”
    “Become? It became so before there was a Thultanthar, so far as I can tell. Why Oldspires?”
    “The three who command us recently heard that its owner, Lord Halaunt, owns the Talking Skull.”
    “Humor me,” Maraunth Torr said as jovially as an affectionate host, “and inform me what the Talking Skull might be.”
    “A—a flying, horn-headed human skull,” said one of his captives.
    “Purportedly that of an undead archmage millennia old,” the farthest one added brightly, sounding almost eager to volunteer information.
    So Maraunth Torr strolled in his direction to ask, “And why would a talking skull be valuable? I have sixteen of them, if I recall rightly, and find them frankly more ‘nuisance’ and less ‘prized valuable.’ ”
    “This talking skull knows the Lost Spell!”
    “Splendid! Delightful! And what is the Lost