Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,337

the most difficult of the three men. Ashannon McLenny was a handsome man, his eyes well-balanced with emotion, eager and calm. A clear thinker; perhaps this one would have been a candidate for the brotherhood in ages past. Brind’Amour let his measuring gaze linger on Ashannon for a while, then shifted it to regard Deanna. Brind’Amour knew her well enough to respect her. Deanna was a complete package: cultured, intelligent, beautiful, dangerous, and the wizard held no doubts that this one would have aspired to, and achieved, magical prowess in that time long past. She might prove to be the most formidable of all, and it was no coincidence that Brind’Amour’s attack plans for Eriador had purposely avoided sending forces against Deanna’s city of Mannington.

During those few moments he spent in scanning his adversaries, Brind’Amour whispered under his breath, enacting minor magical defenses. A coil of wire appeared in one hand and gradually unrolled beneath his sleeve, then under his robes until its tip poked forth beside his boot, securing itself against the stone. Next the wizard quietly gathered all the moisture from the air near to him, called it in but didn’t concentrate it. Not yet. Brind’Amour set up a conditional spell to finish what he had started, and he had to hope that his magic would be quick enough to the conditional call.

“And where is Greensparrow?” Brind’Amour asked suddenly, when he noted that the others, particularly Theredon and Mystigal, were exchanging nods, as if preparing their first assault.

Theredon snorted derisively. “Why would we need our king to pluck such a thorn as the pretender king of Eriador the wasteland?”

“So said Paragor,” Brind’Amour calmly replied. That set cocky Theredon back on his heels a bit.

“We are four!” snarled Mystigal, bolstering Theredon, and himself, with the proclamation.

Now Brind’Amour called up a spell to shift his vision subtly that it might record magical energies. The strength of Deanna’s globe surprised him once more when he realized the tightness of its magical weaving, but the other thing that surprised the wizard was that there apparently were no other magical curtains behind which other enemies might hide. No Greensparrow and, curiously, no demons.

He caught a sly look in Deanna Wellworth’s eyes then that he did not quite understand. “There is no escape,” she said, and then added, as if reading his mind, “No magic, not even a creature magically summoned, can pass through the blue barrier. You are without escape and without allies.”

As if to accentuate Deanna’s point, a horrid figure pressed its insectlike face against the top of the bubble then, leering down at the gathering on the plateau.

Brind’Amour recognized the thing as a demon, and he scratched his beard curiously, considering that the fiend was on the outside.

“Deanna!” cried Mystigal suddenly.

Brind’Amour looked from the fiend to the hawkish wizard. “Friend of yours?” he asked, a smile widening on his face.

Both Mystigal and Theredon squirmed a bit, an indication to Brind’Amour that the two suspected that their lead conspirator had erred, bringing up the shield before their allies, their true connections to power, had joined with them.

“Demon of Hell,” Deanna answered Brind’Amour. “My fellows have come to greatly rely on such evil fiends.”

We are not friends of King Greensparrow, nor can we any longer accept the truth of our ill-begotten powers, came a telepathic message in Brind’Amour’s mind. He looked to Ashannon, the duke of Eornfast, recognizing the man as the sender, and then he understood that Deanna had not erred! Indeed the woman had used treachery, but her prey was not as Brind’Amour had first assumed.

A second fiend, two-headed and lizardlike, arrived beside the first, and both pressed and clawed wildly, but futilely, at the resilient bubble shield.

“Their mistake,” Brind’Amour answered Deanna grimly.

Mystigal looked up to the dome, his expression showing deep concern. “What is this?” he demanded of Deanna, who now stood swaying, shoulders slumped and head down, as though her casting of the powerful globe had drained her.

The end of the question was snuffed out under the sizzling roar of Theredon’s blue-streaking lightning bolt, the most common attack form offered by any wizard.

And one Brind’Amour had fully anticipated. The old wizard threw out his arm toward Theredon as the bolt began, felt the tingle in his fingers as his defensive magics countered the spell, catching Theredon’s bolt on the edge of the conjured coil and running it down under Brind’Amour’s robes to the stone beneath his feet. Brind’Amour felt all the hairs on his body dancing from the shock;