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.The first blasted the jaws into golden-green nothingness, and the others shot through the spreading fire of that explosion and leapt at the elf beyond in a deadly approaching storm.The elf lord looked anxious for the first time, and worked a hasty spell as the spinning globes flashed toward him.He fell back a few more steps to gain time to finish his spell—and so tasted Elminster's first trap.The globes that the elf s stabbing defensive magic did not touch struck the unseen mantle and exploded in harmless, spreading sheets of light.Those the elf did strike burst apart into triple lightning bolts that stabbed rocks, trees, and the nearby elf lord with equal vigor.With a groan of pain the elf staggered backward, smoke rising from him."Not a bad defense for a nameless elf," Elminster observed calmly.His goading promptly had the effect he'd been hoping for."No nameless one am I, human," the elf snarled, arms folded around himself in pain, "but Delmuth Echorn, of one of the foremost Houses of Cormanthor! Heir of the Echorns am I, and my rank in your human terms would be 'emperor'! Uncultured dog!""Ye use 'uncultured dog* as a title?" Elminster asked innocently."It fits ye, aye, but I must warn ye we humans haven't come to expect such candor from elven folk.Ye may achieve unintended hilarity in thy dealings with my kind!"Delmuth roared in fresh fury, but then his eyes narrowed and he hissed like a snake."You hope to overmaster me through my temper! No such fortune will I hand to you—nameless human!""Elminster Aumar am I," El replied pleasantly, "Prince of Athalant—ah, but ye won't be interested in the titles of pig-sty human realms, will ye?""Yes, precisely!" Delmuth snapped."Er, that is: no!" His arms were acquiring flames again.Circles of fire-bursts chased each other endlessly about his wrists, betokening risen but unleashed old elven battle magic.So was the elf lord's mantle gone entirely, or did it survive still? El silently bent his will to spinning another shield of his own as he waited, suspecting Delmuth would try to ruin the next visible spell his human foe cast by hurling his own spell attack into the midst of El's casting.When El's shield was complete, he acted out the casting of a false spell.Sure enough, emerald lightnings lashed at him in mid-gibberish, clawing at his shield and rebounding.Delmuth laughed triumphantly, and El saw by the rebounding sparks that the elf's mantle had survived, or had been renewed.He shrugged, smiled, and began his own next spell, at the same time as the fiercely smiling elf undertook his own casting.Unnoticed by either of them, one of the trees struck by Elminster's lightning fell over the edge of the peak, tearing crumbling stone with it, to plunge down, down through the empty air."Oh, be careful, Elminster!" the Lady Oluevaera Estelda breathed, as she sat on empty air in a dark and dusty chamber at the heart of the ghost castle of the Dlardrageth.Her eyes were seeing a distant peak and two figures striving against each other there, as their spells flashed and raged about them.The one just might be the future of Cormanthor, while the other was one of the most haughty and headstrong of its oldest, proudest Houses—and its heir to boot.Some would call it treachery to the People to intervene in any spell duel—but then, this was no proper duel, but a man lured into a trap by the deceit of an elf.Many more would deem one who aided any human against any elf, in any situation, a traitor to the People.And yet she would do this, if she could.The Srinshee had seem more summers by far—aye, and winters, too—than any other elf who breathed the clear air of Cormanthor today.She was one of those whose judgment would be deferred to, in any high dispute between Houses.Well, then; her judgment would have to be respected as highly in this more personal matter.Not that anyone but ghosts were in this shunned ruin to stop her.The only swift link she had with Druindar's Rock was through Elminster himself, and it might well be fatal to him to create any distraction in his mind at the wrong moment
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