03 The Crimson Gold by Forgotten Realms

Author:Forgotten Realms [Realms, Forgotten]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-10T15:30:39.369000+00:00

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

The towering fiend laughed again and pulled back his lips in what Tazi supposed was a smile, though it looked more like a monstrous grimace. "Yesss..." the demon hissed at Szass Tam. "It is me once again." Tazi turned to the lich and could see surprise play across his skeletal features, which was difficult to do. "Did you think I was truly gone?" the tanar'ri lord mocked him. "My spell of Twin Burning" Szass Tam began. "It was incomplete, old man. You failed." And the creature flexed his great wings again, spanning the length of the table, reveling in his physical freedom. Tazi, now completely free of Naglatha's power, drew her sword. She heard the dwarf snort. He was actually laughing at her and the sorry picture she presented. But he had freed his war axe as well. They stood ready though no one in the hall moved an inch. Somewhere deep in the corridors below, the screaming started up again, and the ground began to shake once more. Yet everyone was mesmerized by the tableau in front of them. "You sought to bind me, that is true," the demon admitted. "But you made a crucial error in your ritual. You tried to close the gate on me, but you were sloppy, and left it open just a crack. And that was all I needed." He laughed again. "Oh, it took time. But that was something I had. You understand that, don't you, dead man?" he looked at the lich, but Szass Tam remained silent. "I was weak after you tore me free from my prison under Eltabbar, and that was the only reason you were able to paralyze me with your Death Moon Orb and bind me to your Throne. But you weren't strong enough to make it last, though you thought you had. "As I sat there, I reached out with my powers, knowing there existed a way to escape. Granted, I couldn't go far, but I didn't need to, did I? I found what I needed easily enough under your roof." Tazi looked from the lich to the tanar'ri lord and wondered why neither struck the other. Or why no other wizard, including Naglatha, made a move to flee or fight. However, Tazi found she was just as spellbound as the others by the demon-king and wondered if that was somehow his doing. "You kept your young puppet here, always under your wing, under your watchful eye," he explained in his ancient voice, referring to Pyres. "You needed him because of his weakness. So did I." "Where is he?" demanded the lich, and Tazi doubted the necromancer truly cared about the fate of his minion. The tanar'ri lord only smiled more. "Over the years of my entrapment, I sent my energies over to him. Slowly, oh so slowly, so no one would know. And you helped me grow strong, Szass Tam. You kept this vessel," he paused to tap his chest with a heavy claw, "so safe and so protected from harm.

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