Elminster Enraged

CHAPTER THREE

El plunged into shattered rooms, through arches that leaned and ceilings that sagged, seeking silver fire.

Its flow into him had faded swiftly after that first flood, down to a trickle. Which meant he had to hurry …

Broken drow bodies were everywhere, half-buried in rubble, wet ribbons of blood running from under many stone piles.

Less gruesome but more eerie were the last victims of the glaragh, the untouched but mindless bodies draped and sprawled atop the rubble.

El darted past them, racing this way and that, following the fading trail of Mystra’s divine fire deeper into what was left of the citadel … into the intact rooms on one side of the devastation.

He would be finding death, he knew, the last moments of someone who might well be dear to him. Was this Mystra’s will, this timing? The fire her gift to him?

That might be the most comforting way to think of it, aye, but …

What if it was a trap? What if he was rushing to his doom? Lured by someone or something eager to slay Chosen, or someone who cared not who came racing, but would smite any unwelcome arrival?

He cared not. He had to know who was relinquishing silver fire, had to taste more of it if he could, had to … had to …

El came at last into a room where grandly robed drow lay slumped in profusion-spider priestesses and mages-around a table where chains held spread-eagled remains that had been butchered beyond recognition. The sacrifice, or victim, had been both a Chosen and a she-elf. He could tell that much.

Grim anger grew in him as he came nearer. The drow had removed organs from her, and cast experimental spells on her, while she lived.

A jar still cradled in the arms of one crumpled and mindless dark elf held a freshly severed human tongue, and … were those eyeballs, glistening on a tray across the room?

Aye, staring sightlessly now, forever. Black rage flared, rising until Elminster wanted to snarl, or choke. As ashes, he could do neither; he could only swirl.

This death will be paid for. This I swear.

He looked wildly around for a greater foe, but saw or sensed no one. Only all these cruel, now mindless drow …

Dark rage rode him. He was trembling, every ash mote of him. He did not know which was stronger: his grief or his rage.

Mingled with them was shame, as El furiously circled in the air above the sad remnants of a fellow Chosen he could neither name nor aid. Feeling no better than her drow tormentors, he fed on her instead, drinking in the very last of Mystra’s fire escaping from her.

Those precious silver flames streamed past a trail of purple and black fire tracing a slow and endless circle in midair above the blood-drenched table; a poorly crafted dark elf spell that had sought to capture the escaping divine essence for drow use. It had failed. El gave it a glance. Such magic could never have contained the silver fire …

He shuddered in astonishment as the last of the silver fire flooded into him, plunging him into feeling … unsettled. Strange, mildly sickening … more expansive, as if he were not alone …

Mystra’s fire had lingered long enough to drink and drain yon drow flames and several other failing dark elf magics in the room, bringing them into him. Was something now amiss within him? Had-

No, Old Mage, you are as tough and enduring as ever, an amused voice said from the depths of his mind.

“Who-?” Elminster blurted out, staring wildly around as if some magical mirror might spring into being, right in front of him, to show him who’d spoken. None obliged.

It could only be the Chosen on the table, come into him with the last of her silver fire … but the voice didn’t feel familiar.

It was weak, and fading; she’d probably not last long without the Weave to sustain her …

Not long, I agree. I’ve not much time left, Elminster. Use my fire well, and remember me when you do.

“I-” Elminster found his voice rough, and he fought to speak. “I’d find that easier to do if I knew who ye were.”

Are, impatient man, still are, thank you very much!

That tart mindspeech stung; El winced and bowed his head.

“My apologies, lady, I pray ye. Are still, of course. Ah, are still whom?”

That’s better. There was a time when you knew me. Symrustar Auglamyr, once of Cormanthor. We did not part on good terms.

“Symrustar? Lady, how … how …”

How came I here? Taken by the drow long ago, my mind assailed by their spells for years. I fought them and won, again and again, until they despaired of conquering me and decided to destroy me instead, to get at Mystra’s might within me. And they managed it. In the end, Our Lady fallen silent, it seems I was not so special, after all.

The voice in Elminster’s head fell silent for a moment. When it spoke again, it was laced with amusement.

Or do you mean, how is it that I became a Chosen? And you never knew of me?

“Ah … aye. To thy first, I mean. As for the second, Mystra shielded ye from me, of course.”

She did. For both our sakes. I love you, man.

“And I ye. I believe ye when ye speak of love-but ye had, ye must admit, an odd way of showing it.”

I was torn, and more than torn. I hated you, too. For being a human, El. It was … shame to me to desire a human. Until my heart told me otherwise, I was as certain as the rising and setting of the sun and moon that humans were stinking, hairy, brutish savages. A young, reckless, lesser race that deserved no respect and was unworthy of their ever-rising power. A blight upon the Realms that despoiled and ruined without thought or caring, and responded with angry violence when their faults were pointed out to them. You shattered all I knew of the world, all at once, and … and I saw what was to come. That seeing would not be easy for any elf, high or low. It was poison to me. You were poison to me.

“I … Lady, I was young and foolish and proud, and-and did ye ill.”

I tried to do you worse. Even prayed not just to the gods I knew well, but to Mystra, for the means to destroy you.

“Sweet shattered spells …,” El whispered, aghast. “Did ye not know-?”

The ties between you and your goddess? I soon learned. The voice in his mind was wry. Yet never have I known such love, such mercy. Instead of destroying me or playing me false, she gave me kindness and wise counsel. That I spurned. When at last I fell in battle, she came to me as I was flung across the sky, my body rent in fire, and offered me a new life. I said yes. She promised me you would never know while she flourished. I wonder now if she foresaw her fate.

“I … I think Mystra’s fall was part of a cycle fated to happen again and again, as the Weave-as all magic of this world-needs renewal. Mystra has returned.”

WHAT? I’ve felt her not!

“She is … much changed. Diminished. Needing my service urgently, where before I was but one able-handed servant and messenger among many at her disposal.”

And so you’ll endure, as I fall into the darkness. Yet I’ll have this brief time with you, ere I fade. You always had the hardest road, Lord Aumar. You prince. The voice lost its forlorn and wistful feeling, and turned warmly affectionate. You right rogue.

“Lady,” Elminster replied, “I … I wish matters had been different, between us.”

If wishes were armies, Cormanthor would yet stand bright. I had my second chance, El, and made much of it, and long ago moved beyond regret. I found lovers and soulmates and good friends among Mystra’s faithful, then peace over what befell when we were both in the City of Song. Mystra often showed me your unfolding exploits, as entertainment for us both. Know that I … The voice seemed to choke for a moment, as if suppressing a sob. That I often cheered for you.

Symrustar’s voice slid back into wry amusement again. Even when you were … wenching.

Elminster winced. “Mystra never told me …”

Mystra never told you a lot of things. Yet know that she regarded you above all others in her service, gave you the hardest tasks, trusted you more than any other. You were her lion. I … I often wondered what your mind would feel like.

“And now?”

It feels … comfortable. Friendlier and kinder than I thought it could be. You are a bright lion, man.

El winced again. “I–I bumble along, these days. Trying to do what I’m bidden without doing too much damage to the Realms around me. All too often failing at that, I must tell ye.”

Modestly said, Lord Aumar, but just now, I perceive from your thoughts, body snatching is your foremost interest. Hardly a modest pursuit.

“Ouch. Thy tongue still stings with casual ease.”

I’m not quite dead yet. So share. This is my last ride, and I want to enjoy it.

“Lady, flying around as a sort of sightseer has its fleeting attractions, but Mystra has laid urgent orders upon me, and much depended upon me before that. To fulfill any of these tasks, I require a body, hands and all. Not some thrall under compulsion I might try from a distance, but the defter, closer control I gain by inhabiting the body, wearing it as my own.”

So how did you happen to be so careless as to lose your own body?

El sighed. “A longish tale, lady. Do ye really want me to spend the time to-?”

No. I was … needling you. A besetting failure of mine. Forgive me. Explore away. The sooner you’re wearing a body, the sooner we can be out of this place. Those last mental words came wrapped in rising fear, revulsion, and a hastily suppressed flare of gruesome memories of grinning drow cutting into her ere the excruciating pain made her faint.

Elminster sent her all the soothing, loving emotion he could muster, which earned him a sharp: Spare me the romance, Sage of Shadowdale. A little late now for both of us, wouldn’t you grant? So get looking!

“Thy wish, lady,” El told the elf in his mind wryly, “is my command.”

He drifted forward. But even for swirling ashes, haste among freshly fallen rubble, with pillars and fragments of ceiling often crashing down suddenly, was nigh-impossible. Caution had to govern.

What El had watched the glaragh do suggested mindless bodies would be plentiful if he picked promptly. He could see silent, empty-eyed drow drooling and aimlessly staggering in distant galleries, heedless of peril; were those the best and strongest bodies to choose from, or should he take one that was unmarked but unconscious?

Take the most beautiful she-drow, Symrustar suggested tartly. Drow males and human men are alike in this: beauty distracts them from instantly seeking to slay. They’d rather have some fun first.

“Cynical,” El muttered, “yet astute.”

The one does not preclude the other, man. Even among humans. As for elves, have you so utterly forgotten your days in Cormanthor?

“No,” Elminster whispered. “Never.”

Gently, El. I did not mean to wound.

“I bear many wounds,” he murmured. “The worst healed are those I carry in my mind.”

Carefully wrapped in shrouds and hidden away, I see.

Elminster winced again.

In the rubble-heaped cauldron where the prow of stone had been, most of the drow were dead or maimed, half-crushed or missing limbs. El floated into the intact rooms deeper along the surviving side of the citadel where Symrustar had been slain.

This may be the wiser place to search, his newfound guest said approvingly. Or the most dangerous-the most powerful priestesses had chambers in this direction.

“The glaragh stole every mind it could reach,” El told her. “Unless other drow come before I’m done, I don’t expect battle.”

Nor did he find any. Staring drow were everywhere, their bodies intact but their minds quite gone, some of them silent and seemingly unaware of him or anything, others slinking away like cowed dogs at any nearby movement.

He floated through room after room, the furnishings growing grander, with ever increasing numbers of poisonous guardian spiders-some curled into tight balls of agony or spasming, quivering insanity, others frozen in awe, thanks to the abrupt disappearance of the drow minds to which they’d been linked.

He found priestesses clad in elaborate high-cowled spider robes, who bore scepters and wands of darkly menacing power. Some were slumped in spots that suggested they’d been guarding locked rooms beyond them-and in one such room Elminster was astonished to find a long table surrounded by mindless, feebly fumbling male drow whose robes, enchanted rings, and wands suggested they were wizards of some sort. Laid out upon the table were spellbooks.

Human spellbooks! Tomes and grimoires and mages’ traveling handyspells books, brought down into the Underdark from the World Above, the surface Realms El knew. Dark elves were collapsed over the pages or fallen back in their chairs away from them. These wizards had obviously been studying when the glaragh struck.

El peered at this rune-adorned page and that, feeling the silver fire roiling within him; more, now, than he could comfortably carry. He could hurl it forth at foes, aye. If he did not, it would leak slowly away in his wake … or he could make use of it as he’d done a time or two before in his a thousand-some summers. Expend a trifle here and a trifle there, to brand particular spells from these pages before him into his mind for a good long time. Forever, if no silver fire burned them away again. Making them magics he could henceforth cast by silent force of will alone. Only a few, for each one he branded into his sentience stunted and constricted it. He must choose carefully.

After he chose the best body to become his new home. He might need an excess of silver fire to break enchantments on it, or purge poisons or internal ills from it. Yes, he must find a body first.

El coiled around the fallen priestess who’d been guarding the room of the tomes. A tall, sleek drow-or would have been were she not sprawled in her own drool all over the scuttling-spider-crowded stone floor of a citadel passage. Her arms and legs were flung wide, spiders biting them as if avenging years of slights.

Aye, and that was another concern; any of these myriad fist-sized and smaller arachnids might be eyes and ears for the Queen of Spiders. El had no desire to fight scores upon scores of ruthless spider priestesses or the minions they could command, or earn the furious attention of an insane and rapacious goddess best dealt with when a restored and whole Mystra stood at his back.

At last you reach the obvious conclusion that you must hurry, Elminster.

“Yes, Mother,” El answered Symrustar mockingly. He was rewarded by a mental image of her giving him a witheringly scornful look, her face looming up so suddenly in his mind that he flinched. And promptly felt the warm flare of her satisfaction.

“Not now,” he told her grimly, and he started to steel himself mentally, steadying and gathering his will. This might be rough …

El hovered before the beautiful but alarmingly slack face of the priestess-then plunged down into her open mouth, seeking the nasal passages to drive up to storm and occupy the dark, hopefully empty mind.

He was in! And it was empty; he was falling, plunging into unknown depths, rolling …

There followed a few moments of whirling, sickening disorientation, a seemingly longer time of feeling queasily “not right” … and then the body was his, moving fingers then legs at his command, rolling over-and up, as lithely as he’d done in his youth on the rooftops of long-vanished Athalantar.

He had a body once more!

“Lady,” he asked aloud, the words coming out as a deep squawk at first, ere settling into a softer, higher-pitched echo of his former voice, “are ye still with me?”

Oh yes, Lord Aumar. You’ll not be rid of me that easily.

“Ah, lass, this is in no sense an attempt to be rid of ye-but if taking a body is this easy, it occurs to me that ye could have one, too, with my help, and take back thy fire and live on!”

The reply, from the back of his mind, was slow in coming.

That was cruel, Elminster. I am much too far gone for that. There’s not enough of me left to do more than think, and mindspeak. I can’t even … no. I can’t. If you tried to bestow silver fire on me now, even a little, it would rend what is left of me, and snuff me out like the candlestub I’ve become. I’m … I’m almost done. Don’t leave me.

“Lady, I’ve no such intentions, I assure ye! I-”

Always had a glib tongue. Let us speak no more of this, waste no more of the time neither of us has left. The silence of this citadel must have been noticed already. There are-or were-portals to other drow holds somewhere in this place; you may very soon have rather hostile visitors.

“I-aye, ye have the right of it. The spellbooks …”

Hurry, man, hurry.

Elminster hurried, clawing through the keys he found on his new body’s belt with long, deft, able fingers. This shapely, graceful, and pain-free body was clad in diaphanous robes of a hue he hated, and covered with hrasted spider badges! Impatiently he tore at the cloth.

That’s the El I remember. All shes should go bare, yes?

“Lady,” he growled aloud-it came out as an angry purr-“ye’re not helping!”

I will, Elminster, I promise. When I can, as I can. This I swear.

The sudden fiery determination in the voice in his mind almost scorched him.

Touched, El found himself on the verge of tears-larger, oilier tears than any of his human bodies had wept. He sniffled.

Stop that. Spells, remember?

“Yes, dear,” he replied mockingly. There was silence for a moment in the back of his mind, then the delicious thrill of a feminine chuckle.

How many Chosen had paid with their lives, down all the long years? Do we mean so little to Mystra?

Hurry.

El rushed to the books, silver fire rising into his mind. He must be careful not to let it leak out of his fingertips and damage spells he might want.

He must be careful, too, to choose those magics wisely. Yet he must hasten.

El growled again.

Aye, that purr was a delightful sound …