Elminster Enraged

CHAPTER THIRTY

You have a visitor, lord,” the heavily armed Harper at the door murmured, as gently as any palace doorjack.

King’s Lord Lothan Durncaskyn looked up from his desk without even bothering to sigh. He was in a far better mood than usual, with things finally getting done around Immerford, its folk happy, the-

The man who strode into the room was clad like a forester. Or rather, the rare sort of forester who liked to wear a long sword at his hip. His face seemed familiar, somehow …

He gave Durncaskyn a nod and a rather sour grin.

The king’s lord stared back at him, frowning. “Sunter? Is that you? What brings you here?”

The man nodded again, and without waiting for an invitation he plucked up a chair, sat down on it, and put his boots up on Durncaskyn’s desk. “It is, Loth. And to answer you, a long and dusty ride brought me here; got anything to drink?”

“But … well, of course-here, the last of Braeven’s Best-but why aren’t you at High Horn? Keeping the realm safe against orcs and invading armies, and worse?”

Lord Sunter raised his eyebrows as he accepted a flagon. “Guard our borders? When we have all too many of our own nobles riding to war right in the heart of Cormyr-and the likes of Elminster on the loose?”

Durncaskyn shrugged. “I’ve heard the rumors, too, but …”

His voice trailed off as he caught sight of something on the wall and started to stare at it. His mouth dropped open.

Sunter turned his head to see what was so gripping and did the same thing. Before snarling out a curse, draining his flagon, and slamming it down on the desk with the words, “That’s it. I quit. It’s farming for me, from now on. Somewhere on sleepy back lanes, far from any of our borders. Got any sheltered sisters I can marry?”

Durncaskyn was still staring at the wall too hard to think of a reply.

That particular wall of his office sported the usual fine map of Cormyr. An official one, issued by the palace; both men had seen dozens of copies of it before. However, neither was used to seeing such a map silently burst into flames, all by itself.

Flames that were a vivid, dancing blue.

What had been Manshoon slumped, like logs crumbling in a fire, then melted and was gone. Hard-eyed, Elminster watched his old foe whirl away into silver flame that blossomed and grew.

He clawed at it with his own fire, raking as much as he could of it into himself, wresting Mystra’s power from one unworthy. One who would see other days beyond this one.

Even before an eerie wisp swirled out of that fire and raced up out of the cellar and away, El knew why destroying Manshoon was beyond him. The vampire who as a man with many bodies had ruled Westgate, and Zhentil Keep before that, and founded and led the cruel Zhentarim, had carried Mystra’s silver fire in himself for too long. It would take a god-perhaps two of them, acting together-to destroy Manshoon utterly and forever. Unless, like his Alassra had, Manshoon sacrificed himself willingly.

Hah. As if that would ever happen.

El let the silver fire roar straight up, consuming the building above him, making the shop of Sraunter the alchemist a neat pit between the neighboring buildings, a gap in a row of dingy teeth. And then he brought it down again, taking the fire that was forever back inside him-his own, and Alassra’s, and what he’d torn out of Manshoon.

It was too much.

He’d known it would be. Yet he dared not let more leak out. Not when the likes of Manshoon were lurking, to take it and empower themselves and work worse mischief. So he drew it in, fought to hold it, and the real agony began.

Up from the ravaged cellar he soared, a silver comet seeking the sky, up and over the great green sward of Jester’s Green, heading north.

“Arrrrrgh!” he shouted into the wind of his own racing flight. Oh, he’d known it would hurt, but this …

He was diving, racing down out of the sky, startled riders on the road scrambling for the ditch. There were carts and wagons rushing up to meet him that couldn’t move-he veered into the trees, fighting to slow himself. It would be a poor gift to the Forest Kingdom to burn a great scar through the King’s Forest, or to shatter trees from here to Mouth O’ Gargoyles …

Snarling, El fought for control. Enough, at least, to be able to jet out silver fire with some precision and slow himself, so as to drop down gently.

He managed it. Somehow he won that fight and landed gently on rotting deadfall wood and leaves without any flames at all … and found himself lurching dazedly through the fallen-tree-littered floor of the vast wood.

And stumbling over the first such rotting obstacle and falling on his face. Aye, fittingly greet the glorious conquering hero …

El got up again, though he didn’t remember doing so. Too much fire … it was leaking out of him at every staggering step.

“Too much,” he groaned aloud. “Oh, Mystra, the pain!”

He fell against a tree, silver fire splashing out of him to race up and down its trunk, charring it in an instant.

“Mystra,” he gasped. “That’s it! Mystra will know how to help me …”

He staggered a few steps, leaking silver fire in a smoking rain as he went, then sprang back into the air on a jet of silver fire, to fly on through the King’s Forest. Seeking a certain waiting cave.

Gasping in pain, breathing out silver fire and leaking it from fingers and knees to scorch everything he touched, Elminster landed in a whirlwind of crisped and crackling leaves, staggered a few steps, fell to his knees, and stayed there.

Just here … aye … he crawled into muddy, stone-studded darkness that still smelled faintly of bear. Through the tapestries of tree roots, over the bear’s moldy old gnaw bones, and down into the stony cavern at last.

Where those great, keen silver-blue eyes of fire hung in midair, awaiting him.

“Goddess,” El gasped, still on his knees, “I … I …”

You blaze with my fire, most faithful of men. Will you freely yield much of it to me?

“Oh, Mystra, yes,” he groaned, reaching for her.

For an instant he thought two shafts of blue radiance lanced out of those eyes to drink silver fire from him. Then he felt arms grasping him with cruel and hungry strength, pulling him up and into a womanly embrace.

Silver fire caressed him, more silver fire poured out of him, his body seemed to become flame, flames that flickered and shrank and roiled as the goddess he’d served so long, the faint vestige of the Mystra he’d never stopped loving, hungrily clawed silver fire out of him, in a roaring flood that went on and blessedly on …

He was nothing, he was everything, he was soaring, leaving all pain behind …

He was standing in a cavern that was a cavern no more.

The rough and solid stone roof, the earth above it, and tall forest giants of trees above that were all torn away and hurled high into the sky or seared to nothingness in mere moments, leaving him standing in a new clearing, the empty sky above.

The air was full of blue light and the awed wordless song of a thousand unseen voices … and towering above El, shaped tall out of the blue glow, was the Lady of Art he’d first met so many centuries ago.

“I have returned,” Mystra whispered, soft words that were full of awe and exultation … and a thunder of power that shook Elminster and the ground beneath him and the rustling, creaking, swaying trees of the King’s Forest for miles around.

A star of silver brightness kindled in the blue glow beside Elminster, and faded into Storm Silverhand, every last strand of her silver hair on end and standing proud from her, as if she were some sort of strange peacock. She looked astonished and delighted-and in one bound they were in each other’s arms, both of them leaping to meet each other. The blue glow took gentle hold of them in midair, and floated them into each other’s arms.

Rather dazedly, they hugged and kissed, then leaned back in each other’s arms to laugh together, then look each other up and down, as if not quite believing they were whole, and here.

Elminster found his tongue first. “Well, I’m back,” he said hoarsely. “I’m Elminster again. I think.”

“If you’ve started thinking again,” Storm jested, “the Realms are in trouble indeed.”

“Indeed,” El replied dryly, and he kissed her again, hungrily this time, his arms tightening around her as if he intended never to let go.

They hugged each other tightly, and wept together happily, as overhead the silver-blue and glowing sky filled with Mystra’s song.

“No, no, no, you dolt! While you’re striking that grand pose, what d’you think yer foe’ll be doing, eh? Standing back to admire?”

Mirt lurched forward, right through the ringing blades of the Harpers he was training, the ironguard magics that protected them all letting blades slice them without harm, as if they weren’t there at all.

“You cover yerself like this, see? If you don’t, what you’ll see instead’ll be a blade plunging right through yer heart. Or throat. Or whatever other part of you yer foe feels like gutting.”

It was the bright and breezy afternoon of the ninth day after Mystra’s Return. Beyond Mirt, on the shadier side of the glade, Amarune and Arclath were tutoring other pairs of Harpers in the finer points of real-world bladework.

Storm and Elminster sat on a mossy bank, leaning back against the massive bough of a shadowtop split in some long ago tempest, that had decided to grow horizontally along the ground rather than up into the sky. They were also leaning into each other, shoulders together. At peace.

Storm was harping gently as she watched the swordplay, and there was a gentle smile on her face.

“I feel happier than I have in a long time,” she murmured. “What with Mystra restored, and Manshoon no more.”

“A Manshoon is not what he was,” El corrected her. “He survives, after a fashion, and there are more of him. Like many a wealthy merchant who trades in a large handful of lands, he has many Manshoons.”

Storm winced at the pun and lifted a hand from her harp strings to wave at the Harpers in the glade. “This is next, for me. And for you?”

“There remains,” Elminster said gravely, “the matter of Larloch.”

“I would have given much,” Lord Ambershields murmured, “to have seen this Storm Silverhand-Marchioness Immerdusk, indeed! What dusty old scroll did Foril pull that title out of, I wonder? — strolling to meet the king wearing nothing but her hair and a smile.”

“I’m sure you would, old ram,” Lady Harvendur replied tartly. “I, on the other hand, would have given rather more to see Vangerdahast schooling Glathra Barcantle. They say that Ganrahast and Vainrence asked to be tutored alongside her, just to quell the worst of the battles. Much good it did them. That’s how that fire got started in the haunted wing, you know!”

“Heh. I didn’t know, but must confess I’m not surprised in the slightest. There’s been more confounded tumult around here since we first started hearing all these rumors about Elminster the Deathless. Why, they say he’s built an altar to Mystra in the haunted wing, and is making every last wizard of war in all the kingdom kneel at it and pray to her every night! Whatever next?”

“Good government?” Lady Harvendur joked.

Lord Ambershields rolled his eyes. “Huh! Now you’re dreaming aloud! We’ll have dread Larloch out of the depths of time to chair a Council of Dragons, before we see that!”

The lass had an eye, to be sure. When she was finished bending builders to her will, they would have a home that was both beautiful and practical.

Mirt stood on the threshold of the western front door, waiting for his partner of the evening to adjust her gown just so, daub scent here and there, and all the rest of it. Looking out over the cobbled and garden-planted forecourt, he smiled happily. Aye, all in all, the mansion he and Rensharra shared was delightful.

So was having, at long last, a lass who understood his needs, just as he understood hers. Free to both take anyone as a partner for an evening or three, or even a tenday, but contentedly returning to each other’s arms, again and again.

“I believe I’m ready, Lord of Waterdeep,” a husky voice murmured from behind him, a moment before a strong and shapely arm slipped through his.

Mirt turned his head to give Glathra Barcantle a fond smile. “Ah, but you look beautiful, wench. Let’s stroll out and dine.”

“Wench?” Her tone held warning. “Is that a Waterdhavian endearment?”

“It was back when I flourished, girl,” Mirt told her gruffly. “Oh, what now? Is ‘girl’ somehow demeaning now, too? Gods, lass, the way yer dressed, yer sure telling the watching world yer a girl!”

“Your girl, this evening,” Glathra agreed happily, as they strolled out into the forecourt.

Only to see Rensharra Ironstave, in an even more magnificent gown that left one shoulder crested and the other bare, departing the eastern front door on the arm of her gallant for the evening. King’s Lord Lothan Durncaskyn looked decidedly dapper in tailored black, with one of the fashionable new tailcloaks swirling at his every stride.

Mirt went right to Rensharra, and they let go of their respective partners for long enough to embrace, kiss, and wish each other a delightful evening.

“Don’t forget the way home, now,” Mirt warned. “I’ve slaked a haunch in wine, for us to share at dawn.”

Rensharra smiled, then purred, “And I’ve a surprise for us to share, too.”

Mirt growled suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows.

She chuckled. “No, not that, but let me assure you that it’s not a new tax assessment, either.”

Mirt bowed deeply. “Until dawn, then.”

She bowed right back, almost spilling out of her low-cut gown in the process. “Until dawn.”

They all went on their ways smiling, thinking of that bright dawn ahead.