Elminster Must Die

CHAPTER THREE

Shuldroon’s only answer was another sneer, as the ring of men closed in.

“Don’t force this,” Elminster warned them, looking past the young war wizard at the other Cormyreans. “There will be death. And I am more than tired of killing.”

“Huh,” another young mage-the one called Hondryn-replied, flexing his fingers. “We can end your weariness forever, old man.”

“Aye, but should ye? If, that is, ye care for Cormyr.”

“Ah, this will be the ‘if ye knew the dark secrets I do, ye’d not be so foolish’ proclamation,” Shuldroon said mockingly. “Wherein you pose as the hidden guardian of the Forest Kingdom, its lone defender against all manner of dark creeping menaces we are too callow to know about, let alone understand.”

“I see ye know the script.” Elminster’s smile was wry. “Do ye also dismiss how those plays usually end?”

The young war wizard shrugged. “Everyone dies, so what boots it? Perhaps I’m a harsher critic of such sad amusements than you are-you who have seen and caused so many.”

“The savagery of a young cynic never rests,” Storm murmured and drew her sword.

That earned her one of Shuldroon’s sneers, but she had already turned to cast another swift look over her shoulder.

Tethgard’s tumbled stones hindered the closing of the ring behind the three former Chosen, but the Cormyreans stood close in front of them. Kelgantor, too, was advancing, though well behind his fellows. Storm saw him glance warily over his own shoulder, seeking unseen foes in the dark forest at his back, and she smiled bitterly.

They were here for blood, these men of Cormyr. It was all too clear how this would end.

“One last chance, old man,” Shuldroon said to Elminster. “Know that your own continued defiance has cost you much leniency on our part. We now have another demand: surrender to us she who was once the Witch-Queen of Aglarond. She is a danger and a peril to all Cormyr, and the king has commanded her apprehension!”

Elminster raised one eyebrow. “Ye seem to think she is my dog, rather than a person who chooses for herself. Count thyselves fortunate she’s kept her temper thus far, and be warned that her patience is not eternal.”

“You command here, do you not?”

“Noone ‘commands’ here, lad. She’s under my protection, aye, and I’ll defend her freedom and her person-but she is no slave. Neither I nor anyone else owns her, wherefore no one can surrender her but the lady herself. Make such demands to her, not of me.”

“You seek to duel me with words, old man. She’s a drooling idiot, chained like a dog-and you hold the other end of the chain!”

Elminster looked at Nordroun and asked mildly, “Was this the most, ah, diplomatic wizard of war the Crown could find? A youngling so hot-tongued that he needs ye to walk at his side as his bodyguard?”

Nordroun kept stone-faced and silent, but Shuldroon went purple and snarled, “Yield to us yon woman-we’ll not ask again!”

“Good,” El replied. “Then we can have some peace and quiet once more? Marvelous!”

“Mock me not, old man! I speak with the full authority of the Crown!”

“Methinks it weighs rather too heavily upon thy brains, youngling. All this wild shouting and rude, imprudent demanding! Are ye truly rash enough to try to force me to choose between the land I love and my lady?”

“I care nothing for your loves, Elminster. I care only about your defiance, your refusal to obey. Nor is the woman our only demand; I remind you that we require the immediate surrender of the Royal Gorget of Battle that you stole from the royal palace. Yield up both of these to us, in the name of the king’s justice!”

“The gorget I retrieved from the palace, ye mean,” Elminster replied, wagging a reproving finger. “I loaned that bauble to the first Palaghard when he was but a prince, to keep him alive through a rather perilous youth. He was not then king, and it was not a gift to him-nor to the Crown of Cormyr, nor yet the Forest Kingdom. He let his Enchara wear it when needful, a generosity I approved of. However, ’twas my loan and mine to take back and use whenever I deemed the time right or the occasion needful.”

“You lie!” Shuldroon shouted.

“I do not lie,” Elminster replied flatly. “Thy bluster notwithstanding.”

“Do you not? Sages have filled books with your falsehoods and thefts down the centuries, old man!”

“So they have, and even told truth about some of them, too. Yet I have not stolen or lied about this gorget. And as for my thefts and lies, I recall very few of them taking place in fair Cormyr. Which means they lie beyond the concerns and reach of the wizards of war.”

“Not so!” several Cormyreans barked in untidy chorus.

Shuldroon added in a rush, “We follow thieves and liars wherever they go and wherever they seek to hide, even unto far and fabled lands! Just as you’ve always done!”

“Then it seems ye’re no better than I,” Elminster replied quietly. “So talk to me not of justice or being in the ‘right.’ Ye bring me no better argument than the menace of might: do as we command, or face our swords and spells. Well, I’ve a reply for that. Go and leave me and these ladies in peace, and I’ll let ye live to swagger around Cormyr with thy swords and spells a while longer.”

“You don’t scare us, old fool.” Shuldroon sneered. “Surrender the gorget, or you will die. Have you not noticed we have you surrounded?”

“So ye do. Well, there’s yet time for ye to show good sense and draw off. This has been one of the better kingdoms, down the years; I’d not want to strike it so hard a blow without giving fair warning.”

“We’ve heard you,” Shuldroon snarled. “Deluded old fool. For far too long you’ve skulked like a thief and a vagabond in the halls of the Dragon Throne, while we’ve watched and done nothing, out of respect for the good deeds of your yesteryears. Yet you’ve trampled on our patience and our good nature, time and again, stealing the greatest royal treasures and magics of the Crown. Our forbearance, old man, is at an end. Surrender the gorget, or die.”

“Ah,” El said mildly, spreading his hands. “As to that, the gorget has been destroyed; it is far beyond being surrendered to anyone, by anybody. So let us have peace, and-”

“Die, thief!” Shuldroon thundered, flicking his fingers and crying a word that hurled his mightiest spell.

Nor was he alone. Most of the other war wizards cast swift battle magics, hands and tongues moving as swiftly as Elminster and the Simbul.

Or faster.

The night promptly exploded in great gouts of white flame as the ground shook and Tethgard erupted toward the stars.

El, Storm, and the Simbul were dashed off their feet again, the air around them shrieking and bubbling as the spells clawed at each other.

Elminster’s last magic item was gone in an instant, consumed in keeping the three from being blasted to nothingness. Charging highknights were flung away in all directions-and the stones of Tethgard were hurled into the air, riven asunder.

In the rolling, shuddering aftermath of that blast, amid involuntary groans from those still alive enough to feel the pain of their ringing ears, the three former Chosen watched Tethgard crash down in a deadly cloud of ricocheting fragments that clacked and clattered off the shaking stones all around. In a trice, Wizard of War Kelgantor lost his head to one slicing shard. In the moments that followed, larger stones crushed his bouncing head and some of his limbs even before they could come to rest.

“Back!” Nordroun cried, spitting blood. “Highknights, back! Rally to me!”

“I’ll give the orders around here!” Shuldroon screamed, staggering up from his knees with blood on his face and more of it running out of his ears. “Men of Cormyr, rally to me!”

“Our turn,” the Simbul purred triumphantly. And she raised her hands like two avenging claws, Elminster at her side, and struck back.

The air shimmered, and out of that whirling chaos spun countless swords of force, sharp blades that lacked hilts and wielders but shone with purple-white, howling magic as they sliced and spun their way through screaming men.

Three wizards of war were diced in a blood-drenched instant, leaving only a drifting crimson mist where they’d stood.

Another two were hurled high into the air, ruining the spells they’d been working, and the Old Mage, who’d sent them aloft, roared a great, spell-augmented warning out over much of Hullack Forest: “Begone, or I’ll not be responsible for what happens to ye! There will be more death!”

“Yours, if you don’t surrender!” Shuldroon shouted back, clawing out a wand and raking the night with lightning-

— that rebounded from the heaped stones of Tethgard, ravaging a highknight caught among them.

Crouching in the lee of some of those stones, Elminster whimpered, biting through his lip and shivering violently. Storm ran to him.

“Let me,” her sister hissed fiercely in her ear, one clawlike hand descending atop Storm’s own, as she clutched Elminster’s head.

Storm turned her head. Alassra was so close that their noses bumped. “You mustn’t-”

“I must,” the Witch-Queen of Aglarond snarled. “You think I don’t know my sanity is fleeting? He needs it now, to be sane enough to win this fray. My head has a handful of none-too-useful Art in it-unless you want half the Hullack gone-but he knows how to foil the spells of war wizards and strike back! Take what the gorget gave me, and feed it to him!”

Elminster was chanting, words that came in a fluid rush, his mouth wet and frothy and his eyes wide and staring.

“Loross?” Storm gasped. “I’ve not heard that since-”

“Not now, Astorma! Just keep your hands wrapped around his head when he moves, and let him get up and prance around! Look, he seeks to!”

El exploded to his feet and sprinted around the rocks, flinging his arms wide and sketching strange, intricate gestures as he came out into the full moonlight. White flames sprang out of the air around his hands, trailing them as he shaped a circle in the air in front of him. Storm struggled to keep hold of his head, the Simbul clawing at them both.

Shuldroon shouted furious curses at his foe, once again visible, and sent lightning racing at the three of them.

Bright, deadly bolts that Elminster’s cone of white fire gathered in, brought to his chest as a shrieking, spitting ball of blinding white conflagration-and sent howling back at their source.

The wand in Shuldroon’s hand exploded, and Shuldroon with it, his last scream cut off abruptly as tiny, dark, wet pieces of ambitious young war wizard spattered the distant trees.

Highknights burst up out of the rocks and flung daggers at them desperately, racing in behind those whirling blades with swords out to-

— vanish in a great ball of flame that flared up out of Elminster’s palm to blister rocks of Tethgard and then snatch itself aloft, carrying those screaming men with it, and explode up among the stars.

As blackened limbs rained down, Elminster started to sing.

Wild, off-key, and incoherent his song came, all half-words that were slurred and seemingly plucked from a dozen languages, making no sense at all.

“He’s going,” Storm said, her voice quavering. “Sister, have you more?”

The reply in her ear was a shriek that nearly deafened her, a scream that sounded like nothing that could-or should-come from a human throat.

Her sister tore violently away from her and was gone, flinging Storm and El down in a heap together on the stones.

Storm tried to find her footing again without letting go of El. Under her, he burst into wild, high-pitched laughter, cascades of sobbing giggles that set her teeth on edge.

She turned to see what had befallen Alassra-in time to see a lashing scaled tail rise up into the night. The Simbul had become a sleek, many-horned thing that looked a little like a wyvern and was flying away as fast as her batlike wings could take her, letting out another of those wild, screaming calls as she went.

Great. Alassra was insane again.

And so was Elminster. Storm looked wildly all around, wondering if she dared try to heal him-or if she’d find herself fighting for her own life in a moment or two, against a generous supply of enraged Cormyrean knights and wizards.

She put her hands on his head again, still tensely staring about.

No one moved amid the rocks. No swords came seeking her.

Out in the moonlight, she caught sight of a handful of surviving Cormyreans-a very small handful-fleeing back toward the trees, pelting along in frantic and terrified haste. A wizard of war waved frantic hands, and pale light flared briefly to claim them all, teleporting them elsewhere.

Somewhere safely far away, she hoped, sagging down atop Elminster with her tears starting. She’d be crying in earnest once she plunged into his ravaged mind, she knew, but in a forest this wild she dared not wait too long, for fear of something hungry coming along to feed before he was at least on his feet again … and they were both free of the worst of his madness.

The moon was serenely riding a nearly empty sky, highlighting a scorched and smoking battlefield strewn with pieces of dead wizard and highknight.

Tears blinded her then as she fell into real weeping.

Between her hands, the Old Mage’s head quivered, and Elminster started barking.

The moment she unshuttered the lantern and sat down in the little cavern facing him, Elminster frowned at her. “Ye look thin,” he said reprovingly. “Scrawny. Have ye been eating properly?”

Storm gave him a dark look. “Just how do you think I heal your mind?” she hissed, angrier than she’d thought she’d be. “I draw from myself.”

The Old Mage sighed. “Sorry, lass. I’ll steal ye some healing potions when I’m back inside, for when we meet again.”

He nodded in the direction of the damp old smuggling tunnel that led away from the cavern, curving into unseen distances and descending to pass under the walls of Suzail, but they both knew he meant inside the royal palace, where for some seasons they’d been posing as old Elgorn Rhauligan and his aging sister, Stornara, minor palace servants.

Storm waved a hand, dismissing healing potion thefts until some future time when they were together inside the palace. “El, are you well enough to cast those guises on us, without …?”

“Turning into a drooling, yapping thing again? ’Tis to be hoped.”

It was Storm’s turn to sigh. “I need a little certainty, El,” she said. “Or by the Holy Lady we both lost, I’ll slip you a little more longsleep and leave you snoring for a month or more, until I’m well and truly back from Shadowdale.”

Elminster chuckled. “Ye have grown claws, Lady of Shadowdale. A pleasure fighting battles with ye!”

Storm crooked one eyebrow. “Not against me?”

“Tease not, but tell: what word was brought back to the Crown of the fray at Tethgard?”

Storm shrugged. “I don’t look like the fetchingly spotted and wrinkled old Stornara without your magic, so I haven’t been able to get into the palace. The more talkative courtiers who drink at two of the taverns I’ve visited, however, tell lurid tales of a great spell battle against mysterious, unspecified fell wizards who slew all but a handful of the many brave, loyal, and vastly outnumbered wizards of war and loyal highknights who went up against these foes of the realm.”

“Of course. And those survivors were?”

“I know Starbridge survived, because I sent him into slumber before the battle, and I’ve heard he’s now been made commander of the highknights. And I’ve seen Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake from afar, strolling along the promenade-as pompous and strutting as ever-so I know he made it back. No doubt he’s been telling everyone how he bravely saved the day after the mightiest foes that ever threatened Cormyr struck down Kelgantor and the rest.”

“No doubt. What of Alassra?”

“Mad again; turned herself into a monster and flew off. Right now, she could be anywhere.”

“She gave her sanity right back to me, didn’t she?”

Storm nodded glumly. “She always returns to the same few places. My farm, for one. Not that getting her to talk to us is going to be easy. It’s going to take a lot of enchanted items to bring her mind back again.”

“I’m done with dragging her back to herself for a few days or a few hours,” Elminster said quietly. “It’s time to cure her for good.”

“That will take some really powerful stored Art,” Storm murmured.

“I care not if I have to strip Cormyr bare of its every last item, crowns and regalia included,” the Old Mage replied calmly. “If they treat me as a thief and murderer, then a thief and a murderer I shall be. I’ll take what I need to make her sane again, once and for all-and send anyone who stands in my way to greet the gods. I’m done with being kind and gentle to cruel fools.”

Storm frowned at him for a moment, hearing more bitter steel in his voice than she’d heard in a long time. “Be careful whom you slay, El. Cormyr may soon run out of cruel fools, if we fight many more Tethgards,” she told him.

Elminster shook his head. “New ones will arise to fill the boots of those we blast down,” he replied. “Every realm seems to have an endless supply of them.”