The Temptation of Elminster

Twelve: The Empty Throne

Far to the east of Westgate, even as a smiling elf slipped into an inn expecting trouble, a mist drifted through an old, deep forest.

It was a mist that sparkled and chimed as it went, moving purposefully through the trees. Sometimes it rose up into an almost humanoid, striding form, bulking tall, thick and strong, at other times it moved like an ever-leaping, undulating snake. No birds called in the shade around it, and nothing rustled in the dead leaves underfoot. Only its own whirling breezes stirred the creepers and tatters of hanging moss it wound its way through, silence ruled the forest it traversed.

This was no wonder, earlier chiming hungers had left not a creature alive in that part of the forest to witness its haste. The chiming mist had left the graveyard of the Frostfire Banner far behind, moving for miles along the deserted road to a place where most eyes would have missed the sapling-studded, overgrown remnants of a lane turning off into the woods.

The mist drifted along the dips and turns of that road, passing like eager smoke across crumbling stone bridges that took the road across rivulets, to the deep green place where the road ended … and the ruins began.

The lines of gigantic old trees flanking the overgrown road gave way to a litter of creeper-shrouded, sagging wagons and coaches. Beyond lay thickets, at their hearts overgrown mounds that had once been stables and cottages. Beyond the thickets rose shadow-tops so tall that their gloom choked away thickets and lay in endless shadow over the rotting ruin of a drawbridge across a deep, muddy cleft that had once been a moat… and the stone pillars or teeth within the moat, that had once been the stout buttresses of mostly fallen walls. Walls that had once frowned down on Faerun from a great height, formed a massive keep.

The long-fallen fortress was more forest and tumbled stone, now, than a building. The mist moved purposefully through the tangle of leaning trees and creepers that grew in its inner spaces, as if it knew what chambers could be found where. As it went, the walls became taller. Here and there ceilings or roofing had survived, though all of the archways gaped open and doorless, and there were no signs that anyone…or anything…dwelt within.

The mist came to a gently chiming halt in a chamber that had once been large and grand indeed. Gaps in its walls showed the forest just outside, but there was still a ceiling, and even furniture. A rotting-canopied bed larger than many stable stalls, stood with ornate gilded bedposts and cloth of gold glinting among the green mildew-fur of its bedding. Close by stood a lounge, canted over where one leg had broken, and beyond that several stools were enthusiastically growing mushrooms. A little way farther on, across the cracked marble floor, a peeling, man-high oval mirror stood beside a sagging row of wardrobes. Water was dripping down onto what had once been a grand table in another part of the room…and beyond it, in the darkest, best-roofed rear of the chamber, stood a ring-shaped parapet. Within the knee-high circular wall was only deeper darkness.. and when the mist began to move, it headed straight for this well.

As it approached, sudden flashes of light occurred in the air above the parapet.

The mist hesitated, rose a little higher, and ventured closer to the well.

The radiance reached for it, brightening, and was echoed by similar glows that crawled snakelike along the stone walls and the surrounding floor, outlining hitherto-invisible runes and symbols.

The mist danced for a moment among these flame-like tongues of silent light…then swooped, in a plunge that took it right down into the well. Elaborate traceries of magic flashed and flared into visibility for a moment as the mist arrowed past, seeming to lash and claw at it, but when it had disappeared down the well, these fading remnants of guardian spells lapsed into quiescence once more.

The shaft was a good distance across and fell straight down, a long and lightless way. It ended in a floor of uneven, natural stone…one end of a vast and dark natural cavern.

The mist moved into this velvet void with the confidence of someone who moves through utter darkness to a familiar spot. It chimed softly as its own faint radiance revealed something in the emptiness ahead: a tall, empty stone seat, facing it as it approached.

The mist stopped before it reached the man-sized throne, and hovered above a semicircle of large, complex runes that were graven into the floor in front of the throne. If the throne had been the center seat of a barge, facing ahead, the runes formed the rounded prow of the barge.

The mist seemed to linger for a time in thought, then the breeze of its movements suddenly quickened into a brisk whirlwind, spiraling around and around as it sparkled and chimed. As it swept up to violent speed, dust rose and whirled with it, pebbles rolled at its bidding, and the whirlwind rose into a horned, shifting column.

Arms it grew, and absorbed again, then humps or moving lumps that might have been heads or might have been other things, before it flashed once, then grew very dim.

No whirlwind or snake of mist now glowed in the darkness. Where the mist had been stood the translucent, ghostly shape of a tall, thin woman in a plain robe, her feet and arms bare, her hair a knee-length, unruly tangle, her eyes rather wild. She threw up her arms in triumph or glee, and mad laughter broke out of her, harsh and high and shrill, echoing back from dark and unseen stony crevices.

"It is needful," the veiled voice replied. "Lie down upon the slab. You shall not be chained, your faith shall be demonstrated by your remaining in place upon it while the owlbear feeds. Offer yourself to it without resistance, and be free of fear. My spells shall keep you alive, whatever it devours of you…and no matter how painful it seems, no matter what wounds you sustain, you shall be restored wholly when the rite is done. I have survived such a ritual, in my day, and so have a select few here. To do this is a mark of true honor, the blood of someone so loyal is the best consecration we can offer the Dread Mistress Of All."

"Yes, Dread Sister," the underpriestess whispered, and the trembling of her body could be heard in her voice. "W-will I … will my mind be untouched by watching something eat me?" Her voice rose into what was almost a shrill shriek of horror at the thought.

"Well, Dread Sister," the veiled voice purred calmly, "that is up to you. The slab awaits. Dearest of those I've guided, make me proud this day, not ashamed. I shall be watching you…and so shall one who is far, far greater than any of us shall ever be."

"You dare to doubt visions sent by our Lady Who Sings In Darkness?" the voice from behind the veil asked in dry tones. "That sounds perilously close to heresy…or even unbelief…to me."

"N-no, Dread Sister," a second female voice replied, a trifle too hastily. "My wits fail me…a personal flaw, no act of unbelief or discourtesy to the Nightsinger — and I cannot see why this shrine must be established”.

"By Mystra's smile, that feels good!" Beldrune said wonderingly, as he stretched and wiggled his fingers experimentally. "I do feel younger, all the aches are gone." He swung himself up to a sitting position, rubbing at his face around his eyes, and from between his fingers fixed Tabarast with a level look.

"Truth time, trusted colleague of the arcane," he said firmly. "Wizards of a certain standing don't just 'find' new spells on hitherto-blank back pages of their spellbooks. Where did it really come from?"

Tabarast of the Three Sung Curses looked back over the tops of his thumb-smudged spectacles rather severely. "You grow not old gracefully, most highly regarded Droon. I detect a growing and decidedly unattractive tendency in yourself, to open disbelief in the testimony of your wiser elders. Crush this flaw, my boy, while yet you retain some friendly relations with folk who can serve as your wiser elders…for 'tis sure that, given your advancing age and wisdom, these are few, and shall be fewer henceforth."

The older wizard took a few thoughtful paces away, scratching the bridge of his nose. "I did indeed just find it, on a page that has always been blank, that I have looked to fill with a spell puissant enough to be worthy of the writing these last three decades. I know not how it came to be there, but I believe…I can only believe-that the sacred Hand of the Lady is involved somehow. Spare me the hearing, the spittle and drawn breath, of your usual lecture on Mystra's utter and everlasting refusal to give magic to mortals."

Beldrune blinked. Tabarast waited, carefully not smiling.

"Very well," the younger mage said after a pause that seemed longer than it truly was, "but you leave me, now, with very little to say. Some silences, I fear, are going to stretch."

Then Tabarast did smile…an instant before asking in innocent tones, "Is that a promise?"

Fortunately, a rejuvenated Beldrune of the Bent Finger proved to be every bit as bad a shot with hurled pillows as the old one had been.

Though not a living creature could be seen in the deep shade of the duskwoods, here where their trunks stood so close together that they might have been gigantic blades of grass, the lone human could feel that someone was watching him. Someone very near. Swallowing, he decided to take a chance.

"Is this the place men call Tangletrees?" he asked the air calmly, sitting down on the huge and moss-covered curve of a fallen tree trunk, and setting his smooth-worn staff aside.

"It is," came a grave reply, in a voice so light and melodious that it could only have been elven.

Umbregard, once of Galadorna, resisted his instinctive desire to turn toward where the voice seemed to have come from, to see who might be there. Instead, he smiled and held out his hands, empty palms upward. "I come in peace, without fire or any ill will or desire to despoil. I come seeking only answers."

A deep, liquid chuckle came to his ears, then the words, "So do we all, man…and the most fortunate of us find a few of them. Be my guest for a time, in safety and at ease. Rise and go around the two entwined trees to your right, down into the hollow. Its water, I suspect, will be the purest yet to pass your lips."

"My thanks," Umbregard replied, and meant it.

The hollow was cold and as dark as a cave, here the leaves met close overhead, and no sun at all touched the earth. Faintly glowing fungi gave off just enough light to see a stone at the edge of the little pool, and a crystal goblet waiting on it. "For my use?" the human mage asked.

"Of course," the calm voice replied, coming from everywhere and nowhere. "Do you fear enslaving enchantments, or elven trickery?"

"No," Umbregard replied. "Rather, I do not want to give offense by seizing things overboldly."

He took up the goblet…it was cool to the touch, and somehow softer in his fingers than it should have been…dipped it into the pool, and drank. As the ripples chased each other across the water, he thought he saw in them a sad, dark-eyed elf face regarding him for a moment.. but if it had ever truly been there, it was gone in the next instant.

The water was good, and seemed at once both invigorating and soothing. The man let it slide down his throat, closed his eyes, and gave himself over to silent enjoyment.

Somewhere a bird called and was answered. It was all very peaceful… he sat up with a start, fearing for one awful moment that he had slept under an elven spell, and carefully set the goblet back on the stone where he'd found it.

"My thanks," he said again. "The water was every bit as you said it would be. Know that I am Umbregard, once of Galadorna, and have fled far since that realm fell. I work magic, though I can boast no great power, and I have prayed to Mystra…the goddess of magic humans venerate…often in my travels."

"And what have you prayed to her for?" the elven voice asked in tones of pleasant interest, sounding very close. Again Umbregard quelled the urge to turn and look at its source.

"Guidance in what good and fitting things magic can be used for, to build a life for one who is not interested in using spells as blades to threaten or thrust into others," he replied. "Galadorna, before its fall, had become a nest of spell-hurling vipers, each striving to bring rivals down and not caring what waste and ruin they wrought in the doing. I will not be like that."

"Well said," the elf said, and Umbregard heard the goblet being dipped then lifted up out of the pool. "Yet it is a long and hard wandering through the shadowed wood for one of your kind, to here. What brought you hence?"

"Mystra showed me the way, and this duskwood grove," Umbregard replied. "I knew not who I'd meet here, but I suspected it would be an elf, once of Myth Drannor … for such a one would know what it was to choose a path after the fall of your home and all you held dear."

He could clearly hear a wince in the elven voice as it replied, "You certainly have the gift of speaking plainly, Umbregard."

"I mean no offense," the human mage replied, turning quickly and offering his hand.

A moon elf male in a dark blue open-front shirt and high booted tight leather breeches was sitting perhaps another handspan away, the goblet raised in his hand. He seemed weaponless, though two small objects…black, teardrop-shaped gemstones that twinkled like two dark stars…floated in the air above his left shoulder.

He smiled into Umbregard's wonderstruck eyes and said, "I know. I am also known, among my folk, for my uncommon bluntness. I am called, in your tongue, Star-sunder, a star fell from the sky at the moment of my birth, though I doubt whatever it heralded had anything at all to do with me."

The human mage gasped, shrank back, and said, "That's one of the …"

The elf's eyebrows lifted. "Yes?" he asked. "Or blurt you out a secret you must now try to keep?"

Umbregard blushed. "Ah, no … no," he said. "That's one of the sayings of the priests of Mystra. 'Seek you one for whom the stars fall, for he speaks truth.' "

Starsunder blinked. "Oh, dear. My role, it seems, is laid out for me," the elf said with a smile, drained the goblet, and set it down on the stone just as carefully as Umbregard had done. In soft silence, it promptly vanished.

"What truths have you come to hear?" the elf asked, and in that moment Umbregard came to understand that the lacing of laughter in an elf's voice is not always mockery.

He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Some in Galadorna whispered that the man Elminster, who was our last court mage, also lived in Myth Drannor long ago, and worked dark magic there. I know this is a human I ask about, and that I presume overmuch…why should you freely yield secrets to me, at all?…but I must know. If humans can live long years as elves do, how … and why? At what tasks should they spend all this time?"

Starsunder held up a hand. "The flood begins," he joked. "Hold at these for now, lest your remembrance of answers I give be lost in the rushing stream of your next query, and the one to follow, and so on." He smiled and leaned back against a tree root.

"To your first: yes, the same man named Elminster dwelt in Myth Drannor from before the laying of its mythal to some time after, learning and working much magic. Those who hated the idea of a human thrusting his way in among us elves…for he was the first, or among the first…and many folk who came to Myth Drannor, once it was open to all, and envied him his power, might have termed some of his castings 'dark,' but I cannot in truth judge them so, or his reasons for working this or that enchantment."

Umbregard opened his mouth to speak, but Star-sunder chuckled and threw up a hand to still him. "Not yet, please, bald and important truths shouldn't be rushed."

Umbregard flushed, then smiled and sat back, gesturing to the elf to continue.

There was a twinkle in Starsunder's eyes as he spoke again. "Humans who master magic enough…or rather, think they've 'mastered' magic enough…try many ways to outlive their usual span of years. Most of these, from lichdom to elixirs, are flawed in that they twist the essential nature of persons using them. They become new…and many would judge, I among them, 'lesser'…beings in the process. If you ask me how you could live longer, I would say the only unstained way to do so … though it will change you as surely as the lesser ways … is the one Elminster has taken … or perhaps been led into. I know not if he ardently sought it and worked toward it, drifted into it, or was forced or pushed into it. He serves Mystra as a special servant, doing her bidding in exchange for longevity, special status, and powers to boot. I believe he is called a 'Chosen' of the goddess."

"How did he get to be chosen for this service?" Umbregard asked slowly. "Do you know?"

"I know not," Starsunder replied, "but I do know how he has continued it for what to humans is a very long time: love."

"Love? Mystra loves him?"

"And he loves her." There was disbelief or incredulity in the confusion written plainly on the human mage's face, so Starsunder added gently, "Yes, beyond fondness and friendship and the raging desires of the flesh, true, deep, and lasting love. It is hard to believe this until you've truly felt it, Umbregard, but listen to me. There is a power in love greater than most things that can touch humans… or elves, or orcs for that matter. A power for good and for ill. Like all things of such power, love is very dangerous."

"Dangerous?"

Starsunder smiled faintly and said, "Love is a flame that sets fire to things. It is a greater danger to mages than any miscast spell can ever hope to be."

He leaned forward to lay a hand on Umbregard's arm, and said almost fiercely, as they stared into each other's eyes, "Magic gone awry can merely kill a mage, love can remake him, and drive him to remake the world. Our Coronal's great love drove him to seek a way for Cormanthyr that remade it… and, most of my folk would say, in the end destroyed it. I was yet young one warm night, out swimming for a lark, with no magic of my own to be felt…something that probably kept me alive then…when the Great Lady of the Starym, Ildilyntra who had loved the Coronal and been loved by him, slew herself to try to bring about his death, driven by her love for our land, just as he was…and both of them seared in their striving by their denied yet thriving love for each other."

The moon elf sighed and shook his head. "You cannot feel the sadness that stirs in me when I hear them again in my head, arguing together…and you are the first human after Elminster to know of that night. Mind and mark, Umbregard: to speak of this secret to others of my kind may mean your swift death."

"I shall heed," Umbregard whispered. "Say on."

The elf smiled wryly and continued, "There's little more to say. Mystra chose this Elminster to serve her, and he has done well, where others have not. The gods make us all different, and more of us fail than succeed. Elminster has failed often…but his love has not, and he has remained at his task. Bravery, I think your bards term it."

"Bravery? How can one armored and aided by a god fear anything? Without fear to wrestle with and reconquer, again and again, where is bravery?" Umbregard asked, excitement making him bold.

Something like fondness danced in Starsunder's eyes as he replied, "There are many gods, divine favor marks a mortal for greater danger than his 'ordinary' fellow and is very seldom a sure defense against the perils of this world…or any other. Only fools trust in the gods so much that they set aside fear entirely, and dismiss or do not see the dangers. I have seen bravery among your kind often, it seems something humans are good at, though more often I see in them recklessness or foolish disregard for danger that others who see less well might term bravery."

"So what is bravery?" Umbregard asked. "Standing in the path of danger?"

"Yes. Staying at one's post or task, as diligent as ever, knowing that at any time the sword waiting overhead may fall, or seeing fast-approaching doom and not abandoning all to flee."

"Please know that I mean no disrespect, but I must know: if such is bravery, how is it," Umbregard whispered, fear in his own eyes at his own daring, "that Myth Drannor…Cormanthyr…fell, and you still live?"

Starsunder's answering smile held sadness. "A race and a realm need obedient fools to survive, even more than they need brave…and soon dead…heroes." He stood up, and made a movement with his hand that might have been a wave of farewell. "You can see which I must be. If ever you meet this Elminster of yours face to face, ask him which of the two he is…and bring back Ms answer to me. I must Know All, it is my failing." Like a graceful panther, he padded up out of the hollow into the duskwood grove above.

"Wait!" the human mage protested, rising and stumbling up into the trees in the elf's wake. "I've so much more to ask…must you go?"

"Only to prepare a place for a human to snore and a meal for us both," Starsunder replied. "You're welcome to stay and ask all the questions you can think of for as long as you want to tarry here. I've few friends left here among the living and this side of the Sundering Seas."

Umbregard found himself trembling. "I would be honored to be considered your friend," he said carefully and found himself trembling, "but I must ask this: how can you trust me so? We've but spoken for a few moments of your time, no more, how can you measure me? I could be a slayer of elves, a hunter of elven treasure…an elfbane. I give you my word I am no such thing … but I fear human promises to elves have all too often rung empty down the years."

Starsunder smiled. "This grove is sacred to two gods of my kind: Sehanine and Rillifane," he said. "They have judged you. Behold."

The eyes of the human wizard followed the elf's pointing hand to the moss-covered fallen tree and the wooden staff leaning there. Umbregard knew its familiar, well-worn length as well as he knew the hand that held it. That staff had accompanied him for thousands of miles, walking Faerun, and was both old and fire-hardened, its ends bound shod with copper to keep them from splitting. Yet for all that, while he'd sat talking in the hollow, it had thrown forth green shoots in plenty up and down its length…and every shoot ended in a small, beautiful white flower, glowing in the shade.

In a colder darkness, a ghostly woman stopped laughing and let her hands fall. The echoes of her cold mirth rolled around the cavern for some time, while she looked around at its dark vastness almost as if seeing it for the first time, her eyes slowly becoming sharp and fierce and fiery.

They were two glittering flames when she moved at last, striding with catlike, confident grace to a particular rune. She touched the symbol firmly with one foot, watched it fill with a bright blue-white glow, then stood with arms folded, watching, as wisps of smoke rose from the radiance to form a cloud like a man-sized spark-a cloud that suddenly coalesced into something else. A legless, floating image of a youngish-looking man, eager and intense of manner, faced the empty throne, hanging in midair above the rune that had spawned it.

As the image began to speak, the ghostly woman strode around the runes to the throne, leaned on one arm of that seat, and watched the image's speech.

It wore robes of rich crimson trimmed with black, and golden rings gleamed on its fingers…their hue matched by the blazing gold of the man's eyes. He had tousled brown hair and the untidy beginnings of a beard, and his voice fairly leaped with eager confidence.

"I am Karsus, as you are Karsus. If you behold this, disaster has befallen me, the first Karsus…and you, the second, must carry on to glory."

The image seemed to pace forward but actually remained above the rune. It waved one hand restlessly and continued, "I know not what you recall of my… our…life, some say my mind is less than clear, these days. Know that many mages of our people have achieved great power, mightiest of these, the archwizards of Netheril, rule their own domains. Mine, like many, is a floating city, I named it for us. I am the most powerful of all the archwizards, the Arcanist Supreme. They call me Karsus the Great."

The image waved a dismissive hand, blazing eyes still fixed on the throne. The ghostly woman was murmuring along with the words she'd obviously heard many times before. Something that might have been a faint sneer played about her lips.

"Of course," the image went on, "given your awakening, none of that may mean anything. I may not have been slain by a rival or suffered a purely personal doom…Karsus the city and the glory of Netheril itself may have fallen in a great war or cataclysm, we have made many foes, the greatest of them ourselves. We war among ourselves, we Netherese, and some of us war within ourselves. My wits are not always wholly my own. You may well share this affliction, watch for it, and guard against it."

The image of Karsus smiled, arching a sardonic eyebrow, the ghostly woman smiled back. Karsus spoke on. "Perhaps you'll have no need of these recording spells of mine, but I've prepared one for each speculum you see on the floor in this place, a series of spellcasting lessons, lest you face the perils of this world lacking certain enchantments I've found crucial. Our work must continue, only through power absolute can I…we…find perfection… and Karsus exists, has always existed, to achieve perfection and transform all Toril."

The watching woman laughed at that, a short and unpleasant bark. "Mad indeed, Karsus! Destiny: reshape all Toril, Oh, you were certainly competent to do that."

"Your first need may now be for physical healing, and I have anticipated the recurrence of this need in time to come, in a life where you may lack loyal servant mages or anyone you can trust. Know, then, that touching the speculum that evoked this image of me, while speaking the word 'Dalabrindar,' will heal all hurts. This power can be called upon as often as desired for so long as this rune remains unbroken, and can so serve anyone who speaks thus. The word is the name of the wizard who died so that this spell might live, truly, he has served us well, and…"

"Wasted words, Karsus!" the ghostly woman sneered. "Your clone was a headless mummy decorating this throne when I first saw it! Who slew it here, I wonder? Mystra? Azuth? Some rival? Or did the great and supreme sleeping Karsus fall to a passing adventurer-mage of puny spells, who thought he was beheading a lich?"

"… many another spell will serve where these do not, but I have here preserved demonstrations of my casting of enchantments of lasting usefulness and …'

The ghostly woman turned away from the words she'd heard so many times before, nodding in satisfaction. "They'll do. They'll do indeed. I have here a lure no mage can resist." She strode across the rune again, and the image vanished in mid-word, the radiance winking out of the graven stone to let darkness rush back into the cavern.

"Now, how to let living mages know of it, without causing them to crowd in here by the elbowing thousands?" ghostly lips asked the utter darkness.

The darkness did not answer back.

A frowning ghost strode to the bottom of the shaft and began to blur, unraveling in a spiraling wind of her own making, until once more a whirlwind of flickering lights danced in the darkness, spiraling slowly up the shaft. "And how to keep my mage-catches here for more than one night?"

At the top of the shaft, the chiming whorl of lights hovered over the well ring, and a soft, echoing voice issued from it. "I must weave mighty spells, to be sure. The runes must respond only to me…and then only one a month, no matter what means are tried. That should cause a young mage to linger here long enough."

With sudden vigor the mist darted to one of the rents in the walls and plunged through it, snaking through the trees trailing wild laughter and the exultant shout, "Long enough for a good feed."