The Temptation of Elminster

Fourteen: The Elminster Hunt

The darkness never left Ilbryn Starym. It never would, not since the day when the last hunting lodge of the Starym had been torn apart in spells and flame, their proud halls in Myth Drannor already fallen, and the Starym had been shattered forever.

If any of his kin still lived, he'd never found trace of them. Once proud and mighty, the family that had led and defined Cormanthyr for an age was now reduced to one young and crippled cousin. If the Seldarine smiled, with his magic he might be able to sire children to carry on the family name… but only if the Seldarine smiled.

Again, it had been the Accursed One, that grinning human Elminster, his spells splashing around the temple as he fought the queen of Galadorna. A thousand times Ilbryn had relived those searing instants of tumbling down the temple, broken and aflame. To work magic that would restore his leg and smooth his skin to be what it had once been would ruin spells he'd never mastered, the spells that had cost him so much, to keep his ravaged innards working. Years of agony…if he lived that long…lay ahead. Agony of the body to match the agony in his heart.

"Have my thanks, human," he snarled to the empty air. The horse promptly jostled him, sending stabbing pains through his twisted side, as it clopped across a worn and uneven bridge. Ahead, through the pain, he saw a signboard. On his sixth day out of Westgate, riding alone on a hard road, it was a welcome sight, it told him he was getting somewhere … even if he didn't know quite where that somewhere was.

"Ripplestones," he read it aloud. "Another soaring human fortress of culture. How inspiring."

He drew his bitter sarcasm around himself like a dark cloak and urged his horse into a trot, sitting up in his saddle so as to look impressive when human eyes began their startled looks at him, an elf riding alone, all in black and wearing the swords and daggers of an adventurer, with…whenever he let the spell lapse…one side of his face a twisted, mottled mass of burn scar.

The weaponry was all for show, of course, to make his spells a surprise. Ilbryn dropped one hand to a smooth sword pommel and caressed it, keeping his face hard and grim, as the road rounded a thick stand of trees and Ripplestones spread out before him.

He was always wandering, always seeking Elminster. To hunt and slay Elminster Aumar was the burning goal that ruled his life…though there'd never be a House Starym to return to with triumphant news of avenging the family unless Ilbryn rebuilt it himself. He was close on Elminster's trail now, he could taste it.

He put out of his mind how many times he'd been this dose before and at the end of the day had closed his fingers on nothing.

Ah, a tavern, The Fair Maid of Ripplestones. Probably the only tavern in this dusty farm town. Ilbryn stopped his horse, threw its reins over its head to enact the spell that would hold it like a statue until he spoke the right word, and began the bitter struggle to dismount without falling on his face.

As it was, his artificial leg clanked like a bouncing cartload of swords when he landed, and he clung to a saddle strap for long seconds before he could clear his face of the pain and straighten up.

The two old men on the bench just sat and watched him calmly, as if strange travelers rode up to the Fair Maid every day. Ilbryn spoke gently to them, but grasped the hilts of a blade and a throwing dagger as a sort of silent promise of trouble to come … if they wanted trouble.

"May this day find you in fortune," he said formally. "I hope you can help me. I'm seeking a friend of mine, to deliver an urgent message. I must catch him! Have you seen a human wizard who goes by the name of Elminster? He's tall, and thin, with dark hair and a hawk's nose … and he steps into every wizard's tomb he passes."

The two old men on the bench stared at him, frowning, but said not a word. A third man, standing in the tavern door, gave the two on the bench an even odder look than he'd given Ilbryn and said to the elf, "Oh, him! Aye, he went in Scorchstone right enough, and soon came out again, too. Headed east, he did, into the Dead Place."

"The Dead Place?"

"Aye, them as goes in comes not out. There's nary a squirrel or chipmunk 'tween Oggle's Stream and Rairdrun Hill, just this side of Starmantle. We go by boat, now, if'n we have to. No one takes the road, nor goes through the woods, neither. A tenday an' some back, some fancy adventuring band…an' not the first one, neither…hired by the High Duke hisself went in… and came not out again. Nor will they, or my name's not Jalobal…which, a-heh, 'tis. Mark you, they'll not be seen again, no. I hear there's another band of fools yet, jus' set out from Starmantle …"

The elf had already turned and begun the struggle up into his saddle again. With a grunt and a heave that brought a snarl of pain from between clenched teeth, he regained his seat on the high-backed saddle and took up his reins to head on east.

"Here!" Jalobal called. "Aren't you be stayin', then?"

Ilbryn twisted his lips into a grim smile. "I'll never catch him if I stop and rest wherever he's just moved on from."

"But yon's the Dead Place, like I told thee."

With two swift tugs, the elf undid the two silver catches on his hip that Baerdagh had thought were ornamental and peeled aside his breeches. Inside was no smooth skin, but a ridged mass of scars that looked like old tree bark, a sickly yellow where it wasn't already gray. The twisted burn-scarring extended from his knee to his armpit…and above the knee were the struts and lashings that held on a leg of metal and wood that the elf had not been born with.

"I'll probably feel at home there," the elf told the three gaping men thinly. "As you can see, I'm half dead already." Without another word or look in their direction, he pulled the catches closed and spurred his mount away.

In shocked silence, the three men watched the dust rise, and beyond it, the bobbing elf on his horse dwindle from view along the overgrown road toward Oggle's Stream.

"Didj'ye see? Did d'ye see?" Jalobal asked the two silent men on the bench excitedly. They stared at him like two stones. He blinked at them then bustled back into the Maid to spread word about his daring confrontation with the scorched elf rider.

Baerdagh turned his head to look at Caladaster. "Did he say 'catch him up, or just 'catch him'?"

"He said 'catch him,' " Caladaster replied flatly. "I noticed that in particular."

Baerdagh shook his head. "I'd not like to walk in a mage's boots, for all their power. Crazed, the lot of them. Have you noticed?"

"Aye, I have," Caladaster replied, his voice deep and grim. "It passes, though, if you stop soon enough." And as if that had been a farewell, he got up from the bench and strode away toward his cottage.

Something flashed as he went, and the old man's hand was suddenly full of a stout, gem-studded staff that Baerdagh had never seen before.

Baerdagh closed his gaping mouth and rubbed his eyes to be sure he'd seen rightly. Aye, there it was, to be sure. He stared at Caladaster's back as his old comrade strode down the road home, but his friend never looked back.

Despite the gray sky and cool breezes outside, many a student had cast glances out the windows during this day's lesson. So many, in fact, that at one point Tabarast had been moved to comment severely, "I doubt very much that the great Elminster is going to perch like a pigeon on our windowsill just to hear what to him are the rudiments of magic. Those of you who desire to grasp a tenth of his greatness are advised to face front and pay attention to our admittedly less exciting teachings. All mages…even divine Azuth, the Lord of Spells, who outstrips Elminster as he outstrips any of you, began in this way, learning mage-lore as words dropping from the lips of older, wiser wizards."

The glances back diminished noticeably after that, but Beldrune was still sighing in exasperation by the time Tabarast threw up his hands and snapped, "As the ability to focus one's concentration, that cornerstone of magecraft, seems today to utterly elude all too many of you, we'll conclude the class at this point, and begin… with fresh insight and interest, I trust…on the morrow. You are dismissed, homeward go, without playing spell pranks this time, Master Maglast."

"Yes sir," one handsome youth replied rather sullenly, amid the general tumult of scraping chairs, billowing cloaks, and hurrying bodies. Muttering, Tabarast turned to the hearth, to rake the coals out into a glittering bed and put another log on the fire. Beldrune glanced up at the smoke hanging and curling under the rafters…when things warmed up, that chimney would profit from a spell or two to blast it clean and hollow it out a trifle wider…then clasped his hands behind him and watched the class leave, just to make sure no demonstration daggers or spell notes accidentally fell into the sleeves, scrips, boots, or shirt fronts of students' clothing. As usual, Maglast was one of the last to depart. Beldrune met his gaze with a firm and knowing smile that sent the flushing youth hastily doorward, and only then became aware that a man who'd sat quietly in the back of the class with the air of someone whose thoughts are elsewhere… despite the gold piece he'd paid to be sitting there… was coming slowly forward. A first timer, perhaps he had some questions.

Beldrune asked politely, "Yes? And how may we help you, sir?"

The man had unkempt pale brown hair and washed-out brown eyes in a pleasantly forgettable face. His clothing was that of a down-at-heels merchant, dirty tunic and bulging-pocketed overtunic over patched and well-worn breeches and good but worn boots.

"I must find a man," he said in a very quiet voice, stepping calmly past Beldrune to where Tabarast was bending over the hearth, "and I'm willing to pay handsomely to be guided to him."

Beldrune stared at the man's back for a moment. "I think you misunderstand our talents, sir. We're not…' His voice trailed off as he saw what was being drawn in the hearth ashes.

The nondescript man had plucked up a kindling stick from beside the fire and was drawing a harp between the horns of a crescent moon, surrounded by four stars.

The man turned his head to make sure that both of the elderly mages had seen his design, then hastily raked ashes across it until his design was obliterated.

Beldrune and Tabarast exchanged looks, eyebrows raised and excitement tugging at the corners of their jaws. Tabarast leaned forward until his forehead almost touched Beldrune's and murmured, "A Harper. Elminster had a hand in founding them, you know."

"I do know, you dolt…I'm the one keeps his ears open for news, remember?" Beldrune replied a trifle testily, and turned to the Harper. "So who do you want us to find for you, anyway?"

"A wizard by the name of Elminster. Yes, our founder, that Elminster."

The pupils, had any returned to spy on the hearth with the same attention they'd paid to the windows, would at that moment have witnessed their two elderly, severe tutors squealing like excited children, hopping and shuffling in front of the fire as they clapped their hands in eagerness, then gabbling acceptances without any reference to fees or payments to the down-at-heels merchant, who was calmly returning the stick to where he'd found it in the center of the happy tumult.

Beldrune and Tabarast ran right into each other in their first eager rushes toward cupboards, laughed and clawed each other out of the way with equal enthusiasm, then rushed around snatching up whatever they thought might come in remotely useful on an Elminster hunt.

The worn-looking Harper leaned back against the wall with a smile growing on his face as the heap of "essentials" rapidly grew toward the rafters.

"What befell, Bresmer?" The High Duke's voice didn't hold much hope or eagerness, he wasn't expecting good news.

His seneschal gave him none. "Gone, sir, as near as we can tell. One dead horse, seen floating by fishermen. They took Ghaerlin out to see it, he was a horse tamer before he took service with you, lord. He said its eyes were staring and its hooves and legs all bloodied, he thinks it galloped right down the cliff, riderless, fleeing in fear. The boat guard report that the Banner didn't light the signal beacon or raise their pennant… I think they're all dead, lord."

Horostos nodded, hardly seeing the wineglass he was rolling between his fingers. "Have we found anyone else willing to take us on? Any word from Marskyn?"

Bresmer shook his head. "He thinks everyone in Westgate has heard all about the slayings…and so does Eltravar in Reth."

"Raise what we're offering," the High Duke said slowly. "Double the blood price."

"I've already done that, lord," the seneschal murmured. "Eltravar did that on his own, and I thought it prudent to confirm his offers with your ducal seal. Marskyn has being using the new offer for a tenday now … it's the doubled fee all of these mercenaries are refusing."

The High Duke grunted. "Well, we're seeing the measure of their spirit, at least, to know who not to hire when we've need in future."

"Or their prudence, lord," Bresmer said carefully. "Or their prudence."

Horostos looked up sharply, met his seneschal's eyes, then let his gaze fall again without saying anything. He brought his wineglass down to the table so hard it shattered into shards between his fingers, and snapped, "Well, we've got to do something! We don't even know what it is, and it'll be having whole villages next! I…"

"It already has, lord," Bresmer murmured. "Ayken's Stump, sometime last tenday."

"The woodcutters?" Horostos threw back his head and sighed at the ceiling. "I won't have a land to rule if this goes on much longer," he told it sadly. "The Slayer will be gnawing at the gates of this castle, with nothing left outside but the bones of the dead."

The ceiling, fully as wise as its long years, deigned not to answer.

Horostos brought his gaze back down to meet the eyes of his expressionless, carefully quiet seneschal, and asked, "Is there any hope? Anyone we can call on, before you and I up shields and ride out those gates together?"

"I did have a visit from one outlander, lord," Bresmer told the richly braided rug at his feet. "He said to tell you that the Harpers had taken an interest in this matter, lord, and they would report to you before the end of the season…if you could be found. I took that as a hint to tarry here until at least then, lord."

"Gods blast it, Bresmer! Sit like a babe trembling in a corner while my people look to me and say, There goes a coward, not a ruler'? Sit doing nothing while these mysterious wandering harpists murmur to me what's befalling in my land, and to stay out of it? Sit watching money flow out of the vault and men die still clutching it, while crops rot in the fields with no farmers left alive to tend them, or harvest them so we won't starve come winter? What would you have me do?"

"It's not my place to demand anything of you, lord," the seneschal said quietly. "You weep for your people and your land, and that is more than most rulers ever think to do. If you choose to ride out against the Slayer come morning, I'll ride with you … but I hope you'll give shelter to those who want to flee the forest, lord, and bide here, until a Harper comes riding in our gates to at least tell us what is destroying our land before we go up against it."

The High Duke stared at the shards of the wineglass in his lap and the blood running down his fingers, and sighed. "My thanks, Bresmer, for speaking sense to me. I'll tarry and be called a coward … and pray to Malar to call off this Slayer and spare my people." He rose, brushing glass aside impatiently, and acquired the ghost of a grin as he asked, "Any more advice, seneschal?"

"Aye, one thing more," Bresmer murmured. "Be careful where you do your hunting, lord."

A chill, chiming mist dived between two curving, moss-covered phandars, and slid snakelike through a rent in a crumbling wall. It made of itself a brief whirlwind in the chamber beyond, and became the shifting, semisolid outline of a woman once more.

She glanced around the ruined chamber, sighed, and threw herself down on the shabby lounge to think, tugging at hair that was little more than smoke as she reclined on one elbow and considered future victories.

"He must not see me," she mused aloud, "until he comes here and finds the runes himself. I must seem… linked to them, an attractive captive he must free, and solve some mystery about, not just how I came to be here, but who I am."

A slow smile grew across her face.

"Yes. Yes, I like that."

She whirled around and up into the air in a blurred whirlwind, to float gently down and stand facing the full-length, peeling mirror. Tall enough, yes … She turned this way and that, subtly altering her appearance to look more exotic and attractive…waist in, hips out, a little tilt to the nose, eyes larger …

"Yes," she told the glass at last, satisfaction in her voice. "A little better than Saeraede Lyonora was in life … and yet…no less deadly."

She drifted toward one of the row of wardrobes, made long, slender legs solid enough to walk, it had been a long time since she'd strutted across a dance floor, to say nothing of flouncing or mincing.

The wardrobe squealed as it opened, a damp door dropping away from the frame. Saeraede frowned and went to the next wardrobe where she'd put garments seized recently from wagons…and victims…on the road … when there had still been wagons.

Her smile became catlike at that thought, as she made her hands just solid enough to hold cloth, wincing at the empty feeling it caused within her. To become solid drained her so much.

As swiftly as she dared, she raked through the gowns, selecting three that most caught her eye, and draped them over the lounge. Rising up through the first, she became momentarily solid all over…and gasped at the cold emptiness that coiled within her. "Mustn't do this … for long," she gasped aloud, her breath hissing out to cloud the mirror. "Dare not use … too much, but these must fit…."

The blue ruffles of the first gown were flattened and wrinkled from their visit to the wardrobe, the black one, with its daring slits all over, looked better but would tear and fall apart most easily. The last gown was red, and far more modest, but she liked the quality it shouted, with the gem-highlighted crawling dragons on its hips.

Her strength was failing fast. Gods, she needed to drain lives soon, or … With almost feverish speed she shifted her shape to fill out the three gowns most attractively, fixed their varying requirements in her mind, and thankfully collapsed into a whirlwind again, dumping the red gown to the ground in a puddle.

As mist she drifted over it, solidifying just her fingertips to carry it back to the wardrobe and hang it carefully away.

As she returned for the other two garments, an observer would have noticed that her twinkling lights had grown dim, and her mist was tattered and smaller than it had been.

By the time the wardrobe door closed behind the last gown, Saeraede had noticed that she was a little dimmer now. She sighed but couldn't resist coalescing back to womanly form for one last, critical look at herself in the mirror.

"You'll have to do, I suppose … and another thing, Saeraede," she chided herself. "Stop talking to yourself. You're lonely, yes, but not completely melt-witted."

"Try over there," a hoarse male voice said then, in what was probably intended to be a whisper. It was coming from the forest beyond the ruin, through one of the gaps in the walls. "I'm sure I saw a woman yonder, in a red gown…."

The ghostly woman froze, head held high, then smiled wolfishly and collapsed into winking lights and mist once more.

"How thoughtful," she murmured to the mirror, her voice faint and yet echoing. "Just when I need them most."

Her laughter arose, as a merry tinkling. "I never thought I'd be around to see it, but adventurers are becoming almost… predictable."

She plunged out through a hole in the wall like a hungry eel. Seconds later, a hoarse scream rang out. It was still echoing back off the crumbling walls when there was another.