The Temptation of Elminster

Fifteen: A Dark Flame Rising

Dread Brother Darlakhan.

It had a ring to it. It would go well with the branding and the whip scars that crisscrossed his forearms. He'd worked hard with a paste of blood and urine and black temple face paint to turn those scars into dark, permanent, raised ridges. His eagerness to take branding in the temple rituals had not gone unnoticed.

The wind off the Shaar was hot and dry this night, and he'd been looking forward to a quiet evening of prostrate prayer on the cold stone of the cellar floor…but the adeptress he'd paid to flog him first had come to him with a harshly whispered mission instead: by Dread Sister Klalaera's command, he was to immediately bear this platter of food and wine to the innermost chambers of the House of Holy Night.

"I'm excited for you, Dread Brother," she'd whispered in his ear, before she'd given him the customary slap across the face. Kneeling, he'd clawed at her ankles with even more than the usual enthusiasm, his heart pounding with his own excitement.

He'd thought the cruel Overmistress of the Acolytes had been eyeing him rather closely for the last tenday or so, was this his chance at last?

When he was alone, he hastened to fix the mantle of shards around him, tucking it up firmly between his thighs so as to make it draw blood before his first step, instead of walking with infinite care to avoid its wounds, as most did. Then he took up the platter, held it high, and made a silent prayer to the all-seeing goddess.

Oh, holy Shar, forgive my presumption, but I would serve you as the dark night wind, the barbed black blade, your scourge and trusted hand, not merely as a temple puppet at Klalaera's whims.

"Shar," he breathed aloud, in case anyone was spying from behind panels and thought he'd been quailing or daydreaming instead of praying. He raised and lowered the platter in salute and set off briskly through the dimly torchlit halls of the temple. The smooth, black marble was cold under his bare feet, and his limbs tingled where threads of blood trickled down.

He walked straight and tall, never looking back at the naked novices crawling along in his wake, licking up his blood where it fell, and gave no sign he'd heard grunts and sobs and muffled screams behind the doors he passed, as the ambitious clergy of the House made their own pain sacrifices to Holy Shar.

He heard the rumble of the lone drum long before he reached the Inner Portal, and his excitement grew to an almost unbearable singing within him. A High Ritual, unannounced and unexpected, and he was to be part of it

Dread Brother Darlakhan. Oh, yes. A measure of power at last. He was on his way to greatness.

Darlakhan rounded the last pillar and strode to the archway where the two priestesses crossed their razor-sharp black blades before him, then drew them back across his chest with the most delicate of strokes as he held the platter high out of the way. They turned toward him this night, and Darlakhan stopped, trembling, to receive their ultimate accolade: they let him watch as they shook his blood from the points of their swords into cupped palms, and brought it to their mouths.

He whispered, "As Shar wills," to them, making of his tone a thanks, then strode on down the last passage to the Inner Portal, the drumbeat growing louder before him.

He was surprised to find the Portal itself unguarded. A black curtain adorned with the Dark Disk hung in the customarily empty Portal Arch. Darlakhan slowed for a moment, wondering what to do, then decided he must follow the procedure all acolytes were trained in, as if nothing was occurring out of the ordinary.

He paused at the Portal, swept his elbows out to make the shards slash at him one last time…and to keep them out of the way as he knelt…and went to his knees, extending the platter at the full stretch of his arms and touching his forehead to the cold marble of the threshold.

Swift hands snatched the platter away, and others beheaded him with a single keen stroke.

A long, sleek arm snatched up the blood-gargling head by its hair. An oiled body stretched and thrust Darlakhan's head into a brazier, ignoring the flames that raced back down oiled flesh. "The last," that someone murmured, pain making the voice tight.

"Then know peace, Dread Sister," someone else said, touching her with the black Quenching Rod that drank all fire. The drum rolled one last time and fell silent, a long-nailed hand made a gesture, and black flames roared up out of a dozen braziers with a collective crackle and snarl.

Each brazier in the circle held a blackening, severed head. Each tongue of dark flame rose up in a twisting, flowing column to feed a dark sphere overhead.

The Sacred Chamber of Shar, the most holy room in the House of Holy Night, was crowded indeed. All of the cruel and powerful upper priestesses of Shar were gathered here in their black and purple, beneath the sphere of roiling shadows. All of them streamed blood from open wounds, all of their eyes were bright with excitement, and all of their attention was now fixed on the sphere that loomed so large above their heads, as tall as six mea

Something swam into view briefly, within the sphere: a human arm, slender and feminine, white skinned and clawing vainly at nothing. Then an elbow was seen, and suddenly, the head and shoulders of a feebly struggling human female swam into view. All that could be seen of her was bare, and she was thrashing about in the fire, seemingly blind. Despair was written large across her face, the eyes dark, staring pools, the mouth open in an endless, soundless scream.

There was a murmur of puzzlement and surprise from among the gathered priestesses…and the tallest among them, resplendent in her horned black headdress and her mantle of deepest purple, stepped forward and brought the long lash in her hand down with brutal force across the bare back of a man kneeling under the sphere. Sweat flew in all directions, he was drenched and gleaming.

"Explain, Dread Brother High," the Darklady of the House commanded, her voice sharp. "We were promised by you…and, in a sending, by the Flame of Darkness herself…that your striving would bring us great power and great opportunity. Even if this wench is some great queen of Faerun, I see no power nor opportunity here save the grubby achievement of seizing a land and its coffers. Explain both well and speedily…and live."

The senior priest of the House looked at the struggling figure in the sphere as he let his hands fall to his sides, then slumped back to the marble floor, exhausted. Through his gasps, the priestesses saw the bright flash of his smile.

"It is a success, your Darkness," he said when he could find breath enough. "This is an avatar of the goddess Mystra, though of much less power than most she sends forth. We cannot harm it without unleashing magics too wild for all of us together to hope to control, but while we keep it trapped thus, we can tap the Weave whenever it strives to, gaining magic to power spells studied…and cast…as wizards do. This avatar must have been tainted by its flirtation with Bane … there is a lasting weakness here, I believe."

"Time enough for such musings later," said Darklady Avroana firmly. Her voice was still cold and biting, but the eagerness on her face and the tapping of her whip against her own thigh rather than across the face of High Brother Narlkond betrayed her excitement and approval. "Tell me of these spells. We sit and study as mages do, and fill our minds…and what then?"

"No power floods into those memorized patterns until our captive here seeks to touch the Weave," replied the senior priest, rolling over to face her on his knees, "which happens every few hours or so. It seems unable not to strive to, for that is its essential nature, and…"

"How long can we keep this up?" Avroana snapped, gesturing up at the sphere with her whip.

"So long as we have enthusiastic believers in the Dark Mother to furnish us with their heads."

"More have been called hither," said the Darklady, her lips shaping…for a very brief instant…a smile that was as cold as the glacial ice that seals shut a northern tomb. "They've been told we mount a holy crusade."

"Your Darkness," High Brother Narlkond replied, with a soft smile of his own, "we do."

"This is what in human speech would be called the Lookout Tree," said the moon elf, sitting down on a huge leaf…which promptly curled and flexed around him to form a couch that cupped him like a giant, gentle hand.

Umbregard stared around at the view between the great arched branches that split apart where they stood to soar still farther up into the thin, cold air. "By the gods," he said slowly, "those are clouds! We're looking down on the clouds?

"Only the lowest sort of clouds," Starsunder said with a smile. "Oh, didn't you know? Yes, different shapes of clouds hang at different levels, just as fish in a lake seek levels in the water that suit them."

"Fish…?" the human mage asked, then grinned and said, "Never mind, we stray swiftly from my original questioning."

Starsunder grinned back. "Now do you see how it was that humans studied in Myth Drannor for centuries," he said, "and some of them still learned only a handful of the spells they came seeking? The best of them didn't even mind."

Umbregard shook his head. "Oh, to have been there," he whispered longingly, sitting down rather gingerly on another leaf. It promptly tumbled him into its center…he had time for only the briefest of startled murmurs…and folded itself around him, to leave him upright, enthroned in warm comfort.

"Well, ahem," he offered in pleased surprise, while Starsunder chuckled. "Nice, very nice." He looked at Starsunder's chair, still clearly alive and attached to the gigantic shadowtop tree they'd climbed so laboriously to the top of, up a spiral stair that had seemed endless. "I suppose there's no chance of getting a chair like this anywhere else but in the Elven Court?"

"None," Starsunder said with a wide smile, "at all. Sorry."

Umbregard snorted. "You don't sound sorry at all. Why did we have to sweat our weary ways up here, step after thousandth step, what's wrong with using spells to fly?"

"The tree needed to get to know you," his elf host explained. "Otherwise, when you sat down just now, it'd quite likely have hurled you off into yonder clouds like a catapult… and I'd have had no human wizards to chat with this evening."

Umbregard shuddered at the vision of being helplessly thrust out, out into the oh-so-empty air, before starting that terrible, long plunge …

"Aghh!" he shrieked, waving his hands to sweep away his mental vision. "Gods! Away, away! Let's get back to our converse! When we were eating…ohh, that treejelly! How d…no. Later, I'll ask that later. Now I want to know why you said, when we were eating, that Elminster stands in such danger just now…and stands also so close to being an even greater danger to us all… why?"

Starsunder looked out over miles of greenery toward the distant line of mountains for a moment before he said, "Any human mage who lives as many years as this Elminster outstrips most human foes of his own making, they die while he lives on. His very longevity and power make him a natural target for those of all races who would seize him, or his powers from him, or his supposed riches and enchanted items. Such perils confront all mages who've enjoyed any success."

Umbregard nodded, and his elf host continued.

"It's reasonable to suppose that a wizard of greater success attracts greater attention, and so greater foes, yes?"

Umbregard nodded again, sitting forward eagerly. "You're going to tell me about some great mysterious foes that Elminster's now facing?"

Starsunder smiled. "Such as the Phaerimm, the Malaugrym, and perhaps even the Sharn? No."

Umbregard frowned. "The Phaerr…?"

Starsunder chuckled. "If I tell you about them, they won't be mysterious any longer, will they? Moreover, you'll live the rest of your days in fear, and no one will believe you when you spread word of them. Each time you speak of them will increase the likelihood that one of their number will feel sufficient need to silence you-and so bring to a brutal and early end the life of Umbregard. No, forget them. It's good practice for mages, forgetting and letting go of things that interest them. Some of them never learn how, and die long before their time."

Umbregard frowned, opened his mouth to say something, and shut it again. Then it popped open once more, and he said almost angrily, "Well then, if we're to speak of no foes, what special danger does Elminster face?"

A small, tightly curled leaf at Starsunder's elbow opened then to reveal two glass bowls full of what looked like water. He passed one of the bowls over to Umbregard and they drank together.

It was water, and the coolest, clearest that Umbregard had yet tasted. As it slid down to every corner of his being, he felt suddenly fully awake and vigorous. He turned his head to exclaim about how he felt, looked into Starsunder's eyes, and saw sadness there. He hesitated in speaking just long enough for the moon elf to say deliberately, "Himself."

"Himself?" By the gods, had he been reduced to an echo? And was this his sixth evening here with Star-sunder … or his seventh?

Yes. He was like a small child invited into the converse of adults, seeing a longer, graver view of Faerun around him for the first time. With a sudden effort, Umbregard held his tongue and leaned forward to listen.

Starsunder rewarded him with a slight smile and added, "With all the friends, lovers, foes, and even realms of his youth gone, Elminster will feel increasingly alone…and as is the way of humans, lonely. He will cling to all he has left…his power and accomplishments of magecraft…and begin to chafe at the bargain that has robbed him of his youth, and of all the things he might have done, but did not … in short, he will become restless in the service of Mystra."

"No! You said so yourself: love…"

"It is the way of humans," Starsunder continued calmly, "and of us all, at differing times in our lives … but now it is I who digress. In short, Elminster will for the first time as a mature mage of power…as opposed to an ardent, easily-distracted youth…be ready to notice temptations."

"Temptations?"

"Chances to use his power as he sees fit, without the bidding of, or restrictions decreed by others. The desire to do just as he pleases, ignoring consequences for good or ill, smashing all who stand against him. To do whatever he's idly thought of doing, pursuing every whim."

"And so?"

"And so, while he's about it, every living creature on or under fair Toril must cower and hide…for what fate will Umbregard enjoy, if it strikes a passing Elminster that a handful of Umbregard tripes will make a good toy, or meal, for the next few minutes?"

The elf let his words hang in silence for a time, waiting for Umbregard to speak.

Soon enough the human wizard was unable to resist doing so. "Are you saying," he asked softly, "that we… I…or someone … must set out to destroy Elminster now, to save all Toril?"

Starsunder shook his head almost wearily. "Why is it that humans love that word so much? 'Destroy!'" He set his water bowl back into the leaf and asked with a smile, "If you succeeded, Umbregard the Mighty, tell me: who then would protect Toril from you?

If I was a lurking Slayer, I would want a lair …

"Sweet Mystra," Elminster murmured, smiling despite himself, "whatever you do, stop me from ever trying to be a bard." He took another step along the crumbling wall of the ruin, the slight scrape of his boot on damp dead leaves seeming very loud in the eerie quiet of the empty forest.

Somehow he knew this crumbling keep had to be linked to whatever was killing folk and forest creatures hereabouts. He'd felt it clear out along the coast road, calling him here … calling him …

He stopped and glared up at the mossy stones. Could a spell be at work on him, drawing him here?

He'd have felt any simple charm or suggestion … wouldn't he?

Abruptly El wheeled around and started back across the sagging bridge, heading away from the ruins at a steady pace. He looked back once, just to be sure nothing was speeding toward his back, but all seemed as quiet as before. He still felt as if he was being watched, though.

He studied the toothlike remnants of walls for a long time, but nothing moved and nothing seemed to change. With a shrug, El turned around again and headed back down the road.

He hadn't gone far when he saw it…out of the corner of his eye, expected but yet not what he'd expected… a woman watching him from between two duskwood trees. He spun toward the trees, but there was no one there. He turned slowly on his heel, all around, but he saw no watching human, or anyone flitting from tree to tree or crouching in any hollow. He'd have heard the dead leaves rustling at any such movement, anyway.

With a little smile, El turned back to the road and an unhurried trudge along it back to the coast road. He suspected he'd not have to wait long before seeing that face peering at him again…for that was what it had been, no gowned figure, but a head and a neck. She could even be a floating ghost.

If she was the Slayer, that could well explain the lack of tracks to follow or creatures for the High Duke's men to corner. The manner of slaying even argu…

There she was again, peering at him from a tree ahead. This time El didn't rush forward but turned slowly to look in all directions … and as he'd expected, that face peered at him from a tree behind him, back toward the ruins, just long enough for their eyes to meet.

He smiled slowly and walked back to that second tree. He was only a few paces from it when a ghostly face turned to regard him from high in a tree a good distance closer to the ruins. Elminster gave her a cheery wave this time and allowed himself to be led back to the ruins. The sooner he got to the bottom of this, the sooner he could be away from here before dark, and on about the main task Mystra had set him.

He went the other way around the walls this time, just to cover new ground, and found himself looking, through gaps in the crumbling stonework, into a vast chamber that seemed to have furniture in it. He moved carefully nearer through the tangle of stunted shrubs and fallen stone, peering.

"There!" a voice snarled…human, rough, and not far away. As Elminster ducked low and spun around, he heard the familiar hum of approaching arrows. The life those arrows sought was his.

Ilbryn Starym reined in at the sentry's startled yell and held up an empty hand. "I come in peace," he began, "alone…"

By then javelins were whizzing his way and men with hastily-drawn swords in their hands and fear and astonishment warring on their faces were leaping through the trees on all sides. "Elves!" one of them roared. "I told you 'twas elves, all along…"

The elf sighed, threw off his cloak with the word that made the world dark, and backed his snorting mount to one side. Its sudden jerk told him one of the javelins had found a mark even before it reared up, spilling him out of his saddle, and came crashing down heavily on its side…inches away from Ilbryn. The elf rolled away as hard as he'd ever done anything in his life. A stray hoof numbed his good hip and had probably laid it open, too.

Bloody humans! Can't even ride along woodland trails without getting jumped by idiot adventurers arrogant enough to pitch their encampments right across the trail itself.

Ilbryn found his feet, stumbled awkwardly away until he ran into a tree, and propped himself against it. The humans were blundering around in the little corner of nightfall he'd made, hacking at each other…of course, the fools!..shouting in alarm, and generally despoiling their camp and the woods immediately around them. If these were the Slayers, they were more than inept … no, these must be one of the bands of hireswords…hah! They thought he was the Slayer!

Right, then …

Cloaked in darkness only he could see through, Ilbryn watched the fray rage for a time as he caught his breath and peered around, seeking mages or priests who might have the wits and power to end his spell. Once he unleashed another, his darkness would fall like a dropped cloak…so he wanted that spell to be a good one.

Two of this benighted band of adventurers were dead already at the hands of their fellows, and as Ilbryn watched, a third met a screaming end spitted on two javelins. The stronger of his slayers ran him back against a tree and left him pinned to it and vomiting his lifeblood away. The elf shook his head in disgust and kept looking … there!

That man by the tent, bent over the scrolls. Ilbryn readied his spell, then plucked up a stone from beside his tree, measured the throw with narrowed eyes…and threw. The stone bonged off the pot and spilled it into the fire.

The man with the scrolls whipped his head around to see what had befallen, and two other adventurers came loping back through the trees, employing that most favorite of human words, "What?" in the midst of many oaths.

A goodly group. Now, before they all ran off again! Ilbryn steadied himself against the tree, cast the spell as quietly as he could but with unhurried care, and was rewarded, an instant before its end, with the human mage hissing, "Hoy, all…be still! Listen!"

The seven-odd adventurers obediently stopped their shouting and rushing about, and they stood like statues as the darkness fell away…and waist-high whirling shards of steel melted out of the empty air and cut them all in half. A few of them even saw the elf standing against a tree sneering at them.

The crouching mage was beheaded, his blood exploding all over the scrolls as he slumped forward into the dirt. Seeing that, Ilbryn didn't bother to survey the slain any longer, he was listening hard now for the sounds of the living. At least two, and possibly as many as four, were still lurking close by.

One of them ran right past him, shrieking in horror as he sprinted into the bloody camp. Sweet trembling trees, were all humans this stupid?

Evidently they were, two others joined the first, weeping and yelling. Ilbryn sighed. It wouldn't be long before even fools such as these noticed a motionless elf standing against a tree. Almost regretfully he sent forth the spellburst that slew them.

Its echoes were still ringing off the trees around when he heard the slight scrape of a boot that made him spin around…to stare at a lone, horror-struck human warrior three paces away, coming toward him with sword raised.

"You're the Slayer?" the man asked, face and knuckles white with fear.

"No," Ilbryn told him, backing away around the tree.

The man hesitated, then resumed his cautious advance. "Why did you kill my sword brothers?" he snarled, snatching out a dagger to give himself two ready fangs.

Ilbryn took another step back, keeping the tree between them, and shrugged. "You made a mistake," he told the human, as they started to slowly circle the tree, watching each other's eyes. "I was riding along the trail, at peace and intending no harm to you…and you attacked me, more than a dozen to one. Brigands? Adventurers? I'd no time to parley or see who you were. All I could do was defend myself. A little thought before swinging swords could have saved so much spilled blood." He smiled mockingly. "You should be more careful when you go out in the woods. It's dangerous out here."

That evoked the rage he'd hoped it would, humans were so predictable. With a wordless roar the warrior charged, hacking furiously. Ilbryn let the tree take most of the blows, waited until the blade got caught, then darted forward to snatch the man's dagger hand aside with one of his own hands…and press the other to the man's face, delivering the spell that would take his life.

Flesh smoked and melted, gurgling, the man went to his knees. By the despairing moan he made thereafter, he knew he was dying, even before he started clawing at his own flowing flesh, trying to get air.

"Not that I was unhappy to slay you all," Ilbryn told him lightly, "seeing as how you cost me a perfectly good horse." He stepped back and shot a look all around, in case other surviving adventurers…or the Slayer, whoever that might be…was approaching. No such peril seemed at hand.

The warrior made a last choking noise, then seemed to relax. "After all," Ilbryn told him, "This is the Dead Place, I'm told."

The elf turned away to walk through the camp and see if there was anything he might put to his own use. A few paces along he stopped, looked around again for foes, and bent rather stiffly and plucked up a good, slender blade from among the trodden leaves.

"Just in case," Ilbryn told the torn body of its dead, staring owner, whose fingers would forever be stretched out now toward the blade he'd let fall, the blade that now was no longer there. As the elf reached out with his own sword to cut free the scabbard from amongst the gory, tangled harness, he added almost merrily, "You never know when you'll need a good blade, after all."