The Temptation of Elminster

Twenty: Never Have So Many Owed So Much

"Doomtime," that deep voice boomed in Elminster's head. "Mind you make the right choices." Somehow, the Athalantan knew that Azuth was gone, and he was alone in the flood of blue sparks…the flood that he'd thought was Azuth…whirling him over and over and down … to a place of darkness, with a cold stone floor under his bare knees. He was naked, his gown and dagger and countless small items of magery gone somewhere in the whirling.

"Robbed by a god," he murmured and chuckled. His mirth left no echo behind, but what happened to it as it died away left him thinking he was somewhere underground … somewhere not all that large. His good feeling died soon after his chuckle, Elminster's innards felt…ravaged.

It was damp, and a chill was beginning to creep through him, but El did not rise from his knees. He felt weak and sick, and…when he tried to seek out magic or call up his spells…all of his powers as a Chosen and as a mage seemed to be gone.

He was just a man again, on his knees in a dark chamber somewhere. He knew that he should be despairing, but instead he felt at peace. He had seen far more years than most humans and done…so far as he could judge, at least by his own standards…fairly well. If it was time for death to come to him, so be it.

There were just the usual complaints: was it time for his death? What should he be doing? What was going on? Who was going to stop by and furnish him with answers to his every query…and when?

In all his life, there had only been one source for succor and guidance who wasn't certain to be long dead by now, or entombed and asleep he knew not where.. and that one source was the goddess who made him her Chosen.

"Oh, Mystra, ye've been my lover, my mother, my soul guide, my savior, and my teacher," Elminster said aloud. "Please, hear me now."

He hadn't really intended to pray … or perhaps he had, all along, but just not admitted it to himself. "I've been honored to serve ye," he told the listening darkness. "Ye've given me a splendid life, for which…as is the way of men…I've not thanked thee enough. I am content to face now whatever fate ye deem fitting for me, yet…as is the way of wizards…I wish to tell thee some things first."

He chuckled, and held up a hand. "Save thy spells and fury," he said." 'Tis only three things."

Elminster drew in a deep breath. "The first: thank ye for giving me the life ye have."

Was something moving in the gloom and shadows beyond where his eyes served him reliably?

He shrugged. What if something was? Alone, unclad, on his knees without magecraft to aid him, if something did approach him, this is how he'd have to greet it, and this was all he had to offer it.

"The second," El announced calmly. "Being thy Chosen is really what I want to spend out my days doing."

Those words echoed, where the darkness had muffled his words before. El frowned, then shrugged again and told the darkness earnestly, "The third, and most important to me to impart: Lady, I love thee."

As those words echoed, the darkness disgorged something that did move and reveal itself and loom all too clearly.

Something vast and monstrous and tentacled, slithered leisurely toward him.

"Was it a god?" Vaelam asked, white to the lips. Shrugs and panting were the first answers he got from his fellow Dreadspells, as they lay gasping in the hollow. Scraped and scratched by tree limbs in their run and thoroughly winded, they were only now shedding the heavy cloak of terror.

"God or no god," Femter muttered, "anyone who can withstand all we hurled down on his head…and swallow fireballs, for Shar's sake!..is someone I don't want to stand and face in battle."

"For Shar's sake, indeed, Dread Brother," someone said almost pleasantly from the far side of the hollow, where the ferns grew tall and they hadn't been yet. Five heads snapped around, eyes widening in alarm…

…and five jaws dropped, the throats beneath them swallowed noisily, and the eyes above them acquired a look of trapped fear.

The masked and cloaked lady floating in the air just above their reach, reclining at her ease on nothing, was all too familiar. "For there is a Black Flame in the Darkness," the cruel Overmistress of the Acolytes purred, in formal greeting.

"And it warms us, and its holy name is Shar," the five priests murmured in a reluctant, despairing chorus.

"You are far from the House of Holy Night, Dread Brothers, and unused to the ways of wizards…all too apt to stray, and in sore need of guidance," Dread Sister Klalaera observed, her voice a gentle honey of menace. "Wherefore our most caring and thoughtful Darklady Avroana has sent the House of Holy Night … to you."

"Hail, Dread Sister," Dreadspell Elryn said then, managing to keep his voice noncommittal. "What news?"

"News of the Darklady's deep displeasure at your leadership, most bold Elryn," the Overmistress said almost jovially, her eyes two spark-adorned flints. "And of her will: that you cease wandering Faerun at your pleasure and return to the place from whence you so lately fled. Immense power lies there…and Shar means for us to have it. I know you'd not want to fail Most Holy Shar… or disappoint Darklady Avroana. So turn about and return thence, to serve Shar as capably as I know you can. I shall accompany you, to impart the Dark-lady's unfolding will as you return to the mission you were sent here for. Now rise, all of you!"

"Return?" Femter snarled, his hand darting to one of the wands still at his belt. "To duel with a god? Are you mad, Klalaera?"

The other Dreadspells watched silently, neither rising nor snarling defiance, as something unseen flashed between the Overmistress, at her ease with her head propped on her hand, and Femter Deldrannus, the wand still on its way out of his belt and not yet turned outward to menace anyone.

The priest shrieked and clutched at his head with both hands, hurling the wand away and staggering forward, his limbs trembling.

They watched him spasm and convulse and babble for what seemed like a very long time before Klalaera raised one languid hand and closed it in a casual gesture…and Femter collapsed in mid-word, falling in a sprawled and boneless heap like a dangle-puppet whose string had been cut.

"I can do the same to any of you…and all of you, at once," the Overmistress drawled. "Now rise, and return. You fear death at the hands of this 'god' you babble of…well, I can deliver you sure and certain death to set against one that may happen … or may not. Would any of you care to kneel and die here and now…in agony, and in the disfavor of Shar? Or will you show the Flame of Darkness just a little of the obedience she expects from those who profess to worship her?"

As Dread Sister Klalaera uttered these biting words, she descended smoothly to the ground, drawing from her belt the infamous barbed lash with which she disciplined the acolytes in her charge. The Dreadspells turned their faces reluctantly back toward the ruins they'd left so precipitously and began to trudge up out of the hollow…to the serenade of her whip crashing down on the defenseless back of the motionless Femter.

At the lip of the hollow, they turned in unspoken accord to look back…in time to see Femter, head lolling and eyes glazed, rise to his feet in the grip of fell magic and stagger after them, his back mere ribbons of flesh among an insect-buzzing welter of gore, his boots leaving bloody prints at every step. Klalaera shook drops of his dark blood from her saturated lash and gave them a soft smile. "Keep going," she said silkily. "I'll be right behind you."

Despite the floating menace of the Overmistress behind them, the five Dreadspells slowed cautiously as they climbed the last wooded ridge before the ruins. Blundering ahead blindly could mean swift doom … and a delay could well bring them to a shaft now empty of dangerous mages, leaving the ruins free for scavenging.

"Careful," Elryn murmured, the moment he heard the creak of leather that marked Dread Sister Klalaera bending forward to bring her lash down hard on someone's shoulders… probably his. "There's no need for anyone to strike alone in the fray, if we work together, and…"

"Avoid making pretty little speeches," Klalaera snapped. "Elryn, shut your mouth and lead the way! There's nothing between us and the ruins save a couple of stumps, a lot of waste lumber, your own fears, and…"

"Us," a musical voice murmured, an elven voice. Its owner rose up from the other side of the ridge, a scab-bardless sword made of wood held in both his hands. "A walk in the woods these days holds so many dangers," Starsunder added. "My friend here, for instance."

The human mage Umbregard rose up from behind the ridge on cue and favored the Sharrans with a brief smile. He held a wand ready in either hand.

The Overmistress snapped, "Slay them!"

"Oh, well," Starsunder sighed theatrically, "if you insist." Magic roared out of him then in a roaring tide that swept aside wand-bolts, simple conjurations, and the lives of struggling Hrelgrath and dumbfounded Vaelam alike.

Femter screamed and fled blindly back into the trees…until Klalaera's unseen magic jerked him to a halt as if a noose had settled about his neck, and spun him around, thrashing and moaning, for the slow stagger back into the fray.

Beams of light were stabbing forth and wrestling in the roiling air as Elryn and a snarling Daluth sought to strike down the elf mage, and Umbregard used his own wands to disrupt and strike aside their attacks.

Daluth shouted in pain as an errant beam laid bare the bone of his shoulder, flesh, sinews, and clothing all boiling away in an instant. He staggered back a pace or two, at about the same time as Umbregard went over backward in a grunt and a shower of sparks, leaving the elf standing alone against the Sharrans.

The Overmistress of the Acolytes found her coldest, cruel smile and put it on. It widened slowly as Starsunder's shielding spell darkened, flickered, and began to shrink under the bolts and bursts streaming from the wands of the Dreadspells.

"I don't know who you are, elf," Klalaera remarked, almost pleasantly, "or why you chose to get in our way… but it's quite likely to be a fatal decision. I can slay you right now with a spell, but I'd rather have some answers. What is this place? What magic lies here that makes it worth you losing your life over?"

"The only thing that amazes me more about humans than their habit of splitting up fair Faerun into separate 'places,' one seemingly having no connection to the next," Starsunder replied, as casually as if he'd been idly conversing with an old friend over a glass of moon-wine, "is their need to gloat, threaten, and bluster in battle. If you can slay me, do so, and spare my ears. Otherwise…"

He sprang into the air as he spoke, leaving Sharran wand-blasts to ravage elfless stumps and ferns, and collapsed his shield into a net of deadly force that clawed at the Overmistress.

She writhed in the air, sobbing and snarling, until her desperate mental goading dragged the wild-eyed Femter over to stand beneath her. Then she collapsed her own defenses…and Starsunder's attack, still gnawing at them…down into the helpless Dreadspell, in a deadly flood that left him a tottering, blinded mass of blood and exposed bone.

The joints of Femter Deldrannus failed, and he sought his last, eternal embrace with the earth, ignored by all. He hadn't even been given time to scream.

A gasping Overmistress tumbled away through the air as her flight spell began to collapse.

Elryn roared in wordless victory as his wand-bursts found Starsunder at last, spinning the elf around in a swarm of biting bolts. Umbregard was struggling to rise, his face sick with pain as he watched his friend beset.

Daluth leveled his own wand at the human mage at point-blank range, across the smoking bodies of fallen fellow Dreadspells, and smiled a slow and soft smile at the horrified human.

Then he spun around and smashed Dread Sister Klalaera out of the air with all the might the wand in his hand could muster.

It crumbled away, leaving him holding nothing, as the lash all of the House of Holy Night hated and feared so much blazed from end to end and spun high into the trees, hurled by a spasming body in black leather that was crumpling into smoking ruin.

Crumpling…then snarling into a standing stance once more, surrounded by crackling black flames, the face that had been Klalaera's working and rippling beneath dead, staring eyes as her lips thundered, "Daluth, you shall die for that!"

The voice was thick and roaring, but the two surviving Dreadspells recognized it, Elryn's head snapping around from the task of rending the convulsing, darkening body of the elf mage.

"You are cast out of the favor of Shar…die friendless, false priest!" Darklady Avroana thundered, through the lips that were not hers.

The bolt of black flame that the body of the Over-mistress vomited forth then swept away the errant wizard-priest, an old and mighty tree beyond him, and a stump that dwarfed them both, shaking the forest all around and hurling Elryn to the ground.

The last Dreadspell was still struggling to his feet as Klalaera's dangling body, still streaming black flames, floated forward. "Now let us be rid of meddling mages, elf and human both, and…"

The sphere of purple flame that came out of nowhere to hit what was left of the Overmistress tore her apart, spattering the trees around with tatters of black leather.

"Ah, fool, that's one thing none of us will ever be rid of," a new voice told the dwindling, collapsing sphere of black flames that hung where Klalaera had been.

Elryn gaped up at a human who stood holding a smoking, crumbling amulet in his hand, a black cloak swirling around him. "Faerun will always have its meddling mages," the newcomer told the dying knot of flames in tones of grim satisfaction. "Myself, for instance."

Elryn put all of his might into a lunge at this new foe, swinging his belt mace viciously and jumping into the air to put all his weight behind the strike.

His target, however, wasn't there to meet the blurred rush of metal. The newcomer slid a knife into the priest's throat with almost delicate ease as he stepped around behind the last Dreadspell, and said politely, "Tenthar Taerhamoos, Archmage of the Phoenix Tower, at your service…eternally, it appears."

Choking over something ice cold in his throat that would not go away as the pleasant world of trees and dappled shade darkened around him, Elryn found he lacked the means to reply.

Purple flames exploded over the Altar of Shar with a sudden flourish, scorching the bowl of black wine there. The chosen acolyte held the glowing knife that was to be slaked in it aloft and kept fervently to his chanted prayer, not knowing that bursts of purple fire weren't part of this most holy ritual.

So intent was he on the flowing words of the incantation that he never saw the Darklady of the House stagger and fall past him across the altar, her limbs streaming purple fire. Wine hissed and sputtered under her as she thrashed, faceup and staring at the black, purple-rimmed circle that adorned the vaulted ceiling high above. Avroana was still arching her body and trying to find breath enough to scream as the prayer reached its last triumphal words … and the knife swept down.

With both hands the acolyte guided the consecrated blade, the runes on its dark flanks pulsing and glowing, down, down to the heart of the bowl, the very center of…Darklady Avroana's breast.

Their eyes met as the steel slid in, to the very hilt. Avroana had time to see triumphant glee dawning in the acolyte's eyes amid the wild horror of realizing his mistake before everything grew dim forever.

Gasping, Starsunder managed to raise himself on one arm, his face creased with pain. Large, weeping blisters covered all of his left flank…save where melted flesh glistened in dangling droplets and ropes of scorched sinew. Umbregard half staggered and half ran to his side, trying not to look at the Archmage of the Phoenix Tower, his foe of many years.

Fear of what Tenthar might do, standing so close at hand behind him, was written clearly on Umbregard's face as he knelt by Starsunder and carefully cast the most powerful healing spell he knew on the stricken elf. He was no priest, but even a fool could see that an unaided Starsunder hadn't long to live.

The elf mage shuddered in Umbregard's arms, seemed to sag a trifle, then breathed more easily, his eyes half closed. His side still looked the same, but the organs only partially hidden beneath the horrible seared wounds were no longer wrinkled or smoking. Still…

A long hand reached past Umbregard, its fingers glowing with healing radiance, and touched Starsunder's flank. The glow flared, the elf shuddered, and the last fragments of something that had hung on a chain around the archmage's neck fell away into drifting dust. Tenthar rose hastily and stepped back, his hand going to his belt.

Umbregard looked up at the wand that hand had closed around, and hesitantly asked its owner, "Is there going to be violence between us?"

Tenthar shook his head. "When all Faerun hangs in the balance," he replied, "personal angers must be set aside. I think I've grown up enough to set them aside for good." He extended his hand. "And you?"

Elminster knelt on the cold stone as the slithering, tentacled bulk drew nearer … and nearer. With almost indolent ease a long, mottled blue-brown tentacle reached out for him, leathery strength curling around his throat. Icy flames of fear surged up his back, and El trembled as the tentacle tightened almost lovingly.

"Mystra," he whispered into the darkness, "I…"

A memory of holding a goddess in his arms as they flew through the air came to him unbidden, then, and he drew on the pride it awakened within him, forcing down his fear. "If I am to die under these tentacles, so be it. I've had a good life, and far more of it than most."

As his fear melted, so did the slithering monster, melting into nothingness. It hung like clinging smoke around him for a moment before sudden light washed over him. He turned his head to its source…and stared.

What his eyes had told him was probably a bare stone wall, though the cloak of gloom made it hard to see properly, was now a huge open archway. Beyond was a vast chamber awash in glowing golden coins, precious statuary, and gems…literally barrels full of glistening jewels.

Elminster looked at all its dazzle and just shrugged. His shoulders had barely fallen before the treasure chamber went dark, all of its riches melting away … whereupon a trumpet sang out loudly behind him.

El whirled around to see another vast, grand, and warmly lit chamber. This one held no treasure, but instead a crowd of people … royalty, by their glittering garb, crowns, and proud faces. Human kings and scaled, lizardlike emperors jostled with merfolk who were gasping in the air, all crowding forward to lay their crowns and scepters at his feet, murmuring endless variations on, "I submit me and all my lands, Great Elminster."

Princesses were removing their gem-studded gowns, now, and offering both gowns and themselves to him, prostrating themselves to clutch at his ankles. He felt their featherlike fingers upon him, stared into many worshiping, awed, and longing eyes, then shut his own firmly for a moment to gather the will he needed.

When he opened them, an eternity later, it was to say loudly and firmly: "My apologies, and I mean no offense by my refusal, but…no. I cannot accept ye, or any of this."

When he opened his eyes, everything was melting away amid growing dimness, and off to his right another light was growing, this one the dappled dance of true sunlight. Immeira of Buckralam's Starn was gliding forward across a bright room toward him, her arms outstretched and that eager smile on her face, offering herself to him. As she drew near, shaping his name soundlessly on her lips, she pulled open the bodice of her dark blue gown…and Elminster swallowed hard as the memories rose up in a sudden, warm surge.

The sun fell through the windows of Fox Tower and laid dappled fingers across the parchments Immeira was frowning over. Gods, how did anyone make sense of such as this? She sighed and slumped back in her chair…then, in a sort of dream, found herself rising to glide across the room, toward its darkest corner. Halfway there her fingers began to pluck at her catches and lacing, to tear open the front of her gown, as if offering herself to…empty air.

Immeira frowned. "Why…?" she murmured, then abruptly shivered, whirled around, and did up her gown again with shaking fingers.

Her busy fingers clenched into fists when she was done, and she peered in all directions around the deserted room, her face growing pale. "Wanlorn," she whispered. "Elminster? Do you need me?"

Silence was her answer. She was talking to an empty room, driven by her own fancies. Irritated, she strode back to her chair.. and came to a halt in mid-stride, as a sudden feeling of being watched washed over her. It was followed by a surge of great peace and warmth.

Immeira found herself smiling at nothing, as contented as she'd ever felt. She beamed at the empty room around her and sat back down with a sigh. Dappled sun danced across her parchments, and she smiled at a memory of a slender, hawk-nosed man saving the Starn while she watched. Immeira sighed again, tossed her head to send her hair out of her eyes, and returned to the task of trying to decide who in the Starn should plant what, so that all might have food enough to last comfortably through the winter.

Her warm, yearning eagerness and hope, her delight … Elminster reached for Immeira, a broad smile growing on his own face…a smile that froze as the thought struck him: was this spirited young woman to be some sort of reward for him, to mark his retirement from Mystra's service?

He snatched back his hands from the approaching woman and told the darkness fiercely, "No. Long ago I made my choice … to walk the long road, the darker way, and know the sweep of danger and adventure and doom. I cannot turn back from it now, for even as I need Mystra, Mystra needs me."

At his words, Immeira and the sun-dappled room behind her melted away into falling motes of dwindling light that plunged down far below him in the great dark void he hung within, until his eyes could see them no more.

Abruptly fresh sunlight washed in from his right. Elminster turned toward it, and found himself gazing into a long chamber lined with rows of bookshelves that reached up to touch its high ceiling. Sunlit dust-motes hung thick in the air, and through their luster Elminster could see that the shelves were crammed with spell tomes, with not an inch of shelf left empty. Ribbons protruded from some of the spines, others glowed with mysterious runes.

A comfortable-looking armchair, footstool, and side table beckoned from the right-hand end of this library. The side table was piled high with books, El took a step forward to get a better look at them and found himself striding hungrily into the room.

Spells of Athalantar, gilt lettering on one spine said clearly. El extended an eager hand and let it fall back to his side, muttering, "No. It breaks my soul to refuse such knowledge, but… where's the fun of finding new magic, mastering it phrase by guess, and deduction by spell trial?"

The room didn't fall away into darkness as all the previous apparitions had done. El blinked around at more spellbooks than he could hope to collect in a century or more of doing nothing but hunting down and seizing books of magic, and swallowed. Then, as if in a dream, he took a step toward the nearest shelf, reaching for a particularly fat volume that bore the title Galagard's Compendium of Spells Netherese. It was … inches from his fingertips when El whirled around and snarled, "No!"

In the echoes of that exclamation his world went dark and empty again, the dusty room swept away in an instant, and he was standing in darkness and on darkness, alone once more.

A light approached out of black velvet nothingness, and became a man in ornate, high-collared robes, standing on a floor of stone slabs with a spell staff winking and humming in his hand. Not seeing Elminster, the man was staring grimly down at a dead woman sprawled on the stones before him, gentle smokes rising from her body, her face frozen in an eternal scream of fear.

"No," the man said wearily. "No more. I find that 'First among Her Chosen' has become an empty boast. Find another fool to be your slave down the centuries, lady. Everyone I loved…everyone I knew…is dead and gone, my work is swept away by each new grasping generation of spell hurlers, Faerun fades into a pale shadow of the glory I saw in my youth…and most of all, I'm … so … damned … tired…."

The man broke his staff with a sudden surge of strength, the muscles of his arms rippling. Blue light flared from the broken ends, swirling in the instant before a mighty explosion of released magic coalesced into a rushing wave. The despairing Chosen thrust one spearlike broken shaft end into his chest. He threw back his head in a soundless gasp or scream…and fell away into swirling dust, that convulsing jaw last, an instant before the outward rush of magic became blinding.

El turned his gaze away from that flash…only to find it mirrored in miniature elsewhere, in a hand-sized scrying sphere that a bald man in red robes was hunched over. The man shook his fist in triumph at what he saw in the depths of the crystal, and hissed, "Yes! yes! Now I am First among Mystra's Chosen…and if they thought Elthaeris was overbearing, they'll learn well to kneel and quiver in fear beneath the spell-seizing scepter of Uirkymbrand! Hahahaha! The weak might just as well slay themselves right now, and yield their power to one more fitted to wield it…me!"

That mad shout was still ringing in Elminster's ears as that scene winked out, and a circle of light occurred right beside the last prince of Athalantar. Floating with it was a dagger…and as he recognized it, it slowly turned and rose, offering its hilt to his hand.

El looked down at it, smiled, and shook his head. "No. That's a way out I'll never take," he said.

The dagger winked out of existence…and promptly reappeared off to Elminster's left, in the hand of a robed man, his back to El, who promptly drove it into the back of another robed man. The victim stiffened as his wound spat forth a blue radiance, and the blade of the murderer's dagger flared up into a blue flame that swiftly consumed it. The dying man turned, his wound leaking a trail of tiny stars, and El saw that it was Azuth. Face convulsed in pain, the god clawed with his bare hands at the face of the man who stabbed him… and the radiance leaking out of him showed El the face of the recoiling murderer. The slayer of Azuth was … Elminster.

"No!" El shouted, raking at the vision with his hands. "Away! Awaaay!" The two figures struggled with each other in the heart of a spreading cloud of blue stars, oblivious to him.

"Such ambitions are not mine," El snarled, "and shall never be, if Mystra grant it so. I am content to walk Faerun, and know its ways more than I know the deep mysteries … for how can I truly appreciate the one without the other?"

The dying Azuth swirled away, and out of the stars that had been his blood strode a man El knew from memories not his own, spell-shared with him once in Myth Drannor. It was Raumark, a sorcerer-king of Netheril who'd survived the fall of that decadent realm to become one of the founders of Halruaa. Raumark the Mighty stood alone in a hall of stout white pillars and vast echoing spaces, at the top of a high dais, and his face was both pale and grim.

Carefully he cast a spinning whorl of disintegration, testing it by dragging it through one of the giant pillars. The ceiling sagged as the top of the sheered-off pillar fell away into heavy crashing shards to the unseen floor below. Raumark watched the collapse, stone-faced, and brought the whorl back to spin in front of him, just beyond the lip of the dais.

He nodded down at it, as if satisfied…and jumped through it.

The scene died with Raumark, to be replaced by a view of a dusty tomb. A man El did not recognize but somehow knew was a Chosen of Mystra was taking an old and tattered grimoire out of a shoulder sack and placing it into an opened casket, the same task El had done so often for the Lady of Mysteries.

This Chosen, however, was in the grip of a seething fury, his eyes blazing with near madness. He plucked a cobwebbed skull up out of the casket, gazed into its sightless eye sockets, and snarled at it, "Spell after spell I just give away, while my body crumbles and grows deaf and stumbling. I'll end up like you in a few winters! Why should others taste the rewards I dole out, while I do not? Eh?"

He flung the skull back into its resting place and shoved the stone lid closed violently, the stony grating so loud that El winced. The Chosen strode forward with red fire in his eyes and said, "To live forever…why not? Seize a healthy body, snuff out its mind, ride it to ruin, then take the next. I've had the spells for a long time… why not use them?"

He resumed his determined walk, fading like a ghost through Elminster…but when the Athalantan turned his head to watch what happened to the Chosen, the man was gone, and the tomb he'd left fast fading behind him.

"Such a waste," El murmured, unshed tears glimmering in his eyes. "Oh, Mystra, Lady Mine, must this go on? Torment me no more, but give me some sign. Am I worthy to serve you henceforth? Or are ye so displeased with me that I should ask ye for death? Lady, tell me!"

It was a shock to feel the sudden tingling of lips upon his…Mystra's lips, they must be, for at their touch the thrill of raw power surged through him, making him feel alert and vigorous and mighty.

Elminster opened his eyes, lifting his arms to embrace her…but the Lady of the Weave was no more than a dwindling face of light, beyond his reach and receding swiftly into the void. "Lady?" he gasped almost despairingly, stretching out beseeching arms to her.

Mystra smiled. "You must be patient," her calm voice came quietly into his ear. "I shall visit you properly in time to come, but I must set you a task for me, first: a long one, perhaps the most important you'll ever undertake."

Her face changed, looking sad, and she added, "Though I can foresee at least one other task that might be judged as important."

"What task?" El blurted out. Mystra was little more than a twinkling star now.

"Soon," she said soothingly. "You shall know very soon. Now return to Faerun…and heal the first wounded being you meet."

The darkness melted away, and El found himself in his clothes again, standing in the woods outside the ruins. A few paces away, two men were talking with an elf, all three of them sitting with their backs against the trunks of gnarled old trees. They broke off their converse to look up at him rather anxiously.

One of the mages suddenly sprouted a wand in his hand. Leveling it at Elminster, he asked coolly, "And you would be…?"

El smiled and said, "Dead long ago, Tenthar Taerhamoos, save for the fact that Mystra had other plans."

The three mages blinked at him, and the elf asked rather hesitantly, "You're the one they call Elminster, aren't you?"

"I am," El replied, "and the mission laid upon me is to heal ye." Ignoring a suddenly displayed arsenal of wands and winking rings, he cast a healing spell upon Starsunder, then another on Umbregard.

He and Tenthar locked gazes as he finished his castings, and El inclined his head toward the ruins and asked," 'Tis all done, then?"

"All but the drinking," Tenthar replied…and there was suddenly a dusty bottle of wine in his hand. He rubbed its label, peered into it suspiciously, drew out its cork, sniffed, and smiled.

"Magic seems to be reliable once more," he announced, holding out his other hand and watching four crystal goblets appear in it.

"Mystra's need is past, I think," El told him. "A testing is done, and many dark workers of magic have been culled."

Tenthar frowned and said, "It is the way of the cruel gods to take the best and brightest from us."

Umbregard shrugged as he accepted a glass and watched several other bottles appear out of thin air. "It is the way of gods to take us all," he added, "in the end."

Starsunder said then, "My thanks for the healing, Elminster. As to the way of gods, I believe none of us were made to live long. Elf, dwarf, human. , even, I think, our gods themselves. The passage of too many years does things to us, makes us mad … the losses-friends, lovers, family, favorite places…and the loneliness. For my kind, a reward awaits, but that doesn't make the tarrying here any less wrenching, it only gives us something to look at, beyond present pain."

Elminster nodded slowly. "There may well be truth in thy words." He looked at Starsunder sidelong then and asked, "Did we meet, however briefly, in Myth Drannor?"

The moon elf smiled. "I was one of those who disagreed with the Coronal about admitting other races into the Fair City," the elf admitted. "I still do. It hastened our passing and gained us nothing but all our secrets stolen. And you were the one to break open the gates. I hated you and wished you dead. Had there been an easy, traceless way, I might have made things so."

"What stayed your hand?" El asked softly.

"I took your measure, several times, at revels and in the Mythal, and after. And you were as we…alone, and striving as best you knew how. I salute you, human. You resisted our goading, conducted yourself with dignity, and did well. Your good deeds will outlive you."

"My thanks," Elminster replied, his eyes bright with tears as he leaned over to embrace the elf. "To hear that means a lot."

The Fair Maid was elbow-to-elbow crowded. It seemed the High Duke's latest idea was to send huge armed caravans along the perilous road. Ripplestones looked like a drovers' yard, with beasts bawling and on the move everywhere. Inside, shielded a trifle from the dust if not the din, Beldrune, Tabarast, and Caladaster were sharing a table with a haughty mage from the Sword Coast, brimming tankards in every hand. The talk was of spells and fell monsters vanquished and wizards who would not die rising from their tombs, and folk were crowding around to listen.

"Why, that's nothing!" Beldrune was snarling. "Less than nothing! This very day, in the heart of the Dead Place, I stood beside the god Azuth?

The mage from the Coast sneered in open disbelief, and thus goaded, Beldrune rushed on, "Oh, yes…Azuth, I tell you, an'…"

Caladaster and Tabarast exchanged silent looks, nodded, and with one accord rose and rummaged in Caladaster's pack while their comrade snarled on, jabbing a finger in the Coast mage's startled nose. "He needed our help, I tell you. Our spells saved the day… he said that!..an' he gave us to understand…"

"That we'd earned these magical robes!" Tabarast broke in triumphantly, holding up the daring black gown for all to see.

The roar of laughter that followed threatened to shake the very ceiling of the inn down on top of all the table-slapping, hooting drinkers, but as their laughter finally trailed away, a high-pitched chuckle joined in, from the doorway. Those who turned to see its source went very still.

"That almost looks as if it would fit me," Sharindala the sorceress told the four gaping mages brightly. "And I do need something to preserve my modesty, as you can see."

The Lady of Scorchstone Hall wore only her long, silken brown hair. It cloaked her breast and flanks as she strode forward, but no man there could fail to notice that aside from her tresses, she was bare to the world from the top of her head down to her hips…where her flesh ended, leaving bare bones from there to the floor.

"May I?" she asked, extending a hand for the garment. Around her, several folk slid down in their seats, fainting dead away, and there was a rush of booted feet for the door. Suddenly there was a small circle of empty space in the Fair Maid, ringed by men who were mostly white-faced and staring.

"I've got to get through a few more spells before I'll be able to eat or drink anything," Sharindala explained, "and it's rather embarrassing…."

Tabarast snatched the gown out of her reach with a low growl of fear, but Caladaster stepped in front of him, tugging on his own robe. He had it over his head and off in a trice, to reveal a rotund and hairy body clad in breeches and braces that were stiff and shiny with age and dirt. "It's none too clean, lady," he said hesitantly, "and will probably hang on you as loose as any tent, but … take it, 'tis freely given."

A long, slender white arm took it, and a smile was given in return. "Caladaster? You were just a lad when I…oh, gods, has it been so long?"

Caladaster swallowed, red faced, and licked lips that seemed suddenly very dry. "What happened to you, Lady Sharee?"

"I died," she replied simply, and utter silence fell in the Maid. Then the sorceress shrugged on the offered robe, and smiled at the man who'd given it to her. "But I've come back. Mystra showed me the way."

There arose a murmur from the crowd. Sharindala took Caladaster's arm in one hand and his tankard in the other…her touch was cool and smooth and normal-seeming enough. She said gently, "Come, walk with me, we've much to talk about."

As they moved toward the door together, the half-skeletal sorceress paused in front of the mage from the Coast and added, "By the way, sir: everything that's been said about Azuth here this night is true. Whether you believe it or not."

They went out the door in a silence so deep that people had to gasp for air by the time they remembered to breathe again.

He seemed to have lost his boots again and to be walking barefoot on moonlight, somewhere in Faerun where the sun of late afternoon should still have reigned. A breath ago he'd been talking with three mages in a forest, and the cheese had begun to arrive, to go with their wine…and now he was here, left with but a glimpse of their startled faces at the manner of his going.

So where exactly was here?

"Mystra?" he asked aloud, hopefully.

The moonlight surged up around him into silver flames that did not burn but instead sent the thrill of power through him, and those flames shaped themselves into arms that embraced him.

"Lady mine," Elminster breathed as he felt the soft brush of a familiar body against his…there went his clothes again, how did she do that?…and the tingling touch of her lips.

He kissed her back, hungrily, and silver fire swept through him as their bodies trembled together. He tried to caress soft, shifting flames…only to find himself holding nothing and standing in darkness once more, with Mystra standing like a pillar of silver fire not far away.

"Mystra?" El asked her, letting a little of the loneliness he'd felt into his voice.

"Please," the goddess whispered pleadingly, "This is as hard for me as it has been for you…I must not tarry. And you tempt me, Elminster … you tempt me so."

Silver flames swirled, and a hungry mouth closed on El's own for one long, glorious moment, fires crashing and charging through him, rising into splendor that made him weep and roar and writhe all at once.

"Elminster," that musical voice told him, as he floated in hazy bliss, "I'm sending you now to Silverhand Tower to rear three Chosen."

"Rear?" El asked, startled, his bliss washed away into alert alarm.

There seemed to be a laugh struggling to break through the tones of the goddess as she said, "You'll find three little girls waiting in the Tower, alone and uncertain. Be as a kindly uncle and tutor to them, feed them, clothe them, and teach them how to be and who to be."

Elminster swallowed, watching Mystra dwindle once more into a distant star. "You are forbidden to control their minds, or compel them save in emergencies most dire," she added. "As they grow older, let them forge forth to make their own lives. Your task then will be to watch over them covertly, and to ride in and pick up the pieces to ensure their survival from time to time, not to guide them unless they seek your advice … and we both know how often willful Chosen seek out the advice of others, don't we?"

"Mystra!" El cried despairingly, reaching out his arms for her.

"Oh by the Weave, man, don't make this any harder for me," Mystra murmured, and the kiss and caress that set him afire then also whirled him end over end, away.