Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [100]
Tarth swallowed, and tried to look fearless and uncaring. "I seek training to further my mastery of the Art," he said softly. "If you are willing, and find my payment sufficient, I'd like to learn from you what I can, by the passing of the next moon."
The famous sage raised both his eyes this time to fix Tarth with a long, cool considering gaze. His eyes were very blue. Tarth soon felt uncomfortable, but dared not turn his own eyes away. Finally the Old Mage nodded slowly.
An instant later, Tarth found a steaming jack of tea floating silently down out of the darkness, past his nose. He closed a hand around it rather shakily.
"Ye mentioned payment," that dry, imperious voice rolled out. "Would it trouble ye overmuch, lad, to be more specific?"
"All-this!" Tarth said, thrusting forward his hand. "The Lost Ring of Murbrand!"
Silence fell. The expected astonishment was not forthcoming. Elminster's blue, clear eyes regarded him steadily. Out of the darkness overhead, another jack of tea floated down into the archmage's waiting hand. The old eyes never looked at it, but remained fixed on him. Expectantly.
Tarth rushed to fill the silence with excited words. "One of the greatest treasures of the lost magecraft of Myth Drannor! A thing famous in bards' songs and in old tales across the Realms! A-"
"A thing whose wielding is far beyond thy present powers," Elminster replied dryly. Tarth looked back at him, crestfallen.
"Well, yes," he admitted. "Yet its gaining was not easy… and I have Art enough to tell that it is a thing of great power, the greatest I have ever seen."
Elminster nodded. "So it is." He regarded Tarth steadily over the top of his jack as he drank. Silence grew and lengthened.
Tarth let his hand fall back to rest on his thigh. "Well?" he asked, suddenly afraid. The old man's gaze seemed dark and menacing and somehow angry. With cold certainty Tarth knew that the great archmage could probably seize the ring and destroy Tarth Hornwood utterly, in a very short and simple time. Those eyes held his, now seeming somehow amused. Death must look like this, so close…
"Is it sufficient?" Tarth heard himself asking, calmly and firmly.
"Aye-and nay," was the reply. " Tis a thing of worth enough, aye. But I don't want it. Ye keep it." A hint of a smile twisted the mustache. "Ye may grow to have power enough to use it. Ye may even need it."
Tarth stared briefly down at the ring upon his finger, remembering for an instant the crumbling, bony hand that had worn it. The rest of the ring's former owner had lain shattered and hidden beneath a huge fallen block of stone, in a deep and cobweb-shrouded crypt of Myth Drannor.
Tarth had not expected to keep die ring for long. He swallowed, suddenly afraid again and suspicious. "What do you want, then?"
"In return for thy training? Why, thy staff, of course," came the calm, dry voice.
Tarth's breath froze in his lungs for a long, trembling moment. The staff he bore, a plain spar of smooth-polished, shadowtop wood, was the most precious thing he owned.
Tarth's first tutor, in far-off Amphail, had given it to him long ago. Old Nerndel's Art had been feeble and forgetful with great age, but he had warned Tarth to keep the staff safe all his days. "It is a thing of great power," Nerndel had said. "Guard it well. Perhaps it will make you happier than it did me."
"My staff?" Tarth asked, heart sinking. "No. No, I cannot part with it. I will not! I refuse."
"The door, as I recall, lies just yonder," Elminster said dryly. "Ye found a way in… those bold feet of thine may serve to find a way out again."
"No!" Tarth said. "No, no-name some other price, some other payment… if you will. I've come so far…" He leaned forward. "Please? A service, perhaps? To ask that a wizard give up his staff is a very great asking-and what good is such a staff to you, a great archmage?"
"More importantly," Elminster asked quietly, "what good is such a staff, Tarth, to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Thy staff," the Old Mage demanded, "grows weaker