Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [117]
The old elf turned and looked back at the tiny flames that were now leaping from every stone of his shattered tower. He shook his head, leveled one finger at the mage who was still standing, and-as the Starym whirled around belatedly-vanished.
An instant later, a golden sphere erupted out of thin air, cutting the Starym neatly in two at chest level as it englobed his torso.
When the sphere imploded again an instant later, it took the upper body of the proud elven mage with it, leaving only two trembling legs behind. They took one staggering step and then parted company, toppling in different directions to the ground.
"Your…”
The cry was both furious and frightened. El swirled around, still slowed and mind-mazed by his agonies, and realized that the lone surviving Starym, now staggering up from the ground, meant him. The elf could see the human!
Now, if he could only survive to reach the Srinshee, and tell her…
The Starym spat something malicious, and raised his hands in a casting Elminster had seen before: a spell humans called a "meteor swarm."
"Mystra, be with me now," the last prince of Atha-lantar murmured, as four balls of roiling flame raced to positions around him, and exploded.
The last thing El saw was the body of Haemir Waelvor turning to ashes as it tumbled helplessly toward him, borne on roaring flames that were bursting forth to consume the world all around. Faerun turned over, spun crazily, and then whirled away into hungry fire.
Sixteen
Masked Mages
The People looked upon Elminster Aumar, and saw, but did not understand what they saw. He was the first gust of the new wind sent by Mystra. And Cormanthor was like an old and mighty wall, that stands against such winds of change for century upon century, until even its builders forget that it was built, and was ever anything else but an unyielding barrier. There will come a day for such a wall when it will topple, and be changed by the unseen, unsolid winds. It always does.
That day came for the proud realm when the Coronal named the human Elminster Aumar a knight of Cormanthor-but the wall knew not that it had been shattered, and waited for its tumbling stones to crash to earth before it would deign to notice. That fall, when it came, would be the laying of the My thai. But the stones of the wall, being elven stones, lingered in the air for an astonishingly long while…
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights:
An Informal But True History of Cormanthor
published in The Year of the Harp
Stars swam overhead, and eyeballs gleamed below. Elminster frowned as he fought his way back to awareness. Eyeballs? He rolled over-or thought he did-for a better look. The night around him slowly spun itself clear.
Yes, definitely: eyeballs. Scores of blinking and glistening eyeballs, flickering into being and disappearing again in a constant winking cloud as the bored and jaded elves of Cormanthor heard about the latest excitement and hastened to watch from a safe distance.
A few, by the way they drifted up to peer and blink at him, had definitely noticed the motionless, drifting ripple among the stars that was Elminster-a ragged cloud of human-shaped mist, thinned from floating so long, senseless, above the riven stump of Mythanthars tower.
That still-smoking, charred heap of fallen stones was a sea of the little orbs, flitting here and there like curious fireflies as the eyes of distant elves peered at every last detail of the old mage's revealed magic.
As Elminster watched them dart and peer with mild interest, he slowly became aware of his surroundings-and who he was-again.
Two Starym had died here, but of the third there was no sign. The bodies of the two sorceresses had also vanished; El hoped the Srinshee had whisked them away to safety and healing before less kind observers had spotted them.
Two of the floating eyes in the ruins below suddenly veered to look at the same thing,