Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [20]
Iymbryl Alastrarra. But how could that be? He was Iymbryl Alastrarra. Heir of the House, the Mage of Many Gems, leader of the White Raven Patrol, and this fern dell looked like a good place to camp…
Elminster screamed, and screamed again, but there was no one else in his mind to hear. No one but thousands of Alastrarrans.
Three
Fell Magic And A Fair City
It is rare for any man to make many foes, and strive against them, only to find a victory so clear and mighty that he vanquishes them forever, and is shut of them cleanly, at a single stroke. Indeed, one may say that such clarity of resolution is found only in the tales of minstrels. In the endlessly unfolding tapestry that is real life in Faerun, the gods plague folk with far more loose ends-and all too many of these prove as deadly as the decisive battles that preceded them.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty
published circa The Year of the Staff
"You'd challenge the power of the elves? That is hardly… prudent, my lord." The moon elven face that spoke those words was calm inside its dragon helm, but the tone made them a sharp and biting warning.
"And why not?" the man in gilded armor snarled, his eyes flashing in the shadow of his raised lion-head visor as his gauntlets tightened on the hilt of a sword that was longer than the elf he confronted. "Have elves stopped me yet?"
The vision of two armored war captains facing each other on that windswept mountaintop faded, and Elminster moaned. He was so tired of this. Each dark or furious or merry scene gave way to the next, exhausting him with the ongoing tide of emotions. His mind felt like it was afire. How by all the gods' mercy did the heir of House Alastrarra stay sane?
Or did the heir of House Alastrarra stay sane?
It began then as a gentle whisper; for a moment El thought it was another of the innumerable, softly speaking, caressing elven maidens the visions had brought to him. Call on me.
Who, now? El slapped at his own face, or tried to, striving to bring himself back to Faerun in the present. The present that had hobgoblins, mysterious followers, and magelords and other perils that could so easily slay him.
Call on me; use me. The young mage-prince almost laughed; the seductive whisper reminded him of a certain fat lady night-escort in Hastarl, whose voice was the only thing alluring she had left. She'd sounded like that, whispering huskily out of darkened doorways.
Call on me, use me. Feel my power. Where was the voice coming from?
And then it began; a warm throbbing above his eyes. He probed at it with tentative fingers. The gem was pulsing… Call on me. The voice was coming from the gem.
"Mystra?" Elminster called aloud, requesting guidance. He felt nothing but warmth. Speaking to it, at least, wasn't forbidden… it seemed. He cleared his throat.
Call on me.
"How?" As if in response to his exasperated query, fresh visions uncoiled in El's mind. Energies flowed endlessly within the gem, stored magics that served to heal and shapeshift and change the heir's body, from weightless to able to see in the dark, to…
The visions were tugging him away from such revelations now, leading him through scenes of various Alastrarran heirs calling on the gem to shift their shapes. Some merely changed their faces and heights to elude foes; others assumed different genders to lure or eavesdrop; one or two took beast-shape to escape rivals who had blades ready to slay elven heirs with, but no interest in hacking at timid hares or curious cats. El saw how the shift was done, and shown how it could be undone-or would undo itself, regardless of his will. Right, then; he knew how to change shape by calling on the powers of the gem. Why was it showing him this? Suddenly he was staring at Iymbryl Alastrarra, standing smiling at him in the deep shade under the shadowtops. The face wavered, and became his own- and then shivered again, and was once more the heir of House Alastrarra, emerald eyes