Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [50]
El spread his hands. "I'd rather not be here, either," he said with a smile.
The Srinshee answered it with one of her own, and said briskly, "Well, we'd best be getting on with it. Dig out that sword by your knee, there, and I'll tell you of the line of elven lords who bore it…"
Some hours later, she said, "Would you like some nightglade tea?"
El looked up. "I've never had such a drink, but if it isn't all mushrooms, aye."
"No, there are other things in it, too," she replied smoothly, and they chuckled together.
"Yes, there are mushrooms in it, and no, it's not harmful, or that different from what haughty ladies drink in Cormyr and Chondath," she added.
"Oh, you mean it's like brandy?" El asked innocently, and she pursed her lips and chuckled again.
"I'll make some for us both," she said, rising. Then she looked back over her shoulder at Elminster, who was patiently digging a breastplate out from yet another pile of coins. It was fashioned of a single piece of copper as thick as his thumb, and sculpted into a pair of fine female breasts with a snarling lion's jaws below them. "Don't you ever sleep, man?" she asked curiously.
El looked up. "I get weary, aye, but I no longer need to sleep."
"Something your goddess did?"
El nodded, and frowned down at the breastplate. "This lion," he said. "It has eyes set into its tongue, here, and-"
The bust of the long-lost Queen Eldratha of the vanished elven realm of Larlotha was of solid marble, and as tall as the length of Elminster's arm. It came flying at him at just the right angle, and struck him almost gently behind his right ear. He never even knew it had hit him.
He awoke with a splitting headache. It felt as if someone were jabbing a dagger into his right ear, pulling it out, and then thrusting it home once more. In. Out. In. Out. Arrrgh.
He rolled around, groaning, hearing coins slither as his boots raked across them. What had happened?
His eyes settled on the soft, unchanging lights above him. Gems, set in a vaulted ceiling. Oh, aye-he was in the Vault of Ages. With the Srinshee, until the Coronal came to test him on his choice of what to take out of here.
"Lady? Lady-uh-Srinshee?" he asked, and followed his words with another groan. Speaking had awakened a fresh throbbing in his head. "Lady… ah, Oluevaera?"
"Over here," a weak, ragged whisper answered him, and he turned toward the sound.
The old sorceress was lying spreadeagled on a heap of treasure, her gown in tatters and smoke rising lazily from her body. A body, largely bared now, that featured many wrinkles and age-spots, but seemed unmarked by recent violence. El crawled toward her, holding his head.
"Lady?" he asked. "Are ye hurt? What befell?"
"I attacked you," she said ruefully, "and paid the price."
El stared at her, bewildered. "Ye-?"
"Man. I am ashamed," she said, lips quivering. "To find a friend, after so long, and throw friendship aside for loyalty to the realm… I did what I thought right- and find my choice was wrong."
El laid his pounding head on the coins beside the Srinshee so that he could look into her eyes. They were full of tears. "Lady," he said gently, stricken by the sadness in her voice, "for the love of thy gods and mine, tell me what happened."
She stared into his eyes, forlorn. "I have done the unforgiveable."
"And that was?" El almost pleaded, gesturing wearily at her to let words pour from her mouth.
She almost smiled at that as she replied sadly, "Eltargrim asked me to try where he failed; to learn all I could from your mind while you slept. But time passed, a day and a night, and still you were sorting through the treasures, with nary a sign of sliding into slumber. So I asked you, and you said you never slept."
El nodded, coins shifting under his cheek. "What did you hit me with?"
"A bust of Eldratha of Larlotha," she muttered. "Elminster, I'm so sorry."
"So am I,"