Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [58]
El shook his head, acquiring a very thin smile. "I seem to bear a heavy burden," he said.
"You can carry it," the Srinshee told him, and winked at him impishly. "'Tis why Mystra chose you."
"Are we not met to decide what best to do?" Sylmae asked coldly. She looked around the circle of solemn faces that hovered above the balefire; her own and the other five sorceresses who'd accompanied the Coronal to the Vault of Ages after the High Court Mages, Earynspieir and Ilimitar, had refused to do so.
Holone shook her head. "No sister; that is the mistake we must leave to the Houses and the other folk of the court. We must wait, and watch, and act for the good of the realm when the rash acts of others make it needful to do so."
"So which rash act requires that we take action in our turn?" Sylmae asked. "The appointment of a human to standing in the realm as an armathor-or the responses that will inevitably follow?"
"Those responses will tell us who stands where," the sorceress Ajhalanda put in. "The next set of actions on the part of those players, as this unfolds, may well require that we act."
"Strike out, you mean," Sylmae said, her voice rising. "Against the Coronal, or one of the great Houses of the realm, or-"
"Or against all of the Houses, or the High Court Mages, or even such as the Srinshee," Holone said calmly. "We know not what, yet-only that it is our duty and desire to meet, and confer, and act as one."
"It is our hope, you mean," the sorceress Yathlanae said, speaking for the first time that night, "that we work together, and not be split asunder, hand against hand and will against will, as we all fear the realm will be."
Holone nodded grimly. "And so we must choose carefully, sisters, very carefully, not to fall into dispute among ourselves."
More than one face above the flames sighed, knowing how difficult that alone was going to be.
Ajhalanda broke the lengthening silence. "Sylmae, you walk among all folk, high and low, more than the rest of us. Which Houses must we watch-who will lead where others follow?"
Sylmae sighed gustily, so that the balefire quivered beneath their chins, and said, "The spine of the old Houses-those who despise and stand against the Coronal, and lady sorceresses, and anything that is new these past three thousand years-are the Starym, of course, and Houses Echorn and Waelvor. The path they cleave, the old Houses and all of the timid new ones will follow. They are the tide: slow, mighty, and predictable."
"Why watch the tide?" Yathlanae asked. "However hard you scrutinize it, it changes not-you only invent new motives and meanings for it, as your watching grows longer."
"Well said," Sylmae replied, "and yet the tide aren't those we must watch. They are the powerful newer proud ones, the rich Houses, lei by Maendellyn and Nlossae."
"Are not they just as predictable, in their way?" Holone put in. "They stand for anything new that might break the power of the old Houses, to let them supplant or at least stand as equals. As all elves do, they grow tired of being sneered at."
"There is a third group," Sylmae said, "who bear the closest watching of all. They are a group only in my speaking of them; in Cormanthor they hew their own roads, and walk to differing stars. The reckless upstarts, some term them; they are the Houses who will try anything, merely for the joy of being part of something new. They are Auglamyr and Ealoeth, and lesser families such as the Falanae and Uirthur."
"You and I are Auglamyr, sister," Holone stated calmly. "Are you then telling us we six should or will