Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [60]
Symrustar lifted one perfect eyebrow and asked, "Are you thinking along the same lines as I am, coz?"
Amaranthae shrugged, smiled, and said the safe thing. "I was thinking about this human male our Coronal has named armathor… and wondering what you'd do with this most unlikely of surprises, most sprightly of ladies!"
Symrustar winked. "You know me well, 'Ranthae. What do you think a human would be like to dally with? Hmmm?"
Amaranthae shuddered. "A man? Ughhh. As heavy and lumbering as a stag, with the stink to match… and all that hair!"
Her cousin nodded, eyes far away. "True. Yet I hear this unwashed brute has magic-human magic, far inferior to our own, of course, but different. With a little of that in my hands, I could surprise a few of our over-proud young mages. Even if the human's spells are but little wisps of things suitable for impressing gullible younglings, I've one such who could use a little impressing: Lord Heir Most High Elandorr Waelvor."
Amaranthae shook her head in rueful amusement. "Haven't you tormented him enough?"
Symrustar raised one shapely brow again, and her eyes flashed. "Enough? There is no 'enough' for Elandorr the Buffoon! When he's not grandly proclaiming to all the city that this or that spell he's created is greater than anything that bad-tempered maid Symrustar Auglamyr can craft, he's crawling in my bedchamber window with fresh blandishments! No matter how firmly-"
"Rudely," Amaranthae corrected with a smile.
"-I refuse him," her cousin continued, "he's back a few nights later trying again! In between, he hints to his drinking companions about the unmatched sweetness of my charms, remarks to ladies in passing that I worship him in secret, and flits about the libraries of men-men-stealing bad love poetry to pass off as his own, wooing me with all the style and grace of a laugh-chasing gnome clown!"
"He came last night?"
"As usual! I had three of the guards throw him from my balcony. He had the brazen gall to try transforming spells on them!"
"You countered them, of course," Amaranthae murmured.
"No," Symrustar said scornfully, "I left them as frogs until morning. No guard worthy of my bedchamber balcony should be unprepared for a simple twice-trying transformation!"
"Oh, Symma!" Amaranthae said reproachfully.
Her cousin's eyes flashed again. "You think me harsh? Coz, you spend a night in my bed, and be pestered by the Love Lord of the Waelvors come calling, and we'll see how charitable you feel to the guards who should have kept him out!"
"Symma, he's a master mage!"
"Then let them be master guards, and wear the turnback amulets I gave them. What matter if they must draw blood to work? They'll turn back Elandorr's oh-so-masterful spells on himself! A few scars should be worth that-to say nothing of their professed loyalty to House Auglamyr!"
Symrustar rose and paced restlessly across the little bowl-shaped hollow, the morning sun glinting on the gem-adorned chain that spiraled up her left leg from anklet to garter. "Why, three moons ago," she burst out, waving her arms, "when he got as far as the very curtains of my bed, I found a guard hiding and watching, by the Hunt! Watching, to see me swoon in the arms of Elandorr! Oh, he claimed he was there to protect me against the 'last humiliation,' but he was lying atop the very canopy of my bed, clad in black velvet so as not to be seen, and wrapped about with so many amulets that he practically staggered! He got them from my father, he said, but I'd not be surprised to find that some of them came from House Waelvor!"
"What did you do to Aim?" Amaranthae asked, turning her head away to hide a yawn.