Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [61]
Symrustar smiled chillingly. "Showed him what he'd been trying to see, took off every last thing he was wearing, too, and-the fish."
Amaranthae shuddered. "You fed him to-?"
Symrustar nodded. "Umm-hmmm, and sent off all his gear in a bundle to Elandorr the next day, with a love note telling him that such trappings were all that was left from the last dozen lords who thought themselves worthy of wooing Symrustar Auglamyr." She sighed theatrically. "He was back trying the next night, of course."
Amaranthae shook her head. "Why don't you just tell your father, and let him go roaring to Lord Waelvor? You know how the old Houses are; Kuskyn Waelvor would be so mortified that a son of his was wooing a lady of such an 'unknown' House as ours-or wooing any high-house lady, without his permission- that Elandorr would find himself in a spell cage for the next decade, before you could draw another breath!"
Symrustar stared at her cousin. "And where, 'Ranthae, would the fun be in that?"
Amaranthae shook her head, smiling. "Of course. Let prudence never get in the way of fun!"
Symrustar smiled. "Of course." She reached for the speaking-chimes. "More dawnberry cordial, coz?"
Amaranthae gave her an answering smile and reclined against the leafy boughs that ringed their bower. "And why not? Hurl all spells behind us, and soar howling into the moon!"
"A fitting sentiment," Symrustar agreed, stretching her magnificent body, "considering my plans for this human, 'Elminster.' Yes, I'll see to it that humans have their uses." Extending her empty cordial glass in her toes, she struck the speaking chimes with it.
As their gentle chord resounded, Amaranthae Auglamyr shuddered at the cold, careless pleasure in her cousin's voice. It sounded somehow hungry.
* * * * *
"I'd not be in the boots of this human, no matter how mighty a sorcerer he may be," Taeglyn murmured from below, where he was sorting the gems carefully on velvet with the aid of a magnification spell.
"I care not a whit for this human-a beast of the fields, after all," Delmuth growled, "but it's the boots of the Coronal I'll want to see filled by a new owner, after I do what I must."
" 'Do what you must'? But, Lord, the Lesser Flith is almost complete! It lacks but a ruby for the star Esmel, and two diamonds for the Vraelen!" The servant gestured at the glittering star map filling the domed upper half of the chamber. In response to the star names he uttered, the spell Delmuth had cast earlier awakened two precise points in the empty air into winking life.
They flashed silently, awaiting their gems, but Delmuth Echorn was descending smoothly out of the midst of his life work, the constellations he'd modeled in gems glittering around him. "Yes, do what I must- destroy this human. If we let this go unchallenged, we'll have them in here by the thousands, a sea of rabble around our ankles, begging or threatening us whenever we go out, and despoiling the forest as fast as they so ably know how!" His boots touched the glossy black marble floor. "Why, if they could touch the stars," he snarled, pointing up at his miniature heavens, "we'd have found one or two missing by now!"
Delmuth glared up at the winking points of light, which obediently went out. He handed Taeglyn his gloves, with their long, talonlike metal points, stretched like a great and supple cat of the jungles, and added, still angry, "Yes, our fair and mighty Coronal has gone mad, and none of us seem ready enough to raise our hands and voices against him. Well, I'll take the first step, if no other Cormanthan has the stomach to. The pollution he has allowed to walk right into the very bosom of our fair Cormanthor must be eradicated."
Face set, he strode out of the room, smashing its double doors aside with his enchanted bracers. They boomed, splintered, and shuddered back from where they'd struck the wall, but Delmuth Echorn, striding hard, didn't even hear them.
A few breaths later, he was passing through the high, many-balconied front hall, his best boar sword glowing green in his hands from its many enchantments,