Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [92]
As the sorceresses advanced, one of the mages raised his hands. Red rings of fire encircled them, and he said warningly, "Keep back, wenches."
Sylmae's mouth crooked. "You'll look rather less handsome wearing those flame hoops on your backside, puppy. Dispense with this nonsense, or in the next three paces or so Holone and I'll grow weary of it."
"You dare to truth-scry me? The heir of a House?"
Sylmae shrugged. "Of course. In this, we act with the Coronal's authority."
"What authority?" the mage sneered as he retreated a step, the flamehoops still blazing about his hands. "The whole realm knows that the Coronal's gone mad!"
The High Court Mage turned around slowly, a slim but menacing figure in his black robe, and said gravely, "After your behind eats those flame hoops you're so fond of, Selgauth Cathdeiryn, and you've been thoroughly truth-scryed, you will be conducted under guard to the Coronal. You will then be free to make that observation to our Revered Lord himself. If you're feeling a trifle more prudent than at present, you may be wise enough to do so politely."
Galan Goadulphyn looked at the surface of the pool one last time, and sighed. Had he been less proud, there might have been tears, but he was a warrior of Cormanthor, not one of these weak-knees, the prancing and overperfumed lispers whom the high noble Houses of the realm were pleased to call heirs. He was like stone, or old treeroot. He would endure without complaint and rise again. Someday.
The picture the pool displayed was not inspiring. His face was a mask of old, dried blood, the fine line of his jaw marred where a flap of torn skin had bonded in its dangling state, making his chin square as a human's. The tip of one ear was missing, and his hair was as matted as a dead spider's legs, much of it stuck in the dark scabs that covered the raw furrows the rocks had gouged out of his head.
Galan looked back at the pool. His lips curved in an unlovely smile as he-stiffly-made a formal bow in its direction. Then he turned and booted a stone into its tranquil heart, shattering the smooth surface with muddy ripples.
Feeling much better, he checked the hilts of his sword and dagger to be sure they were loose and ready in their scabbards, and set off through the forest once more. His gut growled at him more than once, reminding him that one can't eat coins.
It was two days' steady travel through the trees to the waymoot of Assamboryl, and a day beyond that to Six Thorns. The hours seemed longer without Athtar's endless inanities. Not that he wasn't enjoying the relative quiet, for once-though he was so stiff, and whatever he'd hurt in his right thigh stabbed with such burning pain, that he was stumping along through the moss and dead leaves like a clumsy human.
Thankfully few folk dwelt hereabouts, because of the stirges. There was one flitting along in the trees right now, keeping well away but following his travel.
Hmmph. It must not be thirsty just now-but if he was heading toward all of its relatives, old Galan the Gallant might be no more than a sack of empty skin before nightfall.
Cheery thought, that.
A mushroom float rose up from behind a ferny bank on his left. His nose twitched. It was piled high with fresh limecaps, their mottled brown stems oozing the white sap that meant they'd just been harvested. His stomach growled again-and without thought he snatched a few and thrust them to his mouth.
"Ho!"
In his weary hunger, he'd forgotten that mushroom floats need someone to pull them. Or push them, as the angry-looking elf at the other end of this float was doing, getting his harvest aboveground in good time for washing and sorting. The elf snatched out a dagger, and swept it up for a throw.
Galan took it out of his fingers for him with his own fast-hurled dagger, and followed it up with a duck under the float and a lunge up the other side, sword point first.
The elf screamed and scrambled backwards, fetching up against a tree. Galan