Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [96]
His eyes flickered; she stepped swiftly toward him, gown in hand, and said passionately, "I'm your friend, Lord. I'm the one you should come home and confide in and share rude jokes with and argue with. Have you forgotten what it is to share ideas-not kisses or pinches, but ideas, spoken of aloud-with an elf maid? Come with me now, and I'll teach you how. We have a realm to save."
She turned away, walking from the room with a determined stride. Lord Evendusk watched her go, bared swinging hips and all, cleared his throat noisily, and then turned and said to the servants, "Ah… you heard my lady. Unless we ring, please don't disturb us. We have much to talk about."
He turned toward the door the Lady Duilya had left by, took two swift steps, and then whirled around to face the servants, tossed his goad onto the table, and said, "One more thing. Uh… my apologies."
He turned and left the room, running hard. The servants kept very quiet until they were sure he was out of earshot.
Their cheering and excited converse fell silent again when Naertho came into the room. He was carrying the second bottle of tripleshroom sherry in his hand. "The lord and lady said 'twas for us!" he said gruffly.
When the astonished cheer that evoked had died away, he looked out the window and the trees, his eyes very bright, and added, "Thanks to you, Corellon. Bring us humans every moon, if they cause such as this!"
In a pool in a private garden, four ladies collapsed into each others' arms and wept happy tears. Their glasses of tripleshroom sherry floated, untouched and forgotten, around them.
Thirteen
Adrift In Cormanthor
For a time, Elminster became as a ghost, and wandered unheard and unseen through the very heart of Cormanthor. The elves regarded him not, and he learned much thereby… not that he had much of a life left in which to make use of what he gained.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty
published circa The Year of the Staff
Faerun took a very long while to come floating back again. At first Elminster was only dimly aware of himself as a drifting cloud of thoughts-of awareness-in a dark, endless void through which booming, distorted sounds… bursts of loudness they were, no more… rumbled and echoed from time to time.
After an infinity of floating, only dimly aware of who he was or what he was, Elminster saw lights appear- stabbing, momentary flashes of brightness that occurred from time to time as he floated, unwondering, in their midst.
Later, sounds and lights befell more often, and memories began to stir, like restless, uncoiling serpents, in the spark of self-awareness that was the Athalantan prince and Chosen of Mystra. El saw swords rising and falling, and a gem that held a whirling chaos of images, the memories of others, raging like a sea that tossed him up into the presence of a female eidolon in the night gardens of a palace… the palace of a kindly one, an old elf in white robes, the ruler of pursuivants who rode unicorns and pegasi, the ruler of… of…
The Coronal. That title blazed like white fire in his memory, like the great and awesome chord of a fanfare of triumphal doom-the march favored by Magelords in the Athalantar of his younger years, that resounded across Hastarl, echoing back from its towers, when wizards were gathering for some decision of import.
The same mages he had defeated in the end, to claim-and then renounce-his throne. He was a prince, the grandson of the Stag King. He was of the royal blood of Athalantar, of the family Aumar, the last of many princes. He was a boy running through the trees of Heldon, an outlaw and a thief of Hastarl, a priest-or was it priestess? Had he not been a woman?-of Mystra. The Lady of Mysteries, the Mother of Magic, Myrjala his teacher who became Mystra his divine ruler and guide, making him her Chosen, making him her-Elminster!
He was Elminster! Human armathor of Cormanthor, named so by the Coronal, sent here by Mystra to do something important that remained yet hidden from him-and beset on all sides by the ambitious, ruthless,