Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [97]
Floating here, in dark chaos…
He sank back into his thoughts, which were running now like a river. Ardavanshee who defied the will of their elders but stood tall upon the pride of the houses of their birth. Ardavanshee who feared and yet spoke against the power of the High Court Mages and the Coronal and his old advisor the Srinshee.
That title seemed to be another door opening in his mind, letting in a wash of brightness and fresh recollections and a stronger sense of being Elminster. The Lady Oluevaera Estelda, smiling up at him from that noble, wrinkled ruin of a face and then, incongruously, from one that looked like a little elven girl's, yet retained those old and wise eyes… the Srinshee, older than trees and deeper rooted, treading the crammed Vault of Ages with reverence for the dead and vanished, holding the whole lore and long lineage of the proud Cormanthan elves in her mind- in the vault behind her eyes that was so much larger than the one she trod with an impatient, hawk-nosed young human…
The hated human intruder sought across the realm for the murders he'd done by the ardavanshee-led by the houses of Echorn and Starym and Waelvor… Waelvor, whose scion was Elandorr… suitor and rival of the Lady Symrustar.
Symrustar! That perfect face, those hungrily tugging blue tresses, that dragon on her belly and breast, the eyes like blue flames of promise, and lips parted in a waiting, knowing smile… that ruthless, ambitious sorceress whose mind was as dark a cesspit as any Magelord's, who thought of elves-and men-as mere stupid beasts to be used as she clawed her way up through them, to some as-yet-unrealized goal.
The lady who had almost torn his mind open to make him her plaything and source of spells. The lady he had in turn betrayed into the grasp of her rival, Elandorr, leaving both their fates unknown to him.
Aye. He knew who he was now. Elminster, set upon by Delmuth Echorn and then by a band of ardavanshee led by Ivran Selorn, who hunted him through Castle Dlardrageth. Elminster the overconfident, careless Chosen. Elminster, who'd been drunk with power as he flew right into the waiting spell of the ardavanshan mages-a spell that had torn him apart.
Was he whole again? Or was he but a ghost, his mortal life over? Perhaps Mystra had kept him alive-if this was alive-to carry out her purposes, a failure forced to complete his mission.
Elminster was suddenly aware that he could move in the void, scudding in this direction or that as he thought of movement. Yet that meant little when there was nowhere to move to, dark emptiness on all sides, lights and noise scattering at seeming random, everywhere and nowhere.
The world around him had once been a series of specific "wheres," an unfolding landscape of different and often named locations, from the deep forest of Cormanthor to the outlaw wastes beyond Athalantar.
Perhaps this was death, after all. Faerun, and a body to walk it in, were what he was lacking. Almost without thinking he sent himself into a racing flight through the void, searching the endless for an end, a boundary, perhaps a rift where the light of Faerun in all its familiar glory could shine in…
And as this swift but vain movement went on and on he raised a prayer to Mystra, a silent cry in his mind: Mystra, where are ye? Aid me. Be my guide, I beseech thee.
There was a dark and silent moment as the words in his mind seemed to roll away into endless distance. Then there came a bright, almost blinding burst of light, white and clarioned, with a sennet that echoed stridently through him, hurling him over and over in its brassy tumult. When it faded he was racing back the way he'd come, aimed exactly back upon his former course, though he could not tell how it was he knew that to be so.
At long last,