Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [12]
“For my part,” Shuldroon put in, “I don’t think this Elminster is the one in the legends at all. I think a series of old men, down the passing years, have used the fell name of a long-dead mage to cloak their own lesser wizardries. And this self-styled Elminster who thieves magic from us now is the least of them all, an old hedge wizard who avoids casting every spell he can, bluffing his way into getting what he wants through fear of what the mighty Elminster of old might do if roused. I’ve heard he dare not cast the simplest spell, because he goes mad.”
“We’ve all heard that,” Nordroun said heavily. “I hope it’s true.”
Storm listened as they all started to speak. Kelgantor was the calm, levelheaded, coldly ruthless commander of this force, a veteran war wizard, smart and decisive. Tethlor was competent, wary, and loyal. Therlon she knew well: a good sort, along for his local knowledge, far less of a spellhurler than the others. Shuldroon was a zealous, overconfident killer, a youngling out to make his mark, with Hondryn his echo and crony. Mreldrake was a pompous, cowardly ass, a measure of how far the wizards of war had fallen these latter decades.
Aside from Eskrel Starbridge, whom she respected, the highknights she knew less well. Nordroun was head of them all, and well-regarded; Merlar was an able, amiable youngling, widely liked … and the rest were just names to her.
“Well, I think we’d best curl our line forward at both ends like a fork,” Shuldroon was saying, “to surround the ruins, or we’ll end up huffing and puffing through these trees until dawn, with the two we seek fleeing just ahead of us. Or they’ll climb trees or hide amongst the trunks, and we’ll blunder right past, and—”
He broke off, then, as the air around them all seemed to smite the ears with a heavy blow that was felt more than heard, a surge of flaring unseen force that came charging soundlessly out of the trees to wash over them and race on, away through the forest behind them, trees creaking here and there as if bent in a gale, though no leaves stirred.
Wizards cursed. “Strong magic!” Hondryn snarled. “Flaring as if uncontrolled, just unleashed …”
“I felt it,” Kelgantor snapped. “The old man has unbound an enchanted item. Forward! Quick, before he destroys another!”
Storm moved with them, knowing what that flare of magic had been. Elminster had just destroyed the gorget.
Its magic was flowing into someone, either the Old Mage or the Simbul … but if ’twas Lass, that flood had been so smooth and quiet, with the darkness unbroken ahead, that she must be asleep or unconscious, not her raving, seething, exulting self.
“No doubt he’s stealing magic for himself,” the war wizard commander added as they hastened on, heedless of the din of snapping branches and rustling footfalls. “Know this secret of the realm, all of you: Elminster does indeed need magic to recover after every casting, or he goes a little mad for a while. Not mere rumor, but observed and confirmed truth. He always heals himself in the end—but each time he works a spell, he goes erratic if it’s a minor magic and barking madwits if he’s unleashed something mightier. So all we need do is survive his first spell, and our foe will be a staggering madman, too far gone to work a second magic on us. So when you hear my owl hoot in your minds—not with your ears; anything you hear will be a real owl—spread out and advance very quietly. We can’t be far from him now.”
“What if that was the gorget?” Merlar asked hesitantly. “Being destroyed, I mean?”
“Then their lives are forfeit,” Kelgantor said flatly. “Slay them at all costs and by any means, no matter what they threaten or offer. Move.”
The Cormyreans hastened, crashing through leaves and branches. Someone rather tunelessly chanted, “Another bold night in brave Cormyr,” a line from the old ballad popular with the soldiers of the realm. Smiling