Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [18]
Great. Alassra was insane again.
And so was Elminster. Storm looked wildly all around, wondering if she dared try to heal him—or if she’d find herself fighting for her own life in a moment or two, against a generous supply of enraged Cormyrean knights and wizards.
She put her hands on his head again, still tensely staring about.
No one moved amid the rocks. No swords came seeking her.
Out in the moonlight, she caught sight of a handful of surviving Cormyreans—a very small handful—fleeing back toward the trees, pelting along in frantic and terrified haste. A wizard of war waved frantic hands, and pale light flared briefly to claim them all, teleporting them elsewhere.
Somewhere safely far away, she hoped, sagging down atop Elminster with her tears starting. She’d be crying in earnest once she plunged into his ravaged mind, she knew, but in a forest this wild she dared not wait too long, for fear of something hungry coming along to feed before he was at least on his feet again … and they were both free of the worst of his madness.
The moon was serenely riding a nearly empty sky, highlighting a scorched and smoking battlefield strewn with pieces of dead wizard and highknight.
Tears blinded her then as she fell into real weeping.
Between her hands, the Old Mage’s head quivered, and Elminster started barking.
The moment she unshuttered the lantern and sat down in the little cavern facing him, Elminster frowned at her. “Ye look thin,” he said reprovingly. “Scrawny. Have ye been eating properly?”
Storm gave him a dark look. “Just how do you think I heal your mind?” she hissed, angrier than she’d thought she’d be. “I draw from myself.”
The Old Mage sighed. “Sorry, lass. I’ll steal ye some healing potions when I’m back inside, for when we meet again.”
He nodded in the direction of the damp old smuggling tunnel that led away from the cavern, curving into unseen distances and descending to pass under the walls of Suzail, but they both knew he meant inside the royal palace, where for some seasons they’d been posing as old Elgorn Rhauligan and his aging sister, Stornara, minor palace servants.
Storm waved a hand, dismissing healing potion thefts until some future time when they were together inside the palace. “El, are you well enough to cast those guises on us, without …?”
“Turning into a drooling, yapping thing again? ’Tis to be hoped.”
It was Storm’s turn to sigh. “I need a little certainty, El,” she said. “Or by the Holy Lady we both lost, I’ll slip you a little more longsleep and leave you snoring for a month or more, until I’m well and truly back from Shadowdale.”
Elminster chuckled. “Ye have grown claws, Lady of Shadowdale. A pleasure fighting battles with ye!”
Storm crooked one eyebrow. “Not against me?”
“Tease not, but tell: what word was brought back to the Crown of the fray at Tethgard?”
Storm shrugged. “I don’t look like the fetchingly spotted and wrinkled old Stornara without your magic, so I haven’t been able to get into the palace. The more talkative courtiers who drink at two of the taverns I’ve visited, however, tell lurid tales of a great spell battle against mysterious, unspecified fell wizards who slew all but a handful of the many brave, loyal, and vastly outnumbered wizards of war and loyal highknights who went up against these foes of the realm.”
“Of course. And those survivors were?”
“I know Starbridge survived, because I sent him into slumber before the battle, and I’ve heard he’s now been made commander of the highknights. And I’ve seen Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake from afar, strolling along the promenade—as pompous and strutting as ever—so I know he made it back. No doubt he’s been telling everyone how he bravely saved the day after the mightiest foes that ever threatened Cormyr struck down Kelgantor and the rest.”
“No doubt. What of Alassra?”
“Mad again; turned herself into a monster and flew off. Right now, she could be anywhere.”
“She gave her sanity right back to me, didn’t she?”
Storm nodded glumly. “She always returns