Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [25]
“I had in fact figured that out, youngling,” Elminster replied pleasantly. “Once, I’d’ve been flattered, but down my long years so many have lain in wait for me that the thrill is quite gone.” He peered at them both, one after the other, tendering the same gentle smile. “I do hope ye’re not disappointed.”
Two faces glowered at him. One belonged to a highknight he knew, one Belsarth Hawkblade, a grim, oft-unshaven man of brutal ruthlessness but iron-hard loyalty to the Crown. The other was the man in robes and had a face unfamiliar to him—but kin to one he’d seen briefly in the fray at Tethgard; that of a war wizard busy mastering the art of the headlong, panic-ridden retreat. Scared down to his boots, he was.
“Hawkblade,” he asked, nodding toward the pale, tight-faced mage, “who’s thy friend? Wizard of War—?”
“Lorton Ironstone,” the wizard answered curtly, not waiting for Hawkblade to speak. “And I am charged to ask you, Elminster of Shadowdale, if you will now surrender yourself peacefully into our custody to face the king’s justice.”
“Charged by whom?”
“Ganrahast, Royal Magician of the Realm,” Ironstone snapped. “At the request of the king himself, Lord Vainrence gave us to believe.”
Elminster nodded. There would be a third member of this welcoming foreguard, probably busy creeping up behind him right then …
“Well?” Ironstone snapped. “We require a reply, Old Sage of Shadowdale! In case it’s escaped your notice, we’re in Cormyr here—where we uphold the laws, not you. Laws that apply even to clever old archmages who customarily defy rules and do as they please. You, Elminster, stand accused of theft of Crown magic and of murder—of many sworn highknights of the realm, including their lord commander, and of no less than four wizards of war.”
“Murder? I was abed with my lady at night, out under the stars in the depths of the forest, when a dozen men set upon us, hurling spells despite my warnings that doing so would mean their deaths. We were attacked by a force that well outnumbered us, and we fought to defend ourselves. Some of our attackers fled by magic, and the rest perished in battle. Ye—who were not there—now deem their deaths ‘murder’? A murderer is one who goes seeking the deaths of others and achieves them. They tried to be murderers, aye. They were also warned, all of them—and learned too late that foolish aggression has consequences.”
Elminster paused then to give Ironstone a smile as thin as a ghost’s. “A lesson ye, too, might well ponder at this time.”
The war wizard’s reply was an unlovely sneer. “Hoary old advice from a lone graybeard with a large mouth? I quake. Between, that is, gasps of disbelief at what some have the effrontery to say to try to justify their misdeeds. You admit you slew loyal Cormyreans who were on Crown business, while defying them. So you’re a murderer. Don’t seek to evade your fate through clever words. Nor by claiming you’ve led a long and high-minded life protecting and defending everyone.”
The old man cast a swift look back over his shoulder, as if he could see clearly in the darkness, then faced the two Cormyreans again, still hefting the small items in his hands, and shrugged. “Yet I am a protector and defender. Why should that not be my justification? Ye are a wizard of war and use that to account for what ye do and the arrogance with which ye do it.”
Ironstone was unimpressed. “You? Protector of what? Your own interests, most likely, that you trumpeted as those of Mystra when you were challenged. You were a meddler, a defier of authority, and a foe of kings. You never stood for any law, order, or rightful government—not like our mighty Vangerdahast.”
“Thy last two sentences, I’ll grant. I was not like him, though he grew to increasingly see matters as I did, as the years did to him what they did to me. He began as my apprentice—and in those days, when folk spoke of Vangey and used the word ‘mighty,’ the next word they always uttered was ‘annoying.’ ”
Hawkblade hastily quelled something that sounded suspiciously