Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [62]
“Just the two of us can’t do this anymore, lass,” he added grimly, as the passage split and he headed to the left without slowing, leaving the mildew reek behind. “And it’s time to stop fooling ourselves that we can.”
“Do ‘this’?”
“Save the Realms.”
“So we go now to find some comfy chairs and sit back to watch the world fall apart?” Storm asked softly, arching an eyebrow in devastating mimicry of his longtime mannerism.
El sighed, came to an abrupt stop, and spun to face her. “It’s time to recruit successors to take over the task of saving the Realms. We need new hands and sharp eyes and vigor.”
Storm studied his face. “You mean it.”
He nodded mutely, and they stared into each other’s eyes for a time. During which both silently found astonishment at how shaken this late arrival—this one theft not prevented—had left them.
Devastated and close to tears.
Storm nodded slowly, her gaze never leaving his. “Defending Cormyr from behind the scenes—even in the days when Vangerdahast prowled these halls like a sly old lion, meddling and manipulating and thinking he was protecting Cormyr—was what we did,” she whispered. “What we excelled at. The cornerstone of the Realms that should be, a world of justice and order and refinement …”
Elminster sliced the air impatiently with the edge of his hand, as if to chop aside her words. “We start training my unwitting descendant Amarune. Right now.”
Storm shook her head slowly, wincing. “It will take some time,” she murmured.
“Time we have,” Elminster snapped, “if we start right now. Shall ye approach her first, or should Elminster the Terrible frighten and enrage her?”
Storm frowned. “I’ll try luring her a bit, first. Then you can frighten and enrage her, if it becomes needful. In the meantime, start hunting up more suitable magic for feeding Alassra. In a palace so full of decaying and forgotten magical gewgaws, even after all your foraging, there must yet be something.”
“Heh. Lass, this place holds entire war wizard armories—walled away and ward-guarded, mind ye—full of enchanted baubles. This current crew of Cormyr’s most puissant guardian mages knows not the worth or working of half of them. Yet seizing any magic of Cormyr is going to upset Alusair.”
Storm smiled tightly. “Everything upsets Alusair.”
“Aye, but lass, lass, forget this not: given what we’ve become, if she catches us at the wrong time and uses all her power, she can readily destroy us.”
Storm shrugged. “I doubt it. The gods are seldom that merciful.”
That feeble jest did not bring a chuckle from Elminster or even a smile.
After a moment, she added, “And didn’t something or someone in these halls just come close to destroying her?”
The Old Mage nodded grimly. They shared another long look, then a mutual sigh—and with one accord turned and began the long trudge back out of the haunted wing, toward one of the older secret ways out of the royal palace. One that was least likely to be guarded by current and puissant Purple Dragons or wizards of war.
Amarune Whitewave was somewhere in the city outside the palace and wasn’t likely to be invited inside anytime soon.
Not unless King Foril developed a sudden taste for skilled mask dancers.
Six passages later, El stopped in midstride, glared at a certain stone in the passage wall as if it personally offended him, then bent down to the floor, felt among the stones where wall and floor met, and drew a small block out from between its fellows with a little grunt of satisfaction.
Behind it proved to be a flat, rusty iron coffer that El persuaded to open with one firm bounce of his fist. Inside was a little pendant on a fine chain, such as a court lady might wear, a mask, and two gleaming steel vials, firmly stoppered and sealed. El passed all but the pendant to Storm. “Nightseeing mask and two healing vials; ye carry them.”
He put the pendant around his neck; it vanished entirely beneath his beard.
Storm pointed at where she knew it was. “So what does that do?”
“Read passing surface thoughts. Nothing like a mind-ream, mind, but it should help