Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [128]
"I now go by the name of Ander. Before I passed into this state, I was an archwizard of Netheril-but the city where I lived and the great works I wrought seem to have all vanished 'neath the claws of passing years. So much for striving… and there's a valuable lesson for ye to bear away, mageling."
El frowned. "What have ye become?"
"I have passed beyond death by means of my art. I understand from such conversations as these-so my knowledge may be clouded by untruths said to me-that all the wizards of today can manage is to preserve their bodies, shuffling about as crumbling, putrefying wreckage until they collapse altogether… ye call them 'liches,' I believe?"
Elmara nodded uncertainly. "Aye."
The green eyes of the wraith glowed a little more brightly. "In my day, we mastered our bodies, so we can become solid or as ye see me now, and pass from one state to another at will. With long practice, one even learns to turn only a hand solid, and leave the rest unseen."
"Is this something that can be taught?"
The emerald eyes danced in mirth. "Aye, to those willing to pass beyond death."
"Why," asked Elmara softly, "would anyone want to pass beyond death?"
"To live forever… or to finish a task that drives and consumes one's days, as vengeance on magelords consumes thine…or to-"
"Ye know that about me?"
"I can read thy thoughts, when ye are this close," the Netherese wraithwizard replied.
Elmara stepped back, raising her hands with fresh resolve, and the undead sorcerer sighed in her mind.
"Nay, nay-cast not thy petty spell, mageling. I've worked ye no harm."
"Do ye feed on thoughts and memories?" El asked in sudden suspicion.
"Nay. I feed on life-force."
El took another step back, and felt a light touch on her shoulder. She turned and stared into the endless grin of a floating skull, bobbing inches away from her nose. She leapt back with a little cry. The sorcerer sighed again.
"Not the life-force of intelligent beings, idiot. Think ye I've no morals, just because ye see bones and all the trappings of death? What is so evil about death? 'Tis something that befalls all of us."
"What life-force, then?" El asked.
"I have a creature imprisoned on the other side of that wall… called a deepspawn, it gives birth to creatures it has devoured-stirge after stirge after stirge, in this case."
"Where's the door to this room of monsters?" El asked suspiciously.
"Door? What need have I of doors? Walls are no barrier to me."
"Why are ye revealing all this to me?"
"Ah, there speaks a living wizard, fearful and mistrustful of all others, jealous of power, hoarding learning like precious stones, to keep it from others… Why not tell ye? Ye're interested, and I'm lonely. While we speak, I learn what I want to hear from your mind, so it matters not what we talk about."
"Ye know all about me?" El whispered, looking around for Myrjala.
"Aye-all thy secrets, and fears. Yet be at ease. I shan't reveal these to others, nor attack thee. Improbable as it seems, I can see ye truly did not intend to steal from me, or hurl magic against me."
"So now what will ye do with me?"
"Let ye go. Mind ye return, in ten seasons or so, and talk with Ander again. Thy mind'll have fresh memories and learning for me by then."
"I-I'll try to return," El said uncertainly. Though she'd now mastered her fear, only the gods above knew if she'd live that long, or still be able to work magic… and not be a twisted prisoner of some magelord or other.
"That's all any mortal can promise," Ander said, drifting nearer. "Take this gift from me, sith ye did not come to seize anything."
A shaft of light descended in front of Elmara's nose, and within it hung an open book, a book of circular pages, open at one. As El stared at the crawling runes on that page, they seemed to writhe and reform until she could suddenly read them. It was a spell that completely and permanently transformed the gender of the wizard casting it. El swallowed. She'd almost grown used to being a woman, but… The page was tearing itself free of the book,