Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [135]
"Ye don't want me to go to Athalantar yet," Elminster said slowly, eyes on hers.
Myrjala shook her head. "You're not ready. Your magic is still unsubtle, brutal, and predictable-doomed to fail when greater force contests against you."
"Teach me wisdom, then," Elminster said, swaying on his feet.
She turned away. "Separate paths, remember?"
"Ye were watching over me," Elminster said to her back, desperately. "Following me… why?"
Myrjala turned back to him slowly. Tears glimmered in her eyes. "Because… I love you," she whispered.
"Stay with me, then," Elminster said. The book fell forgotten from his hands, but it took all his strength to stride forward and put his ravaged arms around her. "Teach me."
She hesitated, her dark eyes seeming to look deep into him.
Then, almost shuddering, she nodded.
A dark, triumphant fire rose in his eyes as their lips met.
*****
Mirtul was a dry, windy month in the Year of the Wandering Leucrotta-especially in the hot, dusty lands of the east.
Elminster stood hard-eyed atop a wind-scoured cliff, glaring down at a castle of the sorcerer-kings far below. To reach it, he and Myrjala had ridden for a tenday or more past dead slaves stinking in the sun.
Here at last were their slayers. Through his eagle-eyes spell, Elminster watched bloody whips rise and fall in that courtyard, laying open the bodies of the last slaves. All life had fled already, but the sorcerers flailed on, weaving an evil magic with the fading life-forces of the men and women they'd slain.
In anger, El lashed out with spells of his own devising. The magics fell through the air in a bright web, and Elminster stepped off the cliff to follow them. He was striding along on empty air over the castle when it began to topple. He stopped to watch, standing angrily above the dust, screams, and tumult.
Something rose up out of a shattered window, with men in robes riding it. Elminster fired a bolt down to blast them. The enchanted flyer shattered amid explosive brightness; the men on it jerked like flung dolls and fell back into the ruins. They did not rise again. Stones tumbled to a halt, and the rumble of their falling slowly died. When the dust had settled, Elminster turned, face grim, and walked back through the air to join Myrjala on the heights.
Her dark eyes lifted from the ruined castle, and she asked softly, "And was that the wisest, least wasteful thing to do?"
Anger glinted in Elminster's eyes. "Aye, if it'll make the next band of fools think twice about using such fell magic."
"Yet some wizards'll do so anyway. Will you murder them, too?"
Elminster shrugged. "If need be. Who is to stop me?"
"Yourself." Myrjala looked down at the castle again. "Reminds one of Heldon, doesn't it?" she asked quietly, not looking at him.
Elminster opened his mouth to refute her-and then closed his mouth again in silence, watching her step calmly off the height and walk steadily away, treading softly on the air. His gaze fell to the ruin below, and he shivered in sudden shame. Sighing, El turned from what he had wrought-and then looked helplessly down again at the castle. He did not know any spells to put it back up again.
*****
It was a warm night in early Flamerule, in the Year of the Chosen. Elminster awoke drenched with sweat, flinging himself upright to stare with wild eyes at the moon. Myrjala sat up in bed beside him, hair flowing around her shoulders, eyes dark with worry. "You were shouting," she said.
Elminster reached for her, and she folded him into her arms as a mother cradles a frightened child.
"I saw Athalantar," El whispered, staring into the night. "I was walking the streets of Hastarl, and there were sneering wizards wherever I looked. And when I stared at them, they fell over dead… terror on their faces…"
Myrjala held him and said calmly, "It sounds as if you're ready for Athalantar at last."
Elminster turned to look at her. "And if I live through purging it of magelords-what