Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [169]
Elminster stared down at where his greatest enemy had lain, feeling suddenly so weary that he could scarce… stand… The prince toppled to the floor, the jagged stub of blade that had slain both the king and the mage royal clattering from his hand. The glowing barrier of blades faded swiftly.
Silence fell. It was several long, still moments before a courtier hesitantly stepped out from behind the pillars, warily drawing his slim court sword. He took a cautious step forward, and then another… and raised his blade to stab the fallen stranger.
Steel flashed at his throat, and the courtier leapt back with a scream. The king's blade gleamed in the light as the baker who held it glared around the throne room. "Keep back!" Hannibur snarled, "all of ye!"
Merchants and courtiers alike stared at the stout, disheveled figure standing over the fallen stranger, waving the Sword of the Stag a little uncertainly but with fierce determination… until a great light streamed into the room. Their staring faces turned to it, only to goggle all the more.
Through the open double doors walked the source of the radiance: a tall, slim, regal lady with bone-white skin, dark eyes, and a confident manner. She was leading another woman by the hand, a bewildered, barefoot maid wearing a fine gown that did not fit her, who shrieked as she saw the baker and burst into a headlong run. "Hannibur! Hannibur!"
"Shan!" he roared, and the Sword of the Stag clattered forgotten to the floor. Sobbing, they rushed into each other's arms.
A bright glow seemed to shine from the regal lady's body as she smiled at the embracing couple and walked calmly along the bloodstained carpet to where Elminster lay on the tiles. She waved her hand, and something suddenly shimmered and sang in the air around them both. Standing there in the light she'd conjured, the woman looked like some sort of sorcerous goddess as she lifted her chin and stared around the chamber with those dark, mysterious eyes. Folk who met that gaze fell still and stared helplessly; Myrjala looked around the chamber until all the watching folk were in her thrall.
Then she spoke, and every man and maid there swore until their dying day that she'd spoken to them, and to them alone.
"This is the dawn of a new day in Athalantar," she said. "I want to see folk who were welcome in this hall when Uthgrael was king. Bring them here to the throne before night falls. If Belaur and his magelords suffered any to live this long, bring them, and bid them fair welcome! A new king summons them!"
Myrjala snapped her fingers, and her eyes darkened. Suddenly folk were moving, pushing toward the doors in urgent haste.
When she snapped her fingers again, only Hannibur and Shandathe, smiling through their tears, were still in the room to turn and see an ornate coffer obediently appear from empty air.
Myrjala looked up, smiled, and waved at them to stay as she drew a flask from the coffer. As she knelt beside Elminster and unstoppered it, the bright glow began to fade from her skin.
*****
The streets were soon full of curious folk, some still smelling of hastily abandoned evenfeast. Hesitantly entering the gates of Athalgard, they skirted a battle between the magelords' arms-men and some unfamiliar warriors and crowded on into the hall of the throne by the score. There were children peering excitedly at everything, shopkeepers looking about warily, and bright-eyed old men and women who tottered and shuffled about, leaning on sticks or the arms of younger folk.
Proud and lowly alike they pushed into the throne room, gawking at the blood and the blackened, dangling bodies of the armsmen, and most of all at King Belaur, sprawled bloody and half-naked by the Stag Throne.
A young, hawk-nosed man they did not know sat on that throne, and a tall, slender woman whose eyes were very large and dark stood beside him. He looked like an exhausted vagabond despite the Sword of the Stag across his knees-but she