Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [2]
One
DRAGON FIRE-AND DOOM
Dragons? Splendid things, lad-so long as ye look upon them only in tapestries, or in the masks worn at revels, or from about three realms off.…
Astragarl Hornwood, Mage of Elembar
said to an apprentice
Year of the Tusk
The sun beat down bright and hot on the rock pile that crowned the high pasture. Far below, the village, cloaked in trees, lay under a blue-green haze of mist-magic mist, some said, conjured by the mist-mages of the Fair Folk, whose magic worked both good and ill. The ill things were spoken of more often, of course, for many folk in Heldon did not love elves.
Elminster was not one of them. He hoped to meet the elves someday-really meet, that is-to touch smooth skin and pointed ears, to converse with them. These woods had once been theirs, and they yet knew the secret places where beasts laired and suchlike. He'd like to know all that, someday, when he was a man and could walk where he pleased.
El sighed, shifted into a more comfortable position against his favorite rock, and from habit glanced at the falling slopes of the meadow to be sure his sheep were safe. They were.
Not for the first time, the bony, beak-nosed youth peered south, squinting. Brushing unruly jet-black hair aside with one slim hand, he kept his fingers raised to shade his piercing blue-gray eyes, trying vainly to see the turrets of far-off, splendid Athalgard, in the heart of Hastarl, by the river. As always, he could see the faint bluish haze that marked the nearest curve of the Delimbiyr, but no more. Father told him often that the castle was much too far off to be seen from here-and, from time to time, added that the fair span of distance between it and their village was a good thing.
Elminster longed to know what that meant, but this was one of the many things his father would not speak of. When asked, he settled his oft-smiling lips into a stony line, and his level gray eyes would meet Elminster's own with a sharper look than usual
… but no words ever emerged. El hated secrets-at least those he didn't know. He'd learn all the secrets someday, somehow. Someday, too, he'd see the castle the minstrels said was so splendid… mayhap even walk its battlements… aye…
A breeze ghosted gently over the meadow, bending the weed heads briefly. It was the Year of Flaming Forests, in the month of Eleasias, a few days short of Eleint. Already the nights were turning very cold. After six seasons of minding sheep on the high meadow, El knew it'd not be long before leaves were blowing about, and the Fading would truly begin.
The shepherd-lad sighed and shrugged his worn, patched leather jerkin closer about him. It had once belonged to a forester. Under a patch on the back, it still bore a ragged, dark-stained hole where an arrow-an elfin arrow, some said-had taken the man's life. Elminster wore the old jack-scabbard buckles, tears from long-gone lord's badges, and worn edges from past adventures-for all the dash its history made him feel. Sometimes, though, he wished it fit him a little better.
A shadow fell over the meadow, and he looked up. From behind him came a sharp, rippling roar of wind he'd never heard before. He spun around, his shoulder against the rock, and sprang up for a better view. He needn't have bothered. The sky above the meadow was filled with two huge, batlike wings-and between them, a dark red scaled bulk larger than a house! Long-taloned claws hung beneath a belly that rose into a long, long neck, which ended in a head that housed two cruel eyes and a wide-gaping jaw lined with jagged teeth as long as Elminster was tall! Trailing back far behind, over the hill, a tail switched and swung…
A dragon! Elminster forgot to gulp. He just stared.
Vast and terrible, it swept toward him, slowing ponderously