Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [78]
His smile broadened. "I've come to know you… and respect you. I know your life's tale, Elminster Aumar, prince of Athalantar. I know what you hope to do-and it would be mere prudence to aid one dedicated to fighting our most powerful and nearest foes, the magelords. Your character-especially your strength in setting aside your hatred of magic long enough to agree to serve the Lady and in clinging to sanity and dignity when she made you a woman without warning-have made my task more than a duty and prudence; you have made it a pleasure."
Elmara swallowed, feeling fresh tears well up and run down her cheeks. "Ye-ye are the kindest and most patient person I've ever known," she whispered. "Please forgive me, for my tears earlier."
Braer patted her hand. "The fault was mine. To answer the question that has just occurred to you: Mystra made you a maid both to hide you from the magelords and to make you able to feel the link between magic, the land, and life; women are able to feel it better than men. In the days ahead, I can show you how to feel and work with that link."
"Ye can read my thoughts?" Elmara cried, drawing back from him sharply. "Then why, by all the gods, didn't ye just tell me what I needed to know?"
Braer shook his head. "I can only read thoughts when they're charged with strong emotion, and when I'm very close by. More than that: few folk can truly learn by having every idle thought answered in an instant. They don't bother to think about or remember anything, but merely come to rely on the one answering them for all wisdom and direction."
Elmara frowned, nodding very slowly. "Aye," she said softly. "Ye're right."
Braer nodded. "I know. It's the curse of my race."
Elmara looked at him for a moment, and then whooped with laughter. After a few helpless breaths of mirth, she broke off at a sound she'd never heard before: a deep, dry sound… Baerithryn of the People was chuckling.
*****
Dawn was stealing through the trees when Braer said, "Too tired to go on?"
Elmara was stiff with sitting and swayed with weariness, but she whispered fiercely, "No! I have to know! Say on!"
Braer inclined his head in salute, and said, "Know then: the High Forest is dying, little by little, year by year, under the axes of men and the spells of magelords. They know our power-and being insecure in their own, feel they can only win the safety of their realm by destroying us."
He waved one hand in a slow arc at the silent trees around them. "Our power is rooted in the shiftings of the seasons. It is drawn from the vitality and endurance of the land-and is not a thing of flashing battle spells and destruction. The magelords know this and how to force us to fight in ways and places where they know they can defeat us, so we often dare not fight them openly… and they know that, too. I've lost many friends who would not admit the magelords' power rivaled or overmatched our own."
Braer sighed and continued, "You, and others like you, we can aid in your own battles against them… and we will. So long as you respect the land and live with it, our ways lie together, and our battles shall, too. When you need aid against the magelords and call to us, we shall come. This we swear."
A moment later, half a dozen trees around them shifted and stepped forward, and his words were echoed by a fierce chorus. "This we swear."
Elmara stared around at all the solemn elven eyes, swallowed, and bowed her head. "And I, in turn, swear not to work against thee or the land. Show me how to do this, please."
The elves bowed in return and melted away again into the forest.
El swallowed. "Are they always here, as trees, around us?"
Braer smiled. "No. You happened to pause and weep in a special place."
El gave him a fierce expression, but it slid into a smile and a weary shake of her head. "I am honored… and understand your people enough, now, not to step wrongly with each stride." She yawned helplessly and added, "I think I'm more than ready to sleep now, too. Promise to show me-finally-some