Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [80]
Elmara frowned. "I-ye are right, I do grow restless, but I don't want to leave."
The elf smiled. "Ah, but you do." Then his smile vanished, and he added, "And before you go, I'd like to see that revealment spell cast properly for once!"
Elmara sighed. "It's just a spell I've a little trouble with, one among-what is it?-two score and more?"
Braer raised eyebrows and hands together. " 'Just a spell'? Lass, lass. Nothing should ever be just a spell to you. Revere magic, remember? Else it's just a faster sword or longer lance to you-only a grubbing after more power than you can grasp by other means."
"It's not that to me!" Elmara protested, turning on him angrily. "Oh, before I came here, perhaps! Do you think I've learned nothing from you?"
"Easy, lass, easy. I'm not a magelord, remember?"
El stared at him for a moment, and then managed a laugh. "I did hold my temper and tongue better when I was a thief, didn't I?"
Braer shrugged. "You were a man, then, in a city of men- with a close friend to joke with-and you knew, every moment, that lack of iron control would mean death. Now you're a woman, attuned to the forest, feeling its flows of emotion and energy. Little things are more intense outside the crowded city, more raw, more engaging." He smiled and added, "I can't believe I've started babbling so much-and like a human sage, too!– since you've been here."
Elmara laughed. "I have done some good, then."
Braer flipped the tip of one of his ears back and forth with a finger, a gesture of mild derision among elves, and said, "I believe I mentioned a revealment spell?"
El rolled her eyes. "Didn't think I could lead ye into forgetting about it forever…"
Braer gave her an imperious wave that she knew meant 'get on with it,' and folded his arms across his chest. Elmara assumed an apologetic little-lass smile for a moment, then turned to face the pool. Spreading her arms wide, she closed her eyes and whispered the prayer to Mystra, feeling the power within her surge up her arms and outward, expanding… She opened her eyes, expecting to see the familiar blue glows of magic on the pool, perhaps on the rock where Mystra's flame had manifested, and when she swung around, here and there on Braer's body, where he wore or carried small tokens of magic.
"Ahhh!" Staggered, she stepped back, letting her hands fall. Everything was bright and blinding blue wherever she looked- was the whole world alive with magic?
"Yes," Braer replied calmly, reading her thoughts again. "At last you're able to see it. Now," he went on briskly, "you were still having a little trouble with casting a sphere of spells, were you not?"
She turned angry eyes on him, but recoiled again, astonished. The tall, dignified elf she knew stood watching her, but in the special sight the spell gave her was revealed ablaze with magic of great power, and the blue-white glow around him rose into the shadowy shape of a dragon. "Ye-ye're a dragon!"
"Sometimes," Braer shrugged, "I take that shape. But I'm truly an elf who's learned how to take on dragon shape… not the other way around. I'm the last reason the magelords did so much dragon hunting in Athalantar."
"The last reason?"
"The others," he said tightly, "are dead. They saw to it very efficiently."
"Oh," Elmara said quietly. "I'm sorry, Braer."
"Why?" he asked lightly. "You didn't do it-'tis the magelords who should be sorry… and I and my kin are counting on you to make them so, someday."
Elmara drew herself up. "I intend to. Soon."
The elf shook his head. "No, lass, not yet. You aren't ready… and a single archmage, no matter how mighty, can't hope to succeed against all the magelords and their servant creatures, if they whelm against you." He smiled and added, "And you haven't even learned to be an archmage yet. Set aside revenge for a time. 'Tis best savored when one waits a long time for it, anyway."
Elmara sighed. "I may die of old age with the magelords still lording it over Athalantar."
"I've read that fear in your mind often, since we first met,"