Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [84]
Color rose in Elmara's cheeks, but she answered as quietly as before, "She was expecting me."
"Oh? Who sent you out into Faerun to seek priestesses of the Holy Lady of Mysteries?"
"Mystra," Elmara said quietly.
"Oh, Mystra. Of course." The wizard scoffed openly. "I suppose she talked to you."
"She did."
"Oh? Then what did she look like?"
"Like eyes floating in flame, and then as a tall woman; dark robed and dark eyed."
Lord Mage Dunsteen addressed the ceiling. "Faerun is home to many mad folk, some so lost in their wits, I've heard, that they can delude even themselves."
Elmara set down her tankard. "Ye've used many proud, provoking words, Lord Mage, and they tell me ye think thyself a wizard of some… local importance."
The wizard stiffened, eyes flashing.
Elmara held up a staying hand. "I've heard many times in my life that wizards are seekers after truth. Well, then, so important a wizard as thyself should have spells enough to determine if I speak truly." She sat back in her chair and added, "Ye bade me speak no more of magic. Well, then, I bid ye: use thy spells to see my truth, and stay thy own talk of madness and wild lies."
The lord mage shrugged. "I'll not waste spells on a madwoman."
Elmara shrugged in turn, turned away, and said, "As I was saying, the last the king ever saw of his Royal Wizards, their lightnings were chaining a dragon they'd summoned, and it was spitting fire at them…"
The lord mage glared at the young woman, but Elmara ignored him. The wizard cast angry glances around the room, but men carefully did not meet his eyes, and from where he wasn't glaring, there came chuckles.
After a moment, Lord Mage Dunsteen turned, robes swirling, and stalked back to his private booth. Elmara shrugged, and talked on.
*****
The moon was bright, riding high above the few cold fingers of cloud that crept along above the trees. Elmara drew her cloak closer around herself-clear nights like this brought a frost-chill-and hurried on. Before seeking the inn, she'd chosen a fern-choked hollow ahead to bed down in.
Far behind her, branches snapped. It wasn't the first such sound she'd heard. Elmara paused to listen a moment, and then went on, moving a little faster.
She came to the hollow and darted across it, clambering up its far bank and turning to crouch among the bushes there. Then she did off her cloak and sack and waited. As she'd expected, the stalker was no excited young lad wanting to hear more of magic, but a certain lord mage, moving uncertainly now in the darkness.
Elmara decided to get this over with. "Fair even, Lord Mage," she said calmly, keeping low among the ferns.
The wizard paused, stepped back, and hissed some words.
A breath later, the night exploded in flames. Elmara dived aside as searing heat rolled over her. When she had her feet under her again and her breath back, she forced herself to say laconically, "A campfire would have been sufficient."
Then she tossed a rock to one side, and as it crashed down through the brush, leapt to her feet and ran in the other direction, around the edge of the hollow.
The mage's next fireball exploded well away from her. "Die, dangerous fool!"
Elmara pointed at the wizard, who stood clearly outlined by moonlight, and murmured the words of a prayer to Mystra. Her hand tingled, and the lord mage was abruptly hurled backward, crashing roughly through bushes.
"Gods spit on you, outlander!" the wizard cursed, clawing his painful way to his feet. Elmara heard cloth tearing, and another hissed curse.
"I don't hurl fire at women whose only offense is not cringing before me," Elmara said coldly. "Why are ye doing this?"
The lord mage stepped forward into the light again. Elmara raised her hands, waiting to ward off magic-but no spell came.
Dunsteen snarled in anger. El sighed and whispered a spell of her own. Blue-white light outlined the mage's head, and she saw his features twist and struggle as he found himself compelled to speak truthfully.
The string of fearful