Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [38]
Two humans were standing there now: figures that had simply appeared there out of what minstrels were wont to call "empty nowhere" moments before, without any fuss of flowering magic or deadly struggles of climbing.
The wind moaned in a deadly rising, whipping the tattered black robe one of them wore up into a most immodest flapping, but she stood unconcernedly-showing no signs of struggling for balance or feeling the icy wind-chill-side by side with a figure who spat out the end of his beard for the third time and muttered a small, sharply worded magic to keep it down.
The Simbul grinned at him. "Strange, how you worded your cantrip to tame your beard but not my dress."
"Presume to alter the fashion statement of a woman who's also a queen? I'm widely considered a meddling fool, Lady Fire, but I'm not that much of a meddling fool."
Though the sorceress no more than smiled fondly, merry laughter rolled around the summit, shaking Tharbost and setting some of its rocks to singing out echoes.
THIS IS WHAT I MISS MOST ABOUT LAYING ASIDE MORTALITY, Mystra told them a trifle sadly, when she'd mastered her mirth. NO ONE TEASES ME.
Elminster lifted his head, grin widening-and his beard promptly flew up into his face to forestall whatever he'd been going to say.
NO, OLD MAGE, THAT WAS NOT A REQUEST FOR YOU TO START DOING SO. HEAR AND BELIEVE. As a coda to that emphatic statement, Elminster's beard slapped down to its tamed position once more.
The Simbul promptly burst into laughter at his revealed expression, so it was left to the long-suffering onetime Prince of Athalantar to observe, "Ye cannot have snatched us here, Divine One, just to hear us banter. Ye've more to impart, eh?"
OF COURSE. WHENEVER POSSIBLE-ALASSRA SILVERHAND, HEED ME TRUE!-YOU ARE TO SUBVERT RED WIZARDS RATHER THAN SLAUGHTER THEM.
The Simbul lifted an eyebrow. "'Subvert'?"
LAY DEEP-MIND SUGGESTION SPELLS TO GENTLY NUDGE THE THAYANS INTO ACTING AS I DESIRE THEM TO. SOME WILL YET HAVE TO BE SLAIN, BUT TOO MANY HAVE A CAPACITY TO CRAFT NEW MAGICS AND EXPAND MORTAL USE OF THE WEAVE, TO LOSE THEM ALL.
"I hear and obey," the Simbul said formally, bowing her head. "In truth, my… bloodlust when it comes to Red Wizards increasingly frightens me. I'll stay my hand and do as you command. Guide me as to the actions you want them steered into."
"I hear and obey," Elminster echoed, "and will do the same. Command and guide us."
I SHALL. THANK YOU.
The rising wind whistled around them, heard but unfelt. It whipped away their breath in long, fleeting plumes as the Chosen waited, finding themselves after some dozen plumes had raced away east still standing on the desolate mountaintop, beneath a sky of uncaring stars.
"There's more, Divine One," Elminster observed calmly, not leaving it as a question.
The rocks around them seemed to sigh. YES.
YES, THERE IS. The wind moaned higher. MOMENTS LIKE THAT MOOT IN THE CELLARS MAKE ME FEEL VERY… MORTAL AGAIN. UNCERTAIN. UNSETTLED.
The wind slackened, and after a moment Mystra spoke again. HOW WELL… IN YOUR HONEST, BLUNT JUDGMENT, BOTH OF YOU, SPEAKING FREELY WITHOUT FEAR OF… REPRISAL… HOW AM I DOING?
Elminster and the Simbul turned their heads and traded sober glances, there in the whistling wind, and it was Elminster who spoke, his voice gentle.
"In this we are both agreed, Most Mighty," he told the empty, echoing air around him. "Considering how we two, who have wielded some measure of the power ye hold for hundreds of years longer than ye have existed, so often mess up: fine. Just fine."
* * * * *
A bobbing barge saved her. She leaped, landed hard, and skidded across its damp roof just slowly enough to kick up… and out… gaining the height she needed to cross a widening stretch of inky water and crash heels-first onto the already-battered rail of a barge littered with heaps of rusty chain, garbage, crab sink-cages, and a tangle of rotting nets-startling