Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [62]
"Byall means," the broad-shouldered stranger agreed easily, taking her elbow in one hand and steering her aside so he could pass. When she whirled furiously to shove him against the wall, he turned nimbly with her as if they were dancing together, ending up behind her with her wrist in a grip she could not break. Towing her, he strode in the direction she'd come from.
"I'm here to see Caladnei," he explained, "but ye're welcome to ask all ye want while we go fetch her, eh?"
"How do you kno-the Mage Royal can see no one! She's sleeping, after a very long night of defending the realm."
The handsome stranger smiled. "Long indeed. I know. I helped make it so. To squeeze our doings into a shorter night might well have left her as a corpse."
"Who are y- let go of me!Let go, stop right here, and tell me your name! " Belantra shouted, thrusting the gonne of wands and rod into the intruder's face and preparing to spend her life in the defense of the Mage Royal.
Black eyebrows lifted. "Demanding, aren't ye? War Wizards weren't quite so shrill back in the early days, I must say. I did warn Amedahast she was shaping something that was sure to get away from her-but then, who am I to deny other mages their grand schemes and toys, when such strivings have brought us all such wonder? No, lass, don't try to set them all off at once-yell blast all this cellar right up through the grand edifice above it, shattering Caladnei to bonelessness as surely as ye do the same to thyself and everyone else within reach-including all thy fellow loyal mages ye summoned!"
The intruder pointed along the passage where robed men and women were approaching at a run, wands in hand and various glows of awakening magic flaring.
Chuckling and shaking his head, he plucked Belantra and her gonne around in front of him to serve as a shield, more or less carried her the few steps down the passage to the entrance she'd emerged from, and laid a hand on the closed iron door he found there.
Deadly magic flared and crackled around his fingers. He shook his head, broke it without seeming to do anything, and reached through the still-solid metal to turn the latch-handle on the inside.
Belantra's mouth dropped open in astonishment at that. Her jaw dropped still farther as the stranger's shape shifted into that of a slender old man with a white beard, bushy eyebrows, and a hawklike nose.
His grip remained every bit as iron-strong as he towed her through the doorway into the softly glow-lit bedchamber beyond-where someone 'was sitting up in a magnificent canopied bed facing them, eyes sharp above an unwaveringly aimed wand.
"Wh-Elminster!"
"The same. Nice curves, lass, but get something on over them, or I'll shortly be guilty of laying low the Royal Magician of Cormyr with a walloping head cold. Ye're coming with me."
The Mage Royal gaped at him just as her door-guardian had done-before Belantra turned to doing what she was doing just now, which was fainting dead away and slumping in the Old Mage's grasp-then stiffened, eyes blazing ruby-red, and snapped, "Certainly not! Who are you to be giving me orders? Or demanding anything of any War Wizard of Cormyr?"
"The orders aren't mine, lass. They come from Mystra. However, if ye'd rather not know what mischief Vangerdahast is up to in the midst of thy kingdom, ye can of course refuse both the Divine One and myself and join the legions of proud fools waiting to fill up graves all over Faerun. I leave ye free choice."
Caladnei swallowed, her magnificent throat moving while the rest of her sat on the bed like a dark brown, smooth-skinned statue. Elminster kept his eyes fixed on hers. She looked away first, muttering, "I was trying to get some sleep."
"A luxury seldom allowed Royal Magicians, yell learn," Elminster said, stepping forward to lay Belantra's limp form gently across the end of the bed. He went to a wardrobe, flung the doors wide, and rummaged, soon tossing a pair of boots back over his shoulder.
Caladnei caught them at about the time a dozen War Wizards burst into the room-and came to a confused