Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [70]
She could do nothing but see straight ahead now, as she quivered upright in midair, but the crown let her see everything: Elminster had transformed her into a long, thin staff of wood, such as a wizard might carry.
Taller than the Stormstaff she was, floating and glowing with a white radiance that tore at the crown. With no head to support it, the circlet fell down the length of her, its frantic whisperings fading, and rang on the stones. Elminster snatched her away from it, strode two swift paces, and let go of her.
The coldness drained away swiftly, and Aerindel was herself once more-standing facing him, panting in fear and fury, the ruins of her gown hanging from bared, moonlit shoulders, her once-beautiful hair a gnawed ruin. She looked older. Her skin hung in wrinkles, mottled here and there. Her eyes were sunken, and her mouth pinched, as if with great age. Even in her rage, her bosom heaving, she was stooped, hunched over with hands that had become the knob-jointed claws of a crone.
"Go away, wizard!" she snarled, eyes like twin flames. "You've meddled more than enough! I need the crown to defend my land and… myself. Rammast shall get neither, if you'll just stand aside and let me use what Mystra sent me! It was her gift to me!"
"Mystra gives gifts that carry choices," Elminster told her quietly, his eyes on hers. The crown glimmered on the rocks behind him. "Each one is a test. No sword is deadly until a hand wields it."
"Bah!" Aerindel spat. "I've no time for gentle philosophy, mage! Dusklake is imperiled! Rammast gathers strength even as we stand here arguing! Get out of my way?
Elminster bowed his head and stepped aside. "The choice must be thine," he said gravely. "So long as ye know that the glow upon yonder circlet now means it must drink the life-force of the first magic-using being to don it, or crumble away."
Aerindel stormed forward, checked herself, shot him a look of anger, and snarled, "Such words are cheap weapons, wizard-how do I know they're true?"
Elminster shrugged. "Ye must trust in someone else at some time; why not begin now? If I'm right and ye heed me not, yell die. If ye heed me, I make this pledge: I'll stand beside ye to defend Dusklake against this Rammast, and teach ye enough magic so that ye'll need no crown nor wizardly aid hereafter. What say ye?"
Aerindel's eyes narrowed as she looked at him. Then her face twisted and she tossed what was left of her hair angrily. "What assurance have I that you'll keep this pledge? I don't know you-your word could be worthless!"
Elminster shrugged. "So it might. It comes back to trust, doesn't it?"
Aerindel waved her hand at him spurningly as she strode past. "Enough clever words, wizard! This I know, and have wielded, and can understand!" She bent and snatched up the crown.
"Remember my warning!" the wizard called.
It glowed at her invitingly, pulsing, its cool radiances running up her arms in what were almost caresses. The Whispering Crown gave forth a faint chiming, as of distant bells, and a feeling of warmth and reassurance. Aerindel drank it in, looked at Elminster with a silent challenge in her eyes, and raised the crown to put it on.
"Yesss," its whispering voice was hissing as she raised it past her face. But then another voice burst from it, desperate and alone, echoing in strident despair.
"Elminster, aid me!"
Her father's cry was louder than before.
Aerindel stared at the crown, hearing it snarl angrily. Under those angry growls the cries of others came faintly to her ears. Those who died wearing it. Its other victims.
"Farewell, Father," she said, voice trembling. She turned on her heel and threw the Whispering Crown hard and high.
Out, out over Glimmerdown Pass it flew, howling in angry despair. It spat out lightning at her as it fell- lightning that clawed at the rocks by her feet and then fell far short as the crown tumbled from view.
The moonlight seemed brighter as Aerindel turned into