Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [71]
The bearded man gave her a smile that lit up his face. He took her hand. "The right choice, Aerindel. Ye used yon crown for what Mystra put it into your hands for… and let it go when she wanted you to. Come, now. Mystra will protect ye; ye shall learn magic as thy father did."
An amber light whirled up around their joined hands, to shroud them both in a whirling cloud-a cloud that flashed blue-white and faded, leaving the mountaintop bare.
An instant later, lightning crashed down on the mountaintop, hurling what stones they did not scorch high into the air. The night crackled and glowed with the fury of that strike.
* * * * *
"There's no way they could have survived that," the Lord of Grand Thentor said with satisfaction, looking up from where he stood among the tumbled rocks that now choked Glimmerdown Pass. His men were under all this, somewhere-but who needed warriors in a land where one was the only wielder of magic?
"I wonder who that wizard was," Rammast mused aloud as he clapped his hands together and prepared to cast a flying spell, to whisk him over the rocks into Dusklake. He shrugged-well, he'd fly up over the mountaintop, just to be sure the mysterious mage was no more than ashes and memories now.
It was a pity about Aerindel, but he had her likeness fixed in an evermirror spell, and could alter the shape of some hired wench or other to take her place. Even if word got out, there'd be none to stand against him ere Dusklake joined Grand Thentor, and he looked to richer lands to the west, like Marbrin and Drimmath. Why, he could be ruling an empire in four winters' ti-
Amber light flared momentarily atop the mountain, high above. Frowning, Rammast peered up at it.
Something clanged on the rocks nearby, and bounced past his foot with a metallic clang. The crown!
His lightning must have blasted it from her head!
Smiling, Rammast snatched it up. Gods, but it had given her power enough! With this, Rammast Tarangar would be well-nigh invincible!
He'd call his realm Tarangara, when it stretched from the Great Water to the Inland Sea, and from the High Forest to the hot lands… Yes, by Mystr-
He was still smiling broadly as he settled the Whispering Crown onto his head.
* * * * *
"Look ye now," Elminster said gravely. One of his arms was around her shoulders. He pointed with the other, down at the tumbled stones where there had once been a pass. Down at a lone, gloating man: Rammast, Lord of Grand Thentor. He was-putting on the Whispering Crown!
Aerindel bit her lip and tried to blink away the tears that had been falling since she'd realized what the crown had done to her. She was old, and wrinkled, her life stolen from her… and all for magic. "Mystra will protect ye." Hah.
So Rammast would die, unless the goddess had played one last trick on her… but no. He was falling, dwindling into a dark and twisted thing, skin hanging on a skeleton that was toppling into cinnamon-hued dust… and sweet, surging energies were welling up in her, raising her, making her gasp and tremble in a rapture more intense than anything she'd ever felt before.
Aerindel found herself sobbing, clinging to the comforting arms around her as she shuddered-and then kissing the half-seen face above her wildly, joy surging through her. Her skin was smooth and young again, her body her own!
"Ye see," that kind voice rumbled by her ear. "These things work out. Mystra does provide. Ye have only to trust, and think clearly, and do as she guides."
"And how will I know her directives?" the Lady of Dusklake asked, brushing hair aside from shining eyes to meet his gaze.
Elminster pointed down again. Something gleamed amid skeletal dust, far below. Aerindel saw it only for an instant before the lightning of a spell that no mortal had cast erupted along the cliff across from where they stood, and sent a huge fall of stones rolling down to bury the Whispering Crown.
As the dust rose up toward them, Elminster replied solemnly, "She whispers to us always."
"Elminster," Aerindel