Shadows of Doom - Ed Greenwood [17]
She shoved him away and ducked aside from his last desperate slash. Balrik's fingers found the dagger-gods, hilt deep!-and his lips found time for what he had to say before blood welled up to choke him. "I am… a dead man. Lady, I am Balrik Daershun. Who are you?"
"I am Sharantyr of the Knights of Myth Drannor," she answered as the man fell heavily to his knees. His eyes had gone dark before her words were all out, and she never knew if he'd heard them. The brigand toppled from his knees, falling on his side with a rattling groan, and lay silent.
Sharantyr looked down at the flapping tatters of her forearm leathers, watched the bright blood dripping from her elbow, and shook her head. She must be getting old.
Elminster stood up slowly and brushed leaves from the chest of his robes with hands that shook only a little. Then he looked at the lady in leathers, the beginning of a smile at the corners of his lips. In his hand was his purse, plucked up from where it had fallen when the brigands had cut it away. From it he'd taken a vial of clear liquid that he held out to her, nodding at her arm.
"I wondered, for a time, if life was still worth the living. It is, and I thank you for saving mine to run awhile longer." Elminster looked around at the trees and added quietly, "How much longer, I wonder?" He shrugged.
"Old Mage," Sharantyr asked, as he knew she would, "why did you not use your magic? I've seen you lay low Zhent soldiers by the armful. Zhentarim who hurled spells against you, even! What befell?"
Elminster looked away for a long moment. Then his eyes met hers calmly and he said levelly, "My magic is lost to me. All of it-gone."
Silence hung between them for a moment as they stood in the leaves looking at each other. Without taking her eyes off his, Sharantyr uncorked and drained the vial. Then she asked, "If you will tell me, what will you do now?"
Elminster looked far off for a moment. Then he sighed and said softly, "I've a lot of neglected reading to be about. Perhaps in the palace library in Silverymoon, and in the Heralds' Holdfast, to start with. And then… I used to harp, once."
"Long ago?" Sharantyr asked lightly, using the toe of her boot to roll over the body of one she'd slain and bending smoothly to salvage a dagger.
"Aye, under the skilled teaching of a fair lady," the Old Mage replied.
"Fairer than me?" Sharantyr teased, holding out the dagger to him.
It hung in the air between them for a long, silent breath as their eyes met. Elminster's hand slowly reached out. The Old Mage took the dagger as gingerly as one handles a bloody corpse when dressed in finery, and said slowly, "My memory says yes, but what are mind images beside living beauty? She's long dust, now."
Sharantyr took his elbow and led him firmly to where the brigands had tethered their horses. "Long ago? How long ago was this?"
"In Myth Drannor before it fell," Elminster replied in a voice that was almost a whisper, his eyes on something far away and long ago.
He felt Sharantyr's arms move gently around him, the warmth of her leather-clad body against his shoulders. "Oh, Old Mage," she said tenderly into his neck, "I wish you well. You deserve fairer than this."
"I'll be all right," Elminster said firmly. "Stop soaking my robes with tears, look ye! They cost me three silver pieces, they did, in-" He fell silent and then added, "Well, in a place gone now."
Then he snorted. "Which is where we'll be, if we stand about sobbing until winter finds us here." He grinned suddenly. "Aye, lass, I'll be all right."
* * * * *
There came a knock on the door-not the first time that had happened, nor yet the last. Lhaeo opened it without delay, his eyes anxious.
Storm stood on the doorstep with two men he'd not seen before, so Lhaeo spoke to her in simpering tones. "Well met, Lady Storm. How does this fair morn find thee?"
"Restless to speak with the Lord Elminster," Storm replied crisply, with a wink. "Is he within?"
Lhaeo's eyes warned her. "Nay, Lady,"