Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [125]
"For keeping your secret?"
"Aye. It may not seem much, but each secret you carry has a weight all its own. They add up, secrets, to a burden you must carry all your days."
Shandril looked up from selecting onions, knife in hand. "You carry many?"
"Aye. But my load is nothing to Elminster's."
Shandril nodded, then looked down. "Whose gown is it that I wear?" she asked quietly. Lhaeo smiled.
"That is one of the secrets," he said. "I would tell you, but it is his to tell, not mine."
"Well enough. Do you have an old apron I might wear to cover it?"
"Aye, behind you, on the peg. Tell me of The Rising Moon."
She did. They serve others most who ask the right question, and then listen. The day passed, and they marked not the time.
The day passed, and Narm grew weary. He had grown used to the clear and careful teaching of Jhessail, and the practical tutelage of Illistyl.
Elminster's methods were a rude shock, indeed.
The old mage badgered and derided and made testily impatient comments. The simplest query of him on this or that small detail of casting brought a scholarly flood of information in reply-a voluminous barrage that never seemed to include a direct answer. Elminster had worked on Narm's new spell, the flaming sphere, until Narm could have screamed.
Weary hours of study to impress the difficult runes upon Narm's mind, and then a sharp lecture on precisely how to cast the spell in view of the obvious shortcomings he had displayed last time were the grinding irritants. They were followed by a few moments of spellcasting, a ball of scorching flame rushing away-a thrill the first few times, but now Narm saw each one as a failure even before Elminster spoke-and then Elminster's scathing critique. The clumsiness or slowness of the casting, the lazy and inattentive formation of the sphere, and worst of all, the lack of precision in its direction, once formed, were all regular topics.
"Have ye not seen your lady hurl spellfire?"
Elminster demanded, in acid tones. "Have ye not noticed how she can shape the flames-a broad fan or a thin, dexterous tongue-bend it around corners, pulse short spurts of flame to avoid setting her surroundings ablaze? I suppose ye couldn't tell me now the hue of her eyes, either!"
" Ahh, they're…" Narm hastened to reply, and found to his horror that an image of Shandril wouldn't come to his mind at the moment. Confused and badgered, he hurled fire angrily before Elminster hid him, tossing the ball of flames twenty feet before it landed and rolled.
"Temper, boy," Elminster admonished, watching it.
"Too easily it can be thy death. Mages cannot afford it-not if it affects the precision of their casting.
Here ye are, furious with me, and we've spent merely a morning together. Not good! Oh, that's all good enough for the lesser talents who swagger about throwing a few fireballs and bullying honest farm folk. I had hoped you would look for something more, in the service of Mystra.
"Ye can be a great mage, Narm, if ye develop just two things: precision in control of spell effects and imagination in applying your art. The latter ye will need more later on, when ye reach past most mages with whom ye would wish to associate in both experience and knowledge. The precision ye must master now, else thine every spell will have some waste about it. Thy art will lack that edge of shrewd phrasing and maximum effect that may mean the difference between defeat and victory, some day.
"As ye advance, ye will become a target for those who gain spells by preying upon other mages. If ye lack precision in a duel of art, ye will be utterly destroyed-then it will be too late for my lessons."
"But I cannot hope to win a duel now. How will spending all day throwing balls of flame about make any difference to that? If I win a duel, one day, surely it will be because I have stronger spells and more of them."
"Perhaps. Yet, know ye, a mage can do more with a few simple spells he knows back-to-front, and can use shrewdly, than with an arsenal hastily memorized and