Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [160]
Rathan looked across the twisted blankets to Shandril's sleeping face and thought about her weeping spellfire and lashing out angrily with spellfire and tearing open her tunic to pour spellfire out the faster upon a foe. He would not want to carry such power for all the gold in the Realms…
He sighed. If they'd ridden a bit slower, that snake of a mage might have had her yestereve. So close, he'd been. A matter of breaths. Yet one couldn't nursemaid one who could blast apart mountaintops!
They'd be running into trouble soon enough, these two, and they'd need someone. Rathan sighed. Ah, well, some things ye must leave to Tymora. He got up and began to make tea. Soon they'd be wanting morningfeast, too.
He looked at all the sleepers, and a smile touched his lips. Why wake them? The younglings needed a good, long sleep when they were guarded and could relax. Let 'em sleep, then. He peered south to see if he could glimpse the River Ashaba, but it was too far away yet. Ah, well. We'll ride with them until they're up at dawn tomorrow, and then turn back. If Elminster is half the archmage he pretends to be, surely he can hold Shadowdale together that long.
Scratching under his armor, Rathan opened his food supply pack. Ah, well… another day, another dragon slain.
"Will ye never be done all that scratching and scribbling?"
Elminster demanded, "You're not writing an epic, ye know!"
Lhaeo turned calm eyes upon him. "Stir the stew, will you?" Elminster snorted, shifted his unlit pipe from hand to mouth, and began to stir.
"You miss those two, don't you?" the scribe asked him softly without turning.
The old mage stared at Lhaeo's back angrily for a long breath and then muttered, "Aye," around his pipe, set the ladle back in its place, and sat down upon the squat cross-section of a large tree that served as a seat next to the tiny kitchen table. " Tis not every day one sees spellfire destroy one's own prismatic sphere without delay or a lot of effort. Or see the high-and-mighty Manshoon put to flight by a young girl who's never cast a spell in her life."
"A thief, she said she was-or at least, she joined the Company of the Bright Spear as a thief."
Elminster snorted again. "Thief? She's as much a thief as you are. If we had a few more thieves like that girl, the Realms would be so safe we'd not need locks! Swords, aye, but no more locks. Which reminds me… locks, and locked-away books, that is-Candlekeep-Alaundo. What did old Alaundo say about spellfire? We must be getting fairly close to that prophecy now, too, so it's no doubt Shandril he's talking about."
Lhaeo smiled. "As it happens, I looked up the words and sayings of Alaundo the last night they spent here.
To your left, under the jam jar, on the uppermost scrap of paper, I’ve copied the relevant saying. If a certain 'war among wizards' has already begun in Faerun, it is next to be fulfilled."
Elminster halted his flailing about in the vicinity of the jam-jar to fix Lhaeo with a hard glance, but the scribe went on with his writing.
"What're you doing?" Elminster demanded. "There you sit, scribbling, while the stew thickens and burns.
What is it?"
Lhaeo smiled again. "Stir the stew, will you?" he asked innocently. Then, before the old mage's fury could erupt beyond a rising growl, he said, "I'm noting down the limits of Shandril's power, as observed by you and the knights. The information may prove useful some day," he added very quietly,
"if she must ever be stopped."
Elminster stared at him a moment and then nodded, looking very old. "Aye, aye, you have the right of it, as usual." He sighed. "But not that little girl. Not Shandril. Why, she's but a little wisp of a thing, all laughter and kindness and bright eyes-"
"Aye. Like Lansharra," Lhaeo answered simply.
Elminster nodded, very slowly, and said nothing.
There was silence for a long time. Lhaeo finished his work, blew upon the page, and got up. The sage sat like a statue, his eyes on the fire. Lhaeo reached over him, slid a scrap of paper from under the jam-jar,