The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [104]
As the image began to speak, the ghostly woman strode around the runes to the throne, leaned on one arm of that seat, and watched the image's speech.
It wore robes of rich crimson trimmed with black, and golden rings gleamed on its fingers…their hue matched by the blazing gold of the man's eyes. He had tousled brown hair and the untidy beginnings of a beard, and his voice fairly leaped with eager confidence.
"I am Karsus, as you are Karsus. If you behold this, disaster has befallen me, the first Karsus…and you, the second, must carry on to glory."
The image seemed to pace forward but actually remained above the rune. It waved one hand restlessly and continued, "I know not what you recall of my… our…life, some say my mind is less than clear, these days. Know that many mages of our people have achieved great power, mightiest of these, the archwizards of Netheril, rule their own domains. Mine, like many, is a floating city, I named it for us. I am the most powerful of all the archwizards, the Arcanist Supreme. They call me Karsus the Great."
The image waved a dismissive hand, blazing eyes still fixed on the throne. The ghostly woman was murmuring along with the words she'd obviously heard many times before. Something that might have been a faint sneer played about her lips.
"Of course," the image went on, "given your awakening, none of that may mean anything. I may not have been slain by a rival or suffered a purely personal doom…Karsus the city and the glory of Netheril itself may have fallen in a great war or cataclysm, we have made many foes, the greatest of them ourselves. We war among ourselves, we Netherese, and some of us war within ourselves. My wits are not always wholly my own. You may well share this affliction, watch for it, and guard against it."
The image of Karsus smiled, arching a sardonic eyebrow, the ghostly woman smiled back. Karsus spoke on. "Perhaps you'll have no need of these recording spells of mine, but I've prepared one for each speculum you see on the floor in this place, a series of spellcasting lessons, lest you face the perils of this world lacking certain enchantments I've found crucial. Our work must continue, only through power absolute can I…we…find perfection… and Karsus exists, has always existed, to achieve perfection and transform all Toril."
The watching woman laughed at that, a short and unpleasant bark. "Mad indeed, Karsus! Destiny: reshape all Toril, Oh, you were certainly competent to do that."
"Your first need may now be for physical healing, and I have anticipated the recurrence of this need in time to come, in a life where you may lack loyal servant mages or anyone you can trust. Know, then, that touching the speculum that evoked this image of me, while speaking the word 'Dalabrindar,' will heal all hurts. This power can be called upon as often as desired for so long as this rune remains unbroken, and can so serve anyone who speaks thus. The word is the name of the wizard who died so that this spell might live, truly, he has served us well, and…"
"Wasted words, Karsus!" the ghostly woman sneered. "Your clone was a headless mummy decorating this throne when I first saw it! Who slew it here, I wonder? Mystra? Azuth? Some rival? Or did the great and supreme sleeping Karsus fall to a passing adventurer-mage of puny spells, who thought he was beheading a lich?"
"… many another spell will serve where these do not, but I have here preserved demonstrations of my casting of enchantments of lasting usefulness and…'
The ghostly woman turned away from the words she'd heard so many times before, nodding in satisfaction. "They'll do. They'll do indeed. I have here a lure no mage can resist." She strode across the rune again, and the image vanished in mid-word, the radiance winking out of the graven stone to let darkness rush back into the cavern.
"Now, how to let living mages know of it, without causing them to crowd in here by the elbowing thousands?" ghostly lips asked the utter darkness.
The darkness did