The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [106]
"Who are you?" Baerdagh asked bluntly, at about the same time as Caladaster said under his breath, "I don't like this. Meals don't just fall out of the sky. He must have paid Alnyskawer to get even a quarter of this out here on a table, but what's to say we won't have to pay summat, too?"
"Our thin purses," Baerdagh told his friend. "Alnyskawer knows just how poor we are. So does everyone else." He nodded his head toward the tavern windows. Caladaster looked, already knowing what he'd see. Near everyone in the place was crowded up against the dirty glass, watching as the hawk-nosed stranger poured two full tankards and slid them across the table, emptying eating forks and trencher knives out of the last tankard and sliding them across too.
Caladaster scratched his nose nervously, raked a hand down one of his untidy white-and-gray mutton-chop whiskers…a sure sign of hurried, worried thought…and turned back to the stranger. "My friend asked who you are, an' I want to know too. I also want to know whatever little trick you've readied for us. I can leave your food an' just walk away, you know."
At that moment, his stomach chose to protest very loudly.
The stranger ran a hand through unruly black hair and leaned forward. "My name is Elminster, and I'm doing some work for my Lady Master, work that involves my finding and visiting old ruins and the tombs of wizards. I've been given money to spend as I need to, in plenty…see? I'll leave these coins on the table… now, if I happen to vanish in a puff of smoke before ye pick up that tankard, there's enough here for ye to pay Alnyskawer yourselves."
Baerdagh looked down at the coins as if they were a handful of little sprites dancing under his nose, then back up at the stranger. "All right, that tale I'll grant," he said slowly, "but why us?"
Elminster poured his own tankard full, set it down, and asked, "Have ye any idea what weary work it is, spending days wandering around a town of increasingly suspicious folk, peeking over fences and looking for headstones and ruins? By the first nightfall, farmers always want to thrust hayforks through me. By the second, they're trying to do it in droves!"
Both old men barked short and snorting laughs at that.
"So I thought I'd save a lot of time and suspicion," the stranger added, "if I just shared a meal with some men I liked the look of, with years enough under their belts to know the old tales, and where so-and-so lies buried, and…"
"You're after Sharindala, aren't you?" Caladaster asked slowly, his eyes narrowing.
El nodded cheerfully. "I am," he said, "and before ye try to find the right words to ask me, know this: I will take nothing from her tomb, I'm not interested in opening her casket, performing any magic on her while I'm there, or digging up or burning down anything, and I'd be happy to have ye or someone else from Ripplestones along to watch what I do. I need to be able to look around thoroughly…in good bright daylight…and that's all."
"How do we know you're telling the truth?"
"Come with me," Elminster said, doling out platters and cutting into one of the pies. "See for thyselves."
Baerdagh almost moaned at the smell that came out of the opened pie with the rush of steam…but he'd no need to, his stomach took care of the utterance for him. His hands went out before he could stop himself. The stranger grinned and thrust the platter bearing the slice of pie into his hands.
"I'd rather not go about disturbing dead sorceresses," Caladaster replied, "and I'm a bit old for clambering around on broken stones wondering when the roof's going to fall down on my head, but you can't miss Scorchstone Hall, you came…"
He broke off as Baerdagh kicked him under the table, but Elminster just grinned again and said, "Say on, please, I'm not going to whisk away the meal the moment I hear this!"
Caladaster