The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [109]
Sharindala trembled all over, and for a long time blue-gray eyes and dark points of light in the sockets of a fleshless skull stared into each other.
El withdrew his stroking hand and said, "Lady, I must go. I must place more magic elsewhere…but if I survive to return to Ripplestones in time to come, I'll stop and visit ye properly."
He received a slow but definite nod in answer.
"Lady, can ye speak?" El asked. The skeleton stiffened, then the hand on his arm became a fist that smashed down on the arm of the chair in frustration.
El bent over and tapped the book. "There's a spell in here, near the back, that can change that for ye. It requires no verbal component, obviously…but I want ye to remember something. When ye have some unbroken time to devote to things and have mastered that spell, I want ye to hold this tome and say aloud the words, 'Mystra, please.' Will ye remember?"
The skull nodded once more. El took hold of bony fingertips and brought them to his lips. "Then, Lady, fare thee well for now. I go, but shall return in time. Be happy."
He straightened, gave her a salute, and strode out of the room. The skeleton managed a wave at its last glimpse of his smiling face, then its hand fell to the book, cradling it as if it would never let go.
For a long time the skeleton that had been Sharindala sat in the chair, staring at the door and shuddering. The only sound in the room was a dry clicking as fleshless jaws worked. She was trying to weep.
"But there's more!" Beldrune hissed, creeping forward with his fingers held out like claws before him.
Spellbound, the circle of pupils watched him with nary a titter at the appearance of an old and overweight wizard trying to tiptoe like an actor overplaying the part of a skulking thief. "This mighty mage has walked these very streets! Here…just outside, down yon alley, not three nights past…I saw him myself!"
"Think of it," Tabarast took up the telling excitedly, never knowing that the mage they were speaking of was at that moment kissing the fingertips of a skeleton. "We've walked with him, we studied magic at his very elbow in fabled Moonshorn Tower…and soon, just perhaps, you too may have this opportunity! To talk with the supreme sorcerer of the age…a man touched by a god!"
"Nay," Beldrune leered suggestively, "a man touched by a goddess!"
"Think of it!" Tabarast put in hastily, flashing a warning glare at young Droon. Don't the young ever think of anything else? "The great Elminster has lived for centuries! Some believe him to be a Chosen One, personally favored by the goddess Mystra…that's what my colleague was trying to say…and records are clear: he is a man who dwelt in fabled Myth Drannor when elven magic flowed like water, was respected enough to be accepted into a noble elf family there, advise their ruler, the Coronal…and even survive the darkness of its destruction at the hands of a shrieking army of foul fiends! Hard to believe? Ask the folk of Galadorna about Elminster's survival in the face of the fell magic of an archpriestess of Bane, while defying her in her very temple! This was before Galadorna's fall, when he was the court mage of that realm."
"Aye, all this is true," Beldrune agreed, taking up the tale. "And don't forget: he's been seen here…fearlessly strolling out of the tomb of the mage Taraskus in broad daylight!"
There were gasps at this last piece of news and many involuntary glances toward the windows.
A ghostly shape that had been floating outside one of those windows, listening intently, prudently fell away and dissolved into mists.
"I've lived for centuries, too," it murmured, chiming as it gathered speed to go elsewhere. "Perhaps this Elminster will make a fitting mate… if he's alive and human, and not some cleverly cloaked lich or crawling netherplanar spirit." Unaware that excited pupils were crowding the windows to glimpse her as a supposed magical manifestation of the very mage she was musing about, the sorceress drifted away, murmuring, "Elminster… 'tis time to go hunting Elminsters."
Fourteen: