The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [157]
He was just a man again, on his knees in a dark chamber somewhere. He knew that he should be despairing, but instead he felt at peace. He had seen far more years than most humans and done…so far as he could judge, at least by his own standards…fairly well. If it was time for death to come to him, so be it.
There were just the usual complaints: was it time for his death? What should he be doing? What was going on? Who was going to stop by and furnish him with answers to his every query…and when?
In all his life, there had only been one source for succor and guidance who wasn't certain to be long dead by now, or entombed and asleep he knew not where… and that one source was the goddess who made him her Chosen.
"Oh, Mystra, ye've been my lover, my mother, my soul guide, my savior, and my teacher," Elminster said aloud. "Please, hear me now."
He hadn't really intended to pray… or perhaps he had, all along, but just not admitted it to himself. "I've been honored to serve ye," he told the listening darkness. "Ye've given me a splendid life, for which…as is the way of men…I've not thanked thee enough. I am content to face now whatever fate ye deem fitting for me, yet…as is the way of wizards…I wish to tell thee some things first."
He chuckled, and held up a hand. "Save thy spells and fury," he said." 'Tis only three things."
Elminster drew in a deep breath. "The first: thank ye for giving me the life ye have."
Was something moving in the gloom and shadows beyond where his eyes served him reliably?
He shrugged. What if something was? Alone, unclad, on his knees without magecraft to aid him, if something did approach him, this is how he'd have to greet it, and this was all he had to offer it.
"The second," El announced calmly. "Being thy Chosen is really what I want to spend out my days doing."
Those words echoed, where the darkness had muffled his words before. El frowned, then shrugged again and told the darkness earnestly, "The third, and most important to me to impart: Lady, I love thee."
As those words echoed, the darkness disgorged something that did move and reveal itself and loom all too clearly.
Something vast and monstrous and tentacled, slithered leisurely toward him.
"Was it a god?" Vaelam asked, white to the lips. Shrugs and panting were the first answers he got from his fellow Dreadspells, as they lay gasping in the hollow. Scraped and scratched by tree limbs in their run and thoroughly winded, they were only now shedding the heavy cloak of terror.
"God or no god," Femter muttered, "anyone who can withstand all we hurled down on his head…and swallow fireballs, for Shar's sake!…is someone I don't want to stand and face in battle."
"For Shar's sake, indeed, Dread Brother," someone said almost pleasantly from the far side of the hollow, where the ferns grew tall and they hadn't been yet. Five heads snapped around, eyes widening in alarm…
…and five jaws dropped, the throats beneath them swallowed noisily, and the eyes above them acquired a look of trapped fear.
The masked and cloaked lady floating in the air just above their reach, reclining at her ease on nothing, was all too familiar. "For there is a Black Flame in the Darkness," the cruel Overmistress of the Acolytes purred, in formal greeting.
"And it warms us, and its holy name is Shar," the five priests murmured in a reluctant, despairing chorus.
"You are far from the House of Holy Night, Dread Brothers, and unused to the ways of wizards…all too apt to stray, and in sore need of guidance," Dread Sister Klalaera observed, her voice a gentle honey of menace. "Wherefore our most caring and thoughtful Darklady Avroana has sent the House of Holy Night… to you."
"Hail, Dread Sister," Dreadspell Elryn said then, managing to keep his voice noncommittal. "What news?"
"News of the Darklady's deep displeasure at your leadership, most bold Elryn," the Overmistress said almost jovially, her eyes two spark-adorned flints. "And of her will: that you cease wandering Faerun at your pleasure and return to