The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [164]
It was a shock to feel the sudden tingling of lips upon his…Mystra's lips, they must be, for at their touch the thrill of raw power surged through him, making him feel alert and vigorous and mighty.
Elminster opened his eyes, lifting his arms to embrace her…but the Lady of the Weave was no more than a dwindling face of light, beyond his reach and receding swiftly into the void. "Lady?" he gasped almost despairingly, stretching out beseeching arms to her.
Mystra smiled. "You must be patient," her calm voice came quietly into his ear. "I shall visit you properly in time to come, but I must set you a task for me, first: a long one, perhaps the most important you'll ever undertake."
Her face changed, looking sad, and she added, "Though I can foresee at least one other task that might be judged as important."
"What task?" El blurted out. Mystra was little more than a twinkling star now.
"Soon," she said soothingly. "You shall know very soon. Now return to Faerun…and heal the first wounded being you meet."
The darkness melted away, and El found himself in his clothes again, standing in the woods outside the ruins. A few paces away, two men were talking with an elf, all three of them sitting with their backs against the trunks of gnarled old trees. They broke off their converse to look up at him rather anxiously.
One of the mages suddenly sprouted a wand in his hand. Leveling it at Elminster, he asked coolly, "And you would be…?"
El smiled and said, "Dead long ago, Tenthar Taerhamoos, save for the fact that Mystra had other plans."
The three mages blinked at him, and the elf asked rather hesitantly, "You're the one they call Elminster, aren't you?"
"I am," El replied, "and the mission laid upon me is to heal ye." Ignoring a suddenly displayed arsenal of wands and winking rings, he cast a healing spell upon Starsunder, then another on Umbregard.
He and Tenthar locked gazes as he finished his castings, and El inclined his head toward the ruins and asked," 'Tis all done, then?"
"All but the drinking," Tenthar replied…and there was suddenly a dusty bottle of wine in his hand. He rubbed its label, peered into it suspiciously, drew out its cork, sniffed, and smiled.
"Magic seems to be reliable once more," he announced, holding out his other hand and watching four crystal goblets appear in it.
"Mystra's need is past, I think," El told him. "A testing is done, and many dark workers of magic have been culled."
Tenthar frowned and said, "It is the way of the cruel gods to take the best and brightest from us."
Umbregard shrugged as he accepted a glass and watched several other bottles appear out of thin air. "It is the way of gods to take us all," he added, "in the end."
Starsunder said then, "My thanks for the healing, Elminster. As to the way of gods, I believe none of us were made to live long. Elf, dwarf, human.., even, I think, our gods themselves. The passage of too many years does things to us, makes us mad… the losses-friends, lovers, family, favorite places…and the loneliness. For my kind, a reward awaits, but that doesn't make the tarrying here any less wrenching, it only gives us something to look at, beyond present pain."
Elminster nodded slowly. "There may well be truth in thy words." He looked at Starsunder sidelong then and asked, "Did we meet, however briefly, in Myth Drannor?"
The moon elf smiled. "I was one of those who disagreed with the Coronal about admitting other races into the Fair City," the elf admitted. "I still do. It hastened our passing and gained us nothing but all our secrets stolen. And you were the one to break open the gates. I hated you and wished you dead. Had there been an easy, traceless way, I might have made things so."
"What stayed your hand?" El asked softly.
"I took your measure, several times, at revels and in the Mythal, and after. And you were as we…alone, and