The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [166]
They went out the door in a silence so deep that people had to gasp for air by the time they remembered to breathe again.
He seemed to have lost his boots again and to be walking barefoot on moonlight, somewhere in Faerun where the sun of late afternoon should still have reigned. A breath ago he'd been talking with three mages in a forest, and the cheese had begun to arrive, to go with their wine…and now he was here, left with but a glimpse of their startled faces at the manner of his going.
So where exactly was here?
"Mystra?" he asked aloud, hopefully.
The moonlight surged up around him into silver flames that did not burn but instead sent the thrill of power through him, and those flames shaped themselves into arms that embraced him.
"Lady mine," Elminster breathed as he felt the soft brush of a familiar body against his…there went his clothes again, how did she do that?…and the tingling touch of her lips.
He kissed her back, hungrily, and silver fire swept through him as their bodies trembled together. He tried to caress soft, shifting flames…only to find himself holding nothing and standing in darkness once more, with Mystra standing like a pillar of silver fire not far away.
"Mystra?" El asked her, letting a little of the loneliness he'd felt into his voice.
"Please," the goddess whispered pleadingly, "This is as hard for me as it has been for you…I must not tarry. And you tempt me, Elminster… you tempt me so."
Silver flames swirled, and a hungry mouth closed on El's own for one long, glorious moment, fires crashing and charging through him, rising into splendor that made him weep and roar and writhe all at once.
"Elminster," that musical voice told him, as he floated in hazy bliss, "I'm sending you now to Silverhand Tower to rear three Chosen."
"Rear?" El asked, startled, his bliss washed away into alert alarm.
There seemed to be a laugh struggling to break through the tones of the goddess as she said, "You'll find three little girls waiting in the Tower, alone and uncertain. Be as a kindly uncle and tutor to them, feed them, clothe them, and teach them how to be and who to be."
Elminster swallowed, watching Mystra dwindle once more into a distant star. "You are forbidden to control their minds, or compel them save in emergencies most dire," she added. "As they grow older, let them forge forth to make their own lives. Your task then will be to watch over them covertly, and to ride in and pick up the pieces to ensure their survival from time to time, not to guide them unless they seek your advice… and we both know how often willful Chosen seek out the advice of others, don't we?"
"Mystra!" El cried despairingly, reaching out his arms for her.
"Oh by the Weave, man, don't make this any harder for me," Mystra murmured, and the kiss and caress that set him afire then also whirled him end over end, away.
Epilogue
Perhaps the greatest service Elminster has ever done for Faerun is to be father and mother to the daughters of Mystra. Holding almost all of Mystra's magic and keeping Toril together with his very fingertips during the Time of Troubles…that was easy. Rearing little girls of clever wits, much energy, bewitching beauty, and mighty magical powers, and doing it well…now that's hard.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty
published circa The Year of the Staff
Silverhand Tower, when he found himself standing a little way off from it, blinking in the sunlight, was a riven shell, little more than a cottage attached to an empty ring of battlements and the gutted stump of a keep. Deep woods surrounded it, cloaked it, and were in the patient process of overwhelming it, hewn back only from an oval vegetable garden. A small, dirty face was peering doubtfully at him from its leafy green heart…a face that vanished, leaving only dancing leaves behind, once he smiled at it.
Elminster peered at the garden to see if he could catch sight of a little body scuttling anywhere. He could not, and soon shrugged and strolled toward the cottage,