The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [32]
Large, hairy, blunt-fingered hands waved about alarmingly, and Arunder shrank away, covering his obvious fear by reaching for a distant decanter. Wanlorn obligingly moved it nearer to the mage but was ignored rather than thanked.
Their host cut into the uncomfortable moment by asking, "Yet, my lords, True Paths or the natures of wizards aside, what see you ahead for all who dwell in this heart of far-sprawling Faerun? If Myth Drannor the Mighty can be swept away, what can we hold to in the years to come?"
"Lord Felmorel," the wizard Arunder replied hastily, 'there has been much converse on this matter among mages and others, but little agreement. Each proposal attracts those who hate and fear it, as well as those who support it. Some have spoken of a council of wizards ruling a land…"
"Ha! A fine tyranny and mess that'd be!" Harbright snorted.
"…while others see a bright future in alliances with dragons, so that each human realm is a dragon's domain, with…"
"Everyone as the dragon's slaves and ultimately, its dinner," Harbright told his almost-empty platter.
"…agreements in place to bind both wyrm and people against hostilities practiced on each other."
"As the dragon swept down, its jaws gaping open to swallow, the knight stared into his doom, shouting vainly, 'Our agreement protects me! You can't…' for almost the space of three breaths before the dragon gulped him up and flew away," Harbright said sarcastically. "The surviving folk gathered there solemnly agreed that the dragon had broken the agreement, and the proposal was made that someone should travel to the dragon's lair to inform the wyrm that it had unlawfully devoured the knight. Strangely, no one volunteered."
Silence fell. The hulking warrior thrust his jaw forward and shot the wizard a dark and level gaze, as if daring him to speak, but Thessamel Arunder seemed to have acquired a sudden and abiding interest in peppered lizard soup.
Wanlorn looked up at his host, aware of the Lady Felmorel's continuing and attentive regard, and said, "For my part, Lord, I believe another such shining city will be a long time in coming. Small realms, defended against orcs and brigands more than aught else, will rise as they have always done, standing amid lawless and perilous wilderlands. The bards will keep the hope of Myth Drannor bright while the city is lost to us, now and in foreseeable time to come."
"And this wisdom, young Wanlorn, was written on the walls of the ruined City of Song?" Arunder asked lightly, emboldened to speak once more, but carefully not looking in Harbright's direction. "Or did the gods tell you this, perhaps, in a dream?"
"Sarcasm and derision seems to run away with the tongues of wizards all too often these days," Wanlorn observed in casual tones, addressing Barundryn Harbright. "Have you noticed this, too?"
The warrior grinned, more at the wizard than at the hawk-nosed man, and growled, "I have. A disease of the wits, I think." He waved a quail-lined spit like a scepter and added, "They're all so busy being clever that they never notice when it strikes them personally."
In unspoken unison both Harbright and Wanlorn turned their heads to look hard at the wizard. Arunder opened his mouth with a sneer to say something scathing, seemed to forget what it was, opened his mouth again to say something else, then instead put a glass of wine up to it and drank rather a large amount in a sputteringly short time.
As he choked, burbled, and wheezed, the warrior reached out one shovel-sized hand to slam him solidly between the shoulder-blades. As the mage reeled in his seat, Harbright inquired, "Recovered, are you