The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [42]
He pulled on the lever that made the familiar cabinet rise from the floorboards to stand between then and listened to Beldrune pounce on its contents from the far side with an absence of continued speech that meant young Droon must be very thirsty.
"All right… have two," he amended his offer.
The sounds of swallowing continued. Tabarast opened his mouth to say something, remembered that a certain topic was by mutual agreement forbidden, and shut it again. Then another thought came to him.
"Have you ever read 'The Stormy Knight?'" he asked the cabinet, judging Beldrune's head to be inside it.
The younger wizard raised his head from clinkings and uncorkings and gurglings, looking hurt. "Have I not?" he asked, then cleared his throat and recited,
What knight is that
who yonder comes riding
bright-arrayed in armor of gold
his sash the dripping blood of his foes?
There was a pause, then, "I did it in Ambrara, once." You were the Stormy Knight?" Tabarast asked in open disbelief, his small round spectacles sliding down his nose in search of unknown destinations.
"Second Undergardener," Beldrune snapped, looking even more hurt. "We all have to start somewhere.”
Taking a large and dusty bottle firmly in one fist, he plucked its cork and hurled the stopper back over his shoulder where it hit the Snoring Shield of Antalassiter with a bright ping, glanced off the Lost Hunting Horn of the Mavran Maidens, and fell somewhere behind the man-high, dust-covered mound of scrolls and books that Tabarast considered his "Urgent Reading of the Moment." He drained the contents of the bottle in one long and loud swallowing that left him gasping, with tears trailing down his face, and in urgent need of something that tasted better.
A knowing Tabarast silently handed him the bowl of roast halavan nuts. Beldrune dug in with both hands until the bowl was empty, then smiled apologetically, burped, and took his worry stone from its drawstring pouch. Thumbing its smooth, familiar curves seemed to calm him.
Settling back in his chair, he added, "I've always preferred 'Broderick Betrayed, Or, The Wizard Woeful.'"
"This would be my turn," the older mage replied with a dignified nod, and in the manner of an actor on center stage threw out his hand and grandly declaimed:
That so fat and grasping a man
Should have the very stars bright in his hands
To blind us all with their shining
Blotting out his faults in plenty.
His huge and howling ghost
Doth prowl the world entire
but loves and lingers most
upon this very same and lonesome spot
Where gods loved, men killed, and careless elves forgot.
"Well," Beldrune said after a little silence, "not to deny your impressive performance…your usual paraph, and then some!…but it seems we've returned again to the subject we agreed was forbidden: the One Who Walks, and just what Mystra meant by creating a Chosen One as her most esteemed mortal servant."
Tabarast shrugged, his long and slender fingers tracing the wisps of his own beard thoughtfully. "Men collect what is forbidden," he said. "Always have, always will."
"And mages more so," Beldrune agreed. "What does that tell us about those who follow our profession, I wonder?"
The older mage snorted. "That no shortage of witty fools has yet fallen over Faerun."
"Hah!" Beldrune leaned forward, stroking one splendid silk lapel eagerly between forefinger and thumb, the worry stone momentarily forgotten. "Then you grant that Our Lady will take more than one Chosen? At last?"
"I grant no such thing," Tabarast replied rather testily. "I can see a succession of Chosen, one raised after another falls, but I've yet been shown no evidence of the dozen or more you champion, still less of this Bright Company of star-harnessing, mountain-splitting arch-wizards some of the more romantic mages keep babbling about. They'll be begging Holy Mystra to issue merit badges next."
The younger mage ran one hand through his wavy brown hair, utterly ruining the styling the tower's maid-of-chamber had struggled to achieve, and said, "I quite agree with you that