The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [58]
The tree seemed to flicker for a moment, but neither of the two esteemed mages noticed.
Six: At The Riven Stone
Let stones be riven and the world be
changed,
When next two such as these meet,
With howling chaos in the sky
And deception a gliding serpent round
their feet.
Author unknown
from the ballad Many Meetings composed
sometime before The Year of the Twelverule
Sunlight stabbed down, and Elminster smiled. He was still in lands he'd never seen before, but more than one farmer along this rising road had assured him he was heading toward the Riven Stone.
Out of habit El glanced back to see if anyone was following him, then up at the sky, taking bird-shape had been a favorite tactic of elf mages who didn't look with friendly eyes on the first human who'd walked into their cozy midst, and changed Cormanthyr forever. Right now, however, both places seemed empty of foes-or any living creature, for that matter.
Briefly El wondered how far along the road those two bumbling mages had gotten to yestereve on their recalcitrant mules. He chuckled. The way Mystra's whims ran, no doubt he'd find out soon enough.
The sky was blue and clear, and a brisk wind blew just this side of chilly, a grand day for walking, and the last prince of Athalantar was enjoying it. Rolling farm fields with rubblestone walls spread out on either side of the road, here and there, boulders too big to be moved thrust up out of the tillage like tomb markers or the snouts of gigantic, petrified monsters of the underearth…
He was obviously remembering too many bards' ballads, and too few hours of plowing and haying. The air had that wet, earthy smell of fresh-plowed land, and if a certain Athalantan had to walk Toril alone, days like these at least made one feel alive and not a doddering survivor staggering toward a waiting grave.
The laughter of swift rushing water came to Elminster's ears from off to the left, and over the brow of the next rise its source came into view. A stream rushed past, cutting away across the fields in a small, deep-cut gorge. Ahead, it ran beside the road for a time, in its fall from what had to be a mill.
Ah, good. According to the last farmer, this must be Anthather's Mill. A tall fieldstone building, towering over a fork in the road. A fork, of course, which was bereft of any signs.
The stream rushed out of the pool below the mill dam, a creaking wheel turning endlessly in its wake. Men smudged white with flour were loading a cart by the roadside, adding bulging sacks to an already impressive pile. The horses were going to have a hard pull. One of the men saw El and murmured something. All of the men looked up, took their measure of the stranger, and looked back to their work, none of them halting in the hefting, tossing and heaving for a moment.
El spread his hands to show that he meant to draw no weapon, stopping beside the nearest man. "Well met," he said. "I seek the Riven Stone, and know not my road from here."
The man gave him an odd look, pointed up the left-hand road, and said, " 'Tis easy enough to find, aye-straight along that, a good stride, until you're standing in the middle of it. But yon's just a stone, mind, there's nothing there."
El shrugged and smiled. "I go following a vow, of sorts," he said. "Have my thanks."
The miller nodded, waved, and looked down for the next sack. Somewhat reassured, Elminster strode on.
It took some hours of walking, but the Riven Stone was clear enough. Tall and as black as pitch, it rose out of scrub woods in a huge, helmlike cone…cloven neatly in half, with the road running through the gap. There were no farms nearby, and El suspected the Stone enjoyed the usual "haunted" or otherwise fell reputation such landmarks always attracted…if they weren't deemed holy by one faith or another.
No sigils, altars, or signs of habitation met his view as he came around the last bend and saw just how