The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [61]
Tabarast had managed an even more impressive Faerun-kissing total, he reflected with a smirk, watching the old wizard bucketing down a steep descent with both legs sticking out like wobbling wings on either side of his patient mount. In another moment, he'd be…
Something that was dark and full of stars rushed past Beldrune like a vengeful wind, dealing his left leg a numbing blow and almost hurling him from his own saddle. He kept aboard the snorting, bucking mule only by digging his hands into its mane like claws and kicking out in a desperate, seesaw fight for balance.
Ahead of him, down the hill, he could see what was bearing down on poor, unwitting Tabarast: a slim, dark-cloaked elven rider bent low in the saddle of a ghostly horse, with a lightning-spitting staff floating along at his shoulder. Beldrune could see right through the silently churning hooves of the conjured mount as the elf swept down on Tabarast, swerved at the last instant to avoid a hard and direct collision, and stormed past, hurling mage and mule together over on their sides.
Beldrune hurried to his colleague's aid as swiftly as he dared, but Tabarast was working some magic or other that hoisted himself and the bewildered, feebly kicking mule upright again, and shouting, "Hircine lout! Lop-eared, fatuous, rude offspring of parents who should've known better! Ill-mannered tyrant of the road! Careless spellcaster! I shall impart some wisdom to your thumb-sized brain…see if I don't! It almost need not be said that I'll school you In humility…and safe riding…first!"
Ilbryn Starym heard some of those choice words, but didn't even bother to lift his sneer into a smile. Humans. Pale, blustering shadows of the one he was hunting. He must be getting close now.
Elminster Aumar…ugly hook nose, insolence always riding in the blue-gray eyes, hair as black and lank as that of a wet bear. That familiar, hungry tang rose into Ilbryn's mouth. Blood. He could almost taste the blood of this Elminster, who must die to wash clean the stain his filthy human hands had put on the bright honor of the Starym. As he topped a rise, Ilbryn stood up in the stirrups that weren't there and shouted to the world, "This Elminster must die!"
His shout rang back to him from the hilltops, but otherwise the world declined to answer.
Dusk almost always came down like a gentle curtain to close a glorious sunset at Moonshorn. Mardasper liked to be up on the crumbling battlements to see those sunsets, murmuring what words he could remember of lovelorn ballads and the chanted lays of the passing of heroes. It was the only time of the day…barring unpleasant visitors…when he let his emotions out, and dreamed of what he'd do out in Faerun when his duty here was done.
Mardasper the Mighty he might become, stout-bearded, wise, and respected by lesser mages, rings of power glittering on his fingers as he crafted staves and tamed dragons and gave orders to kings that they dared not disobey.
Or he might rescue a princess or the daughter of a wealthy, haughty noble and ride away with her, using his magic to stay young and dashing but never taking up the robe and staff of a mage, keeping his powers as secret as possible as he carved out a little barony for himself, somewhere green.
Pleasant thoughts, soul-restoring and necessarily private… Wherefore Mardasper Oblyndrin was apt to grow very angry when something or someone interrupted his time alone, up on the battlements, to watch another day die into the west. He was angry now.
The wards warned him. The wards always warned him. Raw power, not held in check