by Ed Greenwood
Spellflames roared out from hobgoblin mouths and noses, and the eyes above them bulged and then burst into blue-white, spattering mists. The scorched corpses staggered aimlessly into rocks and trampled ferns until they fell—leaving a moaning elf lying in the waters, and more angry ruukha crashing down the far side of the dell with axes, longforks, and blades in their hands.
Elven bodies lay arched and sprawled around Elminster as he came to a halt above the mage. Pain-wracked emerald eyes blinked up at him through sweat-tangled white hair, and widened in astonishment at seeing a human.
“I’ll stand with ye,” the Athalantan told the elf, lifting his head clear of the blood-darkened water. That deed caused his airstriding spell to fail, and he promptly discovered that one of his boots leaked, as they settled into the cold, rushing waters.
He also discovered that he really didn’t have time to care, as ferns rustled around him and more ruukha rose into view, wearing nasty grins of triumph at their deception. The elven patrol had camped in the midst of a hobgoblin haven, or more likely been carefully and completely surrounded as they slept.
The entire dell, it seemed, was full of yellow-tusked, menacing ruukha, raising shields before them as they crouched low and stumped cautiously forward. They seemed to have already learned that mages are always dangerous … and to have survived that lesson. Which meant they’d killed mages before.
Elminster stood over the weakly coughing elf and darted a quick glance behind him. Aye, they were there, closing in slowly, faces grinning in anticipation. There must be seventy or more. And the spells he had left were few enough for that to be a real problem.
The prince cast the only magic that might buy him time to think of a proper way out of this. He tore aside a leathern flap of his saddlebag, plucked forth all six of the revealed daggers in an untidy cluster, and hissed the words he needed as he tossed them into the air, snapping his fingers. They took wing like aroused wasps, darting away in unison to circle the young prince, slashing and spinning across the face of a ruukha who was too close.
That awoke a general yell of rage, and the hobgoblins surged down at Elminster, coming from all sides. The daggers whistled and bit at all who intruded into their tight circle, but there were only five of them, against many burly ruukha shouldering to get at the young mage.
A hurled spear struck El numbingly on the shoulder as it tumbled past, and a stone grazed his nose as he staggered back. The unfortunate thing about the flying blades spell was that its rushing daggers gave the ruukha ideas. Why brave that wall of steel when you can just bury its creator under a hail of hurled weapons?
Another stone hit his forehead, hard. Elminster staggered, dazed. An exultant roar rose from all around him, as the ruukha charged. Shaking his head to drive away the pain, El sank down over the elf and spat out the words of a spell he hadn’t expected he’d have to use yet. He hoped he’d be in time.
Eyes that glowed with mage sight looked at the tree-clad crag before it, and then at the next one. And the next. Gods curse the usurper! He’d been to all of them!
Had he left the scepter at the first one, and set the others as decoys? Or did it lie in the second crag, or—?
The owner of those smoldering eyes lost faith in the will of the silent gods to curse the young mage-prince properly, and embarked on a thorough and heartfelt job of personally cursing Elminster.
When the snarling was done, a spell was cast. As expected, it revealed a humming web of force lines linking all the crags, but didn’t lay clear the location of the scepter. Breaking the web needed Elminster’s assenting will … or his death.
Well, if the one was impossible, the other would just have to serve. Hands moved again to weave another enchantment. Something rose like heavy smoke from the forest floor, something that hissed and whispered softly and unceasingly as it took shape. Something whose every movement was a menace that bespoke hunger.
Something that suddenly grew solid, rearing upright as it slithered, and flailing the air before it with dozens of raking claws. A magekiller.
Murderous eyes watched it go forth, seeking the last prince of Athalantar. As it whispered its way out of view through the trees, a smile grew beneath those watching eyes … from a mouth that did not often smile. Then the mouth moved again, bestowing more curses on Elminster’s head. Had they been listening, the gods would have been pleased at some of the more inventive phrasing.
There was an instant of swirling blue mists, and the sensation of falling—and then Elminster’s boots scraped on broken rock, and a limp, lolling elven body was in his hands.
They stood on a flat rock partway up the dell, with bent and broken ferns all around, and startled shouts behind them as the ruukha peered this way and that, seeking them—or were sliced by the ring of daggers taking sudden and urgent flight to El’s new locale, to take up their protective circling again.
Walking into Cormanthor with a dead or dying elf in his arms might not be such a good idea, either, but right now he had little choice. The prince of Athalantar swung the slim, light body over his shoulder with a grunt and began to walk up out of the dell, trudging carefully amid the ferns to avoid a fall on the uneven ground. There were more shouts from behind him, and Elminster smiled thinly and turned around.
Stones crashed and rolled short, and one spear hissed through the ferns well off to one side, as the ruukha came after him. El chose his spot and made the second journey of his five-jump spell.
Suddenly he was in the very midst of grunting, hurrying hobgoblins, with the elf weighing on his shoulder. Ignoring the sudden oaths and grunts of amazement, El stood tall, turning on one heel to find the next clear spot for the magic to take him to, over—there!
Blades slashed out too late, and he was gone again.
When the swirling mists fell away this time, there were screams from behind him. The whistling daggers had cut a bloody swath through the hobgoblins to reach and encircle El where he’d just been—and now they were trying to reach him again, slashing through the main group of ruukha. The Chosen of Mystra watched hobgoblins see him, turn, and roar out fresh fury as they charged anew—and he awaited them patiently.
None of the ruukha were throwing things now. Their blades and axes were out, each hobgoblin hungry to personally chop and hack this infuriating human. El shifted the elven mage on his shoulder, found the right moment, and jumped again—back to the other side of the rushing ruukha.
There were fresh screams as the daggers swerved to follow him, slicing through the hobgoblins once more. El watched one lumbering warrior lose his throat and spin to the ground not knowing what had slain him, hacking vainly and feebly at an unseen enemy as blood spurted. Many were staggering or limping, now, as they turned to follow their elusive foe. One last jump remained, and Elminster saved it, turning instead to trudge up out of the dell with his dangling burden. Only a few grim ruukha followed.
El went on walking, seeking some vantage point where he could see a distant feature. The ruukha still on his trail were growling back and forth now, reassuring each other that humans tire quickly, and they’d slay this one after dark if he didn’t fall earlier.
Elminster ignored them, seeking a long view. It seemed an endless, staggering time before he found one—a thick stand of shadowtop trees across another dell. He made the last jump and left the hobgoblins behind, hoping they’d not care to follow.
His daggers would soon melt away, and when they were gone, he’d little left to fight with.
It was then that a high, faint voice by his ear said in broken Common, “Down. Put—down. Please.”
Elminster made sure of his footing in the gloom under the shadowtops, and swung the elf gently down onto a bed of moss. “I speak your tongue,” he said in elvish. “I am Elminster of Athalantar, on my way to Cormanthor.”
Astonishment touched those green eyes again. “My people will kill you,” the elf mage replied, his voice fainter. “There’s only one way for you to …”
His voice trai
led away, and Elminster thrust his hand to the laboring throat and hastily murmured the words of his only healing spell.
The response was a smile. “The pain is less; have my thanks,” the mage said with more vigor, “but I am dying. Iymbryl Alastrarra am I, of …” His eyes darkened, and he caught at Elminster’s arm.
El bent over the elf, helpless to do more healing, and watched long, slim fingers crawl like a shaking spider up his arm, to his shoulder, and thence to touch his cheek.
A sudden vision burst into Elminster’s mind. He saw himself on his knees, here under the shadowtops where he knelt now. There was no Iymbryl dying under him, but only dust, and a black gem glistening among it. In the vision, El took it up and touched it to his forehead.
Then the vision was gone, and El was blinking down at the pain-wracked face of Iymbryl Alastrarra, purple at his lips and temples. His hand fell back to twitch like a restless thing on the dead leaves. “You—saw?” the elf gasped.
Trying to catch his breath, Elminster nodded. The elven mage nodded back, and whispered, “On your honor, Elminster of Athalantar, do not fail me.” A sudden spasm took him, and he quivered like a dry, curled leaf rocks in winds that will whip it away in a moment. “Oh, Ayaeqlarune!” Iymbryl cried then, no longer seeing the human above him. “Beloved! I come to you at last! Ayaeqlarrr …”
The voice trailed away into a long, deep rattle, like the echo of a distant flute. The thin body shook once, and then was still.
Elminster bent nearer—and then recoiled in horror as the flesh under his hands gave forth a queer sigh, and slumped into dust.
It curled and drifted, there in the shade, and at its heart lay a black gem. Just as in the vision. Elminster looked down at it for a long moment, wondering what he was getting himself into, then glanced up and looked at the trees all around. No hobgoblins, no watching eyes. He was alone.
He sighed, shrugged, and picked up the gem.
It was warm, and smooth, altogether pleasant to the touch, and gave off a faint sound, like an echo of harp strings, as he raised it. El looked into its depths, saw nothing—and pressed it to his forehead.
The world exploded into a whirling chaos of sounds and smells and scenes. El was laughing with an elven maiden in a mossy bower; then he was the elven maiden, or another one, dancing around a fire whose flames sparkled with swirling gems. Then somehow he was wearing fluted armor and riding a pegasus, swooping down through the trees to drive a lance through a snarling orc … its blood blossomed across his view, and then flickered and shifted, becoming the rose-red light of dawn, gleaming from the slender spires of a proud and beautiful castle.
… Then he was speaking an elder elven tongue, thick and stilted, in a court where the male elves knelt in silks before warrior-maidens clad in armor that glowed with strange magics, and he heard himself decreeing a war of extermination on humankind …
Mystra, aid me! What is this?
His despairing cry seemed to bring back the memory of his name; he was Elminster of Athalantar, Chosen of the goddess, and he was riding through a whirling storm of images. Memories, they were, of the House of Alastrarra. Thinking of that name snatched him back down into the maelstrom of a thousand thousand years, of decrees, family sayings, and beloved places. The faces of a hundred beautiful elven maids—mothers, sisters, daughters, Alastrarrans all—smiled or shouted at him, their deep blue eyes swimming up to his like so many waiting pools … Elminster was swept into them and down, down, names and dates and drawn swords flashing like striking whips into his mind.
Why? he cried, and his voice seemed to echo through the chaos until it broke like a wave crashing over rocks on something familiar: the face of vanished Iymbryl, regarding him calmly, a hauntingly beautiful elven maiden at his shoulder.
“Duty,” Iymbryl replied. “The gem is the kiira of House Alastrarra, the lore and wisdom held by its heirs down the years. As I was, so Ornthalas of my blood is now. He waits in Cormanthor. Take the gem to him.”
“Take the gem—?” Elminster cried, and both the elven heads smiled at him and chanted in unison, “Take the gem to him.”
Then Iymbryl said, “Elminster of Athalantar, may I make known to you the Lady Ayaeqlarune of—”
Whatever else he said was swept away, along with his face and hers, under a fresh flood of loud and bright memories—scenes of love, war, and pleasant tree-girt lands. Elminster struggled to remember who he was, and to picture himself on his knees under the shadowtops, here and now—the ground his knees could feel.
He slapped at the ground, and tried to see what his hands felt, but his mind was full of shouting voices, unicorns dancing, and war-horns glinting in the moonlight of other times and distant places. He rose, and staggered blindly with arms outstretched until he ran into a tree trunk.
Clinging to its solid bulk, he tried to see it, but it and the other trunks, so tall and dark around it, felt sickeningly wrong. He stared at them, trying to speak, and found himself looking at Iymbryl, who was shrieking as the black tines of the longfork burst through him again—and then he was Imbryl, riding a red tide of pain, as ruukha laughed harshly all around and raised cruel blades he could not stop.…
They swept down, and he tried to twist away, and—struck something very hard, that drove the breath out of him. Elminster rolled on it, and realized dimly that he was on the ground, amid the treeroots, though he couldn’t see the dirt his face was pressed against.
His mind was showing him Iymbryl again, and a young, handsome, haughty-looking elf in rich robes rising from a floating, teardrop-shaped chair that hung in a room where blue webs chimed with music. The young elf was rising with a smile to greet Iymbryl, and into El’s mind came the name Ornthalas. Of course. He was to make haste to Ornthalas and surrender the gem. Along with his life?
Or would it tear his mind out of his skull, flesh and all, when he pulled on the gem?
Writhing in the dirt, Elminster tried to pry the gem from his forehead, but it seemed part of him, warm, solid, and attached.
He must get up. Hobgoblins could still find him here. He must go on, before a tree spider or owlbear or stirge found him, a helpless and easy meal, and … he must … Elminster clawed feebly at the forest floor, trying to remember the name of the goddess he wanted to cry out to. All that came into his head was the name Iymbryl.
Iymbryl Alastrarra. But how could that be? He was Iymbryl Alastrarra. Heir of the House, the Mage of Many Gems, leader of the White Raven Patrol, and this fern dell looked like a good place to camp …
Elminster screamed, and screamed again, but there was no one else in his mind to hear. No one but thousands of Alastrarrans.
THREE
FELL MAGIC AND A FAIR CITY
It is rare for any man to make many foes, and strive against them, only to find a victory so clear and mighty that he vanquishes them forever, and is shut of them cleanly, at a single stroke. Indeed, one may say that such clarity of resolution is found only in the tales of minstrels. In the endlessly unfolding tapestry that is real life in Faerûn, the gods plague folk with far more loose ends—and all too many of these prove as deadly as the decisive battles that preceded them.
ANTARN THE SAGE
FROM THE HIGH HISTORY OF FAERÛNIAN ARCHMAGES
MIGHTY
PUBLISHED CIRCA THE YEAR OF THE STAFF
You’d challenge the power of the elves? That is hardly … prudent, my lord.” The moon elven face that spoke those words was calm inside its dragon helm, but the tone made them a sharp and biting warning.
“And why not?” the man in gilded armor snarled, his eyes flashing in the shadow of his raised lion-head visor as his gauntlets tightened on the hilt of a sword that was longer than the elf he confronted. “Have elves stopped me yet?”
The vision of two armored war captains facing each other on that windswept mountaintop faded, and Elminster moaned. He was so tired of this. Each dark or furious or merry scene gave way to the next, exhausting him with the ongoing tide of emotions. His
mind felt like it was afire. How by all the gods’ mercy did the heir of House Alastrarra stay sane?
Or did the heir of House Alastrarra stay sane?
It began then as a gentle whisper; for a moment El thought it was another of the innumerable, softly speaking, caressing elven maidens the visions had brought to him. Call on me.
Who, now? El slapped at his own face, or tried to, striving to bring himself back to Faerûn in the present. The present that had hobgoblins, mysterious followers, and magelords and other perils that could so easily slay him.
Call on me; use me. The young mage-prince almost laughed; the seductive whisper reminded him of a certain fat lady night-escort in Hastarl, whose voice was the only thing alluring she had left. She’d sounded like that, whispering huskily out of darkened doorways.
Call on me, use me. Feel my power. Where was the voice coming from?
And then it began; a warm throbbing above his eyes. He probed at it with tentative fingers. The gem was pulsing … Call on me. The voice was coming from the gem.
“Mystra?” Elminster called aloud, requesting guidance. He felt nothing but warmth. Speaking to it, at least, wasn’t forbidden … it seemed. He cleared his throat.
Call on me.
“How?” As if in response to his exasperated query fresh visions uncoiled in El’s mind. Energies flowed endlessly within the gem, stored magics that served to heal and shapeshift and change the heir’s body, from weightless to able to see in the dark, to …
The visions were tugging him away from such revelations now, leading him through scenes of various Alastrarran heirs calling on the gem to shift their shapes. Some merely changed their faces and heights to elude foes; others assumed different genders to lure or eavesdrop; one or two took beast-shape to escape rivals who had blades ready to slay elven heirs with, but no interest in hacking at timid hares or curious cats. El saw how the shift was done, and shown how it could be undone—or would undo itself, regardless of his will. Right, then; he knew how to change shape by calling on the powers of the gem. Why was it showing him this?