by Ed Greenwood
Feeling much better, he checked the hilts of his sword and dagger to be sure they were loose and ready in their scabbards, and set off through the forest once more. His gut growled at him more than once, reminding him that one can’t eat coins.
It was two days’ steady travel through the trees to the waymoot of Assamboryl, and a day beyond that to Six Thorns. The hours seemed longer without Athtar’s endless inanities. Not that he wasn’t enjoying the relative quiet, for once—though he was so stiff, and whatever he’d hurt in his right thigh stabbed with such burning pain, that he was stumping along through the moss and dead leaves like a clumsy human.
Thankfully few folk dwelt hereabouts, because of the stirges. There was one flitting along in the trees right now, keeping well away but following his travel.
Hmmph. It must not be thirsty just now—but if he was heading toward all of its relatives, old Galan the Gallant might be no more than a sack of empty skin before nightfall.
Cheery thought, that.
A mushroom float rose up from behind a ferny bank on his left. His nose twitched. It was piled high with fresh limecaps, their mottled brown stems oozing the white sap that meant they’d just been harvested. His stomach growled again—and without thought he snatched a few and thrust them to his mouth.
“Ho!”
In his weary hunger, he’d forgotten that mushroom floats need someone to pull them. Or push them, as the angry-looking elf at the other end of this float was doing, getting his harvest aboveground in good time for washing and sorting. The elf snatched out a dagger, and swept it up for a throw.
Galan took it out of his fingers for him with his own fast-hurled dagger, and followed it up with a duck under the float and a lunge up the other side, sword point first.
The elf screamed and scrambled backwards, fetching up against a tree. Galan rose up in front of him with slow, silent menace, putting the point of his blade to the farmer’s throat.
The terrified elf began to gabble, pleading and wildly unfolding all sorts of friendly information about his name, his lineage, his ownership of this mushroom den, the fine ’shrooms it produced, the finer weather they’d been having lately, and—
Galan gave him an unlovely smile, and raised a hand. The elf misinterpreted the gesture.
“Of course, human lord! Please forgive my tardiness in understanding your needs! I have little, being but a poor farmer, but it is yours—all yours!” With frantic fingers the farmer undid his belt, slid off its pouch, and presented it to Galan in trembling fingers, as his loose, baggy mucking-breeches fell to his ankles.
The belt was heavy with coin—small coin, no doubt, but still probably good thalvers and bedoars and thammarchs of the realm. As Galan hefted it in disbelief, the farmer misinterpreted his expression and gabbled, “But of course I have more! I would not dream of trifling with or cheating the great human armathor that Corellon himself has sent to our Coronal to scourge the sinful and decadent from the realm! Here!”
This time his fingers brought out a pouch from a thong around his neck … a pouch that swelled with gems. Galan took it in wide-eyed incredulity, and the farmer burst into tears and cried, “Slay me not, oh mighty armathor! I’ve no more to give you but my float of ’shrooms and my lunch!”
Galan growled with approval at that last word—well, after all, what would a mighty human armathor speak like?—and extended an insistent, beckoning hand. When the farmer staring at it for a moment, he followed it up with an insistent, beckoning blade.
“Ah- ah- ’shrooms?” the bewildered farmer cried, in a panic. Galan scowled, shook his head, and made the beckoning gesture again.
“Uh … lunch?” the farmer said timidly. Galan nodded slowly and emphatically, treating his guest to a crooked smile.
Mushrooms flew as the farmer burrowed into one corner of the float, cursed tearfully, gabbled apologies, and rushed to another corner, where mushrooms flew again.
Galan took the cloth-wrapped bundle, hefted it, and then slowly held the bag of gems back out to the farmer. Gems were tricky; too many of them, in Cormanthor, bore tracing spells, or even enchantments that could burst forth to do harm when commanded to do so from a safe distance. No, the coins were safer by far.
The farmer burst into tears and went to his knees to loudly thank Corellon, and the volume of his praises was such that Galan was loudly tempted to chop him down where he stood.
Instead, he pointed with his sword, indicating that the farmer should go back down into his mushroom cavern without delay. The tearful farmer neglected to see it, so Galan growled.
In the sudden, total silence that followed he repeated the gesture, swinging his blade grandly—and there was a wet and heavy impact as he was bringing it back down. Galan opened his mouth to emit a startled curse as he saw the slab of stirge fall from one side of his blade, and heard the thump as the rest of it hit the ground somewhere near, but the farmer set up such a deafening storm of fervent praises that the only living Goadulphyn—head of the house, heir, champion, elder, and all—decided he couldn’t stand any more of this (it was worse than Athtar), and headed north again. He’d open his bundle and eat when he was well out of whatever territory fervently gullible mushroom farmers dwelt in.
Galan stumped along for quite some time, shaking his head, before he found a tree old enough and large enough to hold Corellon’s awareness. He went right up to it and murmured wonderingly, “You do have a sense of humor, Sacred Mother and Father, don’t you?”
The tree did not reply—but then, Corellon probably already knew he had a sense of humor. So Galan sat down and devoured the farmer’s lunch with gusto. Corellon offered no objections.
“Heirs slaughtered like lajauva birds in spring! Armathors breaking and hurling down their blades in protest! What’s Cormanthor coming to?” Lord Ihimbraskar Evendusk was shouting again, face red and eyes redder. A servant who’d frozen into terrified immobility at his sudden and roaring approach found herself uncomfortably in Lord Evendusk’s way.
More to the point, so did Lord Evendusk, and he still carried his pegasi goad in his hand. Its leather whip whacked twice, thrice, and then a savage backhand to send the weeping servant pelting down the passage, her platter of pastries fallen and forgotten.
Duilya shuddered. “Oh, gods,” she whimpered, “do I really have to go through with this?”
Yes, Duilya—or he’ll be carving you up with that goad next!
Duilya sighed.
Don’t worry; we’re here. Do it just as we agreed.
“It’s the Coronal, that’s who it is!” Evendusk snarled. “Eltargrim must have got funny ideas into his head while gallivanting off through Faerûn, o’erturning human wenches every night and listening overlong to their sauce …”
Lord Evendusk’s customary morning rant trailed away into bug-eyed silence. There was his favorite chair, and there on the table beside it—the table that should have held a waiting glass of rubythrymm and a seeing-gem holding scenes of last night’s revelry—was a fill bottle of his very best tripleshroom sherry.
His wife was sitting in his chair, clad in a gown that would have made his pulses race if Duilya had been forty summers younger, twice as slim as she was, and just a bit less familiar. She didn’t seem to have noticed him.
As he watched, rocking slightly from side to side and breathing heavily, she picked up an empty glass from the floor beside her, shrugged at it, and set it aside.
Then she calmly unstoppered the sherry bottle, raised it to the morning light and murmured something appreciative—and drank the whole thing down, slowly and steadily, eyes closed and throat moving rhythmically.
Lord Evendusk’s silently boiling rage slid sideways, as he noticed what a beautiful throat his wife possessed. He didn’t think he’d ever noticed it before.
She set the empty—yes, empty; she’d drunk the whole thing!—bottle down, face serene, and said aloud, “That was so good, I think I’ll have some more.”
She was reaching for the bell whe
n Lord Evendusk found his wits and his breath again. Catching firm hold of both, he gave vent to his now-towering rage. “Duilya! Just what by all the pits of the spider-worshipping drow d’you think you’re doing?” he bellowed.
As she rang the bell, his wife turned that stupid and customarily yawping face toward his, smiled almost timidly, and said, “Good morn, my lord.”
“Well?” he bellowed, striding forward. “Just what is the meaning of this?” He waved at the bottle with his goad, and then glared down at his wife.
She was frowning slightly, and seemed to be listening to something.
Lord Evendusk snatched hold of her shoulder and shook her. “Duilya!” he roared into her face. “Answer me, or I’ll—”
Red-faced, he raised his goad, holding it aloft, ready to strike, with a trembling hand. Behind him, the room filled with anxious servants.
Duilya smiled up at him, and tore open the front of her gown. His name was emblazoned in gems across her otherwise bare breasts. “Ihimbraskar” was rising and falling as he stared at it, gaping. Into that stunned silence she said clearly, “Wouldn’t you prefer to do that in our bedchamber, lord? Where you’ve room to take a really good swing?”
She gave him a little smile and added, “Though I must confess I prefer it when you just put on my gowns and let me use the goad.”
Lord Evendusk, who’d been in the process of turning purple, now turned white instead. One of the servants snorted in suppressed mirth, but when their lord wheeled around, wild-eyed, to glare at them all, they presented him with a row of expressionless faces and said in a ragged chorus, “You rang, great Lady?”
Duilya smiled sweetly. “I did, and my thanks for your swift arrival. Naertho, I’d like another bottle of tripleshroom sherry by my bedside, forthwith. There’s no need for glasses. The rest of you, attend please, in case my lord needs something.”
“Need something?” Lord Evendusk snarled, turning around again. “Aye, and forthwith—an explanation, wench, of your … this …” he waved his arms wildly, lost for words, while the servants were still gasping at his insulting use of the word “wench,” and then finished almost desperately, “… behavior!”
“Of course,” Duilya said, looking almost scared for a moment. She glanced at the servants, took a deep breath, lifted her chin—almost as though she was following silent instructions—and said crisply, “Night after night you go to revels, leaving your household neglected. Not once have you taken me with you—or any of your servants, if you’d rather not have me witness what you do there. Jhalass, there, and Rubrae—they’re much younger and prettier than I am; why don’t you show them off and let them enjoy the same fun you do?”
The servants were staring at her as wide-eyed as Lord Evendusk, now. Duilya lay back in the chair and crossed her legs just as he customarily did, and said, gesturing down at herself, “This is all I see of you in the mornings, lord. This and a lot of roaring and groaning. So I decided to try this roistering of yours, to see what attractions it might have.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Aside from giving me a powerful urge to relieve myself, I can’t see that tripleshroom sherry tastes so wonderful that you need go off all night to plow through a bottle of it. Perhaps another bottle would convince me otherwise? So I’ve summoned that second one to my bedside—where we’re going now, Lord.”
Lord Evendusk was purple again, and shaking, but his voice was soft as he asked, “We are? Why?”
“Drinking every night’s no excuse for spending every morning stumbling about like an idiot, making a mockery of the honor of the House, and leaving me neglected, night after night, and day after day. We are partners, my lord, and it’s high time you treated me as one.”
Ihimbraskar Evendusk raised his head as a stag does, to draw breath before drinking at a forest pool. When he brought it down again, he looked almost calm. “Could you be more specific about what you want me to do in this regard, Lady?” he asked in silken tones.
“Sit down and talk,” she snapped. “Here. Now. About the Coronal, and the deaths, and the tumult over the human.”
“And just what do you know of that?” her lord asked, still standing. He slapped the palm of his hand gently with the goad.
Duilya pointed at a vacant chair. Lord Evendusk looked at it, and then slowly back to her. She kept her arm motionless, indicating the chair.
Slowly he went to it, planted one boot in it, and stood leaning on it. “Speak,” he said softly. There was something in his eyes, as he looked at her, that hadn’t been there before.
“I know, Lord, that you—and other lords like you—are the very backbone of Cormanthor,” Duilya said, staring right into his eyes. Her lips quivered for a moment, as if she might cry, but she drew in a deep breath and went on carefully, “On your shoulders the greatness and splendor of us all rests, and is carried. Never think for a moment that I do not revere you for the work you do, and the honor that you have won.”
One of the servants stirred, but the room had grown very still.
Lady Evendusk went on. “Ihimbraskar, I do not want to lose that honor. I don’t want to lose you. Lords and their houses are drawing swords, hurling spells, and defying their Coronal openly over one human. I’m afraid someone will stick their blade through My Lord Evendusk.”
Lord and lady were both silent for a moment, their eyes locked, and then Duilya continued, her words ringing in the silent room.
“Nothing is worth that. No human is worth feuds and blood spilled and Cormanthor torn apart. Here I sit, day after day, talking with other ladies and seeing the life of the realm unfold. Never do you ask me what I’ve seen and heard, or talk anything over with me. You waste me, Lord. You treat me like a chair—or like a clown, to be laughed at for my fripperies, as you boast to your friends how many coins I’ve thrown away on my latest jewels and gowns!”
Duilya rose, took off her gown, and held it out to him. “I’m more than this, Ihimbraskar. See?”
His eyes flickered; she stepped swiftly toward him, gown in hand, and said passionately, “I’m your friend, Lord. I’m the one you should come home and confide in and share rude jokes with and argue with. Have you forgotten what it is to share ideas—not kisses or pinches, but ideas, spoken of aloud—with an elf maid? Come with me now, and I’ll teach you how. We have a realm to save.”
She turned away, walking from the room with a determined stride. Lord Evendusk watched her go, bared swinging hips and all, cleared his throat noisily, and then turned and said to the servants, “Ah … you heard my lady. Unless we ring, please don’t disturb us. We have much to talk about.”
He turned toward the door the Lady Duilya had left by, took two swift steps, and then whirled around to face the servants, tossed his goad onto the table, and said, “One more thing. Uh … my apologies.”
He turned and left the room, running hard. The servants kept very quiet until they were sure he was out of earshot.
Their cheering and excited converse fell silent again when Naertho came into the room. He was carrying the second bottle of tripleshroom sherry in his hand. “The lord and lady said ’twas for us!” he said gruffly.
When the astonished cheer that evoked had died away, he looked out the window and the trees, his eyes very bright, and added, “Thanks to you, Corellon. Bring us humans every moon, if they cause such as this!”
In a pool in a private garden, four ladies collapsed into each others’ arms and wept happy tears. Their glasses of tripleshroom sherry floated, untouched and forgotten, around them.
THIRTEEN
ADRIFT IN CORMANTHOR
For a time, Elminster became as a ghost, and wandered unheard and unseen through the very heart of Cormanthor. The elves regarded him not, and he learned much thereby … not that he had much of a life left in which to make use of what he gained.
ANTARN THE SAGE
FROM THE HIGH HISTORY OF FAERÛNIAN ARCHMAGES
MIGHTY
PUBLISHED CIRCA THE YEAR OF THE STAFF
&nbs
p; Faerûn took a very long while to come floating back again. At first Elminster was only dimly aware of himself as a drifting cloud of thoughts—of awareness—in a dark, endless void through which booming, distorted sounds … bursts of loudness they were, no more … rumbled and echoed from time to time.
After an infinity of floating, only dimly aware of who he was or what he was, Elminster saw lights appear—stabbing, momentary flashes of brightness that occurred from time to time as he floated, unwondering, in their midst.
Later, sounds and lights befell more often, and memories began to stir, like restless, uncoiling serpents, in the spark of self-awareness that was the Athalantan prince and Chosen of Mystra. El saw swords rising and falling, and a gem that held a whirling chaos of images, the memories of others, raging like a sea that tossed him up into the presence of a female eidolon in the night gardens of a palace … the palace of a kindly one, an old elf in white robes, the ruler of pursuivants who rode unicorns and pegasi, the ruler of … of …
The Coronal. That title blazed like white fire in his memory, like the great and awesome chord of a fanfare of triumphal doom—the march favored by magelords in the Athalantar of his younger years, that resounded across Hastarl, echoing back from its towers, when wizards were gathering for some decision of import.
The same mages he had defeated in the end, to claim—and then renounce—his throne. He was a prince, the grandson of the Stag King. He was of the royal blood of Athalantar, of the family Aumar, the last of many princes. He was a boy running through the trees of Heldon, an outlaw and a thief of Hastarl, a priest—or was it priestess? Had he not been a woman?—of Mystra. The Lady of Mysteries, the Mother of Magic, Myrjala his teacher who became Mystra his divine ruler and guide, making him her Chosen, making him her—Elminster!
He was Elminster! Human armathor of Cormanthor, named so by the Coronal, sent here by Mystra to do something important that remained yet hidden from him—and beset on all sides by the ambitious, ruthless, arrogantly powerful young elves of this realm, chafing under the old ways and unwelcome new decrees of the Coronal and his court … ardavanshee, the elders called them; or “restless young ones.” Ardavanshee who may yet have brought about his death … for if Elminster Aumar was not dead, what was he?