by Ed Greenwood
The Old Mage smiled and nodded approvingly.
The staff rose again. This time Tarth's tears flowed so freely that he could scarcely see the staff through them. He was filled with an aching sense of loss and a wrenching, weak feeling that grew worse in waves, in time with the pulsing of the staff.
It climbed above the stone. The singing was loud in Tarth's ears. Suddenly it flared into blinding brilliance. Tarth cried out, breaking off the chant. He fell helplessly to his knees amid the singing, and slid sideways to the turf, and beyond….
[Growl] how much longer, wizard? How much fire-lashed longer?
Cool air whispered past his brow. There were gentle hands on him… two, three-had the old sage grown more hands?
Tarth blinked and found himself looking at a clear blue sky and dancing leaves overhead. He was lying on his back on uneven ground. The aroma of warm tea came from somewhere very near at hand.
"With us again, lad?" Elminster's familiar voice rolled out. Tarth turned to look at the Old Mage, opening his mouth to reply. It stayed open for some time in utter astonishment.
The Old Mage was sitting on a stone, tea in hand. He wore a worn and patched cotton under robe above his battered old boots. Sitting with him was a slim, gray-eyed lady regarding Tarth with interest. She held two jacks of steaming tea in her hands and was clad only in Elminster's flowing outer robe.
"Well met," she said, in a low, gentle voice.
Elminster grinned. "Tarth Thunderstaff," he said with gallant grandeur, indicating the lady, "meet thy staff. The Lady Nimra. Known in her day as Nimra Ninehands, after a spell she favors."
His grin broadened. "Ye've been draining her strength to work thy Art these long years, so I had ye give much of thine back to her, ere ye destroyed her entirely. Now, I've wasted time enough. Evenfeast awaits ye both at my tower, when ye find the way thither. I imagine ye'll have much to say to one another."
He chuckled at Tarth's stunned expression. "Now, lad," he reproved, " 'tis not every day a wizard has a chance to speak so freely to his staff. Use that glib tongue of thine." With that, Elminster waved a hand, and was gone.
Wordlessly the lady held a jack out to Tarth.
He took it gingerly, managing not to spill any on himself, and cleared his throat. "Ah… well met!" he began uncertainly. A wavering smile spread itself hesitantly across his face…
Gah! Loving again? You humans!
Much later that night, Tarth sat again with the Old Mage amid the dusty stacks of parchment. "How long have you known about her?" the young wizard asked curiously, gesturing upwards. The Lady Nimra slept in Elminster's bedchamber above them.
"Nimra was imprisoned in the form of a staff over seven hundred winters ago, by a rival in Myth Drannor," Elminster said slowly. "We never freed her, for her imprisonment let loose a number of fell creatures that had been in her power. They searched everywhere for her and would have found and destroyed her in the end, if she'd walked the Realms in her own form. Her imprisonment was the best disguise she could have found."
"What happened to these creatures that search for her?"
"Destroyed in their turas, down the years," the Old Mage replied. "Nerndel slew more than one of them."
"Master Nerndel? How did he come to have the staff?" Tarth asked in astonishment.
Elminster grinned. "He was Nimra's rival. It was his trap that imprisoned her. He hoped one day to free her and woo her-but I laid spells on the staff, so that I could find it where'er it might be hid and so that its making could not be undone while Nimra's enemies yet lived. I also took from Nerndel the spells he used to entrap her- so ye are stuck with her, young Master Mage."
"Stuck with her?" Tarth echoed, not understanding.
"Aye. She owed Nerndel six services, and the first he set her to do was to train him. The second was to undertake a certain ritual. It trapped her in the form of a staff, while her first task lay incomplete. She is not free of the web of spells he laid until she completes the training-of ye, since ye are Nerndel's heir."
"Me?" Tarth asked, dumbfounded. "But what then?"
Elminster shrugged. "That is between the two of ye. She has served ye these past few years, willingly, even if ye knew it not, and I think likes ye. Thy ways may well am together a long time yet."
"Together," Tarth said wonderingly, looking up at the ceiling. "But how should I treat her? What do I say to her? Should I try to make her do me the services that remain? If I try, what will she think of me? Need I fear her-ah, attacking me?"
Elminster smiled slowly and spread his hands. "In this, ye must be your own guide. Ye have already shown that ye can take the proper course, alone."
Tarth stared at him. Then his eyes narrowed suddenly. "You did agree to teach me until the passing of the next moon. Tell me, then, what I want to know!"
Elminster nodded. "I agreed, aye. Yet I fear I can help thee little, Tarth. I know not the answers to any of thy questions."
"You are said to be the wisest of living sages, in most fields!" Tarth protested. "One who knows all the answers!"
They heard a light step upon the stair. Tarth turned and stared at the Lady Nimra, who smiled at him. Tarth looked deep into her clear blue eyes and was lost.
"Only fools know all the answers," Elminster told him quietly. He silently vanished, the dust swirling up around him.
"And so, Master Tarth," Nimra said softly, as she sat where the Old Mage had been, "your questions are your own to answer, and your choices your own to make, and you must live out the results. That is what being a mage is, after all."
Tarth nodded, and cleared his throat. "Ah, uh-well met!" he began brightly.
She started to laugh….
That's your "powerful magic"? You claw mo hard at my patience, little wizard!
How does it feel when i do the same to your chain? And make it take fire at the same time! Hey? Eh?
[screaming, raw and wild and in vain, dying away]
Oh, no! Nor that easily! A uttle healing and a jolt awake, and you're ready to taste torment again.'
[roaring diabolic laughter, screams rising]
Chapter Sixteen
FOR THE LOVE OF AN OLD MAGE
Tentacles reached angrily toward the dirty, naked chained heap that was a man… then, reluctantly, drew back again.
I remain somewhat bewildered as to why some of the memories you've shown me are of lasting interest to mystra-or to you. Why is this in your mind, elminster? Does mystra place there only what she wants you to see, or also some things you desire to see?
Out of love and grace, the Lady I serve gives to me memories of things I could not witness but desire to. The doings of Mirt, for example-I felt the need to understand the character of this man, as a fellow Harper.
Ah. Just as i watched you from afar, you watch others. [Growl] I'll not try to hide from you, manung, that rage rises in me as I scour your mind and search out memory after memory, as if I'm seeking one stone in all the rock that is avernus, and find nothing of the memories of magic I seek. Memories I need.
Yet you must have them, or you could not be what you are.. Perhaps mystra is the key. I do not think she reached out to change you, in her brief visitation here….i would have felt that. So your memories must survive-and finding the ones she gave to you must he where the treasure lies.
Show me a memory from mystra. It doesn't mattek which one; i can taste the difference now and follow the trail you leave me make it too long, and i'll give you much pain. Lead me to what i see, and you'll live longer. A simple bargain, eh?
Clear enough.
I heard your tone. Remeatber this: I hold you in my hand. I decide the terms… And the punishments. Forget that not.
Oh, I'm unlikely to. Believe me. human, do you dare to threaten me? I never threaten, devil. I promise.
[growl] I have a promise for you. When I have what I desire, your suffering will be long.
Do you dare to have any promises for me?
Not yet.
[s
moldering diabolic glare, whirl about, plunge into vaulted darkness once more, scattering images like forlorn stars…]
***
The sky was gray over Aglarond-slate-gray and cloudless, like a vast sheet of armor plate.The Simbul scowled up at it from her favorite balcony. She set down a goblet of something she'd cast spell after spell on in a vain attempt to make it taste like a certain ancient vintage El had spell-stored from fallen Myth Drannor. The bracer that was all she wore had begun to glow, telling her the seneschal had lost patience in stalling envoys and courtiers and wanted the afternoon throne session to begin.
The Simbul strode back through her chambers. Snatching a robe from the nearest hook as she passed-a rich purple and clothof-gold affair of many entwined dragons that would have been better given to someone who'd admire beautiful garments a trifle more-the Witch-Queen of Aglarond shrugged herself into it. She strode along a back passage, vaulted over a railing in front of a carefully impassive guard, landed on a harlounge, bare inches from a sleeping cat, marched away heedless of its spitting wake-fulness, and found herself crossing the last few paces of carpet to the side doors of the throne chamber. Without a sash, her grand robe billowed open around her.
The guard by the doors had served her for a very long time. He looked at the Simbul's face and down at her bared body for just an instant. He set aside his glaive and unbuckled his sword belt with frantic haste, stepping forward to hold it out to her in one gauntleted hand in time to receive a dazzling smile from his queen. Her whirling embrace spun him around in the passage.
She murmured,"Buckle me." During another turn in her arms he did. She saluted as they parted, thrust the door wide, and was gone.
Only then did he stoop to retrieve his breeches from the floor, recall that he'd worn his second-best sword belt, and cringe at the thought that the Witch-Queen of all Aglarond was even now striding to the throne with not only a sword and a dagger bouncing at her hips, but a bag of dice, a bit of string knotted around some cheese with which to entice a pet mouse out of its hole to visit him, and an undone pouch with his best deck of air solitaire cards in it-the ones with the unclad beauties of Thay on the backs, guaranteed to float in the air for at least three breaths after being released.
With a grin, Thaergar of the Doors decided that if his queen noticed, she'd probably be greatly amused. Thank the gods.
Or at least, so he hoped.
***
So I have called, and my friends come not-or cannot reach me, through the legions of Hell. I am lost. It is cruelty on my part, sheer vanity, to drag down with me others who can live on in Toril and serve it as I have. I must fight this battle alone.
And fight it will be, for I shall not go down in gentle surrender. I will fight. Mind to mind, I cannot hope to stand against Nergal-for he can diminish my will in an instant by visiting physical pain on me. He is a swift, reckless, overconfident intellect-a willful child, in some ways-and cannot hope to match my store of memories or experience…for all his long years, he has done the same things over and over and seen far less than certain old human wizards.
Yet he knows this. It is why I still live now. I am more than an idle plaything to him, more than a trophy other devils do not have, or a lure to bring rivals to where he can smash them. I am a storehouse he longs to ransack, the fount of magical lore he craves-and the source of something else he refuses to admit: the memories of sensation and beautiful sights, terrible moments and acts of kindness…a life, all that be lacks. If I entertain, he suffers me to feed him memories he knows will not yield him mage-lore, or silver fire, or secrets of Mystra. He needs them.
I would give them freely, to make an archdevil more human, to give one being in Hell greater understanding of Toril-were it not for his mindworm, which takes what I share and strips it from my mind.
So it must be war between us. It is a war Elminster cannot win but must win. With every remembrance, Elminster is less-a little emptier, more of a mumbling sHell-and Nergal is a little more. A little more Elminster. Somehow I must fight him through the memories that go into him. I must wortn my way into his mind and fight him there.
Yet, to do that, I must surrender what I have been so closely guarding. Everything. Mystra, no.'
On the other hand, saith the juggler, why not? He will have it all in the end, anyway. I cannot stop him, only steer him as to what I yield, and when. My battle-and any slim chance at victory I might have-can only lie therein, in the pattern of my yielding.
Is this not what captive women have done to men who seized them, for centuries? Sought to master their captors by the manner and pacing of their yielding?
I am armed and armored in greater weakness. Well, then, I salute my foe-and the battle goes on.
I must think more on this. I need time. Let me yield another memory given me by Afystra and win some time to plot. I shall go to my tent and confer with my generals, who are all Elminster.
I hope we can agree on something.
***
Phaeldara was standing before the throne, facing the usual glittering throng. Gems gleamed in her sweeping wave of purple hair. She drew herself up to her full, dignified, darkly beautiful height and said, "Lords and ladies, patience is a virtue more should cultivate. Especially in this palace. I-"
"How now, beloved sister of Aglarond? Are the people unaware of my tasks?" The Simbul made her voice merry, ignoring the sigh of exasperation from the far corners of the throneroom."Or my… restlessness?"
With a smile of relief, Phaeldara turned to meet her and murmured as they embraced, "Hardly. I'm sure fools in red robes inThay can feel that. Go and see your Old Mage for a few days, and… assuage your hungers."
The queen grinned. "Going delicate on me now, Phaele?"
"No," the sorceress warned her, something grim in her dark eyes. "This morn, after you brained Lorn Thorvim with that platter, I–I tried to farspeak Elminster to bid him visit you. He… I could not reach him."
The Simbul stiffened. Phaeldara drew carefully back as the queen's eyes went blank. The air around her slowly began to crackle. Those cracklings grew as the ruler of Aglarond poured more magical power into her questing. The little lightnings turned silver in hue.
A murmur of fear and consternation rippled through the watching courtiers. Something was very amiss.
The sword and dagger the queen was wearing began to smoke in their sheaths. The buckle that held them suddenly burst into sparks and was gone. The belt fell away with a crash-only to be whisked far across the floor by the undulating fury of the robe that followed it. The woman who ruled them stood alone, clad only in racing silver flames.
"Oh, goddess, no," they heard her gasp. Then her face tightened, and she asked p!eadingly,"Oh, Mystra, may I?"
Long silver hair lashed bare shoulders as if a wild gale was blowing. A proud head was flung back to stare unseeing straight up at the vault so high above. Suddenly, the crackling arcs fell away to the floor in a fading wave of sparks, and the Simbul was moving.
"Thorneira! Evenyl.to me! Seneschal, fetched the Masked One! Phael, I'll need your gems-all of them!"
The tall sorceress immediately began running long fingers through her purple tresses, combing out handfuls of gems that all glowed with stored spells. "H-here, Lady Queen," she stammered, holding them forth.
The Simbul cupped them carefully, gliding close to kiss Phaeldara on her cheek without ceasing her hawklike glaring about the room.
"That man," she snapped, pointing. "Evenyl, slay him; he's a Thayan spy!" Without waiting to see what befell, she turned and stabbed her finger at another man. "He comes to make a false claim against a rival; deny him our royal intercession. Phaele, the throne is yours this time-but if Thayan envoys come in force, yield to the Masked to sit here and speak for me, while you go to Rashemen and fetch their envoys to come and bear witness."
"Lady Queen? You're quitting the throne?" a courtier was bold enough to ask.
The crack of his head jerking to one side was loud enough, eve
n over the building Thayan spells and the carefully rising shields of the motherly Evenyl, to echo around the room.
The courtier's cheek blazed red, just as if he'd been slapped directly.The queen gave him a look that had death in it and said slowly and coldly, "Thorneira, Thalance, Phaeldara, Evenyl, and the Masked One speak for me at all times, and they will do so during this short absence of mine. Obey them as eagerly and as fearfully as you would me."
She did not have to add "or else" aloud; everyone in the room could hear it. Whatever reply the trembling courtier might have tried to make was lost in the booming of doors flinging themselves open, all around the chamber.
As startled guards peered into the room, objects began to sail in through those opened doors: girdles and boots, bracers and breastplates, circlets and rings, and tumbling wands, some of them winking with aroused power. The room crackled with their magic, and courtiers crept away from the end of the room where the Simbul stood.
Bare and beautiful, the queen of Aglarond spread her arms wide as her summoned arsenal of magic flashed up to clasp and clothe her.
"I go to rescue a man who's worth more than all of you," she said, her voice suddenly wavering on the edge of tears, "and far, far more than me."
With a whirling of silver flames and blue-white racing stars, she blazed up into formlessness and was gone.
***
The doors opened, and the sorceress Phaeldara strode grandly forth.Thaergar of the Doors snapped to rigid, arch-backed attention, carefully expressionless. He was astonished when she spun on one foot to face him.
"These are, I believe, yours," she said crisply, holding out his pack of cards. The little piece of cheese, a little the worse for wear and lacking its cord, was perched atop the tattooed belly-he could not help noticing-of Salambra the She-Wolf of Surthay. He kept still, unsure of what to do.