by Ed Greenwood
Myrjala took him firmly by the hand. “After your praise for my dancing, you don’t want to measure this floor with me? I’m hurt, brave Mithtyn! You’ll not escape me tonight!”
There were chuckles and half-jealous, half-teasing words from the folk standing around as the sorceress dragged the old herald out into the dance—but when he returned to his place later, he stood tall and smiled, and walked as if he were a much younger man.
Elminster was tired, and his throat hurt … but Tassabra had firmly whirled him into the midst of the dancers and guided him deftly through a dance of many avid kisses and caresses—and when Farl had smilingly reclaimed her, clapping El on the back so hard that the prince had almost fallen to his knees, the ladies of the court had pressed in.
El found that the night fled slowly before his stumbling feet, but always another beautiful, eager lady of the court, eyes shining with excitement, was waiting for his hand, and the dances went on.
His feet were beginning to hurt as much as his raw throat, and sweat was trickling down his back under his already-soaked shirt … and still the music went on, and still he was surrounded by eager ladies. Shaking his head, Elminster peered past whirling shoulders and laughing faces, seeking a tall, regal face with serene dark eyes. Then he was looking into them, and though half a hundred folk were dancing between them, Myrjala’s voice seemed a soft whisper in his ear: “Go, and enjoy! Meet me here at dawn!”
Elminster asked the air, “But what will ye be doing?”
A few whirling turns later, Myrjala swept up to and past him and winked. El watched her dance up to Helm, deftly pluck him from the very arms of Isparla, and turn her head back to meet his wondering eyes. “I’ll think of something!” Myrjala said to her pupil, and set off across the room, towing Helm by the hand. The old knight shook his head, grinned at Elminster, and shrugged.
Elminster stared across the room at them, astonished at the bubbling laughter in her voice—and then, helplessly, started to laugh. He was still rocking with mirth as smooth hands drew him away through a door into less-well-lit antechambers, where there were couches, and wine, and eager lips to share it with.…
In the first gray light of dawn, Elminster staggered back into the throne room. His head was pounding and his mouth very dry. Something seemed to be wrong with his balance, and he was still belting and adjusting the tattered remnants of his clothing when he came through the double doors, and looked straight into Myrjala’s amused eyes. She stood in front of the Stag Throne looking immaculate, her dress and regal appearance unchanged from the evening before. “Has Athalantar thanked you property?” she asked teasingly.
Elminster gave her a look. His fingers, still busy fastening and adjusting, encountered smooth silkiness, and he drew a lady’s veil from where it been caught up under his belt. Shaking his head, he held it out to Myrjata. “Ye want me to pass this up?” he asked mournfully.
She laughed. “You’d be sick of plots and betrayals inside a tenday.… One doesn’t have to be king to eat and dance and love a night away, you know.”
Elminster sighed and looked around the throne room at the shields and banners of his ancestors. His gaze came very slowly back to her from looking on distant memories, and he stirred.
“Let’s to horse, then,” he said briskly, “and be out of here before Helm’s awake.”
Myrjala nodded and stepped forward to link her arm with his. They went out of the throne room together.
The stables were huge and dimly lit, but quiet; it was well before the first feeding. Myrjala calmly chose the two best horses, and ordered a drowsy-eyed groom to saddle them.
“Here, now—” he protested, frowning. “Thos—” He broke off hastily, staring into her stern eyes. His eyes fell to her hands, beginning to shape a spell, and he gulped and said, “A moment, Lady—they’ll be ready’n’ but a breath or two!”
Myrjala smiled dryly, then turned to Elminster and snapped her fingers. Bulging saddlebags melted slowly out of thin air beside his feet. Elminster gave her a questioning look.
“I took the liberty,” she said with a serene and innocent smile, “of assembling these early this morn. Folk who conquer kingdoms and then give them away deserve to eat well, at least.”
Elminster hefted one of them and found it was gods-cursed heavy … and that it clinked. Coins, or he’d never been a thief. He deftly undid the knots and opened the throat of the bag wide. It was full of gold coins.
Myrjala smiled at him innocently and spread her hands. “How much gold can one king spend? We’ll need something to see us along the trail to our next adventure …”
“And just where is that, if I may ask?” Elminster cupped his hands, and she put a toe of one soft, pointed boot into them, springing lightly up into the saddle.
“This adventure’s not quite done yet, I fear,” Myrjala replied in a warning tone. Elminster looked at her thoughtfully, but she said no more as she urged her mount on toward the stable gate.
They went out into the mists of the morning and found Mithtyn leaning on his stick waiting for them. He looked up at them, swallowed, and managed a smile. “Someone of Athalantar should thank ye both property. I fear I have not the words … but I would not want thee to ride away without even a salute!”
Myrjala gave him a little bow from her saddle, and said, “Our thanks, Mithtyn. Yet I see something troubles you … and I would know what it is, if you will.”
Mithtyn stared up at her for a moment, and then his words come in a rush. “Alaundo’s prophecy, Lady! He’s ne’er been wrong yet, and he said ‘the Aumar line shall outlive the Stag Throne’! That can only mean Athalantar won’t survive without an Aumar as king … and yet ye ride away!”
Elminster gave the anxious old man a crooked smile. “While I live, the Aumar line lasts. Let this land grow in strength and happiness, as I hope to, in the days ahead.”
Mithtyn said nothing, face troubled, but bowed low. They raised their hands to him in farewell, and rode away up the street in silence. As they went, the risen sun touched the rooftops with rose-red light. The old herald stared after them, still and silent.
They paused at the top of the lane. The hawk-nosed young man looked toward the old burial ground and said something to the tall lady who rode with him, pointing. The herald peered, trying to see what the prince who was giving up his kingdom had indicated … and could just make out a lump of cloth.
’Twas … a cloak, drawn over a sleeping man and woman. Mithtyn cleared his throat in embarrassment, but by then he’d recognized them: the smiling man called Farl and his lady, the beautiful little one. Aye, Tassabra, that was her name. And behind them, someone was sitting, staring right back at him! An elf! A tall, silent male elf, with a staff of wood across his knees … Mithtyn gulped, raised his hand in an awkward salute, and saw it returned.
Then the elf turned his head. Mithtyn looked in the same direction in time to see the prince and the—sorceress, if she wanted to be known so—vanishing around a corner behind the old stone of a proud house. When they were gone, Mithtyn shivered once. Then he turned back into the castle, his eyes wet with tears. He knew he’d not see anything of like importance for the rest of his days. Such knowledge is a heavy thing to bear early in the morning.
Perhaps after a good dawnfry, a few hot mugs, and his wife to tell it all to. Mithtyn hoped—not for the first time—he’d live long enough for his daughter to be old enough to heed, and hear, and appreciate what he told her. He’d tell her about this morning perhaps a hundred times.
As he crossed the courtyard, one of Helm’s knights approached and hesitantly told the old herald what the Lady Myrjala had said about herself while dancing the night before. Mithtyn looked into the man’s eyes and discovered he did have someone to tell about it, after all. He led Anauviir toward the kitchens, feeling much better.
“Whither now?” Elminster asked, as Myrjala reined in where the trail crossed the shoulder of a little knoll west of the city. He looked around curiously; from Hast
arl, one couldn’t see this was a grave-knoll. A stone plinth stood within a low wall, overgrown with shrubs and low-branched trees that cloaked the stone from all but the closest eyes.
“In all your struggle, you’ve gained none of the spells wielded by the magelords,” Myrjala replied. “As it befalls, I know where the mage royal kept a cache of magic—spellbooks, healing potions, and items held ready in case he was hounded from Hastarl, or ever found the city held against him. Here in this old shrine of Mystra, where no thieves come for fear of the guardian ghosts of dead mages, is his cache.”
“Is it guarded?” Elminster asked warily, as they dismounted amid the trees.
“Of course it is, fool mageling!” someone snarled from behind him.
Elminster whirled around—in time to see the rearing body of his horse flow and twist … into the familiar shape of Undarl, mage royal of Athalantar. Myrjala’s mount screamed in terror, and they heard the frantic drumming of hooves as it fled.
Elminster gulped and plucked at his belt for the things he’d need to cast what paltry battle-spells he had left. Undarl’s gloating grin told him he was not going to be in time. The master of the magelords raised his hand and began to murmur something, but Myrjala sprang between them, skirts swirling. The lightning that cracked forth from Undarl split before her upraised hands and splashed harmlessly off to either side.
The mage royal screamed in anger. When he could find words through his fury, he snarled at her, “You! Always, it is you! Die, then!” His next words were a hissed incantation, and streams of fire burst from his fingertips in a crimson web that crackled and clawed the air, but was turned back by Myrjala’s conjured shield. Elminster had no spells left to match such magics; he could only stand anxiously in the lee of Myrjala’s barrier.
The web of fire Undarl had spun began to glow a dull, angry red. The mage royal lashed at the shield with his fading flames, and called out a name that echoed among the stones of the shrine.
His call was answered by a vast bestial roar. Something huge and dark rose up from behind the trees behind the mage royal … a red dragon! It unfurled batlike wings and hissed, eyes glinting with cruelty. Then its shoulders surged and it leaped through the air toward the prince and the dark-eyed sorceress. It breathed fire as it came, a roaring torrent of flame that poured over Myrjala’s shield … but could not consume it.
The sorceress said something long and awkward, and the dragon’s flame doubled back on itself, coiling and turning from red to an eerie bright blue before it became white hot. To Elminster’s magesight it seemed even brighter; Myrjala had transformed it into something awesome. It rushed back at the dragon like a hungry wind. El glimpsed dark wings beating frantically amid the roiling flames for a moment, and then, in an explosion that rocked the knoll and hurled him from his feet, the dragon burst apart.
Scales and blackened scraps of flesh flew past the last prince of Athalantar as he struggled to his feet and saw Undarl snarling and lashing at the sorceress with his whip of flames, seeking to pierce the shield. Fire roared and rumbled.
Myrjala stood unmoving against the fury of the flames, and spoke a single calm word. The edges of her shield began to grow, lengthening into long, lancetike tips that reached toward Undarl, pulsing with power.
The wizard laughed contemptuously. His arms were growing longer, too, stretching into tentacles. The tips of his snakelike limbs hardened into sharp, red, long-taloned claws. The lance-tips of the shield reached him and passed harmlessly through. Undarl’s laughter grew more shrill, and his face had begun to stretch forward horribly into a snout. The talons of his hands ended in small bulbous things, now, each with its own snapping mouth.
“My spell can’t touch him!” Myrjala exclaimed, amazed.
The mage threw back his head, and his ever-wilder laughter echoed back from the stone plinth behind him. “Of course not! I am no puny mortal of Faerûn, to be mastered by your magic—I walk the shadows where I will on many worlds. Many think themselves mightier than me, only to learn the depths of their folly in the moments before they perish!”
Undarl’s ever-larger tentacle-heads suddenly swooped around the shield and were upon her, darting and biting like writhing snakes. Myrjala shrieked as one bit off her raised hand—but her scream was abruptly cut off an instant later when the wizard’s head, dragonlike now, breathed out fire that burst through the shield without pause. The sorceress vanished from the waist up, collapsing in a smoking welter of ashes and blackened bones.
“No!” Elminster cried, leaping on the dragon-thing the magelord had become. He clawed at its eyes, kicking and weeping.
Undarl shook him off. El fell heavily, saw the fanged snout turn just above him to breathe down devouring fire, and rolled in under it with desperate speed, rising beneath those snarling jaws.
Undarl’s flame roared skyward, useless, as the prince snatched out the stub of the Lion Sword and stabbed at its throat repeatedly, forcing the dragon-thing to recoil. Even as its head arched back away from his blade, hissing, Undarl’s biting claws clutched and tore El’s back and face. Elminster crooked an arm around the dragon-thing’s throat and swung around behind it, scrabbling for balance. Those clattering claws swarmed in on him, but he drove his blade deep into one of the dragon’s golden eyes.
Undarl convulsed and shuddered, tearing free. Its newly grown tail smashed El away. He rolled in the dirt as the dragon-thing squalled and thrashed in agony. Elminster scrambled to his feet and carefully cast a lash of lightning, a feeble spell that might not do more to a dragon than singe its scales—but he cast it not at Undarl, but at the hilt of the Lion Sword, where it stood quivering in the dragon’s eye.
Lightning leaped and flashed. The dragon-thing stiffened, jerked its tail, and sank limply back across the low stone wall, its brain cooked. Smoke rose in lazy curls from its eyes and nose.
Weeping in fury, Elminster hurled every battle-spell he had left. Before his streaming eyes the scaly body of his foe was chopped apart and then frozen. He stood over the riven carcass until he could force his trembling lips to shape the words of his very last battle-spell. Small, stinging bolts of magic lanced out at the pieces of Undarl, hurling them aloft. El did not stop until only tangled lumps of flesh remained amid blood … blood everywhere.
Still weeping, Elminster turned to where Myrjala had fallen. Fallen defending him—again. He tried to embrace her ashen bones, but they crumbled and he was holding only drifting dust … and then, nothing.
“No!” he sobbed brokenly, on his knees before Mystra’s shrine in the brightening morning. “No!”
He stood up, mouth working, and shouted at the uncaring sun, “Magic brings only death! I’ll wield magic no more!”
The ground rumbled and rocked at his words, and something slithered around his feet. Elminster looked down … and froze, watching in stunned silence. The ashes around him began to glow and drift together over the overgrown stone, rising and reshaping themselves into … Myrjala!
Honey-brown hair swirled as the glow became her bone-white body, lying on the stones. The hair wavered as if disturbed by an ebbing wave, and fell aside to reveal his teacher’s familiar, pert face, and those large, dark eyes. They opened and looked up at him.
Elminster stood gaping in shock as Myrjala said gently, “Please, Elminster … never utter such words again—please? For me?”
Dumbly, Elminster fell to his knees again, reaching out wondering hands to touch her shoulders. They were solid, and smooth, and so were the hands that lifted to him and pulled his mouth down to hers. The sharp smell of burnt hair was strong around them as Elminster pulled back in alarm, wary of another magelord trick, and stared down into the eyes of the sorceress.
Their eyes met for a long time, and El knew he was facing Myrjala. He swallowed, tears falling from his cheeks onto her own, and said, “I-I promise. I thought ye dead … ye were dead, burned to ashes! How can this be?”
Fire rose and raged, deep in those dark eyes staring up into his. The gh
ost of what might have been a smile passed over her lips as she said softly, “For Mystra, anything is possible.”
Elminster stared down at her, and then at last, he realized who—what—his teacher truly was.
In real fear, he tried to pull away. A hint of sadness crept into those dark eyes, but then their gaze sharpened and, as much as the firm arms around his neck, held him motionless. The goddess Mystra held him captive with her eyes of dark mystery, and said softly, “Long ago, you said you could learn to love me.” Suddenly her eyes held a challenge.
Face white, wordless, Elminster nodded.
“Show me, then, what you’ve learned,” the Lady beneath him said softly, and cool white fire rose up around them both.
Elminster felt clothes and all burn away as they rose into the air amid searing flames, up into the morning sky above the weathered stone plinth. Then her lips met his, and the burning began, as power such as he’d never known before surged into him.
The cart squeaked loud enough to rouse the sleeping dead, as usual. Bethgarl yawned as he pushed it up the bumpy slope before the long descent into Hastarl … but then, he was all too used to it.
“Awaken, Hastarl!” he muttered, spreading his arms grandly and yawning again. “For Bethgarl Nreams, famed cheese merchant, cometh, cart loaded high with wheels of sharpcrumble, whitesides, and re—” something moved and caught his eye off to the left, by the old grave-shrine. Bethgarl looked in that direction, then up—and a third yawn died forever as his jaw dropped open in wonder.
He was looking—nay, staring—at a rising ball of blue-white flame, flaring so bright he could scarce bear it … but he had looked, eyes burning, and seen two folk floating half-hidden in its heart! A man and a maid, and they were.… Bethgarl stared, rubbed his watering eyes, stared again, then let fall his cart and ran back the way he’d come, for all he was worth, howling in fear.