failing protective magics flickered the length of the coffin, hung silent and grappling in the air for a long, tense time of silence, then collapsed in a small but sharp explosion that transformed coffin, catafalque, and all into dark dust and hurled it in all directions.
Amid the tumult, the scepter on the floor gave its own small sigh and collapsed into a neat outline of gently winking dust.
Silence fell in earnest upon the riven hall, and all was still save for the dust drifting down.
Not long afterward, the starlight grew stronger over Tresset's Ringyl, until a mote of blue-white radiance could clearly be seen drifting down out of the starry sky…descending smoothly, like a very large, bright, and purposeful will-o'-wisp, into the heart of the riven hall.
The light came to a smooth stop a handspan or so away from the floor and hung for a moment above the dust that had been the scepter…dust that winked and flickered like blown coals beneath its nearness.
There was a flash, a faint sound like bells struck at random, very far off, and the dust was a scepter once more…smooth and new-lustrous, glimmering with stored power.
A long-fingered, feminine hand suddenly appeared out of empty air, as if through a parted curtain, to grasp the scepter and take it up.
It flashed once like a winking star as it rose. As if in answer the hand grew an ivory-hued arm, the arm a bare shoulder that turned, allowing a glossy flood of dark hair to cascade over it, and rose into a neck, ear, line of jaw… then a beautiful, fine-boned face. Cold was her visage, serene and proud, as she turned dark eyes to look around at the ruined hall.
The scattered quartz stars glowed as if in greeting as the rest of the body grew or faded into view, turning with fearless, unconcerned grace to survey the shattered hall. A beautiful, dark-eyed sorceress held up her scepter like a warrior brandishing a blade in victory and smiled.
The scepter flashed and was gone, the sorceress with it, leaving sudden darkness behind, and only three glows flickering in that gloom: the scattered quartz stars. As the lengthening moments passed, those faint fires faded and went out, one by one, until lifeless darkness reigned in Tresset's Ringyl once more.
'Holy Lady,' Elminster said to the stars, on his knees in what had once been his ring of daggers, with the sweat of spell battle still glistening on him, 'I have come here, and fought…perhaps slain…at thy bidding. Guide me, I pray.'
A gentle breeze rose and stirred the grasses. El watched it, wondering if it was a sign, or some evil thing his words had awakened, or simply uncaring wind, and continued, 'I have dared to touch ye, and long to do so again. I have sworn to serve thee and will so, if ye will still have me…but show me, I pray, what I am to do in these haunted lands… for I would fain not blunder about, doing harm In ignorance. I have a horror of not knowing.'
The response was immediate. Something blue-white seemed to snap and whirl behind his eyes, unfolding to reveal a scene in its smoky rifts: Elminster, here and now, rising from his knees to take up pack and cloak and walk away north and east, briskly and with some urgency … a scene that whirled away to become day light, falling upon an old, squat, untidy stone tower that seemed more cone or mound than lofty cylinder. A large archway held an old, stout wooden door that offered entrance with no moat or defenses to be seen…and that arch displayed a sequence of relief-sculpted phases of the moon. Elminster had never seen it before, but the vision was clear enough. Even as it faded, he was leaning down to take up his belongings and begin his walk.
No more visions came to him. He nodded, spoke his thanks to the night, and set off.
Five: One Morning At Moonshorn
A mage can visit worlds and times in plenty by opening the right books. Unfortunately, they usually open the tomes full of spells instead, to find ready weapons to beat their own world and time into submission.
Not three hills had the last prince of Athalantar put at his back when a chill, chiming wind whirled and danced through the Ringyl, like a flying snake of frost and climbed the grassy slopes to where Elminster's ring had been.
It recoiled from that place, a startled wisp of cold starlight arching and twisting in the night air, then slowly advanced to trace the outline of the wards that were now gone. Completing the circle, the wind leaped into its center rather hesitantly, danced and swirled for a time over the spot where Elminster had knelt to pray, then, very slowly, drifted off along the way El's feet had taken him. It rose and flickered once as it went, almost as if looking around. Hungrily.
Out of the dawn mists it rose, dark and old and misshapen, more like a gigantic, many-fissured tree stump than a tower. The sleepless and stumbling man silently cursed Mystra's dictate to use no needless magic for perhaps the hundredth time and winced at the blisters his boots were giving him. It had been a long and weary way hence from the lands of the Lady of Shadows.
Aye, this was it: Moonshorn Tower, just as Her vision had shown him: relief-carved phases of the moon proceeded around the worn stone arch that framed its massive black, many-strapped and bolted door.
As he approached, that door opened and a yawning man stepped out, shuffled a short distance away from the tower, and emptied a chamber pot into a ditch or cesspit somewhere in the tall grass. As the pot-emptier straightened, El saw that the man was of middling years and possessed of raven-dark hair, good looks framed by razor-edged sideburns, one normal…and deep brown…eye, and one eye that blazed like a distant star, white and glowing.
He saw Elminster and stiffened in wary surprise for a moment before striding back to bar passage through the open door. 'Well met,' he said, in carefully neutral tones. 'Be it known that I am Mardasper, guardian of this shrine of Holy Mystra. Have you business here, traveler?'
Elminster was too tired to indulge in witty repartee, but he noted with some satisfaction that the state of the morning sunlight touching the tower matched the vision granted to him last night… or early this morn … or whenever. 'I do,' he replied simply.
'You venerate Holy Mystra, Lady of All Mysteries?'
Elminster smiled at the thought of how shocked this Mardasper would be if he knew just how intimately a certain falling-down-exhausted mage had venerated Mystra. 'I do,' he said again.
Mardasper gave him a hard look, that blazing eye stabbing out at the hawk-nosed Athalantan, and moved his hands in a tiny gesture that El knew to be a truth-sensing spell.
'All who enter here,' the guardian said, gesturing with the chamber pot as if it was a scepter of office, 'must obey me utterly and work no magic unbidden. Anyone who takes or damages even the smallest thing from within these walls forfeits his life, or at the least his freedom, You may rest within and take water from the fount, but no food or anything else is provided…and you must surrender to me your name and all written magic and enchanted items you carry, no matter how small or benign. They will be returned upon your departure.”
“I agree to all this,' El told him. 'My name is Elminster Aumar. Here's my spellbook and the sole item of magic I yet carry: a dagger that can be made to glow as one desires, bright or dim. It can also purify water and edibles it touches and is guarded against rusting, I know of no other powers.'
“This is all?' the fire-eyed guardian demanded, staring intently into Elminster's face as he accepted the book and the sheathed dagger. 'And 'Elminster' is your true and usual name?'
“This is all, and aye, Elminster I am called,' the Athalantan replied.
Mardasper gestured that he should enter, and they passed into a small chamber, dark after the bright sunlight, that held a lectern and much dust. The guardian wrote down Elminster's name and the date in a ledger as large as some doors El had seen, and waved at one of three closed doors behind the lectern.
That stair leads to the upper levels, wherein are kept the writings you doubtless seek.'
El inclined his head and replied wearily, 'Have my thanks.'
Writings I doubtless seek? he thought. Well, perhaps so….
