Something in the younger mage's tone made Tabarast's head snap up. He turned around, too, to stare across the room where they'd labored for so long, and find it empty of strange mages, but now home to…
'The sign!' Beldrune gasped, voice unsteady in awe. 'The sign! A Chosen was here among us!'
'After all these years,' Tabarast murmured huskily, almost dazed. In an instant his life and his faith and all Toril around him had changed. 'Who can it have been? That beak-nosed youngster? We must follow him!'
Slowly, as if they dared not disturb it, the two old mages advanced around the table. By unspoken agreement they walked in opposite directions, to come upon the spinning sigil from different directions…as if it might escape if they didn't pounce.
The little whirling knot of blazing lines was still there when they met in front of it to gape at it in awe. 'It matches the vision completely,' Tabarast murmured, as If there'd been some possibility of a mistake or counterfeit. 'There can be no doubt.'
He looked around the room at their piled, cluttered years of work. 'I'm going to miss all of this,' he said slowly.
'I'm not!' Beldrune replied, almost bowling the older mage over in his rush for the door. 'Adventure…at last!'
Tabarast blinked at his fast-receding colleague and said, 'Droon? Are you mad? This is exciting, yes, but our road's just beginning…it'll be a hard fall for you soon, if you're dancing this high in glee right now.'
The Dark Gods take your gloom, Baerast…we're going
Tabarast winced and started descending steps, a sour expression settling onto his face. 'You've never been on an adventure before, have you?'
Years of travel had made the hard-packed mud lane between Aerhiot's Field and Salopar's Field sink down into its own ditch, until now the tangled hedges almost met overhead, as disturbed birds and squirrels fretted and darted along in the perpetual gloom whenever anyone ventured along the lane.
The oxen were used to it, and so was Nuglar. He trudged along half asleep with his goad-stick in the crook of his arm, not expecting to have to use it, while the three massive beasts ambled along ahead of him, also half- asleep, hardly bothering to switch their tails against the biting buzzflies.
Something chimed nearby. Nuglar lifted one heavy eyelid and turned his head to see what could be making the sound … a wandering lamb, perhaps, collared with one of those tiny toy bells the priests of the Mother hung down their aspergilla? Several younglings?
He could see nothing but a sort of white, sparkling mist in the air, whirling tongues of it that trailed the chiming. It was all around him now, loud and somehow cruel, settling around him like a cold shawl… and around the oxen. One of them sobbed in sudden alarm as the chiming mist became a howling, tightening whirlwind encircling it.
Nuglar shouted, or thought he did, and stretched out a hand to that ox's rump…only to feel a deathly, searing chill, numbing in an instant like icy winter water. He drew back his arm.
It was a stump, blood streaming from where his hand should have been. He opened his mouth to scream, and a wisp of that deadly whirlwind spun out of nowhere to plunge down his throat.
Less than a breath later, Nuglar's jawbone dropped away from a wavering, wind-scoured skull…an instant before his skeleton collapsed into whirling dust, whipped together into crumbling oblivion with the three oxen.
With a loud, triumphant chorus of chiming, like many exultant bells being rung together, a larger, brighter whirlwind rose out of the lane and poured itself across Aerhiot's Field, leaving the muddy lane empty of all but a stout, well-worn goad-stick. It danced in the air in the whirling wake of the chiming mist for an eerie moment, then fell to the mud for other frightened farmers to find later.
A long time passed in the gloomy lane before squirrels meekly scampered and the birds dared to sing again.
The Riven Stone must be a place, or more likely a landmark…a rock cloven by a spring or winter ice. A feature he'd never heard of, but then there was a lot of Faerun he knew nothing about, yet.
Was Mystra going to make him walk over every stride of it?
Almost reeling in exhaustion, Elminster trudged up a grassy slope, trying to keep in sight of the road that had brought him to the Tower … and was now taking him on away from it. Leaving the tower had been a matter of flat urgency, aye, but the Lady…or Azuth, speaking for her… knew he'd have to search for the Riven Stone. Well, then, he couldn't be expected to find it immediately.
That was good, because he could barely find the strength to put one foot in front of another any longer.
El took another two clumsy steps, found himself sliding back down the slope to the roadside, stumbled, and a short rushing while later, fetched up hard against a duskwood tree.
It felt good to lean against the comforting bulk of the tree, when he was so gods-forsaken
There was no branch handy to cling to, to climb the tree or even keep himself on his feet… and speaking of that, his knees were starting to buckle … ah, but wait. What had the Srinshee taught him about a tree-shaping spell? Some simple change in the incantation of one of the spells he was carrying, Thoaloat's Variant aye, that's what it had been called. 'Doabro Thoaloat was a wily old goat'…and that little rhyme brought back the memory he needed: the change was
It was possible that Elminster snored gently twice or thrice during the incantation, but the duskwood that appeared an instant later, leaning against an identical duskwood that had been there rather longer, preferred deep silence to snoring, and so peace fell by the roadside.
When he was in the steward's chamber, the wards always warned him. They almost blazed in great measure of approaching magic, this time, so Mardasper was through the door and standing behind his lectern with the diadem on his head, its eyepiece over his accursed eye, and the Lady Scepter on his head before the door opened…without any knock…and an elf mage stepped within, cloak swirling around him, and the gems set into the staff of living wood in his hand winking on and off in an ever-changing display. The elf met the steward's eye, let go of the staff…it hung upright in the air, its lights continuing to wink and twinkle…and watched for Mardasper's reaction with the faintest of sneers playing about his thin lips.
The steward took care not to look impressed or even interested and managed to add a faint air of dismissal to his visual examination of the newcomer. With elves, status and control were always issues. Push-push-shove, disdain, sniff, sneer … well, not this day, by Holy Mystra! He looked young, but Mardasper knew that even without spells to alter the body or appearance, one of the Fair Folk could look this green and vigorous for centuries. He looked haughty…but then they all did, didn't they?
'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?'
'I do,' the elf said coldly, stepping forward. The steward willed the eyepiece to lift and gave the newcomer the full benefit of his blazing gaze. The elf slowed, eyes narrowing a trifle, then came to a smooth halt, hand not… quite…touching the butts of a trio of wands sheathed at his hip.
Mardasper resisted the urge to smile tightly and asked carefully, 'You venerate Holy Mystra, Lady of All Mysteries?' He used the diadem to truth-read, saving his own spells for any unpleasantness that might prove necessary.
The elf hesitated. 'Betimes,' he said at last, and that was truth. Mardasper suspected the newcomer meant that he'd gone on his knees to Mystra a time or two in conditions of great privacy, in hopes of gaining an edge over rival elf mages. No matter, here, it would suffice.
'All who enter here,' the guardian said, raising the tip of the Lady Scepter just enough to make an elven eye flicker, '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,
'I think not,' the elf said scornfully. 'I've no intention of ever becoming any man's slave, nor of yielding items entrusted to me, long venerated in my family, into the hands of anyone else…least of all a
