The Temptation of Elminster

control and influence…and to leave behind at least three means of slaying him instantly by her uttering trigger words. Ah, but it was a wonderful thing to be a wizard. Almost as marvelous as being a Chosen.

Dasumia gave him a smile that held rather more triumph than welcome. 'Body and soul I'll have you,' she murmured. 'Body and soul.' She whirled away from him and looked back over her shoulder to purr provocatively, 'Which shall we sample first, hmmm?'

'Now, really, Droon! I ask you: would we have had such widespread mastery of magic, such legions of capable or nearly capable mages, from sea unto sea and to the frozen wastes and uttermost east, if Myth Drannor still stood proud? Or would we have had closed, elite ranks of those who dwelt or had free admittance to the City of Song… and the rest of us left to fight for what scraps the glittering few deigned to toss to us, or that we could plunder from old tombs…and the liches lurking in them?' Tabarast turned in his saddle to make a point, almost fell out of it despite the tangle of sashes and belts he'd lashed himself on with, and thought it prudent to face forward again, merely gesturing airily with one hand. His mule sighed and kept on plodding.

'Come, come! We speak not of gems, Baerast,' Beldrune replied, 'nor yet cabbages…but magic! The Art! A ferrago of ideas, a feast of enchantments, an endless flood of new approaches and…'

'Free-flowing nonsense spoken by young mages,' the older mage retorted. 'Surely even you, young Droon, have seen enough years to know that generosity…truly open giving, not to an apprentice one can keep beholden or even spell-thralled…is a quality rarer and less cultivated in the ranks of wizards than in any other assembly of size or import in Faerun today, save perhaps an orc horde. Pray weary my ears with rather less morology, if it troubles you not overmuch to do so.'

Beldrune spread despairing hands. 'Is any view that differs from your own but worthless idiocy?' he asked. 'Or can it be…panoptic wind trumpet that you are…that some small shred of possibility remains that some truths the gods may not as yet have revealed unto wise old Tabarast, shrewd old Tabarast, unthinking old Tab…'

'Why is it that the young always resort so swiftly to personal offenses?' wise old Tabarast asked the world at large, loudly. 'Name-calling and ridicule greet arguments that speak to a point, not foremost a person to attack or decry. Such a rude, unsettling approach makes a mountain of every monticule, a pernicious tempest of every chance exchange of remarks, and blackens the names of all who dare to hold recusant views. I disapprove strongly of it, Droon, I do. Such scrannel threats and blusterings are no worthy substitute for well-argued views…and all too often hold up a shield for jejune, even retrorse sciamachy, bereft of sense and waving bright purfle and clever verbiage where meaning has flown!'

'Uh, ah, ahem, yes,' Beldrune said weakly. When Tabarast was riled, two words in ten was fair going. 'We were speaking of the influence of fabled Myth Drannor on the practice of the Art across all Faerun, I believe.'

'We were,' Tabarast confirmed almost severely, urging his mule over the summit of a monticle with a flourish of his tiny riding whip. The fact that it had broken in some past mishap, and now dangled uselessly from a point only inches above the handle, seemed to have utterly escaped his notice.

Beldrune waited for the torrent of grand but largely junkettaceous utterances that invariably accompanied any of Tabarast's observations of simple fact, but for once it did not come.

He raised his eyebrows in wonderment and said nothing as he followed his colleague over the hill. Hipsy…and plenty of it. 'Twas past time for hipsy. He slapped at the grand cloak rolled and belted at his hip, found the reassuring solid smoothness of his flask beneath it, and drew it forth. Tabarast had made this blend, and it was a mite watery for Beldrune's taste, but he didn't want to have to sit through that argument again. Next time, it'd be his turn, and there'd be more of the rare and heady concoction he'd heard called 'brandy,' and less water and wine.

Hmmm. Always assuming they both lived to see a next time. Adventure had seemed a grand thing a day ago…but he'd been thinking more of an adventure without mules. He'd be a hipshot, broken man if they had to ride many more days. Even with all the belts and sashes and lashings…which of course gave the demon-brained beasts a means of dragging mages who'd had the misfortune to fall out of their saddles helplessly along in the dirt until they could haul themselves handover-hand to the bridles, receiving regular kicks in the process…he'd fallen off more than twenty times thus far today.

Tabarast had managed an even more impressive Faerun-kissing total, he reflected with a smirk, watching the old wizard bucketing down a steep descent with both legs sticking out like wobbling wings on either side of his patient mount. In another moment, he'd be…

Something that was dark and full of stars rushed past Beldrune like a vengeful wind, dealing his left leg a numbing blow and almost hurling him from his own saddle. He kept aboard the snorting, bucking mule only by digging his hands into its mane like claws and kicking out in a desperate, seesaw fight for balance.

Ahead of him, down the hill, he could see what was bearing down on poor, unwitting Tabarast: a slim, dark- cloaked elven rider bent low in the saddle of a ghostly horse, with a lightning-spitting staff floating along at his shoulder. Beldrune could see right through the silently churning hooves of the conjured mount as the elf swept down on Tabarast, swerved at the last instant to avoid a hard and direct collision, and stormed past, hurling mage and mule together over on their sides.

Beldrune hurried to his colleague's aid as swiftly as he dared, but Tabarast was working some magic or other that hoisted himself and the bewildered, feebly kicking mule upright again, and shouting, 'Hircine lout! Lop-eared, fatuous, rude offspring of parents who should've known better! Ill-mannered tyrant of the road! Careless spellcaster! I shall impart some wisdom to your thumb-sized brain…see if I don't! It almost need not be said that I'll school you In humility…and safe riding…first!'

Ilbryn Starym heard some of those choice words, but didn't even bother to lift his sneer into a smile. Humans. Pale, blustering shadows of the one he was hunting. He must be getting close now.

Elminster Aumar…ugly hook nose, insolence always riding in the blue-gray eyes, hair as black and lank as that of a wet bear. That familiar, hungry tang rose into Ilbryn's mouth. Blood. He could almost taste the blood of this Elminster, who must die to wash clean the stain his filthy human hands had put on the bright honor of the Starym. As he topped a rise, Ilbryn stood up in the stirrups that weren't there and shouted to the world, 'This Elminster must die!'

His shout rang back to him from the hilltops, but otherwise the world declined to answer.

Dusk almost always came down like a gentle curtain to close a glorious sunset at Moonshorn. Mardasper liked to be up on the crumbling battlements to see those sunsets, murmuring what words he could remember of lovelorn ballads and the chanted lays of the passing of heroes. It was the only time of the day…barring unpleasant visitors…when he let his emotions out, and dreamed of what he'd do out in Faerun when his duty here was done.

Mardasper the Mighty he might become, stout-bearded, wise, and respected by lesser mages, rings of power glittering on his fingers as he crafted staves and tamed dragons and gave orders to kings that they dared not disobey.

Or he might rescue a princess or the daughter of a wealthy, haughty noble and ride away with her, using his magic to stay young and dashing but never taking up the robe and staff of a mage, keeping his powers as secret as possible as he carved out a little barony for himself, somewhere green.

Pleasant thoughts, soul-restoring and necessarily private … Wherefore Mardasper Oblyndrin was apt to grow very angry when something or someone interrupted his time alone, up on the battlements, to watch another day die into the west. He was angry now.

The wards warned him. The wards always warned him. Raw power, not held in check or under governance, always made them shriek as if in pain. Snarling at the happenstance, Mardasper was thundering down the long, narrow back stair before the intruder could have reached the doorstep. Precipitous it might be, but the back stair led directly to the third door in the entry hall, when the front door was hurled open, to bang against the wall and shudder at the impact, Mardasper was in place behind his lectern, white to his pinched lips and quivering in anger.

He stared out into the gathering night, but no one was there.

'Reveal,' he said coldly, uttering aloud what he could have caused the wards to do silently, seeking to impress…or cause fear in…whoever was out there, playing pranks. It took magic of great power to force open the Tower door, with its intertwined glyphs, layers of active enchantments, and the runes set into its frame and graven