The Temptation of Elminster

lot, just from wandering off without him. Struggling in the growing dimness while trying to keep his eye on the sword floating nearby, Elryn was briefly glad they'd found no mirror that he'd have to look at himself in. He could imagine Avroana's mirth as she watched him battling the unfamiliar garment…and when at last he stood on the letter on the floor, and with one wary eye on that floating blade, uttered the name 'Karsus,' it was just this snarled side of a heartfelt curse.

The smoking stump of what must have been an old and large duskwood gave mute testimony to the effectiveness of something one of the younger Dreadspells had awakened. Elryn stared at it with dark anger rising in him, but before he could say anything, Femter was thrusting a ring at him excitedly.

'Dark Brother, look! This ring…against the best seeking Brother Daluth can cast…completely cloaks the dweomers of all magic in contact with its wearer! One could go into the presence of a king armed for a beholder war and strike with impunity.'

'Such bold stratagems are usually more effective in ballads than in real life,' Elryn replied severely, 'to say nothing of prudence.' He looked for Daluth and found him carefully taking forth one circlet after another from his scrip.

'Ah,' the leader of the Dreadspells announced in satisfaction, 'a wiser way to spend time. Let us all heal ourselves, then devote a short time to examining wands and staves before resuming our journey to the ruins.'

Several more trees suffered in the moments that followed. The healing items all proved to be of more effectiveness than a single use. Two of the staves proved to have no more battle- worthy spells than the ability to spit forth the streaking bolts men called 'magic missiles,' but the others could unleash beams of ravening fire and explosive bursts of magic … and two of those seemed able to drain touched magic items and even the spells of their wielders upon command, to power their most destructive attacks.

'What shining luck!' Vaelam laughed, blasting a helpless shadowtop sapling to ashes.

'Luck? Holy Shar led us to this spot, Dark Brother,' Elryn said severely, playing to the priestesses watching from afar. 'Shar guides us always … you will do well never to forget that.'

'Of course,' Vaelam said hastily, then laughed heartily as the staff in his hands snarled again…and another tree vanished in roiling flames that fell away into streamers of smoke diving down to the leaf mold all around.

'Vaelam of Shar,' Elryn said sharply, 'stop that wasteful destruction at once. I'd rather not have this forest aflame around us or every druid and mage within a hundred miles appearing around us to give battle. Have you forgotten Iyrindyl's fate already?'

Vaelam grimaced, but he couldn't seem to stop fondling and hefting the staff, like a warrior who's just been handed a superb blade.

'My apologies, Dark Brother,' he said, chastened, 'I–I got caught up in its power.' He licked his lips, firmly grounded the staff, and asked, as if seeking approval, 'Do you know how tempting it is just to blast down everything that irritates or stands against you?'

'Yes, Vaelam, as a matter of fact, I do,' Elryn replied, and wiggled the wand in his hand…the wand pointed at Vaelam's face…ever so slightly to draw the younger man's eyes. As Vaelam saw, and paled, the senior Dreadspell continued grimly, 'It's just one of many such temptations.'

Erlyn smiled tightly and thrust the wand back into his belt. 'Aye,' he added slowly, setting out at a steady pace in the direction of the ruins. 'One of many.'

He gestured curtly for the Dreadspells to follow. Reluctantly, they did so. Vaelam stopped to cast a longing look back at the stone slab, and the woods beyond it…and found himself looking right into the coldly smiling eyes and leveled staff of Daluth, who was watchfully bringing up the rear.

Vaelam managed a halfhearted smile, but Daluth's eyes grew no warmer. The youngest surviving Dread-spell swallowed, turned, and trudged off toward doom.

'Now, this curling of the leaf, on the other hand, tells you that this is a si…'

Starsunder paused in mid-word and straightened up suddenly, almost knocking his head against Umbregard's. The human mage stumbled hastily back out of the way as the elf threw out his hands.

Still standing dramatically stiff with his arms spread, the moon elf threw back his head and opened his mouth as if trying to taste the sky.

Silence fell. Umbregard watched his statuelike friend for what seemed like a very long time before he dared to ask, 'Starsunder?'

'You expect someone else to jump into this body just because I stop moving?' came the mild reproof, as Star-sunder turned his head, spun around, and took hold of Umbregard's arm all in one smooth motion. 'Do you know of some body snatching, wizardly peril I'm unaware of?'

'W-where are we going?' Umbregard asked in lieu of a reply, as the slender moon elf practically dragged him around and between trees, dark green half cloak swirling.

'Where we're needed, and urgently,' Starsunder said almost absently, urging the human he was towing into a trot.

'And where…' Umbregard was puffing now, even though they were descending a fern-covered slope rather than climbing,'…might that be?'

'In a forest almost as old as this one, across an arm of the sea,' Starsunder replied, his voice as calm and his breathing as steady as if he'd been lounging at ease on a giant leaf rather than racing through the woods, leaping fallen trees and roots, and swinging around forest giants. 'No place that humans remember a name for.'

'Why?' Umbregard almost shouted, sprinting as fast as he ever had in all his life, with the slim elf still half astride faster than he and threatening to drag his arm out of its socket.

'Trees are burning,' Starsunder told him with a frown, 'suddenly, as if struck by lightning or firestorm, where there's no storm in the sky to do such harm… and here we are!'

They plunged between two shadowtop trees that seemed perfectly matched, growing not three feet apart… and somewhere in the gloom between a blue haze plucked them and hurled them far away.

Umbregard's next step was in a different forest…one more dry and empty of calling birds and rustling animals. He gaped and tried to look behind him, but at that moment Starsunder let go of his arm and took hold of his chin. Staring into Umbregard's eyes from inches away, the moon elf murmured, 'Make no unnecessary noise, and don't call out to anyone you see … even if they're old friends. Hmmm, especially if they're old friends.'

'Why?' Umbregard asked, almost despairingly, why had he bothered to learn to speak any other word but 'why'?

'You'll live longer,' Starsunder said, laying two gentle fingers across the human mage's lips. 'That's why.'

The Phoenix Tower was dark and cool and lonely. With his fortress ringed by thick thorns, jagged rubble, and a break- neck chasm dug by his golems literally as they were falling apart, Tenthar felt secure from intrusion by all save the most persistent adventurers. If any such came calling, he'd just have to be very good at hiding … or dying.

The Archmage of the Phoenix Tower had long ago passed beyond loneliness into boredom…after all, how often can one read old and familiar spellbooks that one dare not try any castings out of? He was tired of trudging down to the cellars in the dark to gobble mushrooms like some sort of tomb beast. For that matter, he was tired of trudging everywhere rather than flying… and never leaving the Tower.

All he'd seen of Faerun these last rides was the view his windows commanded. He lived from dawn to dusk, not daring to frivolously use any of the eight precious candle ends he'd found…he, Tenthar Taerhamoos, who was used to conjuring light as needed, almost without thinking. A light after dark might attract the attention of adventurers or hungry beasts that someone was in the shuttered tower. Not two days ago he'd slammed and bolted the shutters just in time. He'd spent most of the rest of the day crouched behind them, dry-mouthed in fear, listening to an angry peryton flap and slash with its horns at the old wood that he hoped would hold fast.

And if such foes got into the Tower, what could he do? He had no particular strength or skill at arms, and his spells failed him all the time, now…or at least, whenever he didn't bolster them with the precious power of his medallion, which was growing more feeble with each use.

He'd called on it too often in the early days of this spell-chaos, when he'd been frantic to find out what was happening, and why. Now he was just sitting in the endless gloom waiting for magic to obey him once more… or someone to force their way into the Phoenix Tower and kill him.

Each morning Tenthar went down into the under-pantry, cast a simple spell from his memory, and grimly watched it turn the stone walls purple or make them start to melt or be goaded into a mad display of sprouting