The Temptation of Elminster

There were several sputters of mirth from the merchants crowded at the doorway, the wizard regarded them all with cold scorn, and said softly, 'I weary of these insults. If you are not gone from my halls by the time I finish the Ghost Chant, the talons of my guardian ghosts shall…'

'Lady Faeya,' Hulder Phelbellow asked, 'has he not seen the documents?'

'Of course, Goodsir Phelbellow,' the lady in green said in musical tones. Favoring them all with a smile, she stepped from her lord and drew forth a strip of folded vellum, 'and he's signed them, too.'

She proffered them to Phelbellow, who unfolded them eagerly, the men behind him crowding around to see.

The Lord of Spells gaped at the paper and the merchants, then at Faeya. 'W-what befalls here?' he gasped.

'A sensible necessity, my lord,' she replied sweetly. 'I'm so glad you saw the good sense in signing it. A most handsome offer…enough to allow you to retire from your castings entirely, if you desire.'

'I signed nothing,' Arunder gasped, white-faced.

'Oh, but you did, lord…and so ardently, too,' she replied, eyes dancing. 'Have you forgotten? You remarked at the time upon the hardness and flatness of my belly that made your penmanship such ease. You signed it with quite a flourish, as I recall.'

Arunder stiffened. 'But … that was…'

'Base trickery?' one of the merchants chuckled. 'Ah, well done, Faeya!'

Someone else barked with laughter, and a third someone contributed a murmur of, 'That's rich, that is.'

'Apprentice,' the Lord of Spells whispered savagely, ' what have you done?

The Lady Faeya drew three swift paces away from him, into the heart of the merchants, who melted aside to make way for her like mist before flame, and turned back to face him, placing her hands on her hips.

'Among other things, Thessamel,' she told him softly, 'I've slain two men this last tenday, who came to settle old scores since your spells failed you…and word spread of it.'

'Faeya! Are you mad? Telling these…'

'They know, Thess, they know,' his lady told him with cold scorn. 'The whole town knows. Every mage has his hands full of wild spells, not just you. If you paid one whit of attention to Faerun outside your window, you'd know that already.'

The Lord of Spells had turned as pale as old bones and was gaping at her, mouth working like a fish gasping out of water. Everyone waited for him to find his voice again, it took quite a while.

'But… your spells still work, then?' he managed to ask, at last.

'Not a one,' she said flatly. 'I killed them with this.' She drew forth the tiny dagger from its sheath at her hip, then threw back her left sleeve to lay bare a long, angry-looking line of pine gum and wrapped linens. 'That's how I got this.'

'Were these merchants also coming to…to…?' Arunder asked faintly, swaying back on his heels. His hands were trembling like those of a sick old man.

'I went to them,' Faeya told him in biting tones, 'to beg them to make again the offer you so charmingly refused two months ago. They were good enough to oblige, when they could well have set their dogs on me: the apprentice of the man who turned three of them into pigs for a night.'

There were angry murmurs of remembrance and agreement from among the merchants around her. Arunder stepped back and raised a hand to cast a spell out of sheer habit…before dropping it with a look of sick despair.

His lady drew herself up and said more calmly, 'So now the deal's done. Your tower and all these lands, from high noon today henceforth, belong to this cabal of merchants, to use as they see fit.'

'And-and what happens to me? Gods, woma…'

Faeya held up a hand, and the wizard's ineffectual gibbering ended as if cut off by a knife. Someone chuckled at that.

'We, my lord, are free to live unmolested in the South Spire, casting spells…so long as they harm or work ill upon no one upon this holding…as much as we desire … or are able to. You, Thess, receive two hundred thousand gold pieces…that's why all of these good men are here…all the firewood we require, and a dozen deer a year, prepared for the table.'

Without a word, Hulder Phelbellow laid a sack upon the side table. It landed with the heavy clink of coins. Whaendel the butcher followed him, then, one by one, all of the others, the sacks building up until they were reaching up the wall, atop a table that creaked in protest.

Arunder's eyes bulged. 'But… you can't have gold enough, none of you!'

His lady rejoined him in a graceful green shifting, and laid a comforting hand on his arm. 'They have a backer, Thess. Now thank them politely. We've some packing to do…or you will be wearing my gowns.'

'I–I…'

Her hitherto gentle hand thrust hard into his ribs.

'My lords,' Arunder gulped, 'I don't know how to thank you…'

'Thessamel,' Phelbellow said genially, 'you just did. Have our thanks, too…and fare thee well in the South Spire, eh?'

Arunder was still gulping as the merchants filed out, chuckling. The noises he was making turned to whimpers, however, when their withdrawal revealed the man who'd been sitting calmly behind them all the while, the faint glow of deadly magics playing along the naked broadsword that was laid across his knees. That blade was in the capable grasp of the large and hairy hands of the famous warrior Barundryn Harbright, whose smile, as he rose and looked straight into the wizard's eyes, was a wintry thing. 'So we meet again, Arunder'

'You…!' the wizard's snarl was venomous.

'You're my tenant now, mage, so spare me the usual hissed curses and spittle. If you anger me enough, I'll take you under my arm down to the stream where the little ones play, and spank your behind until it's as red as a radish. I'm told that won't hamper your spellcasting one bit.' One large, blunt-fingered hand waved casually through the air past Arunder's nose.

The wizard blinked in alarm. 'What? Who…?'.

'Told me so?' Harbright lifted his chin in a fond smile that was directed past Arunder's shoulder.

The Lord of Spells whirled around in time to see Faeya's catlike smile drifting out the door they'd come in by, together. The rest of her accompanied it, a vision in forest green.

Lord Thessamel Arunder moaned, swayed on his feet, and turned, on the verge of tears of rage, to run away from it all…only to come to an abrupt halt, with a squeak of real alarm, as he found himself about to run right into the edge of Harbright's glowing blade.

His eyes rose, slowly and unwillingly, from the steel that barred his way to the huge and hulking warrior who held it. There was something like pity in Barundryn Harbright's eyes as he rumbled, 'Why are wizards, with all their wits, so slow to learn life's lessons?'

The blade swept down and away, seeking its sheath, and a large and steadying hand came down on the wizard's shaking shoulder. 'Mages tend to live longer, Arunder,' Harbright said gently, 'if they manage to resist their most attractive temptations.'

The Sharrans were beginning to sweat now, from the sheer strain of aiming and holding steady as the Art they wielded punched aside old stones and earth, to lay open a fortress and slay the beings below. Elryn watched Femter wince and shake the smoking fragments of a ring off one finger, as Hrelgrath tossed aside his third wand and Daluth slid one failing scepter back into his belt.

'Enough,' Elryn bellowed, waving his hands. 'Enough, Dreadspells of Shar!' Something had to be saved in case they met with other foes this day…or, gods above, there was someone still alive down there.

The priests-turned-wizards turned their heads in the sudden peace to blink at him, almost as if they'd forgotten who and where they were.

'We have a holy task, Dark Brothers,' Elryn reminded them, letting them hear the regret in his voice, 'and it is not melting away earth and stone in a forgotten ruin in the heart of a forest. Our quarry is the Chosen, how fares he?'

Three heads peered at roiling dust. All five looked down the shaft where they'd begun, where the dust was but a few flowing tongues. There was rubble down there, and…