The Temptation of Elminster

Never before in the history of this fair realm have so many owed so much to the coffers of the king. Never fear but that he'll come collecting in short order…and his price shall be the lives of his debtors, in some foreign war or other. He'll call it a Crusade or something equally grand … but those who die in Cormyr's colors will be just as dead as if he'd called it a Raid To Pillage, or a Head Collecting Patrol. It is the way of kings to collect in blood. Only archmages can seize such payments more swiftly and recklessly.

Albaertin of Marsember, from A Small But Treasonous Chapbook published in The Year of the Serpent

'Doomtime,' that deep voice boomed in Elminster's head. 'Mind you make the right choices.' Somehow, the Athalantan knew that Azuth was gone, and he was alone in the flood of blue sparks…the flood that he'd thought was Azuth…whirling him over and over and down … to a place of darkness, with a cold stone floor under his bare knees. He was naked, his gown and dagger and countless small items of magery gone somewhere in the whirling.

'Robbed by a god,' he murmured and chuckled. His mirth left no echo behind, but what happened to it as it died away left him thinking he was somewhere underground … somewhere not all that large. His good feeling died soon after his chuckle, Elminster's innards felt…ravaged.

It was damp, and a chill was beginning to creep through him, but El did not rise from his knees. He felt weak and sick, and…when he tried to seek out magic or call up his spells…all of his powers as a Chosen and as a mage seemed to be gone.

He was just a man again, on his knees in a dark chamber somewhere. He knew that he should be despairing, but instead he felt at peace. He had seen far more years than most humans and done…so far as he could judge, at least by his own standards…fairly well. If it was time for death to come to him, so be it.

There were just the usual complaints: was it time for his death? What should he be doing? What was going on? Who was going to stop by and furnish him with answers to his every query…and when?

In all his life, there had only been one source for succor and guidance who wasn't certain to be long dead by now, or entombed and asleep he knew not where.. and that one source was the goddess who made him her Chosen.

'Oh, Mystra, ye've been my lover, my mother, my soul guide, my savior, and my teacher,' Elminster said aloud. 'Please, hear me now.'

He hadn't really intended to pray … or perhaps he had, all along, but just not admitted it to himself. 'I've been honored to serve ye,' he told the listening darkness. 'Ye've given me a splendid life, for which…as is the way of men…I've not thanked thee enough. I am content to face now whatever fate ye deem fitting for me, yet…as is the way of wizards…I wish to tell thee some things first.'

He chuckled, and held up a hand. 'Save thy spells and fury,' he said.' 'Tis only three things.'

Elminster drew in a deep breath. 'The first: thank ye for giving me the life ye have.'

Was something moving in the gloom and shadows beyond where his eyes served him reliably?

He shrugged. What if something was? Alone, unclad, on his knees without magecraft to aid him, if something did approach him, this is how he'd have to greet it, and this was all he had to offer it.

'The second,' El announced calmly. 'Being thy Chosen is really what I want to spend out my days doing.'

Those words echoed, where the darkness had muffled his words before. El frowned, then shrugged again and told the darkness earnestly, 'The third, and most important to me to impart: Lady, I love thee.'

As those words echoed, the darkness disgorged something that did move and reveal itself and loom all too clearly.

Something vast and monstrous and tentacled, slithered leisurely toward him.

'Was it a god?' Vaelam asked, white to the lips. Shrugs and panting were the first answers he got from his fellow Dreadspells, as they lay gasping in the hollow. Scraped and scratched by tree limbs in their run and thoroughly winded, they were only now shedding the heavy cloak of terror.

'God or no god,' Femter muttered, 'anyone who can withstand all we hurled down on his head…and swallow fireballs, for Shar's sake!..is someone I don't want to stand and face in battle.'

'For Shar's sake, indeed, Dread Brother,' someone said almost pleasantly from the far side of the hollow, where the ferns grew tall and they hadn't been yet. Five heads snapped around, eyes widening in alarm…

…and five jaws dropped, the throats beneath them swallowed noisily, and the eyes above them acquired a look of trapped fear.

The masked and cloaked lady floating in the air just above their reach, reclining at her ease on nothing, was all too familiar. 'For there is a Black Flame in the Darkness,' the cruel Overmistress of the Acolytes purred, in formal greeting.

'And it warms us, and its holy name is Shar,' the five priests murmured in a reluctant, despairing chorus.

'You are far from the House of Holy Night, Dread Brothers, and unused to the ways of wizards…all too apt to stray, and in sore need of guidance,' Dread Sister Klalaera observed, her voice a gentle honey of menace. 'Wherefore our most caring and thoughtful Darklady Avroana has sent the House of Holy Night … to you.'

'Hail, Dread Sister,' Dreadspell Elryn said then, managing to keep his voice noncommittal. 'What news?'

'News of the Darklady's deep displeasure at your leadership, most bold Elryn,' the Overmistress said almost jovially, her eyes two spark-adorned flints. 'And of her will: that you cease wandering Faerun at your pleasure and return to the place from whence you so lately fled. Immense power lies there…and Shar means for us to have it. I know you'd not want to fail Most Holy Shar… or disappoint Darklady Avroana. So turn about and return thence, to serve Shar as capably as I know you can. I shall accompany you, to impart the Dark-lady's unfolding will as you return to the mission you were sent here for. Now rise, all of you!'

'Return?' Femter snarled, his hand darting to one of the wands still at his belt. 'To duel with a god? Are you mad, Klalaera?'

The other Dreadspells watched silently, neither rising nor snarling defiance, as something unseen flashed between the Overmistress, at her ease with her head propped on her hand, and Femter Deldrannus, the wand still on its way out of his belt and not yet turned outward to menace anyone.

The priest shrieked and clutched at his head with both hands, hurling the wand away and staggering forward, his limbs trembling.

They watched him spasm and convulse and babble for what seemed like a very long time before Klalaera raised one languid hand and closed it in a casual gesture…and Femter collapsed in mid-word, falling in a sprawled and boneless heap like a dangle-puppet whose string had been cut.

'I can do the same to any of you…and all of you, at once,' the Overmistress drawled. 'Now rise, and return. You fear death at the hands of this 'god' you babble of…well, I can deliver you sure and certain death to set against one that may happen … or may not. Would any of you care to kneel and die here and now…in agony, and in the disfavor of Shar? Or will you show the Flame of Darkness just a little of the obedience she expects from those who profess to worship her?'

As Dread Sister Klalaera uttered these biting words, she descended smoothly to the ground, drawing from her belt the infamous barbed lash with which she disciplined the acolytes in her charge. The Dreadspells turned their faces reluctantly back toward the ruins they'd left so precipitously and began to trudge up out of the hollow… to the serenade of her whip crashing down on the defenseless back of the motionless Femter.

At the lip of the hollow, they turned in unspoken accord to look back…in time to see Femter, head lolling and eyes glazed, rise to his feet in the grip of fell magic and stagger after them, his back mere ribbons of flesh among an insect-buzzing welter of gore, his boots leaving bloody prints at every step. Klalaera shook drops of his dark blood from her saturated lash and gave them a soft smile. 'Keep going,' she said silkily. 'I'll be right behind you.'

Despite the floating menace of the Overmistress behind them, the five Dreadspells slowed cautiously as they climbed the last wooded ridge before the ruins. Blundering ahead blindly could mean swift doom … and a delay could well bring them to a shaft now empty of dangerous mages, leaving the ruins free for scavenging.