He stood for a moment at attention-then took two quick steps, bent down, and carefully pushed the cheese into the mouse's hole, in case he was called away to fight for Aglarond and came not back to his post. Ever.
***
[images flaring bright]
***
The crawling, ever-changing flame runes of the last page challenged her, silent and yet somehow mocking.
Laeral Rythkyn, called 'Laeral of Loudwater' to keep her disentangled from the Laeral who was Lady Mage of Waterdeep, had been working through the crumbling tome with her usual patience. Her excitement grew with every passing day and each new page. Patience and care had made her one of the youngest mages of power in the North. Patience and care made her methodically read, practice, master, and improve on every spell in the book.
Each page of the tome held a single spell-all of them unfamiliar, useful, and quirky in components, phrases or casting. They felt
As she'd gone through the thick book, each spell had been more powerful than the last. The last page of all was written in flame-red, spell-cloaked runes that shifted slowly when gazed upon, indecipherable and beckoning. They must hold a special spell indeed.
[growl]
***
The spellbook had lain in a shattered tomb in the cellars beneath Everlund for at least an age. Laeral had found it while helping Harper friends destroy wraiths in those dark, cobwebbed ways. It had sat neglected on a table in her study all winter.
Laeral had been busy training her apprentice, Blaskyn, to master the smiting spells that made a sorcerer a power to be reckoned with. Blaskyn had done well, showing promise in devising his own incantations and adding his own twists. Soon he'd be ready to walk his own way in the Realms. Wherefore Laeral had set him the necessary tasks of practicing precision in casting and creating a new spell all his own.
Meanwhile, she took up the book to further her own studies.
[images wearily unfolding]
***
Laeral stared at the runes for perhaps the fortieth time that day, frowning a little, teeth gnawing thoughtfully at one side of her lip. Blaskyn had said they looked like little leaping flames, these runes, and so they did- hrnmm. In one long, lithe stretch, Laeral leaned over the purring cat beside her and plucked a small, battered handbook from a shelf. She sought a cantrip from her own days as an apprentice.
There it was. A simple little trick of Art, known to half a hundred wizards this side of Waterdeep. It shaped flame to form illusions or words if one had a candle, campfire, or torch to work with. Laeral hissed gently in excitement, slid a certain protective ring on her finger, and worked the cantrip, bending her will upon the page.
The runes slowed to a lazy crawl, seemed to freeze for a moment, and then flowed slowly into clear, unwavering clarity. They were in Thorass, Auld Common, with its flutings and grand swirls, and read:
Laeral's lips twisted. A labored rhyme, to say the least, one she'd come across several times before in lore books and libraries of the North. This was the oldest instance yet, though, and the only concealed one. Moreover, it had a codicil she'd never seen before: two lines of detailed directions to the throne. It was apparently in a tower in the High Forest somewhere near Alander, the Lost Peaks.
Well enough. It was high time to go adventuring again.
[growl, slap, wry diabolic smile]
'At least tell me where you're going,' Blaskyn said, showing her his easy grin. 'Then I'll know where to look for you if Elminster the Mighty or some king or other comes calling.'
Laeral smiled back at the eager mageling, then shrugged, Judging by his past behavior, the prettier lasses of Loudwater would have more to worry about while she was gone than she need trouble about the safety of the magic in her tower.
She smiled at herself. Save for her Art, she was one of those young local lasses. And pretty, too, if the words of some could be believed.
Well, she'd trusted Blaskyn enough these past years, and nothing ill had come of it.
'I go chasing legends, Master Blaskyn.'
'As always,' he said, bowing like a courtier of Silvery-moon.
Laeral wrinkled her nose at him. 'I seek Thalon's Throne-a stone seat said to have been fashioned by the archmage Thalon, in the days before Myth Drannor rose.'
'Any wizard who sits upon the seat overnight will acquire mastery of wizardry greater than any living mage,' Blaskyn quoted in a singsong voice. 'I've read that in four different places in your books here alone!'
He cocked his head at her. 'With all the folk who must have read about the throne down the years, you think there's still anything there?'
Laeral shrugged again. 'To be a mage, one must be a seeker after knowledge.' She quoted the old maxim mildly.
Blaskyn sighed. 'It would seem a wizard can use that phrase to cover any amount of nose-poking into other's affairs,' he said, innocently addressing the ceiling.
