in one such room Elminster was astonished to find a long table surrounded by mindless, feebly fumbling male drow whose robes, enchanted rings, and wands suggested they were wizards of some sort. Laid out upon the table were spellbooks.
El peered at this rune-adorned page and that, feeling the silver fire roiling within him; more, now, than he could comfortably carry. He could hurl it forth at foes, aye. If he did not, it would leak slowly away in his wake … or he could make use of it as he’d done a time or two before in his a thousand-some summers. Expend a trifle here and a trifle there, to brand particular spells from these pages before him into his mind for a good long time. Forever, if no silver fire burned them away again. Making them magics he could henceforth cast by silent force of will alone. Only a few, for each one he branded into his sentience stunted and constricted it. He must choose carefully.
El coiled around the fallen priestess who’d been guarding the room of the tomes. A tall, sleek drow-or would have been were she not sprawled in her own drool all over the scuttling-spider-crowded stone floor of a citadel passage. Her arms and legs were flung wide, spiders biting them as if avenging years of slights.
Aye, and that was another concern; any of these myriad fist-sized and smaller arachnids might be eyes and ears for the Queen of Spiders. El had no desire to fight scores upon scores of ruthless spider priestesses or the minions they could command, or earn the furious attention of an insane and rapacious goddess best dealt with when a restored and whole Mystra stood at his back.
“Yes, Mother,” El answered Symrustar mockingly. He was rewarded by a mental image of her giving him a witheringly scornful look, her face looming up so suddenly in his mind that he flinched. And promptly felt the warm flare of her satisfaction.
“Not
El hovered before the beautiful but alarmingly slack face of the priestess-then plunged down into her open mouth, seeking the nasal passages to drive up to storm and occupy the dark, hopefully empty mind.
He was in! And it was empty; he was falling, plunging into unknown depths, rolling …
There followed a few moments of whirling, sickening disorientation, a seemingly longer time of feeling queasily “not right” … and then the body was his, moving fingers then legs at his command, rolling over-and up, as lithely as he’d done in his youth on the rooftops of long-vanished Athalantar.
He had a body once more!
“Lady,” he asked aloud, the words coming out as a deep squawk at first, ere settling into a softer, higher- pitched echo of his former voice, “are ye still with me?”
Oh
“Ah, lass, this is in no sense an attempt to be rid of ye-but if taking a body is this easy, it occurs to me that ye could have one, too, with my help, and take back thy fire and live on!”
The reply, from the back of his mind, was slow in coming.
“Lady, I’ve no such intentions, I assure ye! I-”
“I-aye, ye have the right of it. The spellbooks …”
Elminster hurried, clawing through the keys he found on his new body’s belt with long, deft, able fingers. This shapely, graceful, and pain-free body was clad in diaphanous robes of a hue he hated, and covered with hrasted spider badges! Impatiently he tore at the cloth.
“Lady,” he growled aloud-it came out as an angry purr-“ye’re
The sudden fiery determination in the voice in his mind almost scorched him.
Touched, El found himself on the verge of tears-larger, oilier tears than any of his human bodies had wept. He sniffled.
“Yes, dear,” he replied mockingly. There was silence for a moment in the back of his mind, then the delicious thrill of a feminine chuckle.
How many Chosen had paid with their lives, down all the long years? Do we mean so little to Mystra?
El rushed to the books, silver fire rising into his mind. He must be careful not to let it leak out of his fingertips and damage spells he might want.
He must be careful, too, to choose those magics wisely. Yet he must hasten.
El growled again.
Aye, that purr
CHAPTER FOUR
A small, high-flying cloud of mist crossed the great green sward of pastureland, rushing south for the stout walls of soaring-towered Suzail. Never sundered or driven aside, even by the strongest breezes, the mist headed straight for the capital of Cormyr, taking care to stay higher than any Purple Dragon bowman would trust his eye, and to seem mere wild wisps rather than anything manlike in shape.
The half-ruined mansion of Dardulkyn wasn’t much of a welcoming familiar hearth. Nevertheless, the mist was heading home.
One day soon, of course, this would all be his: every chase and pasture, every palace and high mansion and hovel.
Yes, soon. The nobles were aching for a chance to take out swords and have at each other-the moment they’d finished butchering every hated courtier and the decadent, far-fallen ruling Obarskyrs. Divided, sick of old ways, and hungry for blood, they would be the toys of Manshoon.
A Manshoon none could gainsay. The Netherese postured and sneered from on high, yet were so weak they must needs skulk to power in Sembia and elsewhere, taking command like thieves where truly mighty mages would boldly declare themselves and blast down all defiance.
The Simbul might have fleetingly recaptured her sanity, but she was so feeble that she had to pretend to speak for a dead goddess, and wanted Manshoon-as well as her tamed lapdog Elminster-to pilfer enchanted baubles for her.
Hah. Manshoon the Mighty had no need of magic items. Manshoon need never trifle with them again. Manshoon-
