Elminster Must Die

A gnawing, desperate hunger for the power and skill of their youth. Thanks to a crumbling cache that had once belonged to Azuth, they knew how to take over the bodies of the young and strong. By all the vanished gods, the spell was so simple!

So Elminster was endlessly tempted. To snatch a new body and build a new life … or to die.

It was time and past time for oblivion, and they were so tired of the burdens of the Chosen, but somehow just couldn’t give in to the last, cold embrace. Not yet.

Not after they’d hung on for so long, working here, there, and everywhere to set things right in the Realms. An unending task, to be sure, but there was so much more to do.

And there was no one else they could trust to do it. No one.

Every last entity they’d met since the blue fire had cared only for his- or herself, or couldn’t even see what needed doing.

So Storm and Elminster, agents of the mightiest goddess in the world no longer, went on doing what little they still could-a rumor started here, a rescue or a slaying there … still at the tiller, still steering … the work that had kept them alive the last century.

Someone had to save the Realms.

Why? And who were they to dare such meddlings?

They were the Old Guard, the paltry handful who still saw needs and cared. More than that … even with Mystra and Azuth both gone, someone still whispered in their dreams, telling them to go on sharing their magic among the poor and powerless, and working against evil rulers and all who used magic to harm and oppress.

Yet there was no denying they were growing ever weaker and more weary. It was the fourth time they’d come to the ruins that year, and it was only-what? — the fifth of Mirtul. A warm and early spring, aye, but still-

A hawk stooped suddenly out of the sky, hurtling down at the illusory Elminster.

“Well, at least she’s not a stinking vulture this time,” Storm murmured, finding her feet with her usual swift and long-limbed grace, and ducking hastily away into the trees. “I’ll be back when you light the fire.”

She still moved as quickly as ever; El found himself turning to answer only dancing branches.

So he swallowed his words and shrugged instead. It was good of her to give him time alone with her sister- time that was in short supply these days.

The false Elminster vanished in an instant as talons tore through it.

Then the startled hawk flapped to an awkward landing and stood on the rock blinking, looking a little lost.

The real Elminster swallowed a sigh, pulled the stolen glowing dagger he’d brought with him out of its sheath in the breast of his robes, and crawled out onto the rock as he held the blade out in offering. The feel of the magic would conquer her utterly.

A little meal first, to banish her wildness. When she was herself again, there would be time enough to feed her the gorget and do her longer-lasting good.

A dreadful hunger kindled in the hawk’s golden eyes, and she sprang at him, shrieking as her wings clapped the air.

As her beak closed on the blade of the dagger, the hawk melted and flowed, an eerie swirling of flesh that spun into a filthy, naked crone, wild-eyed and wild-haired, a bony old woman sucking on the weapon like a babe single-mindedly worrying a mother’s teat.

There was a glow in her mouth as she sucked, heedless of the sharp steel-and the dagger melted away. Just as the magic he brought her always did.

She crouched on the rock like a panther, greedy mouth fighting to draw in the hilt, her body becoming larger, stronger, and more curvaceous. Her hair shone; she looked younger …

As she always did. For a little while.

For too many years, his Alassra-the Simbul, the once proud Witch-Queen of Aglarond and the single-handed scourge of Thay, the slave empire ruled by Red Wizards beyond counting-had been a frail husk of her former self. Dwelling alone and wild in the Dales, the Thunder Peaks, and the Hullack, shapechanging into endless guises, usually the shapes of raptors as she lapsed in and out of madness.

Magic always made her intellect and control brighten for a time, so for many seasons Elminster had been making these visits to the lady he loved. Or what was left of her.

Stealing, seizing, and digging out of ruins an endless stream of magic items, he had brought them to the rock, for her to subsume and regain fleeting control over her decaying wits.

The Spellplague had not been a kind thing.

The dagger was gone, its pommel a brief pearl on her tongue that died with the last of the glow. Then her eyes were upon him, and she was in his arms, weeping.

“El, oh, El,” was all she could say between her foul kisses. Her stink almost overwhelmed Elminster as she clung to him, wrapping her limbs around him, running her long fingers over all of him she could reach and clawing at his worn and patched robes to try to reach more of him.

“So lonely!” she gasped, when at last she had to free his mouth so she could breathe. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

She buried her face against his neck as the tears came, managing to gasp, “My love!” through their flood.

Elminster held her both tightly and with great care, as if cradling something very precious and fragile. As she clung to him and writhed against him and tried to bury herself inside him.

“My love,” he murmured tenderly as she started to really sob, her body shaking. It was always thus, and he smiled in anticipation of what she’d say next, knowing she’d not disappoint him.

“Oh, my Elminster,” she hissed fiercely when she had mastered her tears. “I’ve been so lonely!”

“So have I,” he muttered, brushing the silver-haired crown of her head with his lips, “without ye.”

That brought fresh sobs, but they were soon conquered; when her wits were her own, Alassra Silverhand was acutely aware of how precious every moment was. “What … what year is it, and what month?”

“The fifth of Mirtul, of the Ageless One,” Elminster told her gently, knowing her next question before she asked it.

“What’s been happening, while I’ve been … wandering?”

El murmured replies and comforting words of love as he held her in one arm, feeling among his pouches with the other. He fed her some rather squashed grapes from one, then strong and crumbling Aereld cheese from another, and finally the ruined remnants of some utterly crushed little raisin tarts.

“Ahhh, I’ve missed those,” she said, savoring every crumb. Then a look of disgust passed over her face, and she peered around at the droppings and tiny bones strewn all over the rock. “What,” she whispered, “have I been eating?”

“The usual,” El told her soothingly. “Never mind that, my lady. We do what we must.”

She shuddered, but that shudder became a nod. She let out a deep sigh and clung to him, arms tightening. “Oh, I’ve missed you, El. Don’t leave me again.”

“I’ve missed ye, too. Don’t leave me again, Lady mine.”

The slayer of hundreds of Red Wizards smiled thinly through fresh, glimmering tears. “I’m through making promises I can’t keep,” she hissed. Her fingers clawed at him, at his tattered clothing.

Elminster’s chuckle as he drew her back from the rock into the little hollow cloaked in moss was soft and teasing. He almost managed to keep the sadness out of it.

As night came down over the Hullack Forest, Storm turned back into the trees to make another stealthy circle around the stones of Tethgard, one more patrol guarding the couple abed in the moss. As she slipped between the dark trunks like a watchful shadow, she let her face go wry for just a moment.

Alassra had always been the hardest of her sisters to love, though Storm’d worked hard to keep things trusting and not too distant between them. And as long as his beloved Witch-Queen lived, Elminster would treat Storm only as a friend.

She wanted so much more, but neither El nor Alassra would learn that from her. Ever.

She held some measure of power over both of them, if she’d been the sort of worm to seek to wield it. The