swordcaptain hangs ye from yonder tree for it, if ye're foolish enough to go through with this nonsense!'
'Be still!' the Keeper of the Fastness thundered. 'You have no right to speak here! Y-'
'Ye're wrong, Ramthar,' Elminster said in a voice of cold iron. 'All folk of Faerun should have the right to speak as they please, anywhere. 'Tis not the duty Eldath laid upon thee to forbid speech, or anything else. Thy task is to nurture and aid, not to restrict or punish. Ye forget thy proper place.'
'You dare-?' Ramtharage was purple now and struggling for words. 'I-silence him!' Struck by this sudden thought, he leaned forward and told the faithful, 'Silence him! Strike him down!'
Angry voices rose in agreement, and fists waved in the air, but no one near the archmage quite dared to leap up and lay a hand on his booted feet. They had all heard tales of the might of the Old Mage of Shadowdale.
'Bring him down with stones!' Ramtharage snarled, waving his fist in the air. 'Strike him down with boughs! Strike for our sacred Lady's sal-'
This has gone far enough,' Elminster said quietly, but his next words rolled around the Fastness with the force and volume of a thunderclap. 'Let this madness be at an end!'
He waved one bony hand, and stillness came again to the clearing, the utter stillness of the magically bound. Elminster looked around at the crowd, frozen in midmovement, only their eyes and lungs free to move… and they looked helplessly back at him. Then he turned slowly, treading air, to squint at the priest who held the knife raised and ready. Elminster shook his head in disgust.
'Ye wouldn't listen to them,' El told Ramtharage, 'and ye wouldn't listen to me. Who would ye believe, if they told ye flat out in words even ye, Ramtharage Druin, can understand, that ye were wrong? Who would ye heed?' He touched the priest's lips with a finger. 'Speak.'
'The Goddess herself speaks to me,' Ramtharage told him proudly, 'and I will hear the counsel of no other.'
'Right,' Elminster said briskly. 'Thankee.' He stepped back and turned to face the crowd. 'Ye all heard the solemn words of the Keeper of the Fastness, I trust?'
They struggled to reply, and could not. In their enforced silence, they stood and listened to the old wizard chant something long and low and full of words that echoed strangely and yet seemed to clang and slither upon the ear. And then Elminster stretched his arms wide and brought the chant to an end.
Two women appeared, one by each of his outstretched hands. One was tall and shapely yet robust, clad in leathers like the three pinioned rangers. Her garb was of muted green and brown, and her russet hair curled long and free. Her eyes were large and of the deepest brown, and when she moved, she drew the eye of every man there.
The other woman was as tall and as shapely, but thin, and her hair seemed like spun glass or flowing ice-the tresses of a ghost, that one could see through. She stood still and at peace. Her eyes were of the deepest green, and she wore green silks that did not hide what lay beneath them, yet she brought awe and stillness upon those who looked at her.
She nodded gravely to Elminster and then to the other lady, who smiled back at her. Then the lady in leathers walked on air to where Ramtharage stood frozen. When she moved, it was with the surge of the leaping buck and the casual grace of the prowling panther.
'Do you know me, Ramthar?' The voice was low, even purring. The priest trembled, sighed, and spoke. 'N- no, Lady,' he husked, and licked dry lips. She stretched forth a long finger and touched him.
Sweat broke out upon his brow in a flood and washed down his cheeks. 'I am Mielikki, and I tell you truly, diligent priest, that you err in this. I call upon you to free the men you have thought to sacrifice.'
'Uh… ah… I do not worship thee, Lady,' the Keeper of the Fastness managed to say, almost gabbling in terror. Then he whimpered at the flash of her eyes, and flung up his hands as if to ward off a blow.
The Lady merely curled her lip and drew back from him, turning her head. 'Datha?'
The other apparition nodded and stepped forward. 'But you do worship me, Ramtharage Druin… do you not?'
'M-myLady?'
'I am Eldath,' she said gently, 'and you have done me much honor down the years. Will you deny me now?'
'No! Ah, no, divine Lady…'
'Then do as I bid. Free those men and apologize to them for what you intended. Then go forth in the world and tell all who care that Eldath and Mielikki are friends and sisters, now and forevermore.' She looked deep into his eyes and touched him with a finger. 'Will you do this?'
Ramtharage shuddered and closed his eyes for an instant, then seemed to see the knife in his hand for the first time. He flung it away in disgust and went to his knees in the air. 'Oh, Lady, I will!'
Eldath smiled almost impishly. 'Good. That's settled, then.' She turned briskly and embraced Mielikki, and they both turned and shook hands with Elminster before Ramtharage's dumbfounded eyes.
'This was well done, mage,' Eldath said, and Mielikki reached out and tousled the wizard's long but thinning white hair.
'Thanks,' Elminster said dryly, bowing his head to hide his grin. He was still doing that when the air swirled like stars around him, and the sudden hubbub of movement and sound told him that the goddesses had gone, and banished all bindings in the Fastness in their going.
The Old Mage and the Keeper thumped unceremoniously to the ground in unison and looked at each other. Around them shouts and sobs and excited talk rose and swelled.
'Well,' Elminster asked wearily. 'Do ye believe now?'
'I… I do,' Ramthar told him, and there were tears in the priest's eyes. 'I came so close… to such a grievous mis-'
'But ye see that, and didn't do the thing,' Elminster told him briskly. 'Good. About time. Now stop pontificating, free these very patient men'-he grinned up at the three pinioned rangers, who grinned happily back-'and go do something useful.' The Old Mage whirled around to point at the pool. 'Ye can clean up Eldath's Water, for a start.'
'The Fastness, you mean,' Ramtharage corrected him, almost happily.
'Lad, 'twas Eldath's Water nigh a century ago, when I first bathed in it,' Elminster told him gruffly. As the priest stiffened in dawning indignation, the Old Mage waved a cheery hand and vanished, leaving them all staring at the empty air where he'd been.
'Gods!' the youngest ranger gasped. 'He summoned Our Lady-two goddesses, no less-just for us!'
'That, lad,' said the grimy, sweat-soaked ranger beside him, 'is why all Faerun needs Elminster of Shadowdale. He aids us, great and small, one at a time. All the gods keep him from harm, I say.'
The third ranger chuckled. 'By some of the things I hear he's pulled, down the years, I don't doubt they do. More'n that-I'll bet you the task keeps them right busy, some nights!'
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 19
The shadows seemed to drift more slowly at night, sliding with stately grace around the three sleeping Harpers. They lay sprawled on the floating silks and cushions Amdramnar had provided, outflung hands and feet just touching each other for reassurance. By the frowns on their faces and their shifting movements and murmurs, it seemed that such reassurance was very much needed.
Over them all hung the blue blade, humming its quiet, endless song, and the questing shadows parted around it as they came. Otherwise, all was quiet.
Until the wall not far from Itharr's feet melted away with the faintest of sighs to reveal a dark figure beyond.
It stood motionless, watching, for a long, patient time before it stepped into the chamber. Catlike, long tailed, tentacled, and with broad, soundless soft pads for feet, yet it was somehow recognizably Amdramnar.
It did not go far, and eyed the sword warily as it padded forward to stand by Itharr's head. There it halted, looking down.
And then, with infinite slowness, its shape began to shift. The tail and tentacles drew in, reabsorbed by the body, whose catlike bulk grew lighter in hue and less furry before straightening toward an upright stance. With each passing moment it grew more and more like Itharr's sprawled, hairy, comfortably naked form.
Soon all that could be deemed different in the standing, silently shifting figure were eyes that gleamed
