their servants at the magefair are unknown to me.' He grinned suddenly. 'Suspect everyone, as usual, and ye should do all right.'
'What is this key we seek?' Storm asked, 'and why is it so valuable?'
Elminster shrugged. 'It's precious only because of what it opens. Its form and purpose ye'11 learn soon enough- which is another way of saying I scarce remember what it looks like and haven't the faintest idea why, after so many years, its importance has risen so suddenly and sharply.' He cast a dry look at her and added, 'Mysterious enough for ye?'
Storm replied with a look that had, over the years, plunged more than one man into icy fear.
Unperturbed, the Old Mage smiled at her as they rode up the heather-clad slope of another ridge. 'Sorry, my dear, but I got quite a lecture last time-from thee, as I recall- on speaking freely about all sorts of little details that should be kept secret in matters like this, so I'm flapping my jaws as little as I can this time around and acting as if only I know the great secret upon which the safety of the entire world rests-oh, there I go. Ye see, I just can't help myself. Tis so hard to do all this intrigue and world-saving with grim and solemn seriousness when ye've done it so often down the centuries. Now, where was I? Ah, yes-'
There were worse fates, Storm reminded herself with an inward smile, than traveling across half of Faerun with Elminster. To buoy her spirits, she spent some time trying to remember what some of them were.
That dark reverie took them across several scrub-covered ridges, to the lip of a deep, bowl-shaped valley. A narrow trail wound down into it from somewhere on their right, crossing in front of them to enter a grove of trees. The trees hid the rest of the valley from the two riders.
It was then that a man in rich purple robes sailed into view. Floated would be a more accurate term, since he perched serenely on a carpet that undulated through the air like an eager snake, following the narrow trail far below. And as the bard and wizard watched, the man on the flying carpet sailed into the trees. Their leaves promptly changed color from their former green to a bright coppery hue, and several voices could be heard, raised in cries of praise of the new arrival.
They had obviously reached the magefair.
Far off, on the heights that rose on the other side of the still-unseen valley, Storm saw balls of fire bursting in the air. Elminster followed the direction of her stare and said, 'Ah, yes-the fireball-throwing contest, d'ye see? Mage-lings get all excited about it… something about impressing their peers. No doubt we'll end up there all too soon. They're allowed to challenge us older dweomercrafters, ye see, to prove their manly mettles by beating feeble dodderers. Er, womanly mettles too, mark ye, though many maids have sense enough to avoid such vulgar displays of power.'
Storm raised an eyebrow. 'How does one fireball impress more than another? As the saying goes, aren't all that hit you the same?'
The Old Mage shook his head patiently. 'If a few words of the incantation are changed, the spell becomes more difficult to cast and the size and force of its blast mirrors the power and experience of the one throwing it. One wizard can boast that his is bigger than that of the next wizard, y'see. An archmage's firesphere can be quite impressive.'
He paused meaningfully, then added, 'I mean to get in and get out of the fair, mind ye, with a minimum of dallying. Tossing fire about is more a sport for the green and foolish. Try not to seek out trouble by challenging anyone. Stay close and speak not. It's safer.'
And with these melodramatic words the Old Mage kicked his heels and sent his horse galloping down the steep track in reckless haste, raising dust. At the bottom, Elminster plunged his mount into a crowd of laughing, chatting mages. Storm, close on his heels, had time for one stare before she entered the assembled mages.
The gorge was full of folk standing shoulder to shoulder. Their robes formed a moving sea of wild colors, and the chatter was nearly deafening. There were men and women of all shapes, ages, and sizes-and a few whose gender the bard wasn't sure of. Traditional dark, flowing, wide-sleeved robes were amply in evidence, but most of the mages wore stranger, more colorful garments. Storm, who had seen much in the way of garb over many years of wandering, stared in wonder. It is widely held in Faerun-among non-mages, at least-that those who work Art are all, in varying degrees, crazy. In eccentricity of dress, Storm saw, this was certainly correct.
All manner of strange headpieces and body adornments bristled and sprouted around her, shimmering and sparkling and in some cases shifting shape in fluid movements. One lady mage wore nothing but a gigantic, many- feathered snake, which moved its slow coils continuously around her lithe body. A man nearby seemed clad only in dancing flames. The wizard he was speaking to wore a shifting, phosphorescent fungus, out of which grew small leafy ferns and thistles. Next to them stood a half-elven maiden clad in a flowing gown of gleaming, soft-polished gems strung upon many silken threads. She was arguing with a long-haired dwarf wearing furs and leather upon which a pair of insect-eating lizards crawled ceaselessly, long tongues darting. A snatch of their conversation came to Storm's ears:
'Well, what did the Thayan do then?'
'Blew up the entire castle, of course. What else?'
Other voices crowded in, drowning out the previous speakers. 'What was that?
'She was bored, I guess. You should have seen the prince's face the next morning. She made a dozen tiny red hands appear out of thin air and pinch him in all the places he had pinched her… in front of all the court, too!'
Elminster was riding steadily through the throng. He seemed to know where he was going. Storm followed, past a man who was balancing a full bottle of something dark and red on his large nose and protesting in muffled tones to those watching that he wasn't using any magic to help him. She looked away just before the bottle toppled and spilled all over him, but could not resist looking back at the damp result. She was careful not to smile.
'How many times must I tell thee?
Storm shook her head, trying to concentrate on Elminster and ignore such talk. A terrific din of conversation, strange music, humming, and weird little popping noises raged over the crowd. Wizards gestured to impress those they were speaking with, and varicolored smokes and many-hued globes of radiance obediently bobbed or writhed in the air over their heads. Enspelled birds sang complicated melodies, and some flew graceful aerial ballets. Storm peered this way and that, trying to see everything, watching for danger.
Everywhere folk stood talking, arguing, laughing, or dickering, with goblets and flagons of varying sizes and contents in their hands, or floating handily in midair at their elbows. Some sort of rule, Storm guessed, kept the mages themselves from flying, floating, or teleporting about. Mostly they just stood in groups, talking. Storm threaded her mount carefully among them. Three olive-hued tentacles slid out from under a mage's hood as she passed. Small, glittering eyes opened at their ends, surveyed her, and winked. She tried not to show her involuntary shudder as she rode on, past a man with bright green hair and beard who was juggling a ring of hand-sized balls of fire in the air. The lady mage he was trying to impress was in the act of stifling a yawn.
The next group was made up of old and wrinkled crones with cold dark eyes and sinister-looking black robes. They were chuckling and swigging beer from clear glass tankards that didn't seem to empty. 'First babe I ever saw that was born with wings,' one was saying delightedly. 'Flew around the nursery,
Storm left the women behind, riding across a little open space where rising smoke and ashes suggested someone had experienced a warm and possibly fatal accident very recently. Beyond it, she plunged into the chatter once again.
'You must understand, old friend, that taking the shape of a dragon is an experience that changes one forever-forever, I tell you!' A mage in florid pink and purple, lace at his wrists and throat, was underscoring this point by flicking a long, forked tongue at the mage he was speaking to-a wizardess with white, furry hair running down her arms and the backs of her hands. Her skin was a deeper purple than the garb of the wizard speaking to her. Her reply to his claims about dragonshaping was an eloquent snort.
Then Storm was threading her way past six enchantingly beautiful half-elven sorceresses, whose heads were bent together in low-voiced intrigue. One looked up alertly, only to relax and give the bard a relieved smile. The others, intent on deal-making, never saw her.
'Well, just change the name and the way you cast it, and he'll never know. I mean, anyone could have come up with a spell like that. Teach it to me, and I'll not tell where I got it. In return, I'll show you that trick of
