adorned with a long beard and blue eyes that held the wisdom of ages. It belonged to a man who wore simple, worn robes. His hands were empty, and he looked down at her with something-admiration? sympathy? cynical amusement? — flickering in his eyes.
'Take the crown off now, Lady of Dusklake,' this stranger said curtly, 'before it's too late.'
Aerindel looked up at him, too weak and weary to care how she looked, or how he knew her name. 'Does any mage fighting for her land and herself throw away her best weapon?' she spat wearily, wanting to be alone in her misery, wandering in the welcoming mists.
'Aerindel, do ye want to end up as thy father did?' the stranger asked gravely.
Aerindel felt anger kindling in her. Why did everyone in Faerun know all about the fate of Thabras Stormstaff except her?
'Who are you?' she snapped, eyes flashing. 'How is it you know of my father?'
The bearded face bent closer; the man was kneeling beside her. 'I trained him in the ways of magic, and made him what he became.'
He looked across the pass at High Glimmerdown for a moment, and then down at her again and added softly, 'And so, I suppose, am responsible for his doom. I am called Elminster.'
'Elminster,' she repeated huskily. Suddenly, fresh energy surged through her, and the crown whispered inside her head, Destroy this one. His magic is strong, very strong. He is a danger to us both-and his power is just what I need to smash Tarangar Tower and Rammast with it.
'How?' she asked it, not caring if she spoke the word aloud.
Look at him, and will forth fire, as you did to the soldiers at Dusking… and I'll strike. Keep the flow unbroken, after, so that I can draw his life-force back to us.
Aerindel smiled, slowly, as it was done.
Fire roared forth, and the kneeling man shuddered and flinched back-but it licked only briefly at his robes, seeming to be drawn into his eyes… eyes that darkened and seemed somehow to become larger.
Yessss, the crown hissed in her, and she felt a warm glow of exultation.
Elminster rose and stepped away, and Aerindel turned her head to keep him in view, as the crown had urged her to. There came a sudden, sharp pain in her head, and a shaft of pure rage from the crown that made her gasp and writhe on the stones.
'No, cursed one!' the crown snarled, out of her trembling lips.
Elminster ignored it, raising a hand to slice off the line of flame as if it were a strand of spiderweb. 'Aerindel,' he said urgently, bending near again, 'take off the crown. Please.'
The crown flashed, and Aerindel felt fresh energy flowing into her. The crown urged her to do thus, and so- and she did.
Green lightning flashed forth from her brow, to crackle hungrily up that extended arm, outlining it with writhing flames. Elminster grimaced. Clear annoyance flashed across his face for a moment as he made a brushing-away gesture.
Astonishingly, the green lightning sprang away from him to frail away into the cool night breeze. Aerindel felt annoyance of her own-or rather, it came from the crown, along with more instructions.
She did as she was bid, and a searing white flame burst into being, hurling the bearded man back. He staggered, shoulders shaking as the ravening white fire tore into him.
The Lady of Dusklake suddenly found herself strong enough to stand. She scrambled up, conscious of a glow around her head. The crown flashed ever brighter. She stretched out her hands and lashed Elminster with conjured tentacles that snapped and bit at him like hungry eels with long, barbed jaws.
'Aerindel,' he cried, sounding almost in anguish, 'fight against it! Obey not the crown! Tis a thing that twists its wearers to evil if allowed to command! Ye must order it, not let it enthrall ye!'
'Die, mage, and quickly,' Aerindel hissed back at him. 'All this time, Rammast grows stronger, and the folk in my castle aren't even warned and awake! Die, or leave me be-get you gone!
She lashed him with ropes of twisting fire, spun him around, and hurled him out over the chasm that had been Glimmerdown Pass.
But he did not plummet to his death. Instead, he stood on empty air as if it were solid rock, and pointed at her. 'Aerindel, I charge thee: do off the Whispering Crown-now.1'
'Never!' Aerindel shouted at him, hurling the might of the crown at the rocks they stood upon, tearing them up in long, jagged shards to hurl at the wizard.
Elminster gave her a weary look, and murmured some words. The stony spears turned to dust in the air between them. He said something else, and made a gesture-and Aerindel felt a coldness that seemed to start at her feet and race up and out her throat.
She could do nothing but see straight ahead now, as she quivered upright in midair, but the crown let her see everything: Elminster had transformed her into a long, thin staff of wood, such as a wizard might carry.
Taller than the Stormstaff she was, floating and glowing with a white radiance that tore at the crown. With no head to support it, the circlet fell down the length of her, its frantic whisperings fading, and rang on the stones. Elminster snatched her away from it, strode two swift paces, and let go of her.
The coldness drained away swiftly, and Aerindel was herself once more-standing facing him, panting in fear and fury, the ruins of her gown hanging from bared, moonlit shoulders, her once-beautiful hair a gnawed ruin. She looked older. Her skin hung in wrinkles, mottled here and there. Her eyes were sunken, and her mouth pinched, as if with great age. Even in her rage, her bosom heaving, she was stooped, hunched over with hands that had become the knob-jointed claws of a crone.
'Go away, wizard!' she snarled, eyes like twin flames. 'You've meddled more than enough! I need the crown to defend my land and… myself. Rammast shall get neither, if you'll just stand aside and let me use what Mystra sent me! It was her gift to me!'
'Mystra gives gifts that carry choices,' Elminster told her quietly, his eyes on hers. The crown glimmered on the rocks behind him. 'Each one is a test. No sword is deadly until a hand wields it.'
'Bah!' Aerindel spat. 'I've no time for gentle philosophy, mage! Dusklake is imperiled! Rammast gathers strength even as we stand here arguing! Get out of my way?
Elminster bowed his head and stepped aside. 'The choice must be thine,' he said gravely. 'So long as ye know that the glow upon yonder circlet now means it must drink the life-force of the first magic-using being to don it, or crumble away.'
Aerindel stormed forward, checked herself, shot him a look of anger, and snarled, 'Such words are cheap weapons, wizard-how do I know they're true?'
Elminster shrugged. 'Ye must trust in someone else at some time; why not begin now? If I'm right and ye heed me not, yell die. If ye heed me, I make this pledge: I'll stand beside ye to defend Dusklake against this Rammast, and teach ye enough magic so that ye'll need no crown nor wizardly aid hereafter. What say ye?'
Aerindel's eyes narrowed as she looked at him. Then her face twisted and she tossed what was left of her hair angrily. 'What assurance have I that you'll keep this pledge? I don't know you-your word could be worthless!'
Elminster shrugged. 'So it might. It comes back to trust, doesn't it?'
Aerindel waved her hand at him spurningly as she strode past. 'Enough clever words, wizard! This I know, and have wielded, and can understand!' She bent and snatched up the crown.
'Remember my warning!' the wizard called.
It glowed at her invitingly, pulsing, its cool radiances running up her arms in what were almost caresses. The Whispering Crown gave forth a faint chiming, as of distant bells, and a feeling of warmth and reassurance. Aerindel drank it in, looked at Elminster with a silent challenge in her eyes, and raised the crown to put it on.
'Yesss,' its whispering voice was hissing as she raised it past her face. But then another voice burst from it, desperate and alone, echoing in strident despair.
'Elminster, aid me!'
Her father's cry was louder than before.
Aerindel stared at the crown, hearing it snarl angrily. Under those angry growls the cries of others came faintly to her ears. Those who died wearing it. Its other victims.
'Farewell, Father,' she said, voice trembling. She turned on her heel and threw the Whispering Crown hard and high.
