Elminster in Hell

I will not have him think that of me, Alustriel thought.

She turned away from the night to face her waiting chambers. Irlar would come to her soon. Irlar the laughing lordling, a sneer bright in his eyes. Irlar, who'd take her to wife not for love-though no doubt he'd force the attentions of love on her, this very night-but for the lands and wealth held in her name. Hers to surrender but not hers to enjoy; her uncle saw to that.

Uncle Thamator. The Wolf, men called him, and dared not meet his eyes when he was in a fury. All knew him for a fearless warrior, matchless in the field, and a bitter man-and all knew him to be a Harper. Alustriel shrank even from the memory of their last meeting. Together in his chambers after a feast, sharing wine-her first taste of such things, amber fire that warmed her throat like spiced sauce-she'd asked him eagerly, i

Thamator fixed her with eyes like colorless glass. "I gave my lady for the Harpers, girl. My lady, and my son not yet born, who died with her. Too many comrades to count have followed them. I've given the Harpers this strong right arm, these thirty winters since. I have given them friends with my sword, too, when it was necessary. What have ye to give them?"

He spoke the last words with biting anger, almost spitting his contempt. She stood silent, shocked, face white-and then red. He saw her mounting color, stared at her deliberately, and went on. "Ye are not a warrior. Ye are pretty, but beauty is not something so rare that it will aid the Harpers. Ye do not believe that one god is the right and true one above others, and ca

The lord of Bluetower strode angrily across the room, and turned to confront her again. "So I paid good coin to see ye made something of a mage. The wizard Thurduil said ye had a way with the power. Eight years! Eight years of coins out of this purse, one handful after another, too

many of them gold-and to show for it? Ye can make a servant sneeze. A prank I can match with a pinch of pepper! No doubt Gaerd has managed to get ye to do some other tricks of the like by now. He's a master; the fault's not with him."

Thamator's eyes were like the points of two sword-blades. "And ye want to know when ye'll be made a Harper," he minced with boiling sarcasm. She couldn't turn from his eyes as he lowered himself into his chair and added with terrible softness, "Get out of my sight for a time. Ye look too much like your mother did to be.saying such idiocy to me." His face twisted briefly in a spasm of pain or regret. A passing shadow left his features as smooth and blank and unyielding as stone.

Alustriel turned and stumbled out, wiping vainly at the tears that streamed down her cheeks....

Two days ago, Irlar had come riding at the head of a company of laughing young men in finery, swords bouncing at their hips. When he offered for her hand in marriage, her uncle had not even botiiered to see her. He'd sent a servant to give her the simple message: "Heed." No more-and that before all the house. Her cheeks still burned at the memory.

Irlar! The same lordling who'd once spat on her at a Shieldmeet feast and hissed, "Get away from me, unclean one! Witch blood! Harper!" Alustriel had never forgotten. It was clear from his barbed sidelong questions these last two evenfeasts, neither had he.

If she could have worn the silver moon and harp badge of the Harpers, the badge her uncle said she did not deserve, Alustriel was sure Lord Irlar would have shied away like one who has seen a ghost. Or if she could have worked magic strong enough simply to push him away when he approached, his fear would poison his greed. But she was a weak, defenseless prize, and he knew it.

Not so easily mastered as all that! Irlar had taunted her tonight, saying over wine and minstrel music that he would come for her when the house was asleep, to taste what he would own when they were wed. He added that if she was at all reluctant, her magic would protect her. She could have screamed out her rage and frustration at him then. As surely as an animal in a forester's cage, she was trapped-trapped! Only tiny victories were within her grasp. She had said nothing to his taunts, only smiled as serenely as she could manage, hoping to discomfit him. After a moment he had laughed-a short, ruthless bark-and turned away contemptuously.

All her magic, aye. Alustriel looked down at her slender, empty fingers, bone-white in the dimness. Only faint torchlight came in the window from rooms adjacent to her own. She could make people sneeze. Irlar had made a little joke of that; she had refused to demonstrate. She; could also make sounds out of empty air, but only in a very limited way: she could mimic a single harp string, plucked note by note, choosing the tune and whether it played softly or loudly by how she imagined it in her head. She could also make the source of the noise shift from very near to something from afar, perhaps a hundred paces. Gaerd had told her she wasn't a Harper yet and suggested she keep this ability a secret from all until she'd mastered something more to go with it. She had done so.

Barely ten days ago, under the master wizard's kin tutelage, Alustriel had managed to make a great blue spark snap from one of her fingers to a metal coin set on a table several paces distant. She'd felt only a tingling, no pain... but she could make a spark appear only when she was excited or frightened or upset. Its creation] always left her shaking and drenched with sweat. Great magic, aye.

Yet it was all she had. Alustriel turned in the darkness and strode into the little room where she kept her spell components-harmless ingredients for this or that. A sudden instinct made her hand close on a certain vial of iron filings and slip it into the hidden pockets in her skirts. Perhaps she could blind Irlar with it. She could not make herself pick up the tiny, bejeweled dagger that she knew lay on the table near the vials. He would only slash her face with it-or toss it laughingly aside.

There was a sudden scraping sound at the door of the other chamber. Irlar had come for her.

Irlar was a servant of Bane. He had a tiny brand under a ring that he turned around and around on his finger. Irlar meant to take her to a temple tonight, to forswear Mystra for Bane and quench any magic she might have forever. No doubt, he would also force his love on her at the dark altar, to claim any child she might bear for the dark god....

A sudden shiver shook her so much that' her teeth chattered. Alustriel bit her lip, stilled her quaking limbs, and forced herself to move calmly and silently into the main chamber... to meet her doom. Her uncle might never be proud of her, but she would not see him dismiss her as a light-headed wench, a nothing. She heard a gentle sighing sound, and knew it for an unseen blade cutting the bell rope so she couldn't summon aid or rouse the house.

She made her face as dignified as she could and looked to the door. She deliberately unhooded the tiny oil lamp before her on the stone window-table. The sudden light caught him sliding home the flimsy door bolt of brass filigree. His look of alert surprise rose into a smile as he saw that she was alone.

"Well met," he said with gentle sarcasm, "my Alustriel." He stared at her eagerly, hungry for a reaction. Waiting to feel her fear.

Panic and nausea rose together within her. Alustriel looked back at him, keeping her face calm. She dared not speak; she trusted neither tongue nor voice to be steady and loyal. Irlar gri

"Come, now," he asked, "is my offer of marriage such a hated thing? Or a matter so trifling that it wakes no' spirit in you at all?" At that, Alustriel smiled, though inside she felt more like weeping. It was meant to be an unsettling, catlike smile, but it wavered. He gri