Elminster's Daughter

"Your Majesties," Rhauligan protested, "though my heart leaps to hear you speak so, is it wise for the realm to risk both of you in one place? Hazarding the loss of all Obarskyr wisdom and influence, should you—watching gods forfend—be stricken down together?"

He laid one hand on a vial at his belt, and asked, "Though I risk treason and my own death, dare I allow you to so endanger the realm while I have power left to prevent you?"

The Dowager Queen put a swift hand on Alusair's swordarm to forestall any word or action and smiled.

"Rhauligan, the loyalty and service of you and men who act and feel as you do is Cormyr's backbone and its splendor, not the surname shared by we two. Yet in truth my daughter and I are both now expendable so long as Azoun lives, is kept safe, and is guided and instructed well. You must trust us that he is."

She impulsively stepped forward and wrapped her regal arms around Rhauligan in a fierce hug.

As he blinked in astonishment, she snapped into his ear, "I, too, am sick unto death of standing watching when I could be—should be—doing! If Thundaerlyn Hall be a trap, so much the better! My Azoun would not have wanted me to sit idle as the passing days carry me ever closer to the grave ... as he never did!"

Filfaeril thrust him away to stare into his eyes and added, "If it makes you feel better, Rhauligan, you may hide ready in Thundaerlyn and run to my rescue if needful—but you may not stand in front of me like a shield, or bundle me into some cloak-closet 'for my own good'! Do we understand each other?"

Rhauligan went to one knee, brought her fingertips to his lips, and said huskily, "Lady, we do."

* * * * *

"I said back, Florin!" the young lass snapped again, as the ranger charged forward, blade raised. Her fingers never slowed in their deft weaving—but mere paces away, her double ended the swifter casting of a spell with a flourish and a cry of triumph.

Reddish-purple light burst into being in that one's hands and raced forth in thin, arrow-straight beams from every one of her fingers, stabbing at the lass who'd warned Florin off . . . only to strike something unseen in front of her target, claw at that barrier, and rise skywards in a building, trembling wave.

Florin Falconhand decided it was prudent to obey that warning and sprang hastily away to the side and rear of the lass who'd hurled the spell—and who was now grimly pouring her will and perhaps other magics into it, drawing lips back from teeth in a soundless snarl and trembling to match the arcing fires of her spell.

A thin sheen of sweat sprang into being all over her as Florin watched. He took a step toward the lass who was hurling fire—and the other identical young lass repeated her warning, in a waspish, somehow familiar tone that made Florin's eyes narrow.

Could this be ... Elminster?

His gaze went to the straining, warring magics overhead, where those fires were being thrust over and around, curling back toward their creator from above.

The sweating lass knew her danger and was already eyeing the roiling power above her. Abruptly she sprang aside with a curse, ending her flow of fire—but the overhanging doom followed her like a great gliding dragon as she scrambled . . . and suddenly fell from above with a crash that shook the meadow.

Florin was hurled from his feet as the ground heaved and the stricken, desperately shouting lass vanished from view in the flames. Her double, who'd sent this doom against her, stood still and firm.

Something confusing happened in the rolling, swirling inferno, and the lass engulfed in it was abruptly some twenty paces off, sobbing on the ground . . . still caught in fading, flickering coils of her own flame that had clung to—and made the journey with—her.

Florin cast a quick glance at the lass standing calmly then started toward the fire-wreathed one, looking back for a warning that did not come.

The spell-flames were dying away swiftly, now, and the lass within them was beating at the ground in pain, writhing and weeping, raising a sooty and tear-wet face to Florin that was—no longer feminine at all!

Florin pounced on the wounded man, ignoring the threads of smoke rising from the blackened and ashen remnants of robes. A pain-twisted face tried to shape a word, so he slapped that mouth with the wet greenfins still in his hand. By the time the smoldering man had finished sputtering and spitting, his wrists were pi

"Elminster?" Florin called back at the other lass.

"Indeed," a familiar voice replied. "None can hope to deceive ye, gallant Florin!"

The ranger's reply was a swift, rude snort of derision, followed by the words, "This dog has the look of a rogue mage. Should 1 be slaying him about now?"

"Nay. I've a use or two for him yet. Hold him still, will ye?"

As he spoke, the likeness of the young, hawk-nosed lass melted away from him, revealing an older, hawk-nosed, weatherbeaten, and very familiar Old Mage of Shadowdale—who promptly bent and, with a grunt, picked up the stricken lass he'd been carrying when he appeared.

Florin shook his head slightly and asked, "Are you going to tell me why all three of you arrived wearing the same shape? And who it really belongs to?"

"No," Elminster replied serenely, "to thy first, but as to thy second, this in my arms is truly herself: a lass from Waterdeep—a thief, so watch thy pockets—hight Narnra Shalace. That beneath ye is a Red Wizard of Thay."

The handsomest man in Shadowdale received this news with no evidence of surprise, merely asking, "Will any of you be staying for a nice fish fry?"

"I'm afraid I know not, yet. We wait upon the temper of a woman."

"A—?" Florin looked down at the broken, white-faced body that Elminster was laying tenderly beside him. "This Narnra?"

"Indeed. Hold the Thayan securely, now. Defeating his spell was a simple matter of calling on the defensive enchantments of my tower, but now I must work a rather exacting magic."

"I should hope so," the ranger murmured. "Sloppy spells give mages a bad reputation—when the wrong castle gets blasted to dust, the wrong thousand folk slain, and so on."

Elminster gave Florin a sour look. "Aren't there some ladies somewhere ye could be causing to swoon about now?"

Florin raised both his eyebrows and the still-dripping bunch of fish. "With these?"

The Old Mage sighed, gestured for silence, and cast his spell. In the creeping silence that followed, both men watched as Narnra's broken body slowly became whole again . . . and that of the Red Wizard took on her injuries, sinking and twisting under Florin. As the Thayan began to gasp and moan in pain, Narnra's eyes fluttered open, and she stared up at them and felt her limbs—and sudden lack of pain—in wonder . . . and growing apprehension.

"W-where am I now?" she murmured. "There was a rooftop . . . something falling . . ."

Elminster took her shoulders and gently helped her to sit up. "That was just magic, lass. Bad magic."

As Narnra got a good look at the unfamiliar green trees and meadows of Shadowdale, and the pinched, pain-wracked face of the Red Wizard beside her, all the color drained out of her face— and she flinched away from the hands on her shoulders.

"Will you send him back like this?" Florin asked quietly, eyeing Narnra's shaken face.

"Nay," Elminster said quietly. "I'll teach him some magic, show him why I made some of the moral choices I did, then set him loose . . . and he'll choose his own fate, for good or ill. The world needs Red Wizards just as it needs carrion-worms. Let's see if I can steer this one. My Lady The Simbul herself ca

He looked at his daughter, and said, "This wizard tried to slay ye with his spells just now, back in Marsember. I place his fate in thy hands."