by Ed Greenwood
“With the taking of my life?” he asked quietly.
Again silence fell, as Ildilyntra drew breath, opened her mouth, and then closed it. She strode angrily away across the moon-drenched moss and flagstones before whirling around to face him once more.
“All of House Starym,” she said firmly, “must needs take up arms against a ruler so twisted in his head and heart—so tainted in his elven bloodlines—as to preside over, nay, eagerly embrace the destruction of the fair realm of Cormanthor.”
Their gazes met in silence, but the Coronal seemed carved of patiently smiling marble. Ildilyntra Starym drew in a deep breath and went on, her voice now as imperious as that of any ruling queen. “For make no mistake, Lord: your Opening, if it befalls, will destroy this mightiest realm of the People.”
She stalked impatiently across the garden, flinging her hands up at the trees, shrubs, and sculpted banks of flowers. “Where we have dwelt, loved, and nurtured, the beauties of the forests we have tended will know the brutal boots and dirty, careless touch of humans.” The Starym matriarch turned and pointed at the Coronal, almost spitting in her fury as she advanced upon him, adding a race with each step. “And halflings.” She came on, face blazing. “And gnomes.” Her voice sank with anger, trembling into a harsh whisper as she delivered the gasp of ultimate outrage: “Even … dwarves!”
The Coronal opened his mouth to speak, as she thrust her face forward almost to touch his, but she whirled away again, snapping her fingers, and turned back immediately to confront him again, hair swirling. “All we have striven for, all we have fought the beast-men and the orcs and the great wyrms to keep, will be diluted—nay, polluted—and in the end swept away, our glory drowned out in the clamoring ambitions, greater numbers, and cunning schemes of the hairy humans!”
That last word rose into a ringing shout that tore around their ears, setting the blue glass chimes in the trees around the distant Heartpool singing in response.
As their faint clamor drifted past the Living Seat, Ildilyntra stood facing the Coronal in silence, breast heaving with emotion, eyes blazing. Out of the night a sudden shaft of moonlight struck her shoulders, setting her agleam with cold white light like a vengeful banner.
Eltargrim bowed his head for a moment, as if in respect to her passion, and took a slow step toward her. “I once spoke similar words,” he said, “and thought even darker things. Yet I have come to see in our brethren races—the humans, in particular—the life, verve, and energy we lack. Heart and drive we once had; we can only see now in the brief glimpses afforded by visions of days long gone sent by our forebears. Even the proud House of Starym, if all of its tongues spoke bare truth, would be forced to admit that we have lost something—something within ourselves, not merely lives, riches, and forest domains lost to the spreading ambition of others.”
The Coronal broke into restless pacing as Ildilyntra had done before him, his white robe swirling as he turned to her in the moonlight and said almost pleadingly, “This may be a way to win back what we have lost. A way where for so long there has been nothing but posturing, denial, and slow decline. I believe true glory can be ours once again, not merely the proud, gilded shell of assumed greatness we cling to now. More than that: the dream of peace between men and elves and dwarves can at last be upon us! Maeral’s dream, fulfilled at last!”
The lady with blue-black hair and darker blazing eyes moved from her stillness like a goaded beast, striding past him as a forest cat encircles a foe it remains wary of … for a little while yet. Her voice, when it came, was no longer melodious, but instead cut like a lustily waved razor.
“Like all who fall into the grip of elder years, Eltargrim,” she snarled, “you begin to long for the world as you want it to be, and not as it is. Maeral’s dream is just that—a dream! Only fools could think it might become real, in this savage Faerûn we see around us. The humans rise in magecraft—brutal, grasping, realm-burning magecraft—with each passing year! And you would invite these—these snakes into our very bosoms, within our armor … into our homes!”
Sadness made the Coronal’s eyes a little bleak as he looked at what she’d become, revealed now in her fury—far and very far from the gentle elven maid he’d once stroked and comforted, in the shy tears of her youth.
He stepped into the path of her raging stride and asked gently, “And is it not better to invite them in, win friendship and through it some influence to guide, than it would be to fight them, fall, and have them stalk into our homes as smashing, trampling conquerors, striding amid the streaming blood of all our people? Where is the glory in that? What is it you are striving to keep so sacred, if all our people perish? Twisted legends in the minds of the humans and our half-kin? Of a strange, decadent people with pointed ears and upturned noses, whose blinding pride was their fatal folly?”
Ildilyntra had been forced to halt, or her angry progress would have carried her into him. She stood listening to his rain of questions almost nose to nose, white-clenched fists at her sides.
“Will you be the one to let these—these beast-races into our secret places and the very seat of our power?” she asked now, her voice suddenly harsh. “To be remembered with hatred by what few of our People will survive your folly, as the traitor who led the citizens he was pledged to serve … our very race … into ruin?”
Eltargrim shook his head. “I have no choice; I can see only the Opening as a way in which our People may have a future. All other roads I’ve looked down, and even taken this realm a little way along, lead—and speedily, in the seasons just ahead—to red war. War that can only lead to death and defeat for fair Cormanthor, as all the races but the dwarves and gnomes outnumber us twenty to one and more. Humans and orcs overmuster us by thousands to one. If pride leads us to war, it leads us also to the grave—and that is a choice I’ve no right to make, on behalf of our children, whose lives I’ll be crushing before they can fend, and choose, for themselves.”
Ildilyntra spat, “That fear-ladling argument can be made from now until forever grows old. There’ll always be babes too young to choose their own ways!”
She moved again, stepping around him, turning her head to always face him as she went, and added almost casually, “There is an old song that says there is no reasoning with a Coronal of firm purpose … and I see the truth of it now. There is nothing I can say that will convince you.”
There was something old and very tired in Eltargrim’s face as his eyes met hers. “I fear not, Ildilyntra … loved and honored Ildilyntra,” he said. “A Coronal must do what is right, whate’er the cost.”
She gave an exasperated hiss, as he spread his hands a little and told her, “That is what it means to be Coronal—not the pomp and the regalia and the bowing.”
Ildilyntra walked away from him across the moss, to where a thrusting shoulder of stone barred her way and gave a home to lavender creepers. She folded her arms with savage grace, and looked south out over the placid water. It was a smooth sheet of white now in the moonlight. The silence she left in her wake grew deep and deafening.
The Coronal let his hands fall and watched her, waiting patiently. In this realm of warring prides and dark, never-forgotten memories, much of a Coronal’s work consisted of waiting patiently. Younger elves never realized that.
The High Lady of the Starym looked out into the night for what seemed a very long time, her arms trembling slightly. Her voice was as high and as soft as a sudden breeze when she spoke next. “Then I know what I must do.”
Eltargrim raised his hand to let his power lash out and trammel her freedom—the gravest insult one could give to the head of an elven House.
Yet he was too late. Sudden fire blossomed in the night, a line of sparks where his power met hers and wrestled just long enough to let her turn. Her honor blade was in her hand as her eyes met his.
“Oh, that I once loved you,” she hissed. “For the Starym! For Cormanthor!”
Moongleam flashed once along the keen edge of her blade as s
he buried it hilt-deep in her breast, and with her other hand thrust its dragon tooth scabbard into the bright fountaining blood there. The carved fang seemed to flicker for a moment, and then, slowly, melted away into the river of gore. More blood was pouring from her than that curvaceous body should have been able to hold.
“Eltar …” she gasped then, almost beseechingly, her eyes growing dark as she swayed. The Coronal took a swift step forward and raised his hands, the glow of healing magic blazing along his fingers—but at the sight of it she snatched forth the glistening blade and drove it hard into her throat.
He was running now, across the little space that remained between them, as she choked, stumbled forward—and swept her gore-soaked arm up once more to drive the blade of her honor deep into her own right eye.
She fell into his arms, then, lips frozen trying to whisper his name again, and the Coronal let her down gently onto the moss, despite the growing roar of magic tearing past him, streaming up into the night sky like bloody smoke from where the dragon tooth had been. Magic that he knew sought to claim his life.
“Oh, Lyntra,” he murmured. “Was any dispute worth your final death?” He rose from her then, looking at the blood glistening on his hands, and gathered his will.
Her gore was a weakness, a route the magic mustering above him could take past his gathered power if he banished it too late.
As he stared at his spread hands, the dark wetness faded from them, until they blazed blue-white with risen magic, racing along his skin like fire. The Coronal looked up, then, at the sudden darkness above him—and found himself gazing straight into the open, dripping jaws of a blood dragon.
It was the most deadly spell of the elder Houses, a revenge magic that took the life of its awakener. The Doom of the Purebloods, some called it. The dragon towered above him, dark, wet, and terrible in the night, as silent as a breeze and as deadly as a rain of enchanted venom. Living flesh would melt before it, twisting, withering, and shriveling into grey rot and tangled bones and sinew.
The ruler of all Cormanthor stood robed in his aroused power, and watched the dragon strike.
It crashed down around him, in a rain that shook the entire island, setting leaves to rustling all around and shattering the stillness of the lake into a hundred racing wavelets. Rocks rolled and moss scorched away into smoking ash where it touched. Thwarted in its strike by the dome of empty air his risen power guarded, it swirled and roared, flowing in a hungry circle around the elven ruler.
Eltargrim stood unmoving, untouched in the circle his power protected, and watched it run into oblivion. Once more it raised its head to menace him, a tattered shadow of its former self. He stood his ground grimly, and it fell away to drifting smoke against the blue-white fire of the Coronal.
When it was all gone, the old elf ran a trembling hand through his white hair and knelt again at the side of the sprawled lady. “Lyntra,” he said sadly, bending to kiss lips where dark blood still bubbled forth. “Oh, Lyntra.”
Blood spat into smoke on her throat then, touched by his power just as the slaying spell she’d called up had been. More smokes rose, as his tears began to fall in earnest.
He struggled against them, as the glass chimes sounded again, and the faltering of his shielding spells let in a burst of distant laughter and wild, high music from the Erladden revel. He struggled because he was the Coronal of Cormanthor, and his duty meant he had one more thing to say before the blood stopped flowing, and she grew cold.
Eltargrim threw back his head to look once at the moon, choked back a sob, and managed to say huskily, looking into the one staring eye that remained, “You shall be remembered with honor.”
And if his grief overmastered him thereafter, as he cradled the body of the one who was still his beloved, there was no one else on the island to hear.
PART
I
HUMAN
ONE
SAVAGE TRAILS AND SCEPTERS
Nothing is recorded of the journey of Elminster from his native Athalantar across half a world of wild forests to the fabled elven realm of Cormanthor, and it can only be assumed to have been uneventful.
ANTARN THE SAGE
FROM THE HIGH HISTORY OF FAERÛNIAN ARCHMAGES
MIGHTY
PUBLISHED CIRCA THE YEAR OF THE STAFF
The young man was busy pondering the last words a goddess had said to him—so the arrow that burst from the trees took him completely by surprise.
It hummed past his nose, trailing leaves, and Elminster peered after it, blinking in surprise. When he looked along the road in front of him again, men in worn and filthy leathers were scrambling down onto it to bar his way, swords and daggers in their hands. There were six or more of them, and none looked kindly.
“Get down or die,” one of them announced, almost pleasantly. El cast quick glances right and left, saw no one charging him from behind, and murmured a quick word.
When he flicked his fingers, an instant later, three of the brigands facing him were hurled away as if they’d been struck hard by the empty air. Blades flew spinning aloft, and startled, winded men crashed into brambles and rolled to slow, cursing halts.
“I believe a more traditional greeting consists of the words ‘well met,’ ” Elminster told the man who’d spoken, adding a dry smile to his dignified observation.
The brigand leader’s face went white, and he sprinted for the trees. “Algan!” he bellowed. “Drace! A rescue!”
In answer, more arrows came humming out of the deep green forest like angry wasps.
El dived out of his saddle a scant instant before two of them met in his mount’s head. The faithful gray horse made an incredulous choking sound, threw up its forelegs as if to challenge an unseen foe, and then rolled over onto its side to kick and die.
It came within a fingerlength of crushing its rider, who rolled away as fast as he could, hissing curses as he tried to think which of his spells would best serve a lone man scrambling through ferns and brambles, surrounded by brigands hiding behind trees with ready bows.
Not that he wanted to leave his saddlebag, anyway. Panting in his frantic haste, El reached the far side of a stout old tree. He noticed in passing that its leaves were beginning to turn, touched gold and brown by the first daring frosts of the Year of the Chosen, and clawed his way up its mossy bark to stand gasping and peering around through the trees.
Crashings marked the routes of the hurrying outlaws as they ran to surround him. Elminster sighed and leaned against his tree, murmuring an incantation he’d been saving for a time when he might be faced with hungry beasts on a night he’d have to spend in the open. Such a night would never come, now, if he didn’t put the spell to more immediate use. He finished the casting, smiled at the first brigand to peer warily around a nearby tree at him—and stepped into the duskwood he was leaning against.
The brigand’s startled curse was cut off abruptly as El melded into the old, patient silence of the forest giant, and threw his thoughts along its spreading roots to the next tree that was large enough. A shadowtop, in that direction. Well, ’twould have to do.
He sent his shadowy body flowing along the taproot, trying not to feel choked and trapped. The closed-in, buried feeling drove some mages mad when they tried this spell—but Myrjala had considered it one of the most important things for him to master.
Could she have foreseen this day, years later?
That thought sent a chill through the prince of Athalantar as he rose inside the shadowtop. Was everything that happened to him Mystra’s will?
And if it was, what would happen when her will clashed with the will of another god, who was guiding someone else?
He’d have been flying in falcon-shape over this forest, after all, if she’d not commanded him to “ride” to the fabled elven realm of Cormanthor. A bird of prey would have been too high for the arrows of these brigands to reach even if they’d felt like wasting shafts.
That thought carried Elminster out into the bright worl
d again. He melted out of the dark, warm wood into the bright sunlight with the Skuldask Road a muddy ribbon on his left—and the dusty leather of a brigand not two paces away to his right. Elminster could not resist doing something he’d once delighted in, years ago, in the streets of Hastarl: he plucked the man’s belt dagger out of its sheath so softly and deftly that the brigand didn’t notice. Its pommel bore the scratched outline of a serpent, rising to strike.
Then he froze, not daring to take a step for fear of crushing dead leaves underfoot, and betraying his presence. He stood as still as a stone as the man stalked away, moving cautiously toward where the young mage had run to.
Could he get his saddlebag and flee without being noticed? Even if they hadn’t had arrows and some skill in firing them, he really didn’t want to waste spells on a handful of desperate men, here in the heart of the Skuldaskar. He’d seen bears and great forest cats and sleep-spiders already on his journey, and heard tales of far more fearsome beasts that hunted men along this road. He’d even found the gnawed bones and rotting, overturned wagons of a caravan that had met death along the road, some time ago … and he didn’t want to become just one more grisly trailside warning.
As he stood, undecided, another brigand strode around the tree, head down and hurrying, and walked right into him.
They fell to the leaves in startled unison—but the young Athalantan already had a blade in his hand, and he used it.
The dagger was sharp, and his slash laid open the man’s forehead with a single stroke as El rolled to his feet and sprinted away, making sure that he stomped on the bow that the man had dropped. It snapped under his boots, and then he was running hard for the road, startled shouts following him.
The man he’d cut would be blinded by the streaming blood until someone helped him, and that made one less brigand to chase Elminster of Athalantar. The Berduskan Rapids were still days away—longer, now that he had to walk—and Elturel was an even longer trip back. He didn’t relish going either way with a band of cutthroats hunting him, day and night.
