"Love? Mystra loves him?"
"And he loves her." There was disbelief or incredulity in the confusion written plainly on the human mage's face, so Starsunder added gently, "Yes, beyond fondness and friendship and the raging desires of the flesh, true, deep, and lasting love. It is hard to believe this until you've truly felt it, Umbregard, but listen to me. There is a power in love greater than most things that can touch humans... or elves, or orcs for that matter. A power for good and for ill. Like all things of such power, love is very dangerous."
"Dangerous?"
Starsunder smiled faintly and said, "Love is a flame that sets fire to things. It is a greater danger to mages than any miscast spell can ever hope to be."
He leaned forward to lay a hand on Umbregard's arm, and said almost fiercely, as they stared into each other's eyes, "Magic gone awry can merely kill a mage, love can remake him, and drive him to remake the world. Our Coronal's great love drove him to seek a way for Cormanthyr that remade it... and, most of my folk would say, in the end destroyed it. I was yet young one warm night, out swimming for a lark, with no magic of my own to be felt...something that probably kept me alive then...when the Great Lady of the Starym, Ildilyntra who had loved the Coronal and been loved by him, slew herself to try to bring about his death, driven by her love for our land, just as he was...and both of them seared in their striving by their denied yet thriving love for each other."
The moon elf sighed and shook his head. "You cannot feel the sadness that stirs in me when I hear them again in my head, arguing together...and you are the first human after Elminster to know of that night. Mind and mark, Umbregard: to speak of this secret to others of my kind may mean your swift death."
"I shall heed," Umbregard whispered. "Say on."
The elf smiled wryly and continued, "There's little more to say. Mystra chose this Elminster to serve her, and he has done well, where others have not. The gods make us all different, and more of us fail than succeed. Elminster has failed often...but his love has not, and he has remained at his task. Bravery, I think your bards term it."
"Bravery? How can one armored and aided by a god fear anything? Without fear to wrestle with and reconquer, again and again, where is bravery?" Umbregard asked, excitement making him bold.
Something like fondness danced in Starsunder's eyes as he replied, "There are many gods, divine favor marks a mortal for greater danger than his 'ordinary' fellow and is very seldom a sure defense against the perils of this world...or any other. Only fools trust in the gods so much that they set aside fear entirely, and dismiss or do not see the dangers. I have seen bravery among your kind often, it seems something humans are good at, though more often I see in them recklessness or foolish disregard for danger that others who see less well might term bravery."
"So what is bravery?" Umbregard asked. "Standing in the path of danger?"
"Yes. Staying at one's post or task, as diligent as ever, knowing that at any time the sword waiting overhead may fall, or seeing fast-approaching doom and not abandoning all to flee."
"Please know that I mean no disrespect, but I must know: if such is bravery, how is it," Umbregard whispered, fear in his own eyes at his own daring, "that Myth Drannor...Cormanthyr...fell, and you still live?"
Starsunder's answering smile held sadness. "A race and a realm need obedient fools to survive, even more than they need brave...and soon dead...heroes." He stood up, and made a movement with his hand that might have been a wave of farewell. "You can see which I must be. If ever you meet this Elminster of yours face to face, ask him which of the two he is...and bring back Ms answer to me. I must Know All, it is my failing." Like a graceful panther, he padded up out of the hollow into the duskwood grove above.
"Wait!" the human mage protested, rising and stumbling up into the trees in the elf's wake. "I've so much more to ask...must you go?"
"Only to prepare a place for a human to snore and a meal for us both," Starsunder replied. "You're welcome to stay and ask all the questions you can think of for as long as you want to tarry here. I've few friends left here among the living and this side of the Sundering Seas."
Umbregard found himself trembling. "I would be honored to be considered your friend," he said carefully and found himself trembling, "but I must ask this: how can you trust me so? We've but spoken for a few moments of your time, no more, how can you measure me? I could be a slayer of elves, a hunter of elven treasure...an elfbane. I give you my word I am no such thing ... but I fear human promises to elves have all too often rung empty down the years."
Starsunder smiled. "This grove is sacred to two gods of my kind: Sehanine and Rillifane," he said. "They have judged you. Behold."
The eyes of the human wizard followed the elf's pointing hand to the moss-covered fallen tree and the wooden staff leaning there. Umbregard knew its familiar, well-worn length as well as he knew the hand that held it. That staff had accompanied him for thousands of miles, walking Faerun, and was both old and fire-hardened, its ends bound shod with copper to keep them from splitting. Yet for all that, while he'd sat talking in the hollow, it had thrown forth green shoots in plenty up and down its length...and every shoot ended in a small, beautiful white flower, glowing in the shade.
In a colder darkness, a ghostly woman stopped laughing and let her hands fall. The echoes of her cold mirth rolled around the cavern for some time, while she looked around at its dark vastness almost as if seeing it for the first time, her eyes slowly becoming sharp and fierce and fiery.
They were two glittering flames when she moved at last, striding with catlike, confident grace to a particular rune. She touched the symbol firmly with one foot, watched it fill with a bright blue-white glow, then stood with arms folded, watching, as wisps of smoke rose from the radiance to form a cloud like a man-sized spark-a cloud that suddenly coalesced into something else. A legless, floating image of a youngish-looking man, eager and intense of manner, faced the empty throne, hanging in midair above the rune that had spawned it.
As the image began to speak, the ghostly woman strode around the runes to the throne, leaned on one arm of that seat, and watched the image's speech.
It wore robes of rich crimson trimmed with black, and golden rings gleamed on its fingers...their hue matched by the blazing gold of the man's eyes. He had tousled brown hair and the untidy beginnings of a beard, and his voice fairly leaped with eager confidence.
"I am Karsus, as you are Karsus. If you behold this, disaster has befallen me, the first Karsus...and you, the second, must carry on to glory."
The image seemed to pace forward but actually remained above the rune. It waved one hand restlessly and continued, "I know not what you recall of my... our...life, some say my mind is less than clear, these days. Know that many mages of our people have achieved great power, mightiest of these, the archwizards of Netheril, rule their own domains. Mine, like many, is a floating city, I named it for us. I am the most powerful of all the archwizards, the Arcanist Supreme. They call me Karsus the Great."
The image waved a dismissive hand, blazing eyes still fixed on the throne. The ghostly woman was murmuring along with the words she'd obviously heard many times before. Something that might have been a faint sneer played about her lips.
"Of course," the image went on, "given your awakening, none of that may mean anything. I may not have been slain by a rival or suffered a purely personal doom...Karsus the city and the glory of Netheril itself may have fallen in a great war or cataclysm, we have made many foes, the greatest of them ourselves. We war among ourselves, we Netherese, and some of us war within ourselves. My wits are not always wholly my own. You may well share this affliction, watch for it, and guard against it."
The image of Karsus smiled, arching a sardonic eyebrow, the ghostly woman smiled back. Karsus spoke on. "Perhaps you'll have no need of these recording spells of mine, but I've prepared one for each speculum you see on the floor in this place, a series of spellcasting lessons, lest you face the perils of this world lacking certain enchantments I've found crucial. Our work must continue, only through power absolute can I...we...find perfection... and Karsus exists, has always existed, to achieve perfection and transform all Toril."
The watching woman laughed at that, a short and unpleasant bark. "Mad indeed, Karsus! Destiny: reshape all Toril, Oh, you were certainly competent to do that."
"Your first need may now be for physical healing, and I have anticipated the recurrence of this need in time to come, in a life where you may lack loyal servant mages or anyone you can trust. Know, then, that touching the speculum that evoked this image of me, while speaking the word 'Dalabrindar,' will heal all hurts. This power can be called upon as often as desired for so long as this rune remains unbroken, and can so serve anyone who speaks thus. The word is the name of the wizard who died so that this spell might live, truly, he has served us well, and..."
"Wasted words, Karsus!" the ghostly woman sneered. "Your clone was a headless mummy decorating this throne when I first saw it! Who slew it here, I wonder? Mystra? Azuth? Some rival? Or did the great and supreme sleeping Karsus fall to a passing adventurer-mage of puny spells, who thought he was beheading a lich?"
"... many another spell will serve where these do not, but I have here preserved demonstrations of my casting of enchantments of lasting usefulness and ...'
The ghostly woman turned away from the words she'd heard so many times before, nodding in satisfaction. "They'll do. They'll do indeed. I have here a lure no mage can resist." She strode across the rune again, and the image vanished in mid-word, the radiance winking out of the graven stone to let darkness rush back into the cavern.
"Now, how to let living mages know of it, without causing them to crowd in here by the elbowing thousands?" ghostly lips asked the utter darkness.
The darkness did not answer back.
A frowning ghost strode to the bottom of the shaft and began to blur, unraveling in a spiraling wind of her own making, until once more a whirlwind of flickering lights danced in the darkness, spiraling slowly up the shaft. "And how to keep my mage-catches here for more than one night?"
At the top of the shaft, the chiming whorl of lights hovered over the well ring, and a soft, echoing voice issued from it. "I must weave mighty spells, to be sure. The runes must respond only to me...and then only one a month, no matter what means are tried. That should cause a young mage to linger here long enough."
With sudden vigor the mist darted to one of the rents in the walls and plunged through it, snaking through the trees trailing wild laughter and the exultant shout, "Long enough for a good feed."
Thirteen: Kindness Scorches Stone
Cruelty is a known scourge, too seldom clever...for which we should all thank the gods. Kindness is the stronger blade, though more often scorned. Most folk never learn that.
Ralderick Hallowshaw, Jester
from To Rule A Realm, From Turret To Midden
published circa The Year of the Bloodbird
The tall, thin stranger who'd given them a cheerful smile as he'd gone into the Maid was back out again in far less than the time it took to drain a tankard.
The two old men on the bench squinted up at him a mite suspiciously. Folk seldom turned their way...which is why it was their favorite bench. It sat in the full shadow of the increasingly ramshackle porch of the Fair Maid of Ripplestones. A cold corner, but at least it wasn't in the full dazzle of the morning sun.
The stranger was, though, his face outlined in gold as he tossed his nondescript cloak back to lay bare dark and dusty robes and breeches that bore no badge or adornment, as...wonders of the Realms!...Alnyskawer came bustling out with the best folding table, and a chair ... and food!
The tavern master shuttled back and forth, puffing, as the two old men watched a meal the likes of which they'd not seen in many a year accumulate under their very noses: a tureen of the hot soup that'd been making two old bellies rumble all morn, a block of the sharpest redruck cheese...and three grouse pies!
Baerdagh and Caladaster scratched at various itches and glared sourly at the hawk-nosed stranger, wondering why by all the angry gods he'd had to choose their bench as the place to set his mornfeast on. Everything they'd dreamed of being able to afford for months now was steaming away under their noses. Just who by the armpit of Tempus did he think he was, anyway?
The two old men exchanged looks as their all-too-empty bellies rumbled, then with one accord stared the stranger up and down. No weapon ... not much wealth, either, by the looks of him, though his travel-scuffed boots were very fine. An outlaw who'd had them off someone he knifed? Aye, that would fit with all the money thrown out on a huge meal like this, coming down out of the wilderlands a-starving and with stolen coins in plenty.