Neleyd flushed at the words, then sighed and asked, "Am I to be 'boy' forever?"
"No," Kostil told him kindly. "You get to alternate between that, 'young fool,' and 'brainless youngling' for a few hundred years yet."
"I'll enjoy that," Neleyd told him dryly, as the chamber rocked under the impact of two warring explosions, and kin all around them grew weapons out of their limbs and began shouting and hacking. "Let's be gone!"
"Wisely said, young fool," Yabrant told him with a many-fanged smile.
His expression was matched by a figure none of them saw, who stood watching the tumult from a high, shadow-cloaked balcony. Milhvar smiled only that once, then turned silently away. There was much to do.
Somewhere in Faerun, Kythorn 17
Elminster paused for a moment on a hilltop, his eyes full of swirling stars. The sight that showed him the flows of Art-that is, where magic could be expected to twist wild-was an exhausting thing to use for long, but he had to be sure of his next move. He had a long, hard day ahead, what with avatars stalking around Faerun, egos first, trying to destroy anything and everything that so much as looked askance at them.
A thought brought his pipe whizzing around his head to his lips, and he puffed on it thoughtfully. Over there was the next battle to be fought, aye, but first…
He leaned forward, banished the mage-sight, and called on farseeing for a moment. A gnarled tree, bark crumbling off a dead limb that curved just so… and the ground beneath… a-hum. Enough. Do it!
Abruptly the hilltop was empty except for a silently circling pipe. An instant later, the pipe vanished too.
Faerun: a camp on the High Road south of Tunland, then Hawkgauntlet, Kythorn 18
"I told ye to strike at the goblins, an' leave the orc to me! Tempus take thee for a softskull, lad! Now we'll have to… leave him lie."
"To die." It was not a question.
"Get out of my sight!" the old warrior roared, rounding on the younger with his eyes blazing almost-visible flames. The younger man fell back, fumbling for his blade in fearful habit. "If ye knew how to rotting take orders as well as ye know how to rotting well ignore 'em, we'd not have to be leaving anyone! Go now, afore I really lose my temper!"
The young warrior gulped, spun about, and ran.
The older armsman spat after him and then turned back to the injured priest of the Wargod, who lay clutching at a lapful of his own steaming innards where an orc scimitar had bitten deep. "Roarald?" he asked roughly. "Are ye with us yet, man?"
"I… I suppose," the reply came dully, the priest's eyes not seeing him. "Beware, Symon. I may be the luckier of us two. The days ahead will be dark. I have seen gods walking Faerun, and whole cities laid waste, and the land much changed. Titans clash with their heads among clouds and their feet trampling us poor folk beneath, and rivers run black with poison… and more death than any war has brought to this world. No good. No good I've seen… no end that Tempus would show me." He caught his breath for a moment, and then gasped, "Symon! I am much afraid. Speak gently to the boy, for my sake. He was only… a helpful fool, and we've all been that a time or two."
The old warrior took him by the shoulders. "Don't leave us, Roarald! Call on Tempus, man! Surely he owes ye something, after all these years! Surely he'll-"
"Speak not of the god that way!" Roarald was protesting feebly under his hands. "The way of Temp-"
"Surely he does," a powerful, melodious voice thundered around them.
The two men gaped, dumbfounded, at the man-high, glowing battlesword-of one piece of deadly blue-black metal, standing vertically with its point not quite touching the ground-that stood beside them. A sword that had certainly not been there before. That thunderous voice issued from it again.
"Stand clear, good Symon. Thy loyalty to a comrade pleases me."
White to the lips, the old warrior hastily scrambled back, going to his knees in the mud. "M-my pardon, Great Lord! I meant no presumpt-"
"I know this. Be still now." The sword began to move, and the old warrior gulped once and was silent.
The black blade drifted silently through the air to hang with its point above Roarald's hands, where they clutched at his bloody vitals.
"I need ye, faithful servant. I need thy obedience and strong arms to keep order in this Time of Troubles. I need thy continued service, Roarald of Tempus. Will ye obey me still?"
"L-lord," the priest gasped, "I will… if I can."
"Then go to Luskan, and put down a rising of dark wizards who seek to plunge all the North into bloody slaughter not sanctioned by me. They seek to whelm all the Uthgardt tribes, rule their minds with potions and spells, and hurl them upon the cities of the North, Neverwinter first. Ye will gather my faithful against them, and Symon here will aid ye. The strife will be hard, and there may well be death in it for ye both. Knowing that, will ye do this?"
"I will!" Roarald gasped, a pink froth rising to his lips. "But, Lord, I-"
"Be still! Symon, will ye do this?"
"Lord of Battles," the old warrior said, face to the ground and teeth chattering, "I will!"
"It is good. Roarald, draw thy hands away from thy belly."
Hastily the priest did so, and the sword plunged down.
A blaze of white fire shrouded the priest's agonized scream.
When he could see again, Symon struggled to his feet.
"Roarald? Roarald, do ye live, man?"
The priest was rising whole and strong, the stains of blood and dirt gone from his body. "I do," he said, wonder in his voice. "I live!"
"Praise be to Tempus!"
"Praise be!" the priest agreed, and clapped his comrade on the shoulder. "Speedily, now-find the boy and our horses. We ride on Luskan without delay!"
As Symon hurried off, the priest went to one knee and whispered, "Thank you, Tempus. I shall not forget."
"See that ye don't," a quiet voice came from the empty air, startling the man. He gulped, got up hastily, and ran after Symon.
And behind him a black sword melted out of the air, wavered, and became a thoughtful-looking old man, worn and much-patched robes draped about his thin frame. The morning sun gleamed on the man's long white beard and whiskers as a pipe floated into view from somewhere in the trees nearby and drifted gently up to the old man's mouth.
"That's done," Elminster muttered. "Too good a man to lose, Roarald, even if he is as stubborn as an old post. Hmmph! A certain Queen of Aglarond has used those same words to describe me a time or two, hasn't she?"
He strolled away, calling to mind the next place he'd viewed from the hilltop-and abruptly he was there, worn boots stepping onto the soft ground behind a tent.
"Another one dead? Have all the gods cursed this caravan?" The voice was proud and angry. "Who is it this time?"
"Mider, sir. He's-eaten away, sir, like the others. Only his feet left, and his scalp. In his tent, still in his blankets."
"Was he the only one of us alone in a tent?"
"Yes, sir. Albrar was his tent mate, until…"
"I know. Maybe it's something they were carrying, the two of them. Burn that tent and everything in it, just as it stands. Now!"
"Yes, sir." There was the sound of hastily receding booted feet, followed by a rustling of canvas and tent silks.
"Do they suspect?" a new voice asked in a whisper that did not carry beyond the ear it was said into.
"Mider did, but it's just a little too late for him, now," was the amused reply. The shared mirth that followed was silenced by the meeting of lips, a mouth-coupling that soon became a frantic, muffled screaming as the doppleganger couple found themselves locked in their embrace, immobilized by something that had twisted them into their true, monstrous shapes, and frozen them there. Something that drifted up from the tent like a ghostly mist and whirled back into the shape of Elminster.