"Aye, aye, aye,"Khelben replied testily, waving Elminster's words away. "Yet I wasn't speaking of you abandoning your tower! I seek your absence from the lives and doings of the Knights, so they can stand or fall on their own-and the two wraiths won't conceal ot lessen their deeds and schemings for fear of you. So I can seize the best opportunity to destroy them both at once and nor manage to fell only one and leave the other, warned but fled, to lurk and become twice or thrice the nuisance to hunt down."
Elminster nodded. "Thy tactics, I'm content with. Both at once is indeed wisest, if ye. can bring it off. I find matters are seldom so tidy. Yet again I must say thee nay, Blackstaff. I must be seen to be in Shadowdale, free to wander elsewhere but appearing when great foes or matters of import-and ye'U grant these wraiths are both, just as ye paint them-unfold there. I have my orders, as ye have yours."
The black-robed figure across the room let out something that was almost a roar and came striding toward Elminster raging like a black flame. For an instant the form almost seemed gaunt-thin with large, snapping-with-anger dark eyes and pointed ears… and then it was the Blackstaff again, Khelben Arunsun as large as ever, towering across the table with both knuckles planted on its old stone surface, fists clenched whire with anger.
"Secrets," he said, "may be the stock in trade of every Chosen, but it is folly and corruption when Chosen keep secrets from each other. I more than mistrust these 'orders' you speak so glibly of. They are far too handy an excuse for doing just what you want to do. Let me tell you straight, Elminster Aumar: I suspect you of deceiving me, of hiding behind Our Lady."
Elminster rose slowly from his bench, planted his own fists on the table, and leaned forward in exact mimicry of rhe Blackstaff s pose, until their noses were almost touching.
"You," he replied, imitating Khelben's voice precisely, "suspect far too much, Khelben Arunsun. Nasty, suspicious minds may be useful for wizards in keeping themselves alive, but no one should ever forget that they are nasty, suspicious minds." He sat down again, swung booted feet up onto the table, and puffed at the pipe that came swooping back to him. "I stay and do what I do," he said, in his own voice. "Have ye anything else ye'd like to try to bully me about? Or-ahem-discuss?"
Khelben stepped back from the table, glowering. "Again you take it upon yourself to decide what will be and what will not be. I will not back down on this, El."
"Well," a pleasant contralto voice observed from the long-empty-of-door archway behind them both, "it's nice to know that the Blackstaff remains as hog-headed as ever. And everyone's favorite Old Mage just as merrily, provokingly irritating. Haven't you two given the slightest thought to the notion that one day, in some small way, it might be nicer for everyone-yourselves, your fellow Chosen, the rest of the Realms-if you undertook to grow up?"
Khelben winced, eyes closing for a moment as he muttered an extremely creative curse under his breath. Then he turned and said politely, "Well met as always, Dove. What brings you to this rather remote place? A very long arm of coincidence, or have you been lurking at Elminster's beck and call until the so-called 'right moment?' "
"My," Dove said, striding into the room and srripping off her long leather gloves, "you do have a nasty, suspicious mind, don't you?" She undid two buckles, swung two crossed and linked scabbards off her back, and set her swords on the table. "You'll achieve more in life, Lord Mage of Waterdeep, if you're nice to people more often and bully, bluster, and snap commands at them rather less. Just some friendly advice."
She half-sat on one end of the table and announced, "I was sent here by Mystra, as it happens, who has shared with me your amicable discussions thus far. She'd like me to state the view of the Harpers of the Dales-and those of us based in Cormyr, too. We believe it will do much harm to the stability of those lands if the Knights ate left undefended for any lowly Zhent to slaughter and Elminster vanishes from his visible guardianship. Even if another wizard-that'd be you, Blackstaff, but your face is less known hereabouts, and the Zhents are very good at spreading false rumors, to say nothing of wild-tongued Dalefolk and bored citizens of Cormyr-then shows up and engages in a spectacular spell-battle with some fell and scary wraith-things, the Zhents will rub their hands and probably start marching their warriors the next day, to 'protect' everyone in sight. By conquering them, of course."
She rose and srrolled in Khelben's direction, wagging a reproving finger. "I hardly need to tell either of you gentle mages that Harpers disagree among themselves over all sorts of things. Yet on this, all local Harpers are agreed: Zhentil Keep must not be given any excuse to send forth the armies they're itching to use, nor emboldened in any way. Starting to think Elminster isn't sitting in Shadowdale watching their every move is a golden pretext in itself. Khelben, don't be stupid. For once."
"Now who's being rather less than nice?" the Blackstaff retorted, striding slowly to meet her. "And while I'd like to have leisure time enough to debate tactics with every Harper 'twixt here and the more distant isles of Anchorome, in this particular matter-one Chosen keeping secrets from another-the views of non-Chosen are immaterial. Consider them dismissed."
The sigh that resounded through the room was so deep and strong that it numbed their very bones and set the stone table to thrumming eerily. Khelben spun to seek its source-and found himself regarding two huge, long-lashed eyes that had opened in the old stones of the wall. Human eyes, by their appearance, but each as large across as he stood tall, and they moved over the surface of the stone and left it unaffected.
Blue fire surged through the veins of all the Chosen, nigh choking them. Mystra was not amused.
"Lady," Khelben said gravely, bowing his head, "how-"
Khelben mine, the goddess said, her voice thunder in all their heads, hear and heed my commands, as Elminster has already done. You are to stand back from the Knights and Shadowdale and those known as Horaundoon and Old Ghost. You and all Chosen are merely to watch what befalls, meddling not at all. If one snatches tools out of every forge fire, they can never be tempered at all.
"Your will commands us all, Lady," Khelben spluttered, "but- but doing nothing, if you'll forgive me for saying so, seems to render all Chosen unnecessary."
You are "doing nothing," as you term it, in this one matter. Let this be one tale you stay out of, all of you. It is needful. Remember also this, Khelben Arunsun: This world is large and full of striving life. You are not the only one playing a long game.
"That's so," Storm agreed, her face bathed in the light of the bright scrying sphere floating in the air above her kitchen table. "Even my patience is growing a rrifle frayed just keeping these dolts Torm and Rathan alive so that they can join the Knights."
That thought prompted the Bard of Shadowdale to whirl away from one scrying sphere to another, to peer at whatever Torm was up to at that moment somewhere in the Realms.
The sphere brightened obediently. Storm peered inro it, rolled her eyes at what she saw, and murmured, "Young Master Slyboots, you'll be the death of yourself yet!"
Chapter 6
Great Murdering Battle
For all that of love our bards do prattle And sages opine as they're derided 'Tis always in great murdering battle That things get-in truth-decided.