The elf had already turned and begun the struggle up into his saddle again. With a grunt and a heave that brought a snarl of pain from between clenched teeth, he regained his seat on the high-backed saddle and took up his reins to head on east.
"Here!" Jalobal called. "Aren't you be stayin', then?"
Ilbryn twisted his lips into a grim smile. "I'll never catch him if I stop and rest wherever he's just moved on from."
"But yon's the Dead Place, like I told thee."
With two swift tugs, the elf undid the two silver catches on his hip that Baerdagh had thought were ornamental and peeled aside his breeches. Inside was no smooth skin, but a ridged mass of scars that looked like old tree bark, a sickly yellow where it wasn't already gray. The twisted burn-scarring extended from his knee to his armpit…and above the knee were the struts and lashings that held on a leg of metal and wood that the elf had not been born with.
"I'll probably feel at home there," the elf told the three gaping men thinly. "As you can see, I'm half dead already." Without another word or look in their direction, he pulled the catches closed and spurred his mount away.
In shocked silence, the three men watched the dust rise, and beyond it, the bobbing elf on his horse dwindle from view along the overgrown road toward Oggle's Stream.
"Didj'ye see? Did d'ye see?" Jalobal asked the two silent men on the bench excitedly. They stared at him like two stones. He blinked at them then bustled back into the Maid to spread word about his daring confrontation with the scorched elf rider.
Baerdagh turned his head to look at Caladaster. "Did he say 'catch him up, or just 'catch him'?"
"He said 'catch him,' " Caladaster replied flatly. "I noticed that in particular."
Baerdagh shook his head. "I'd not like to walk in a mage's boots, for all their power. Crazed, the lot of them. Have you noticed?"
"Aye, I have," Caladaster replied, his voice deep and grim. "It passes, though, if you stop soon enough." And as if that had been a farewell, he got up from the bench and strode away toward his cottage.
Something flashed as he went, and the old man's hand was suddenly full of a stout, gem-studded staff that Baerdagh had never seen before.
Baerdagh closed his gaping mouth and rubbed his eyes to be sure he'd seen rightly. Aye, there it was, to be sure. He stared at Caladaster's back as his old comrade strode down the road home, but his friend never looked back.
Despite the gray sky and cool breezes outside, many a student had cast glances out the windows during this day's lesson. So many, in fact, that at one point Tabarast had been moved to comment severely, "I doubt very much that the great Elminster is going to perch like a pigeon on our windowsill just to hear what to him are the rudiments of magic. Those of you who desire to grasp a tenth of his greatness are advised to face front and pay attention to our admittedly less exciting teachings. All mages…even divine Azuth, the Lord of Spells, who outstrips Elminster as he outstrips any of you, began in this way, learning mage-lore as words dropping from the lips of older, wiser wizards."
The glances back diminished noticeably after that, but Beldrune was still sighing in exasperation by the time Tabarast threw up his hands and snapped, "As the ability to focus one's concentration, that cornerstone of magecraft, seems today to utterly elude all too many of you, we'll conclude the class at this point, and begin… with fresh insight and interest, I trust…on the morrow. You are dismissed, homeward go, without playing spell pranks this time, Master Maglast."
"Yes sir," one handsome youth replied rather sullenly, amid the general tumult of scraping chairs, billowing cloaks, and hurrying bodies. Muttering, Tabarast turned to the hearth, to rake the coals out into a glittering bed and put another log on the fire. Beldrune glanced up at the smoke hanging and curling under the rafters…when things warmed up, that chimney would profit from a spell or two to blast it clean and hollow it out a trifle wider…then clasped his hands behind him and watched the class leave, just to make sure no demonstration daggers or spell notes accidentally fell into the sleeves, scrips, boots, or shirt fronts of students' clothing. As usual, Maglast was one of the last to depart. Beldrune met his gaze with a firm and knowing smile that sent the flushing youth hastily doorward, and only then became aware that a man who'd sat quietly in the back of the class with the air of someone whose thoughts are elsewhere… despite the gold piece he'd paid to be sitting there… was coming slowly forward. A first timer, perhaps he had some questions.
Beldrune asked politely, "Yes? And how may we help you, sir?"
The man had unkempt pale brown hair and washed-out brown eyes in a pleasantly forgettable face. His clothing was that of a down-at-heels merchant, dirty tunic and bulging-pocketed overtunic over patched and well-worn breeches and good but worn boots.
"I must find a man," he said in a very quiet voice, stepping calmly past Beldrune to where Tabarast was bending over the hearth, "and I'm willing to pay handsomely to be guided to him."
Beldrune stared at the man's back for a moment. "I think you misunderstand our talents, sir. We're not…' His voice trailed off as he saw what was being drawn in the hearth ashes.
The nondescript man had plucked up a kindling stick from beside the fire and was drawing a harp between the horns of a crescent moon, surrounded by four stars.
The man turned his head to make sure that both of the elderly mages had seen his design, then hastily raked ashes across it until his design was obliterated.
Beldrune and Tabarast exchanged looks, eyebrows raised and excitement tugging at the corners of their jaws. Tabarast leaned forward until his forehead almost touched Beldrune's and murmured, "A Harper. Elminster had a hand in founding them, you know."
"I do know, you dolt…I'm the one keeps his ears open for news, remember?" Beldrune replied a trifle testily, and turned to the Harper. "So who do you want us to find for you, anyway?"
"A wizard by the name of Elminster. Yes, our founder, that Elminster."
The pupils, had any returned to spy on the hearth with the same attention they'd paid to the windows, would at that moment have witnessed their two elderly, severe tutors squealing like excited children, hopping and shuffling in front of the fire as they clapped their hands in eagerness, then gabbling acceptances without any reference to fees or payments to the down-at-heels merchant, who was calmly returning the stick to where he'd found it in the center of the happy tumult.
Beldrune and Tabarast ran right into each other in their first eager rushes toward cupboards, laughed and clawed each other out of the way with equal enthusiasm, then rushed around snatching up whatever they thought might come in remotely useful on an Elminster hunt.
The worn-looking Harper leaned back against the wall with a smile growing on his face as the heap of "essentials" rapidly grew toward the rafters.
"What befell, Bresmer?" The High Duke's voice didn't hold much hope or eagerness, he wasn't expecting good news.
His seneschal gave him none. "Gone, sir, as near as we can tell. One dead horse, seen floating by fishermen. They took Ghaerlin out to see it, he was a horse tamer before he took service with you, lord. He said its eyes were staring and its hooves and legs all bloodied, he thinks it galloped right down the cliff, riderless, fleeing in fear. The boat guard report that the Banner didn't light the signal beacon or raise their pennant… I think they're all dead, lord."
Horostos nodded, hardly seeing the wineglass he was rolling between his fingers. "Have we found anyone else willing to take us on? Any word from Marskyn?"