"How long can we keep this up?" Avroana snapped, gesturing up at the sphere with her whip.
"So long as we have enthusiastic believers in the Dark Mother to furnish us with their heads."
"More have been called hither," said the Darklady, her lips shaping…for a very brief instant…a smile that was as cold as the glacial ice that seals shut a northern tomb. "They've been told we mount a holy crusade."
"Your Darkness," High Brother Narlkond replied, with a soft smile of his own, "we do."
"This is what in human speech would be called the Lookout Tree," said the moon elf, sitting down on a huge leaf…which promptly curled and flexed around him to form a couch that cupped him like a giant, gentle hand.
Umbregard stared around at the view between the great arched branches that split apart where they stood to soar still farther up into the thin, cold air. "By the gods," he said slowly, "those are clouds! We're looking down on the clouds?
"Only the lowest sort of clouds," Starsunder said with a smile. "Oh, didn't you know? Yes, different shapes of clouds hang at different levels, just as fish in a lake seek levels in the water that suit them."
"Fish…?" the human mage asked, then grinned and said, "Never mind, we stray swiftly from my original questioning."
Starsunder grinned back. "Now do you see how it was that humans studied in Myth Drannor for centuries," he said, "and some of them still learned only a handful of the spells they came seeking? The best of them didn't even mind."
Umbregard shook his head. "Oh, to have been there," he whispered longingly, sitting down rather gingerly on another leaf. It promptly tumbled him into its center…he had time for only the briefest of startled murmurs…and folded itself around him, to leave him upright, enthroned in warm comfort.
"Well, ahem," he offered in pleased surprise, while Starsunder chuckled. "Nice, very nice." He looked at Starsunder's chair, still clearly alive and attached to the gigantic shadowtop tree they'd climbed so laboriously to the top of, up a spiral stair that had seemed endless. "I suppose there's no chance of getting a chair like this anywhere else but in the Elven Court?"
"None," Starsunder said with a wide smile, "at all. Sorry."
Umbregard snorted. "You don't sound sorry at all. Why did we have to sweat our weary ways up here, step after thousandth step, what's wrong with using spells to fly?"
"The tree needed to get to know you," his elf host explained. "Otherwise, when you sat down just now, it'd quite likely have hurled you off into yonder clouds like a catapult… and I'd have had no human wizards to chat with this evening."
Umbregard shuddered at the vision of being helplessly thrust out, out into the oh-so-empty air, before starting that terrible, long plunge …
"Aghh!" he shrieked, waving his hands to sweep away his mental vision. "Gods! Away, away! Let's get back to our converse! When we were eating…ohh, that treejelly! How d…no. Later, I'll ask that later. Now I want to know why you said, when we were eating, that Elminster stands in such danger just now…and stands also so close to being an even greater danger to us all… why?"
Starsunder looked out over miles of greenery toward the distant line of mountains for a moment before he said, "Any human mage who lives as many years as this Elminster outstrips most human foes of his own making, they die while he lives on. His very longevity and power make him a natural target for those of all races who would seize him, or his powers from him, or his supposed riches and enchanted items. Such perils confront all mages who've enjoyed any success."
Umbregard nodded, and his elf host continued.
"It's reasonable to suppose that a wizard of greater success attracts greater attention, and so greater foes, yes?"
Umbregard nodded again, sitting forward eagerly. "You're going to tell me about some great mysterious foes that Elminster's now facing?"
Starsunder smiled. "Such as the Phaerimm, the Malaugrym, and perhaps even the Sharn? No."
Umbregard frowned. "The Phaerr…?"
Starsunder chuckled. "If I tell you about them, they won't be mysterious any longer, will they? Moreover, you'll live the rest of your days in fear, and no one will believe you when you spread word of them. Each time you speak of them will increase the likelihood that one of their number will feel sufficient need to silence you-and so bring to a brutal and early end the life of Umbregard. No, forget them. It's good practice for mages, forgetting and letting go of things that interest them. Some of them never learn how, and die long before their time."
Umbregard frowned, opened his mouth to say something, and shut it again. Then it popped open once more, and he said almost angrily, "Well then, if we're to speak of no foes, what special danger does Elminster face?"
A small, tightly curled leaf at Starsunder's elbow opened then to reveal two glass bowls full of what looked like water. He passed one of the bowls over to Umbregard and they drank together.
It was water, and the coolest, clearest that Umbregard had yet tasted. As it slid down to every corner of his being, he felt suddenly fully awake and vigorous. He turned his head to exclaim about how he felt, looked into Starsunder's eyes, and saw sadness there. He hesitated in speaking just long enough for the moon elf to say deliberately, "Himself."
"Himself?" By the gods, had he been reduced to an echo? And was this his sixth evening here with Star-sunder … or his seventh?
Yes. He was like a small child invited into the converse of adults, seeing a longer, graver view of Faerun around him for the first time. With a sudden effort, Umbregard held his tongue and leaned forward to listen.
Starsunder rewarded him with a slight smile and added, "With all the friends, lovers, foes, and even realms of his youth gone, Elminster will feel increasingly alone…and as is the way of humans, lonely. He will cling to all he has left…his power and accomplishments of magecraft…and begin to chafe at the bargain that has robbed him of his youth, and of all the things he might have done, but did not … in short, he will become restless in the service of Mystra."
"No! You said so yourself: love…"
"It is the way of humans," Starsunder continued calmly, "and of us all, at differing times in our lives … but now it is I who digress. In short, Elminster will for the first time as a mature mage of power…as opposed to an ardent, easily-distracted youth…be ready to notice temptations."
"Temptations?"
"Chances to use his power as he sees fit, without the bidding of, or restrictions decreed by others. The desire to do just as he pleases, ignoring consequences for good or ill, smashing all who stand against him. To do whatever he's idly thought of doing, pursuing every whim."
"And so?"
"And so, while he's about it, every living creature on or under fair Toril must cower and hide…for what fate will Umbregard enjoy, if it strikes a passing Elminster that a handful of Umbregard tripes will make a good toy, or meal, for the next few minutes?"
The elf let his words hang in silence for a time, waiting for Umbregard to speak.
Soon enough the human wizard was unable to resist doing so. "Are you saying," he asked softly, "that we… I…or someone … must set out to destroy Elminster now, to save all Toril?"
Starsunder shook his head almost wearily. "Why is it that humans love that word so much? 'Destroy!'" He set his water bowl back into the leaf and asked with a smile, "If you succeeded, Umbregard the Mighty, tell me: who then would protect Toril from you?
If I was a lurking Slayer, I would want a lair …
"Sweet Mystra," Elminster murmured, smiling despite himself, "whatever you do, stop me from ever trying to be a bard." He took another step along the crumbling wall of the ruin, the slight scrape of his boot on damp dead leaves seeming very loud in the eerie quiet of the empty forest.