The roar of laughter that followed threatened to shake the very ceiling of the inn down on top of all the table-slapping, hooting drinkers, but as their laughter finally trailed away, a high-pitched chuckle joined in, from the doorway. Those who turned to see its source went very still.
"That almost looks as if it would fit me," Sharindala the sorceress told the four gaping mages brightly. "And I do need something to preserve my modesty, as you can see."
The Lady of Scorchstone Hall wore only her long, silken brown hair. It cloaked her breast and flanks as she strode forward, but no man there could fail to notice that aside from her tresses, she was bare to the world from the top of her head down to her hips…where her flesh ended, leaving bare bones from there to the floor.
"May I?" she asked, extending a hand for the garment. Around her, several folk slid down in their seats, fainting dead away, and there was a rush of booted feet for the door. Suddenly there was a small circle of empty space in the Fair Maid, ringed by men who were mostly white-faced and staring.
"I've got to get through a few more spells before I'll be able to eat or drink anything," Sharindala explained, "and it's rather embarrassing…."
Tabarast snatched the gown out of her reach with a low growl of fear, but Caladaster stepped in front of him, tugging on his own robe. He had it over his head and off in a trice, to reveal a rotund and hairy body clad in breeches and braces that were stiff and shiny with age and dirt. "It's none too clean, lady," he said hesitantly, "and will probably hang on you as loose as any tent, but … take it, 'tis freely given."
A long, slender white arm took it, and a smile was given in return. "Caladaster? You were just a lad when I…oh, gods, has it been so long?"
Caladaster swallowed, red faced, and licked lips that seemed suddenly very dry. "What happened to you, Lady Sharee?"
"I died," she replied simply, and utter silence fell in the Maid. Then the sorceress shrugged on the offered robe, and smiled at the man who'd given it to her. "But I've come back. Mystra showed me the way."
There arose a murmur from the crowd. Sharindala took Caladaster's arm in one hand and his tankard in the other…her touch was cool and smooth and normal-seeming enough. She said gently, "Come, walk with me, we've much to talk about."
As they moved toward the door together, the half-skeletal sorceress paused in front of the mage from the Coast and added, "By the way, sir: everything that's been said about Azuth here this night is true. Whether you believe it or not."
They went out the door in a silence so deep that people had to gasp for air by the time they remembered to breathe again.
He seemed to have lost his boots again and to be walking barefoot on moonlight, somewhere in Faerun where the sun of late afternoon should still have reigned. A breath ago he'd been talking with three mages in a forest, and the cheese had begun to arrive, to go with their wine…and now he was here, left with but a glimpse of their startled faces at the manner of his going.
So where exactly was here?
"Mystra?" he asked aloud, hopefully.
The moonlight surged up around him into silver flames that did not burn but instead sent the thrill of power through him, and those flames shaped themselves into arms that embraced him.
"Lady mine," Elminster breathed as he felt the soft brush of a familiar body against his…there went his clothes again, how did she do that?…and the tingling touch of her lips.
He kissed her back, hungrily, and silver fire swept through him as their bodies trembled together. He tried to caress soft, shifting flames…only to find himself holding nothing and standing in darkness once more, with Mystra standing like a pillar of silver fire not far away.
"Mystra?" El asked her, letting a little of the loneliness he'd felt into his voice.
"Please," the goddess whispered pleadingly, "This is as hard for me as it has been for you…I must not tarry. And you tempt me, Elminster … you tempt me so."
Silver flames swirled, and a hungry mouth closed on El's own for one long, glorious moment, fires crashing and charging through him, rising into splendor that made him weep and roar and writhe all at once.
"Elminster," that musical voice told him, as he floated in hazy bliss, "I'm sending you now to Silverhand Tower to rear three Chosen."
"Rear?" El asked, startled, his bliss washed away into alert alarm.
There seemed to be a laugh struggling to break through the tones of the goddess as she said, "You'll find three little girls waiting in the Tower, alone and uncertain. Be as a kindly uncle and tutor to them, feed them, clothe them, and teach them how to be and who to be."
Elminster swallowed, watching Mystra dwindle once more into a distant star. "You are forbidden to control their minds, or compel them save in emergencies most dire," she added. "As they grow older, let them forge forth to make their own lives. Your task then will be to watch over them covertly, and to ride in and pick up the pieces to ensure their survival from time to time, not to guide them unless they seek your advice … and we both know how often willful Chosen seek out the advice of others, don't we?"
"Mystra!" El cried despairingly, reaching out his arms for her.
"Oh by the Weave, man, don't make this any harder for me," Mystra murmured, and the kiss and caress that set him afire then also whirled him end over end, away.
Epilogue
Perhaps the greatest service Elminster has ever done for Faerun is to be father and mother to the daughters of Mystra. Holding almost all of Mystra's magic and keeping Toril together with his very fingertips during the Time of Troubles…that was easy. Rearing little girls of clever wits, much energy, bewitching beauty, and mighty magical powers, and doing it well…now that's hard.
Silverhand Tower, when he found himself standing a little way off from it, blinking in the sunlight, was a riven shell, little more than a cottage attached to an empty ring of battlements and the gutted stump of a keep. Deep woods surrounded it, cloaked it, and were in the patient process of overwhelming it, hewn back only from an oval vegetable garden. A small, dirty face was peering doubtfully at him from its leafy green heart…a face that vanished, leaving only dancing leaves behind, once he smiled at it.
Elminster peered at the garden to see if he could catch sight of a little body scuttling anywhere. He could not, and soon shrugged and strolled toward the cottage, its straw roof a mass of bright flowers and nodding herbs.
"Ambara?" he called gently as he approached. "Ethena?"
The door seemed to be stuck fast…off the latch, but refusing to open. He nudged it with his knee, mindful of the fact that little bodies might be crouched behind it, and heard the faint protest of wood splintering. It had been pegged closed, into a dirt floor. Someone had a mallet or mace or axe to hand.
"Ambara?" he asked the darkness within. "Ethena? Anamanue?"
The wand spat so close behind him that he heard the young, light voice murmur the command word quite clearly before the rain of magic missiles tore into him, hurling him against the door. His body was still shuddering as something snatched the peg away and hurled the door open, spilling him into the dim interior, and something else drove an axe at his head, hard.
It struck his spellshield with a shower of sparks and glanced away, numbing hands that were too small for it and making their owner sob with pain. Without thinking El reached out and placed a healing on the small, barefoot slip of a girl who was trying not to cry … and became aware that an utter silence had fallen.
He drew his hand slowly back from the one he'd healed, seeing an intent face above a tightly clutched and dusty dagger, close by his left ear…and an equally intent face, over the ready-held wand, just out of reach to his right. Long and tousled silver hair adorned all three heads, and all three of the faces, even in their dirty, alarmed, and childlike state, were breathtaking in their beauty.