Elmara discovered she was ravenous. The forest bustards had been cooked in a mushroom sauce and were delicious—and the goblet proved to be full of the best mint wine, incredibly clear and heady. She devoured everything; Braer smiled and shook his head more than once as he watched.
When she was done, another flourish of the elf's hands pro¬duced a bowl of warmed vinegar-water and a fine linen cloth for Elmara to wash her face and hands with. As she wiped grease from her chin, she saw his grave expression had returned.
"I ask again, Elmara: do you forgive me? I have wronged you."
"Forgive—of course." El stretched forth her newly cleaned hand to squeeze one of his.
Braer looked down at her hand on his, and then back up at her. "I did to you what we of the forest consider a very bad thing: I misjudged you. I did not mean to upset you . . . nor make it worse by leaving you to your grief. Do you recall just what was said between us?"
Elmara stared at him. "Ye said ye'd wasted much time these past two seasons, and only now could begin to teach me."
Braer nodded. "What question did you ask, to make me say so?"
El wrinkled her brow, and then said slowly, "I asked you why elves love magic."
Braer nodded. "Yes." He waved a hand. All the dinner-things vanished, and a vivid ring of blue mage-fire raced into being around them. He settled himself cross-legged, and asked, "Do you feel up to talking the night through?"
El frowned. "Of course ... why?"
"There are some things you should know ... and at last are ready to hear."
Elmara met his grave eyes and leaned forward. "Speak, then," she whispered eagerly.
Braer smiled. "To answer one of your questions directly for once: we of the People love magic because we love life. Magic is the life energy of Faerun, lass, gathered in its raw form and used to power specific effects by those who know how. Elves—and the Stout Folk, too, deep in the rocks beneath us—live close to the land... part of it, linked to it—and in balance with it. We grow no more numerous than the land will bear and shape our lives to what the land will support. Forgive me, but humans are different."
Elmara nodded and waved at him to continue.
Braer met her eyes with his own and said steadily, "Like orcs, humans know best how to do four things: breed too rapidly; covet everything around them; destroy anything and everything that stands in the way of any of their desires; and dominate what they can't or won't bother to destroy."
Elmara stared at him. Her face had paled, but she nodded slowly and again gestured for him to continue.
"Harsh words, I know," said the elf gently, "but that is what your kin mean to us. Men seek to change Faerun around them to suit their own desires. When we—or anything else—stand in their way, they cut us down. Men are quick and clever—I'll give them that—and seem to stumble on new ideas and ways more often and more swiftly than any other people ... but to us, and to the land, they are a creeping danger. A creeping rot that eats away at this forest and every other untouched part of the realm .. . and at us with it. You are the first of your race to be toler¬ated here in the depths of the wood for a very long time—and there are some among my folk who would rather you were safely dead, your flesh feeding the trees."
Elmara stared silently at him, face white and eyes very dark.
Braer smiled slightly, and added, "Death is a goal too few of your race strive for, but one more laudable than many they do pursue."
Elmara let out a long, shuddering breath, and asked, "Why then do you ... tolerate me here?"
The elf reached out a hand slowly and tentatively, and as El¬mara watched in wonder, he squeezed one of her hands just as she had done to him earlier. "Out of simple respect for the Lady, I undertook to guide you," he said, "and to turn you into ways that could do us the least damage, down the years, if the gods willed that you should live."
His smile broadened. "I've come to know you ... and respect you. I know your life's tale, Elminster Aumar, prince of Atha¬lantar. I know what you hope to do—and it would be mere pru¬dence to aid one dedicated to fighting our most powerful and nearest foes, the magelords. Your character—especially your strength in setting aside your hatred of magic long enough to agree to serve the Lady and in clinging to sanity and dignity when she made you a woman without warning—have made my task more than a duty and prudence; you have made it a plea¬sure."
Elmara swallowed, feeling fresh tears well up and run down her cheeks. "Ye-ye are the kindest and most patient person I've ever known," she whispered. "Please forgive me, for my tears earlier."
Braer patted her hand. "The fault was mine. To answer the question that has just occurred to you: Mystra made you a maid both to hide you from the magelords and to make you able to feel the link between magic, the land, and life; women are able to feel it better than men. In the days ahead, I can show you how to feel and work with that link."
"Ye can read my thoughts?" Elmara cried, drawing back from him sharply. "Then why, by all the gods, didn't ye just tell me what I needed to know?"
Braer shook his head. "I can only read thoughts when they're charged with strong emotion, and when I'm very close by. More than that: few folk can truly learn by having every idle thought answered in an instant. They don't bother to think about or remember anything, but merely come to rely on the one answering them for all wisdom and direction."
Elmara frowned, nodding very slowly. "Aye," she said softly. "Ye're right."
Braer nodded. "I know. It's the curse of my race."
Elmara looked at him for a moment, and then whooped with laughter. After a few helpless breaths of mirth, she broke off at a sound she'd never heard before: a deep, dry sound . . . Bae¬rithryn of the People was chuckling.
*****
Dawn was stealing through the trees when Braer said, "Too tired to go on?"
Elmara was stiff with sitting and swayed with weariness, but she whispered fiercely, "No! I have to know! Say on!"
Braer inclined his head in salute, and said, "Know then: the High Forest is dying, little by little, year by year, under the axes of men and the spells of magelords. They know our power—and being insecure in their own, feel they can only win the safety of their realm by destroying us."
He waved one hand in a slow arc at the silent trees around them. "Our power is rooted in the shiftings of the seasons. It is drawn from the vitality and endurance of the land—and is not a thing of flashing battle spells and destruction. The magelords know this and how to force us to fight in ways and places where they know they can defeat us, so we often dare not fight them openly . . . and they know that, too. I've lost many friends who would not admit the magelords' power rivaled or overmatched our own."
Braer sighed and continued, "You, and others like you, we can aid in your own battles against them ... and we will. So long as you respect the land and live with it, our ways lie together, and our battles shall, too. When you need aid against the magelords and call to us, we shall come. This we swear."
A moment later, half a dozen trees around them shifted and stepped forward, and his words were echoed by a fierce chorus. "This we swear."
Elmara stared around at all the solemn elven eyes, swal¬lowed, and bowed her head. "And I, in turn, swear not to work against thee or the land. Show me how to do this, please."
The elves bowed in return and melted away again into the forest.
El swallowed. "Are they always here, as trees, around us?"
Braer smiled. "No. You happened to pause and weep in a spe¬cial place."
El gave him a fierce expression, but it slid into a smile and a weary shake of her head. "I am honored... and understand your people enough, now, not to step wrongly with each stride." She yawned helplessly and added, "I think I'm more than ready to sleep now, too. Promise to show me—finally—some earth-shak¬ing spells in the days ahead?"
Baerithryn smiled. "I promise." He reached out and stroked her cheek, and as his spell sent her instantly to sleep, caught her shoulder and lowered her tenderly to the mossy ground.
Then he settled down beside her and stroked her cheek again. In her little time left in the forest, he would keep careful watch over this weapon against the magelords. More than that: he would keep careful watch over this precious friend.
Nine
THE WAY OF A MAGE
The way of a mage is a dark and lonely one. This is why so many wizards fall early into the darkness of the grave—or later into the endless twilight of undeath. Such bright prospects are why the road to mastery of magecraft is always such a crowded one.
Jhalivar Thrunn
Trail Tales of the North
Year of the Sundered Shields
A flame was suddenly dancing above the rock, in air that had been empty a moment before. Elmara caught her breath. "Mys¬tra?" she asked, and the flame seemed to brighten for a moment in response—but then it faded away into nothingness, and there was no other reply.
Elmara sighed and knelt beside the pool. "I hoped for some¬thing more."
"A little less pride, lass," Braer murmured, touching her elbow. " "'Tis more than most of my folk ever see of the Lady."
She looked at him curiously. "Just how many of the People worship Mystra?"
"Not many ... we have our own gods, and most of us have al¬ways preferred to turn our back on the rest of the world and all its unpleasantnesses and keep to the old ways. The problem is that the rest of the world always seems to reach out and thrust blades into our backsides while we're trying to ignore it."
El grinned at his words, despite their tragic meaning." 'Back¬sides'? I never thought to hear an elf say that."
Braer's mouth crooked. "I never thought to see a human hear an elf say it, if it comes to that. Do you still think of us as un¬earthly tall and thin noble creatures, gliding around above it all?"
"I—aye, I suppose I do."
The elf shook his head. "We have you fooled with the rest, then. We're as earthy and as untidy as the forest. We are the for¬est, lass. Try not to forget that as you walk out into the world of men."
" 'Walk out'?" Elmara frowned at him. "Why d'ye say that?"
"I can't help but read your thoughts, Lady. You've been hap¬pier here than ever before in your short life—but you know you've learned all you can here that'll make of yourself a better blade against the magelords . . . and you grow restless to move on."
He held up a hand as she made a small sound of protest, and went on. "Nay, lass; I can see it in you and hear it in you, and for you it is right. You can never be free, never be yourself, until your parents have been avenged and you've set Athalantar back to what you think it should be. You're driven by this, and it's a burden no one in Faerun can lift but you, by doing the deeds you've set yourself." He smiled wryly. "You didn't want to leave Farl, and now you don't want to leave me. Are you sure you shouldn't stay a woman the rest of your days?"
Elmara made a face and added softly, "I didn't know I had a choice."
"Not yet, perhaps, but you will... when you start to become a realm-shattering archmage. Thus far, you've become familiar with magic, and by the grace of Mystra call up and shape what slumbers in the land around. Did you truly think this prayer, now, and all the others each night, were wasted?"
"I—"
"You've begun to fear so, yes. I'm telling you differently," Braer said almost sternly and stood up in a single smooth move¬ment. He reached down a hand to assist her to rise and added, "I'll miss you, but I won't be sad or angry; 'tis time for you to move on. You'll return when you must. My task hasn't been to teach you spells that'll blast magelords and their dragon steeds out of the sky, but to teach you familiarity with magic and wis¬dom in the use of it. I am a priest of Mystra, yes—but there's a priestess of Mystra greater far than I am. You must go to see her soon, outside the forest. Her temple is at Ladyhouse Falls, and she knows more of the ways of men ... and of where you should go in the days ahead."
Elmara frowned. "I—ye are right, I do grow restless, but I don't want to leave."
The elf smiled. "Ah, but you do." Then his smile vanished, and he added, "And before you go, I'd like to see that revealment spell cast properly for once!"
Elmara sighed. "It's just a spell I've a little trouble with, one among—what is it?—two score and more?"
Braer raised eyebrows and hands together. " 'Just a spell'? Lass, lass. Nothing should ever be just a spell to you. Revere magic, remember? Else it's just a faster sword or longer lance to you—only a grubbing after more power than you can grasp by other means."
"It's not that to me!" Elmara protested, turning on him an¬grily. "Oh, before I came here, perhaps! Do you think I've learned nothing from you?"
"Easy, lass, easy. I'm not a magelord, remember?"
El stared at him for a moment, and then managed a laugh. "I did hold my temper and tongue better when I was a thief, didn't I?"
Braer shrugged. "You were a man, then, in a city of men— with a close friend to joke with—and you knew, every moment, that lack of iron control would mean death. Now you're a woman, attuned to the forest, feeling its flows of emotion and en¬ergy. Little things are more intense outside the crowded city, more raw, more engaging." He smiled and added, "I can't believe I've started babbling so much—and like a human sage, too!— since you've been here."
Elmara laughed. "I have done some good, then."
Braer flipped the tip of one of his ears back and forth with a finger, a gesture of mild derision among elves, and said, "I be¬lieve I mentioned a revealment spell?"
El rolled her eyes. "Didn't think I could lead ye into forgetting about it forever...."
Braer gave her an imperious wave that she knew meant 'get on with it,' and folded his arms across his chest. Elmara as¬sumed an apologetic little-lass smile for a moment, then turned to face the pool. Spreading her arms wide, she closed her eyes and whispered the prayer to Mystra, feeling the power within her surge up her arms and outward, expanding... . She opened her eyes, expecting to see the familiar blue glows of magic on the pool, perhaps on the rock where Mystra's flame had manifested, and when she swung around, here and there on Braer's body, where he wore or carried small tokens of magic.
