Elminster shrugged. "Move around behind it, perhaps. After we've disarmed and trammeled this one a bit to stop him moving, and taken what we can from the others."
"Yes," Sharantyr said. "Of course." Her voice was grim. Elminster reached out a long arm to touch her shoulder.
"Is killing hard for ye?" he asked quietly.
"No," Sharantyr replied as softly, her eyes meeting his. "Not anymore. That bothers me, sometimes."
Elminster nodded. "So long as it bothers ye, 'tis well. When it does not, the problems begin. I'll draw the fangs of the living one, if ye'll rob the dead ones. Age hath its privileges, and choosing the nobler task is one."
She raised a dark eyebrow. "What? Elminster of Shadowdale choosing the nobler task? Are my ears ensorcelled?"
Elminster sighed. "Mockery," he observed heavily, "seems the paramount privilege of youth."
"Youth?" Sharantyr dimpled, and raised a hand to her hair coquettishly. "Why, thank you."
Elminster snorted. "Get on with it, lass. I'd like to speak to this one while he yet lives. I think the mage recognized me before he died."
"Which means?"
"Old foes. The Zhentarim, almost certainly." The Old Mage heard his battle companion hiss, raised his eyebrows, and continued. "Others, too, perhaps. And with me not at my best."
Sharantyr laid a hand on his arm. "We make a good team, Old Mage. Worry not."
Elminster rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to reply. Then he stiffened and his face changed.
Sharantyr's blade rose. "Elminster? Wha-magic? Attacking you?"
The Old Mage waved his hands in a weak negative. His face was paler than it had been, and he sighed heavily
"Glad I am, lass, that we were through with that"-he pointed at the bodies around-"ere this befell."
"What is it? Are you well?"
Elminster nodded a little wearily. Sharantyr saw that his forehead was wet with sweat.
"Some power has left me. Azuth or Mystra or her successor… calling on it. Not a hostile thing, but disconcerting all the same." He looked up. "Well? Have ye turned out the boots and purses of the departed yet?"
Sharantyr grimaced. "Old Mage," she added very quietly, "there are things I must know first."
Elminster rolled his eyes again. "There always are," he agreed pleasantly, and waited.
Sharantyr made another face. "Elminster," she said, pointing with her blade, "you were deadly enough with that wand just now. Tell me, if we're to walk together awhile, just what magic do you carry? What does it do and, if worst befalls, can I use any of it? If so, how?"
Elminster's hand rose with exaggerated feebleness. "Wait, wait," he protested in the effete tones of a Sembian dandy. "I never can keep track of more than two questions at a time. There ought to be a law, to keep wenches down to asking just two of each man until they're answered."
Sharantyr just looked at him.
Elminster grinned and said, "All right. Ye are right to ask, and should know. Of what I carry, ye can use only the wand in my right boot-it hurls magic missiles: one missile if ye think the word alag and two if ye think baulgoss; my belt flask, which contains an elixir of health-ye know, cures disease, poison, an' all that; and the rings I wear, which work without any guidance on thy part. One allows ye to land lightly after any fall, and the other turns away some spells. There's another ring in my purse; it heals wounds when worn. It works but slowly, mind ye, so don't go being heroic. Got all that?"
Sharantyr looked at him again. Then she looked up at the night sky overhead and told the stars, "There ought to be a law…"
Elminster chuckled. "I also have the wand of lightnings ye saw and my pipe, which holds a trick or two. Naught else."
Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. "No? You surprise me. How you can stagger along under the weight of all that and look at me long-faced to say you have no magic is beyond all belief."
Elminster chuckled. "Baubles, lass. At least, until thy life depends on them and all else is gone"-his smile died suddenly-"as it has gone." Then he thought of something more. "Another thing: All of these trinkets are old and may not work as others ye have seen."
"Old? How old?"
"Ah, well, Myth Drannan, most of them."
Sharantyr sighed. "I'll just go and see to robbing these corpses, shall I?"
Elminster got out his pipe. "Not a moment sooner than I thought ye would," he grunted, watching the flickering gate.
Sharantyr gestured rudely at him with her sword and went to the farthest body. Strangling was the most fitting fate for mages. No, shutting several of them up in a room together to drive each other mad with their testy, interminable drivel-ahem, eloquence. Yes. That would be best. She had to survive all this to get to Berdusk and suggest the process to a few Harpers. It would definitely be a service to civilized folk everywhere.
Among them, the dead men had carried no more than a handful of coins, assorted daggers, two skins of water, two metal flasks containing what Sharantyr suspected were magical healing potions, and-on the wizard of course-a plain brass ring and a belt purse holding only a rusted, hand-size iron sphere.
Elminster's eyes lit at the sight of the sphere. "Devised long ago by Azuth himself," he said with satisfaction. "Those who use his truename can command any of these spheres, even if they don't know the command word of the particular sphere."
"And you know Azuth's truename?"
Elminster looked hurt. "Of course."
Sharantyr sighed. Of course. "So who was this Bilarro whom such spheres are named for?"
"A later, lesser mage," Elminster sniffed. "He saw one such sphere, learned through diligence and much misadventure how to make his own, and retired fat and rich on the proceeds of a life of selling such baubles to every swordsman fearful of magic. I've heard that a treacherous apprentice used one on him in the end, and cast him into a nearby pond to see if he could swim. But that may be just a tavern tale."
Sharantyr sighed again. Did wizards spend all their lives scheming and keeping score? She looked around at the night-shrouded trees, the ruins, and the glowing, flickering oval of light. Nothing moved. Firm schooling took her on a careful walk around the edge of the area lit by the gate, looking into the night more carefully. She could see no life, no lurking menace, but her sword did not leave her hand.
"Old Mage," she said as she rejoined Elminster, "let us make haste. I do not think it wise to tarry here overlong."
"And ye are right," he agreed grandly. Sharantyr was raising an annoyed eyebrow and parting her lips to speak before he slowly winked.
"It's a wonder," the lady ranger murmured to the guard, as she bent over to take him by the armpits and drag him around behind the glowing gate, "why anyone puts up with archmages long enough to let them reach their advanced powers. You'd think a lot more of them would be drowned or strangled-or have their tongues torn out by the roots-before they'd been a year or two at their studies."
The guard, flopping limply and heavily in her grasp, did not reply.
Elminster seemed to take a very long time getting ready to question the last guard. Sharantyr had removed the man's gauntlets, helm, and belt, using the latter to tie his hands together. After examining the mage's body thoroughly for hidden weapons or items that might be magical, she dumped it atop the guard, pinning his arms and midsection under its weight. Elminster nodded approvingly but kept on examining their booty, muttering to himself and making faces.
At length he opened both vials, sniffed them with the air of a connoisseur, tasted what his fingertip found of both, and said, "These heal, and as far as I can tell do naught else. Ye carry them both, for ye may well have more need of them." He grinned reassuringly and said, "Carry the mage's ring, also, but do not put it on. Keep it hidden in thy belt, to show as a token from him should we need such a ruse. We dare not try to use it."