Elminster stared down at her, oddly touched, his mouth curling in a smile. The bow had been done out of respect, not in the obsequious or emptily formal way he'd seen so often in real courts. He gave her the low, hand-sweeping bow of gallant knights in return, solemnly and with none of the archness with which he bowed to, say, Torm of the Knights in jest.
The girl was silent for a moment and then, very slowly, she blushed. Wonder sparkled in her eyes. She turned suddenly and made as if to dash away but halted, like a bird snagged upon a thorn, as another young voice rang out in protest.
"Jhaleen, you promised! You said you'd ask him! Well, here he is, so…"
The girl, her eyes very large, looked back at the boy who'd spoken and then at Elminster, like a trapped hare. Elminster smiled invitingly.
Jhaleen blurted out, "Lord Elminster! Old Mage! Make magic for us, please! Please!" A chorus of young voices joined her bold one, and she added excitedly, "A dragon flying. Only a little one, just for us!"
Elminster smiled, felt tears near again, and knelt down to embrace her. "Not this morn, little one," he said softly, his eyes very blue. "Magic must be saved up, like coins, and used only when other ways fail."
She blinked up at him, disappointed, and Elminster chuckled and rubbed her cheek with the back of one long, gentle finger. He remembered, then, where he'd seen this brown-eyed girl before. In one of his dreams.
"Nay, be not downcast, Jhaleen. I see some things, know ye, in my dreams. Things I know will come to pass, in summers still to come." He leaned close to her, and whispered for her ears alone, "I've seen thee-much taller than now, and stern-riding a dragon."
She looked into his eyes and saw truth, and her mouth dropped open in awe and trembled just a little in fear. It is one thing to dream of dragons, and quite another to know with cold certainty that someday you will be touching one. More than that; flying high above the ground on a dragon's scaly back, with empty air as high as castles beneath you, and a twisted death below should you fall.
Elminster chuckled, and clapped her on the shoulder. "Go on playing thy games," he said, "and watch close what the Queen of Aglarond says and does when she visits us. And perhaps ye will befriend and even come to command dragons." Then he rose and walked slowly away from them all.
White-faced and silent, Jhaleen watched the Old Mage as he moved away into the depths of the forest. She'd seen the glint of tears in the archmage's eyes and could only think he foresaw something terrible that would happen to her. She stood watching him go until the trees hid him from view, then turned and hurried toward the path that led out of the trees toward home.
"Jhaleen, where be you going, then? Don't you want to play at high magic, anymore?" the boy who'd pretended to be Elminster called.
Jhaleen wheeled around so suddenly that the smaller children, who'd followed her out of habit, jumped back in apprehension. With a fierceness that surprised even herself she hissed, "I'll never play games about magic again! Never. It's… not something to play at."
She turned about again and ran out of the woods as if the black-armored warriors of Zhentil Keep were chasing her, faster than she'd ever run before. Her lungs burned and tears swam before her eyes, but the black terror that ran after her was worse.
Her fleet bare feet pounded along the earthen paths, stumbling and hurrying, until she came out into the dapped sunlight at last. Panting like a winded horse, she tore her way through young branches and, with a little shriek of fear, almost ran into someone. A tall lady clad in leather armor stood in the meadow beyond, brown hair flowing down over her shoulders in a fall almost as long as the slim sword scabbarded at her hip.
Jhaleen twisted to avoid running right into that blade, and fell. In an instant, gently strong hands raised her again and steady gray-green eyes looked into her own.
It was the Lady Sharantyr of the Knights. "What's wrong, lass? What's to run from, so?"
A breath later, Jhaleen was sobbing out all the Lord Elminster had said and how he'd been crying and had walked away.
The lady ranger held Jhaleen close. Sharantyr comforted the girl, turned her back to face the trees, and told her firmly never to run from what frightened her but to back away from it calmly and carefully, to see what it did.
Jhaleen felt a little better and managed a smile. She nodded when Sharantyr told her to take a walk in the sunlight and think carefully about what Elminster had said, so as to remember it properly later.
Biting at her knuckle to hold back fresh tears, Jhaleen watched Sharantyr go on into the wood. The lady had looked so sad when Jhaleen had told her about the Old Mage, and now she was hurrying through the trees as if to catch him. Something was wrong, very wrong. And with the Lord Elminster at the heart of it, who could tell her what was right, and what should be done, and what the truth of it all was?
As Jhaleen backed carefully away from the dark trees into the warmth of the full sun, she looked around, but no one came with answers. She was all alone with the trees and the grass, and there was no one to guide her. She walked without a known way before her, unsure of what to do next. Like someone she'd just seen, she realized suddenly.
Just like the Old Mage, walking away into the trees.
Elminster walked on into the deepening forest, just walking ever onward, tree-cloaked hillsides rising and falling under his feet. He felt empty and weak, as useless as a rotted log, and at the same time restless with the power that fairly crackled within him. Power he could not use, could not touch, dare not try to unleash. "By Mystra's touch," wizards often swore. By Mystra's touch, indeed.
His wandering feet brought him to the edge of a little gully, and Elminster paused a moment, gazing about to choose his route onward. He heard the faintest of sounds in the underbrush far behind him and nodded. The fifth time… too often for all such noises to have been small, disturbed forest creatures.
Someone-or something-was following him. Someone intelligent and with deliberate purpose. Someone who took care to keep out of sight. Elminster sighed and turned to face back the way he had come. "Ye may as well walk with me," he announced to the woods, "though truth to tell ye I'd prefer silent company this day."
Silence greeted him, the listening, waiting silence of the forest. The old wizard joined its wait for a breath or two and then shrugged, turned about, and went on. Not a friend, then-or not overbold, at least.
His hand strayed to the hilt of the belt knife he'd almost forgotten and then fell away again. Perhaps the magic he wore would suffice-in rings and pipe and wand, and even in the dagger strapped inside his right boot, whose soft sole was already wearing thin-even if the Art of his head and hands had deserted him. Elminster feared he'd soon have to find out.
He shrugged, trotted down a little bank, and plowed through a hollow that was ankle deep in dry leaves. He climbed its far side steadily and walked deliberately on into the rising land beyond, but paused in a stand of massive shadowtops to listen.
After what seemed like a long time, he heard the sound he'd waited for. Now was as good a time as any to look at death, he supposed wryly. He turned and took one step around the dark trunk of a forest giant, laid a hand on his belt knife-and the world fell on him, gauntleted hands smashing brutally into his face and stabbing steely fingers at his throat.
3
Death came for them with cold fury. The four brigands, intent on robbing an old man in fine robes, the sort of person who might well have a gold coin or two stitched into belt or boot top, did not hear their doom coming down on them.