The Temptation of Elminster Read online

  Antarn the Sage

  from The High History of

  Faerûnian Archmages Mighty

  published circa The Year of the Staff

  When chill ruled mornings, mists lay heavy among the trees. Few folk of the Starn ever ventured this far into Howling Ghost Wood, so the pickings were plentiful—and Immeira had never seen any howling ghosts. Her sack was already half-full of nuts, berries, and alphran leaves. Soon the moontouch blooms would sprout in handfuls among the trees, followed by fiddle-heads and butter cones … and to think some folk—even some Starneir—claimed that only a hunter who could bring down a stag a tenday could live off the woods.

  Immeira rubbed an itch on her cheek thoughtfully, and looked back to where the trees thinned. Over the fields beyond them, down in the vale where Gar’s Road crossed the Larrauden, stood Buckralam’s Starn.

  “Forty cottages full of nosy old women who weave cloaks all day while their sheep wander untended,” the bard Talost had once described it. Longtime Starneir were still angry over those words and could be counted on to provide a few new and even more colorfully twisted misfortunes the gods could—and should—visit on the over-critical bard, forthwith. As far as Immeira could tell, Talost had got it about right, but she had already learned, and learned well, that truth wasn’t necessarily highly prized around the Starn.

  Her father had disappeared while adventuring. He was part of a proper chartered adventuring band who called themselves Taver’s Talons after the brawling, always guffawing old warrior Taver who led them with the sun shining back off his bald pate. In Immeira’s memory Taver still sat his saddle, bright and bluff, but folk said he was bones and dust these eight years gone. None could tell his bones from those of the next six—her father among them—who’d fallen to the dragon’s jaws that day.

  The Starn had talked of Taver’s Talons for eight winters now, and some of them swore the Talons were fiends in human form, hiding here to better corrupt the women of passing caravans and spread their dark seed over all Faerûn. Others were just as insistent that the Talons had been bandits all along, just lurking hereabouts until they could learn all about Starneir and the forest trails so as to found a bandit realm back in the real woods, not so far off. Some called this kingdom Talontar—to others it was Darkride—but no one knew just where its borders started or who dwelt there or why they’d never come down on the Starn with ready bows and hungry knives in the years since the Talons had fallen or stolen away or committed whatever great crime kept them now in hiding.

  Yes, truth was something a wagging tongue or two could change overnight in the Starn. The only exception to that, so far as Immeira could see, was the truth that lurked in the sharp and ready blades of the Iron Fox and his men.

  They’d come out of the east on Gar’s Road some six springs ago. A handful of hardened mercenaries with cold steel in their hands and a world-weary, merciless set to their colder eyes. The leader was a tall, fat man whose helm peaked with an iron fox head; even his men called him only “the Iron Fox.” He rode into the courtyard of the little Shrine of the Sheaf, ordered the feeble old priest Rarendon out into the spring snows at sword point, and taken the place as his home.

  Henceforth, he told the silent villagers at the Trough and Plough that evening, services to Chauntea would be held out in the open fields, as was proper. Former keeps were better suited to the purpose they’d been built for: housing men of action such as he and his men, who henceforth would dwell in the Starn and defend it, to the betterment of all.

  A little after highsun the next day, a crudely lettered scroll of laws was tacked upon the door of the Trough. It was distressingly short, proclaiming the Iron Fox the sole judge, lawmaker, and authority in Fox’s Starn. That very night, a few who’d dared disagree with specific laws, or disapprove of the entire affair, were left sprawled in their blood on the road or on their own steps—or simply disappeared. A few of the best-looking young Starneir ladies were taken from their homes to Fox Tower and installed in scanty gowns there, a cart of stonemasons arrived a tenday later to rebuild it into a fortress, and talk about the hidden evil of the Starn’s only heroes, Taver’s Talons, began.

  Kindly, confused old Rarendon was taken into the old stables behind the mill, where the dwarven millwright allowed orphans of the Starn—including Immeira—to live. In the month that followed, several able-bodied farmers whose lands lay close about Fox Tower died right after planting was done, when their farmhouses mysteriously caught fire by night, their doors were propped shut from outside, and their windows overlooked by hitherto undetected brigands equipped with crossbows of the same sort used by the Fox’s men. Two gossipy old Starneir women and blind old Adreim the Carver were flogged in the Market for minor transgressions against the laws. The folk of the Starn started to get used to ever-present patrols of hard-eyed swordsmen, the seizure of not quite half of all the harvests they brought in, and living in fear.

  They made their silent, feeble protests. “Fox’s Starn” remained Buckralam’s Starn in the mouths of one and all, and the Fox’s men seemed to ride about in a perpetually silent, nearly deserted valley. Wherever they went, children and goodwives melted away into the woods, leaving toys discarded and pots unwatched, whilst the farmers of the Starn were always in the farthest, muddiest back hollows of their fields, too hard at work to even look up when a plate-armored shadow fell across them.

  Like many girls of the Starn on the budding verge of womanhood, Immeira became another sort of shadow—one that lurked in drab old men’s clothes and kept to the woods by day, sleeping in barn lofts and on low roofs by night. They’d seen into the eyes of their gowned older sisters, seen their scars and manacles too, and had no desire to join a dance of warmth, good food and ready drink that cost them their freedom and handed them brutality, servility, and pain. Immeira had a figure to equal many of the Fox’s “playpretties” now and took care to wear bulky old leather vests and shapeless tunics, keep her hair wild and unkempt—and keep herself hidden in forest gloom or night dark. Even more than the sullen boys of the valley, the she-shadows of the Starn dreamed of the Talons riding up the road someday soon, with bright, bared swords at the ready, to carve the Iron Fox into flight.

  Once or twice a tenday Immeira stole through the pheasant-haunted eastern ridges of Howling Ghost Wood to where the Gar’s Road topped Hurtle Tor and descended into the Realm of the Iron Fox. The Fox’s cruel warriors kept a patrol there to keep watch over who came to the Starn and to exact a toll from peddlers and wagon trains too weary or undermanned to refuse to pay.

  Sometimes Immeira kept them occupied by making animal crashings in the underbrush and stealing any crossbow quarrels they were foolish enough to loose into the trees, but more often she simply hunkered down in silence and watched the antics on the road. Word must be getting around the lands beyond the valley. Fewer and fewer peddlers were taking Gar’s Road. The Starn hadn’t seen anything that could be called a caravan since the season after the coming of the Iron Fox.

  This morning there had been a rime of ice along the banks of the Larrauden and frost had touched white sparkles onto many a fallen leaf. Immeira had to keep rubbing her bare fingertips to keep warm, knowing her lips must be blue, but the damp of the slow-warming day kept her footsteps in the forest near-silent, so she was thankful. Once she’d startled a hare into full crashing flight through the trees, but for the most part she moved through the mists like a drifting shadow, dipping gentle fingers to pluck up what food she needed. A little hollow she’d used before afforded her a dirt couch from which to watch the Foxling road patrol with ease. Propped up against a mossy bank with the comforting weight of the tree limb she kept ready there, in case she ever needed a club, ready in her hands, she’d even begun to doze when it happened.

  There was a sudden stir among the six black-armored men, a jingling of mail that marked swords sliding out and their owners hurrying back into the roadside trees, to crouch ready while fellow Foxlings swung into their saddles to block th
e road.

  Someone was coming—someone they expected to have either trouble or a bit of fun with. Immeira rubbed her eyes and sat up with quickening interest.

  A moment later, a lone man on a dapple gray horse topped the rise, a long sword swaying at his hip as his mount walked unhurriedly down into the valley. He was young and somehow both gentle and hard of face, with a hawklike nose, and black hair pulled back into a shoulder tail. He saw the waiting men, swords and all, but neither hesitated nor checked his mount. Unconcernedly it plodded onward with its rider empty-handed and almost jaunty, humming a tune Immeira did not know.

  “Halt!” one of the Foxlings barked. “You stand upon the very threshold of the Realm of the Iron Fox!”

  “Wherefore I must—what?” the newcomer inquired with a raised eyebrow, reaching to take up a rolled cloak from his saddle. “Abandon hope? Yield up some toll? Join the local nunnery?”

  “Show a lot less smart-jaws first!” the Foxling snarled. “Oh, you’ll pay a toll, too—after you’re done begging our forgiveness … and mewling over the loss of your sword hand.”

  The newcomer raised his brows and brought his mount to a halt. “A rather steep price to cross a threshold,” he said. “Don’t we get to fight each other first?”

  Immeira rubbed her eyes again, in wonder. There was a general roar of rage from the Foxlings, and they surged forward, those afoot springing from the trees. The newcomer backed his horse, and a small knife flashed in his hand. He threw the cloak he’d taken from his saddle into the faces of the oncoming riders, turned the dapple gray, and rode down one of the men on foot, the horse kicking viciously. Its rider kicked at another Foxling to keep him clear, snatched something from his saddle, slashed at it, and threw it at the man. A spurt of sand marked where it burst in the Foxling’s face.

  Then the newcomer was behind the line of Foxlings. One horse had bolted, throwing its rider. The other two were tangled amid the reason for its flight: the length of barbed chain that had been inside the cloak.

  The newcomer leaned back with a matching length of chain in his hand to lash one of the mounted Foxlings across the throat. The man toppled from his saddle without a sound, and the Foxling next to him suddenly sprouted the newcomer’s little knife in his eye.

  Suddenly riderless, one mount reared and the other jostled it, trampling two fallen Foxlings under its hooves. Another knife flashed into the throat of the Foxling who’d taken the sand in his face. As he fell, another bag of sand wobbled harmlessly past the shoulder of one of the two Foxlings who were left.

  Used to bullying frightened men, their faces were white and their steps uncertain. As they advanced slowly on the hawk-nosed man, he plucked another knife from a saddle side sheath and gave them a welcoming smile.

  At that, one of the Foxlings moaned in terror and fled. The other listened to booted feet crashing away into the trees, looked into the blue-gray eyes of the man who’d so swiftly and easily slain his fellows, then hurled his sword at that coldly smiling face, wheeled round, and ran.

  A bag of sand took the Foxling on the side of the head after he’d managed only a few scrambling strides, and he fell heavily on the road. The dapple gray surged forward to dance on his fallen form, as its owner turned in his saddle, sighed, and leaped for the trees, abandoning Gar’s Road to the dead and dying.

  The hawk-nosed man ran lightly, another knife in his hand, on the trail of the Foxling who’d fled. It wouldn’t be wise to let one foe go free to warn others of his arrival—not if a fifth of what he’d heard of these vicious warriors of the Fox was true.

  It wasn’t hard to mark where the fleeing man had gone; panting and crashing in plenty were going on among the dancing tree branches up ahead, as the dark-mailed man struggled up a ridge.

  A moment later the running man slipped into some sort of hole or gully with a startled yell.

  Immeira’s scream matched it, as the Foxling warrior suddenly plunged down into her hiding place. She snatched up her tree limb as the sweating man crashed down atop her, struck the side of his helm so hard the wood broke, and somehow got out from under his trembling weight.

  She needed only a moment to plant the battered toe of her boot on a projecting tree root and boost herself out, but desperately strong fingers grabbed her before she got that moment, and dragged her back down. She kicked out with her feet and flailed about with her elbows as the man beneath her grunted and snarled half-coherent curses. Then she swung around to claw at his face. Immeira got a momentary glimpse of one furious eye amid grizzled cheeks before a fist out of nowhere crashed into her temple, sending her reeling back against the forest dirt with sun glare and shadows swirling in her eyes.

  Immeira was dimly aware of an armored bulk moving toward her. She kicked out and in the same motion rolled over to claw at roots and moss and try to get out of the pit again. One surge, another, and she was on her knees in the forest moss at the lip of the hollow, rising. She came to a quivering halt, with a grip as crushing and cruel as iron around her ankle, dragging her back.

  Steel flashed past her head, and the grip was suddenly gone.

  Immeira sprawled on her face in damp dead leaves, as a wet gurgling sound slid back down into the hollow behind her. A long sword dark with fresh blood was wiped on the moss to one side of her, and a surprisingly gentle voice said, “Good lady, will ye tarry here by yon duskwood? I have need of thy aid, but urgent battle yet to attend to.”

  “I—I—yes,” Immeira managed to say, shuddering, and a moment later gentle but firm fingers were opening her moss-smeared right hand, laying the hilt of a dagger in her palm, and closing her fingers around it. Immeira stared down at it, a little dazed, as sudden silence descended on this corner of the forest again.

  The hawk-nosed man was gone, trotting lightly back through the trees toward the road. Immeira stared after him, licked suddenly dry lips, and could not help but glance back into the hollow.

  The Foxling was a huddled heap, his throat drenched crimson with blood, and she suddenly felt very sick.

  Retching into the leaves and ferns, Immeira never saw the newcomer busily rolling over bodies, making sure of death and plucking forth weapons. She was waiting by the duskwood when he came back through the trees bearing a large bundle whose innards clashed steel upon steel from time to time as he moved. The stranger gave her a grin. “Well met,” he said politely, sketching a courtly bow.

  Immeira stared at him, then snorted with sudden, helpless mirth. She found herself trying to manage a low curtsy in return, despite her old breeches and flopping boots, and fell over in the moss. They hooted with laughter together, and a strong arm righted Immeira, leaving her staring into the eyes of the hawk-nosed warrior.

  “I—” Immeira began hesitantly.

  The newcomer gave her an easy grin, patted her arm reassuringly, and said, “Call me Wanlorn. I’ve come hunting foxes … Iron Foxes. What’s thy name?”

  “Immeira,” she replied, looking down at the dagger he’d given her, then back up at him, scarcely able to believe that the salvation she’d watched for all these years had come to the Starn so quickly and so capably deadly.

  “Is it safe to tarry here—not long—and talk?” he asked.

  “It is,” Immeira granted, then summoned up her wits and will enough to ask a question of her own.

  “Are you alone?” she asked, studying the man’s face. It was not so young as it had first appeared, and “Wanlorn” was an old folk name for “wanderer searching for something.” How could one man—even one so skilled at arms as this one—defeat, or even escape alive, from all the men who raised blades for the Fox?

  As if he’d read her mind, the hawk-nosed man took Immeira gently by her upper arms and said urgently, “I am indeed alone—wherefore I need thy help, lass. Not to fight Foxlings with tree limbs … or even daggers, but to tell me: do the folk of the Starn wish to be rid of the Iron Fox?”

  “Yes,” Immeira said, a little bewildered by how fast Faerûn had been turned upside d
own in front of her eyes. “By the gods, yes.”

  “And how many blades answer the Fox’s call? Both ready-armed, like these, and others who may hurl spells or be able to fire a crossbow or hold loyal in some other wise … tell me, please.”

  Immeira found herself spilling out all she knew and could remember or guess about the Iron Fox and his forces. The newcomer’s dancing eyes and ready grin never failed, even when she told him that those who wore the dark mail and the fox head badge numbered a dozen more than the six he’d slain, and that no man remained in the Starn with brawn or courage enough to back a lone newcomer against the Iron Fox. Nor could she trust anyone beyond herself to aid him, for fear of tales being carried back by those among the she-shadows who might well, after a hard winter, want to win warmth and fine clothes and good food enough to betray someone they scarcely knew.

  His grin broadened when she told him that as far as she’d heard no sorcerer or even priest dwelt in Fox Tower or anywhere near the Starn and that the Fox commanded no magic himself.

  Immeira told Wanlorn, or whatever his name truly was, where the guards were posted and how soon the six men would be missed. The half dozen Foxlings were lying in the trees with their helms tossed into the Larrauden and their mounts—plus one unfamiliar dapple gray horse—tethered nearby. She told him as much as she knew—of how the Iron Fox spent his evenings; where his four hunting dogs and the crossbows, lanterns, and horses at Fox Tower were kept; and of life in the Starn both these days and before the fall of the Talons—until she was quite weary of answering questions.

  Wanlorn asked her if there were any haystacks in the Starn that could be approached unseen from these woods and that would escape being disturbed by farmers in the next day or two. She told him of three such, and he asked her to guide him to the best of them as stealthily as possible, to hide his bundle of seized weapons.

  “What then?” she asked quietly.