The Realms of the Elves a-11 Page 8

  Valmaxian's almond eyes settled on the thin form of his mentor, who stood at the lip of a bowl-shaped depression in the center of the room. The green marble there had been scorched black.

  "Is it…?" Valmaxian asked his mentor's still back.

  "Your precision is improving, at least," Kelaerede said, his voice echoing a thousandfold in the columned vastness of the casting chamber. "You've centered the fireball in a rather precise manner."

  "The wand?" Valmaxian asked, knowing the answer.

  Kelaerede stood, turned around, but didn't look at his student. "You're young," he said, his voice devoid of accusation.

  Valmaxian sighed and walked forward. His boot heels tapped out what sounded to Valmaxian like a funeral march. He came to the edge of the central bowl and looked across at a raised column that rose from the center to the height of the floor. On its eighteen-inch round surface lay a thin strip of molten silver, maybe a foot long. The metal still bubbled around the edges.

  "Damn it," Valmaxian breathed.

  "There will be other wands," Kelaerede said.

  Valmaxian turned and saw Kelaerede standing next to a small table, pouring a glass of water from a sweating crystal decanter.

  "It took the artisans of Guirolen House three years to craft that from silver mined from Selune herself," Valmaxian reminded his teacher. "It cost a king's ransom."

  Kelaerede shrugged in that entirely too-forgiving way he had of shrugging and said, "Then it's fortunate that our own beloved king is not being held for ransom."

  Valmaxian let a breath hiss out through his nose and said, "My failures amuse you."

  Kelaerede looked up, his face serious, and a cold chill ran down Valmaxian's still sweating back.

  "Not at all," the older elf said, his quiet voice carrying well in the still air. "It is not the simplest thing, Valmaxian, though you seem to think it ought to be."

  "It took the staff a tenday to prepare the bat guano alone," Valmaxian reminded him. "It was a waste."

  "Yes, it was," Kelaerede answered.

  They looked at each other for a long second before Valmaxian turned back to the blackened central bowl of the casting chamber.

  "I can't do it," he said. "Not this way."

  "You can't learn from me?" the teacher asked. "You can't try, fail, try again, then-"

  "What?" Valmaxian interrupted. "Then what? Fail again, try again, fail again, try again, fail again, and again and again until all the silver has been mined from the moon to the western continents and back again and I still haven't finished a single, simple, ridiculous little wand of fire?"

  "The fact that you don't allow for the possibility that you might succeed is at the heart of why you fail, my son," Kelaerede answered. "You've always been harder on yourself than I have been on you, and I'm known as a difficult teacher. You're quick to punish yourself, but like everything else you keep that punishment inside. I've been trying to show you that in order to create an item of true power, you'll need to give something of yourself, you'll need to open up and let some of what is-"

  "There are other ways," Valmaxian interrupted again. "There's another way."

  "My students and teachers alike consider it rude for a student to interrupt his mentor," Kelaerede replied. "We've discussed that, Val, and I've made my feelings on the matter clear."

  "I know," Valmaxian said, still looking down at the scorched marble.

  The spell wasn't supposed to actually go off. It should have been absorbed into the rare silver wand. It was a simple task, but one he found himself unable to complete. Valmaxian, in his own eyes if not in Kelaerede's, was a dismal failure. But he didn't have to be.

  "Valmaxian," Kelaerede warned, "you have promised me that you will not pursue that path-that you'll never pursue that path."

  "I have," Valmaxian said, turning to offer a weak smile to his teacher. "I apologize."

  Kelaerede returned Valmaxian's weak smile with a strong one. "You're young and impatient, Val. You're merely five hundred years old-you know that, don't you?"

  "You've told me."

  "It's true," Kelaerede said. "I could have made the same mistake myself at that age. When I was as young and frustrated as you are I might have done what you're considering doing now, but I didn't. I was warned away by my own teacher the same way I'm warning you now. Decades pass fast enough for our people, Val, and it may be decades before you are able to do what you set out to do today. It could be decades more before you're ready to go out on your own-a century maybe-but you will do it, Val. You will succeed."

  Valmaxian looked up at the dome so far above his head and forced another weak smile.

  "Yes," he said, "Yes, I will succeed. Yes, I will."

  In a much smaller room, a tenday later, Valmaxian spread a scroll out on a rough flagstone floor. The scroll had been cut from a lamb's hide, carefully tanned to a nearly paper thinness. The writing on it was in Kelaerede's careful hand. Only a handful of elves on all of Toril could have written the runes, sigils, and fell diagrams inscribed there.

  He glanced around the simple chamber, checking one last time that everything was ready. The furniture had been moved out, a single thin taper burned in an iron candlestick, and he'd firmly shuttered the narrow arched window.

  Valmaxian wore a common robe of rough wool. His hands were shaking. He drew in a deep breath and held it, counting to twenty before exhaling. He sat on his knees on the cold stone floor, a third of the way into the room with the single locked door at his back. In front of him, past the expanse of the scroll, was nothing: fifteen feet or so of floor then blank wall. The thirty-foot high ceiling seemed excessive for so small a room, but it was one of the reasons he chose it.

  The gate would be twenty feet in diameter.

  He rubbed his eyes, took three quick breaths, and started to read.

  It was difficult going. The words were hard to say. Instructions not meant to be read aloud were interwoven with them, advising on proper cadence, tone, timbre, even earnestness and enthusiasm. Likewise there were instructions for the proper gestures. His hands and fingers had to move in a very precise way and at very specific intervals.

  At least three times in the course of the minute it took to cast the spell Valmaxian almost stopped. He knew he should stop but also knew he had to go on.

  The last word echoed into silence in the still air and Valmaxian dropped his shaking, sweating hands to the floor. He didn't know what to do with them.

  He blinked when the light first appeared-a soft violet traced with blue-and it didn't so much grow brighter as more plentiful. It formed a ball first, about the size of Valmaxian's fist. The young elf looked at it with increasing anxiety.

  He'd started it, and there was no way to stop it.

  The ball of light continued to grow. It was as big as Valmaxian's head when it started to spin. As it spun faster, the ball flattened out on top, becoming a whirling oval of blue-violet light. Flashes of white appeared, smearing into traces of brilliance. The light grew rapidly and became a flat disk that slowly tipped up on one edge. It held its place perpendicular to the floor eight feet from the tip of Valmaxian's nose. There was no heat, but the young Gold elf perspired all the same. He blinked but never looked away.

  All at once the disk opened in the center and spun itself to form a ring. Beyond it, Valmaxian was able to make out irregular shadows. The light from the spinning ring interfered with his natural ability to see in the dark. He strained to focus on the space in the center of the ring, and after a few blinks he was sure he was looking at a wind-carved boulder. The curved rock had almost the shape of a woman, at least as tall as Valmaxian. The ring reached its full diameter of twenty feet and the violet light dimmed. Valmaxian saw more of the misshapen rocks loosely sprinkled across a broken landscape of talus and coarse sand. The deep red sky was striped with clouds of black dust whipped by a buffeting wind.

  Another shape formed in the swirling dust: a shadow two heads taller than the tallest elf. It walked on two legs, swing
ing long, apelike arms at its side, its head and shoulders studded with irregular horns and spikes.

  Valmaxian held his breath as he watched the demon step through the gate into his little room. The spell had been specifically designed to call but one creature from all the endless malignancy of the Abyss, one nabassu, one thing.

  It looked like a gorilla, but with huge, batlike wings rustling behind it. Its broad, flat face was dominated by a wide mouth held open by two upturned tusks. Its little nose was pushed back between two startlingly intelligent, silver eyes that seemed to reflect the light of the candle and the spinning magic gate as though they were made of polished platinum. Grotesquely naked, its skin was blotchy and gray.

  Valmaxian tried to swallow but couldn't. His throat closed tight. The demon noticed that and smiled, drawing back half a step.

  "En-" Valmaxian started to say, then coughed. He made sure to keep his eyes from meeting the demon's. "En'Sel'Dinen."

  A low growl rolled out of the fiend's mouth, followed by a drifting mist of green vapor. "Ah… you called…" the beast said, its voice like thunder heard from the bottom of a well.

  "I am Valmaxian," said the elf, forcing a confidence into his voice that he didn't really feel.

  "Well," the demon replied, "good for you. And Kelaerede?"

  Valmaxian managed to swallow finally then said, "He forbade me from calling you. I had to steal the scroll."

  The demon made a sound that Valmaxian thought must be a laugh.

  "I require your service," the elf said.

  "Ah," said the demon, "and I thought this was a social call."

  Valmaxian felt his face flush. He kept his eyes to one side.

  "You know enough not to look me in the eyes," En'Sel'Dinen observed. "Kelaerede-he's your master?" "He is my teacher."

  "And what has he taught you about me?" the demon asked.

  "Enough," Valmaxian said, his eyes wandering over En'SePDinen's misshapen toes. A tiny insect scurried under one ragged yellow toenail.

  "Wealth, then, is it?" the demon asked. "Power? Magic?"

  "Yes," Valmaxian whispered.

  The demon laughed.

  Valmaxian cleared his throat and said more clearly, "Magic. The others will follow."

  The demon stopped laughing and leaned slightly forward. "Nothing comes without a cost," it said. "What are you willing to spend?"

  "Anything," Valmaxian said. "I don't know."

  "Neither do I," the demon replied, "but I'll think of something. A single sacrifice. A sacrifice to be decided later."

  Valmaxian felt his own mouth curl up into a smile, though deep down he didn't want to smile. "Anything," he said again. "Anything."

  The 76th Year of the Amethyst (-6964 DR)

  The fireball exploded in the exact center of a circle formed by freestanding columns of bleached marble, simple cylinders each a thousand feet tall. The circular expanse of the interior was a floor of identical white marble a mile in diameter. Valmaxian sat on a ladder-back chair of polished mahogany far enough away from the explosion that his spidersilk robe wasn't ruffled by the wind from the Shockwave. He couldn't feel the heat, either.

  "Did you melt it?" Valmaxian asked in a quiet, relaxed voice.

  An enchantment he'd created himself took hold of the soft tones and transported his voice clearly across the marble surface to the ears of Third Apprentice Yulmanda.

  The apprentice, a Gold elf girl less than a century old, walked quickly to the center of the casting circle and looked down. Valmaxian heard her quiet sigh.

  "That was the last of the silver from Selune," Valmaxian stated without emotion.

  Yulmanda turned toward him but kept her eyes on the floor. "Master, I-"

  "Failed!" Valmaxian shouted, his voice rolling over the smooth floor like waves crashing on a beach. "You failed, because you are a stupid, useless girl."

  "Master-"

  "Shut up," Valmaxian roared, holding up a hand as if to hold back the sound from the apprentice's mouth. "Get out of here. Leave my studio immediately and do not return. Your father will receive a bill for the materials you so foolishly wasted. You're not fit to touch the Weave."

  He heard the girl sob, even heard the first of her tears tick onto the marble floor at her feet. Valmaxian looked away, up at the deep azure sky over Siluvanede. He could tell the girl was trying to think of something to say, some defense that could save her place as one of Valmaxian's students-the most coveted position for the young Gold elves of Siluvanede. Valmaxian's studio was unparalleled. The items he enchanted there were sought after throughout the elf lands all around the High Forest and beyond.

  Yulmanda didn't bother arguing. Crying, she walked quickly past him and to the broad steps at the edge of the casting circle. The steps would lead her a hundred feet down the elf-made tor on which the casting circle had been built. It would then take her the better part of the day to cross his compound and pass through the gates into the city proper.

  As Yulmanda's footsteps touched the top of the stairs, Valmaxian heard another set approaching. He kept his eyes fixed on a single cloud lazily wandering across the perfect sky and waited for the newcomer to approach. It would be a long walk.

  The wand that Yulmanda had ruined was, of course, a minor trinket, intended as a gift to a wealthy collector more interested in the rare silver than the enchantment. The collector had several of Valmaxian's finest pieces and had recently begun to collect his work to the exclusion of all others.

  "Master Valmaxian," a voice behind him called.

  "Who are you?" Valmaxian asked without bothering to look at the intruder.

  "Piera-" the young elf started to say then obviously realized Valmaxian wouldn't care what his name was. "A messenger, sir, with disturbing news."

  "The staff?" Valmaxian asked, his blood running cold. The look he gave the messenger sent the boy back two steps.

  "Staff, Master?" the messenger asked, his face pale and his eyes bulging. "N-no, Master Valmaxian."

  Valmaxian sighed and put a hand to his chest. His heart beat rapidly, and his palm was sweating.

  "Master?" the messenger asked. "Are you feeling unwell? Should I fetch-?"

  "Be still, boy," Valmaxian barked, turning his face back up to the azure sky. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  The messenger cleared his throat.

  Without opening his eyes, Valmaxian said, "You are still here."

  "Yes, Master," the messenger replied. "I was told to deliver a message."

  "Then deliver it with haste and be on your way," Valmaxian said, eyes still closed, "or are they paying you by the hour?"

  The messenger let loose a terrified chuckle and said, "Oh, no, Master. I am paid by the message."

  Valmaxian let a long sigh hiss through his teeth and heard the boy take another step back.

  "Master," the messenger said, "it's Lord Kelaerede."

  Valmaxian opened his eyes. The little cloud had passed from his field of vision. He didn't look at the boy.

  "Master, Lord Kelaerede lies on his deathbed. He has asked for you."

  Valmaxian rolled his head slowly to one side, his eyes straight forward so the boy tilted lazily into view.

  "Kelserede's dying?" the wizard asked.

  "Presently, Master," the boy said, nodding. "Or so I was told."

  Valmaxian looked back up at the sky and the boy said nothing for the space of four rapid, ragged breaths. Valmaxian said, "Well, then, I guess I must be off."

  Kelaerede looked fine. Valmaxian could see no difference in the elfs face, or in the fine veins on the back of his hand. It had been closer to seven hundred years than six hundred since Valmaxian had seen his former teacher, but the look of disappointment was as plain in Kelserede's eyes on his deathbed as it had been the day he'd turned Valmaxian out.

  Valmaxian sat on a stiff-cushioned chair next to Kelserede's narrow, low bed. The old elf sat propped up with pillows. Valmaxian avoided the dying elfs eyes. Instead he looked around the simple b
edchamber. They sat in silence for a long time. Kelserede's breathing came labored and slow, and his legs didn't move the whole time.

  "You have done well," Kelaerede said finally, his voice as thin as a reed. He looked the same, but sounded different.

  Valmaxian nodded in response.

  "I wanted to see you," Kelaerede said, "one last time."

  Valmaxian looked his former teacher in the eye and asked, "To make peace? After so long?"

  Kelserede's breath whistled out of his nose and the old elf shuddered. "You could have been one of the finest craftsmen Aryvan-" The old elf stopped to cough, then smiled. "I was going to say 'Aryvandaar.' Old habits." He coughed again and said, "You could have been one of the finest."

  "I am the finest," Valmaxian said. He sighed when he realized how he sounded. So much time had passed but Kelaerede could still make him feel like a child.

  "You made the bargain, didn't you," Kelaerede said.

  "I did what I had to do," Valmaxian answered.

  "Regardless of the consequences?"

  "Consequences?" Valmaxian asked. "The items I craft are the most sought after in Siluvanede. That was the consequence of my actions. I cast a spell-from a scroll you wrote yourself. I solved a problem using the Weave. Isn't that what you always taught me to do?"

  Kelaerede shook his head. "I always told you that you could be everything you ever wanted to be but that it would cost you something of yourself."

  "I thought that was what you warned me against," Valmaxian replied. "You told me the demon would require payment, then you tell me I should have spent 'something of myself.' I spent all I needed to spend, and the bill has not come due in over six and a half centuries."

  Kelaerede coughed through a bitter laugh and said, "That doesn't mean it will never come due, and there's a difference between spending a single thin copper of your own essence every day and the price that En'SePDinen will surely ask."