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.Did temple wizards just talk to every intruder all the night through? Still, it felt good to speak openly at last to someone who listened and seemed to understand but not judge."Would you make yourself king?"Elminster shook his head."I'd not be a good one," he said."I have not the patience." He smiled suddenly and added, "Yet if I found a man or a maid who'd wear the crown well, I'd stand behind him or her.That, I think, is the true work of a wizard-to make life in the lands he dwells in good for all who dwell there."Her smile, then, was dazzling.Elminster felt sudden power in the air around him.His hair crackled, and his skin tingled."Will you kneel to me?" the sorceress asked, striding nearer.Elminster swallowed, mouth suddenly dry.She was very beautiful, and yet somehow terrifying, her eyes and hair alight with power like flame waiting to burst forth.Trembling, Elminster held his ground and asked, "L-Lady, what is thy name? Who are ye?""I am Mystra," came a voice that crashed around him like a mighty wave smashing on rocks.Its echoes rolled around the chamber."I am the Lady of Might and the Mistress of Magic! I am Power Incarnate! Wherever magic is worked, there am I-from the cold poles of Toril to its hottest jungles, whatever the hand or claw or will that works the sorcery! Behold me and fear me! Yet behold me and love me-as all who deal with me in honesty do.This world is my domain.I am magic, mightiest among all those men worship.I am the One True Spell at the heart of all spells.There is no other."Echoes rolled away.Elminster felt the very pillars of the temple shaking around him.He wavered in awe, like a man struggling in a high wind, but kept his feet.Silence fell, and their eyes met.Golden flames burned in her gaze.Elminster felt as if he were burning inside; hot fire raced along his veins, pain rising in him like an angry red wave."Man," the goddess said, in an awful whisper, "do you defy me?"Elminster shook his head."I came here to curse thee or desecrate thy holy place or demand aid from thee, but now-no.I wish ye hadn't let the magelords slay my parents and ruin my realm, and I would.know why.But I have no wish to defy ye.""What do you feel, instead?"Elminster sighed.Somehow he'd felt he had to speak the truth since her first words to him, and it was still so."I fear ye, and." He was silent for a time, and then what might have been a smile touched his lips, and he went on.".I think I could learn to love ye."Mystra was very close to him now, and her eyes were dark pools of mystery.She smiled, and suddenly Elminster felt cool and refreshed, at ease."I let mages use spells freely so that all beings who use magic may escape tyranny.But from that freedom come such as the magelords in this land," she said."If you would overthrow them, why not become a mage yourself? It is but a tool in your hand.and it seems to fit your hand better than many I have seen grasping at it."Elminster took a pace back, lifting his hands in an unconscious warding gesture.Mystra halted, eyes suddenly stern."I ask again: will you kneel to me?"Eyes locked on hers, he knelt slowly."Lady, I confess I am awed," he said slowly, "but if I serve thee.I'd rather do it with my eyes open."Mystra laughed, eyes sparkling."Ah, but it is long since I've met such a one as you!"Then her face was again solemn, and her voice low."Extend your hand, freely and in trust, or go unharmed; choose."Elminster extended his hand without hesitation.Mystra smiled and touched it.Fire consumed him, spun him down helplessly into nothing and beyond, and whirled him away into golden depths.as a thousand lightning bolts struck through his heart and roared back out of him as consuming flame.Elminster screamed, or tried to, as he was flung away into many-hued madness, a place of blinding light and blazing pain.He roared, and when darkness rushed up to meet him, he plunged headlong into it, striking it as if it were a stone wall.Dashed against it, he was.gone.*****It was the cold, again, that awakened him.Elminster sat up, half expecting to see the burial-ground slumbering around him, and found instead the temple, still and dark.Power yet flowed in it, though, in a silent, invisible web of stirrings all around him, from the bare altar to the armsmen and the magelord who stood motionless all around the circular chancel.Now he could feel magic as well as see it!Awed, Elminster looked all around.He was naked; everything had been burned away to lie in ashes around him except for the Lion Sword, which lay beside him, unchanged from its ruined state.Taking it up with a smile-the Mistress of Magic knew his duty, too, it seemed-he got to his feet.The blueglow of magic was everywhere in this vast chamber, but brightest of all behind him.He turned and beheld the altar.Mystra was gone, and her scepter with her, but as he looked, words flamed out brightly on the altar.He hurried forward to read them."Teach thyself magic, and see the Realms.You will know when to come back to Athalantar.Worship me always with that keen mind and that lack of pride, and you will please me well.Serve me first by touching my altar."As he finished reading, the words faded.When the altar was bare and dark again, he reached forward tentatively-paused in sudden, trembling fear-and then laid a hand firmly on the cold stone.He thought he heard a faint chuckle, somewhere nearby.and then darkness claimed him again.EightTO SERVE MYSTRADid I ever tell thee how I first came to serve Mystra? No? Ye won't believe a word of it naetheless.The way of the Lady seems strange to most men-but then, most men are sane.Well, more or less.Sundral MorthynThe Way of a WizardYear of Singing ShardsThe world was drifting white mists.Elminster shook his head to be free of them and heard a bird calling.A bird? In the depths of the dark, empty temple? He shook his head again, and realized with a start that his bare feet stood on moss and earth, not cold stone.Where was he?El found himself struggling now to break free of the mists.clouds in his mind, not the world around.Shaking his head, he heard bird calls again, and a soft rustling, a sound he remembered from long-ago Heldon: breezes blowing through leaves.He was in a forest somewhere.As the last of the mists fell away, El looked around and caught his breath.He stood in the heart of a deep wood, with duskwoods and shadowtops and blueleaf trees standing all crowded together around him, the ground beneath them a dim and mushroom-studded place stretching off into gloomy, rolling distances.He stood in sunlight on a little knoll where several old giants of the forest had toppled, leaving a clearing into which the sun could reach.It was a small patch of sunlit moss where a large flat stone lay, and beyond it, a tiny, crystal-clear pool.The Lion Sword lay on the stone.Mystra's magic must have brought it here with him.Elminster bent forward to take it up.There was an unfamiliar swaying sensation at his chest as he knelt
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