Aerindel bounced bloodily across the quaking moun-taintop, and fetched up against a jagged knob of rock. The dust-shrouded ruin of the pass gaped in front of her as she retched and sobbed and spasmed uncontrollably. Despite her tumblings, the crown seemed welded to her temples-and by the faint light it now began to emit, through no doing of hers, she saw that her hands were as wrinkled as those of an old woman.
The crown fed on its wearers, somehow. Aerindel held that thought for a time, but her wits seemed to wander again and again, memory showing her boulders bouncing and rolling down the side of High Glimmerdown, and she could not think of the next thing.
Just as she'd stood waiting in the feast hall, dreading the coming of Rammast but knowing no clever thing she could do.
Rammast. He could still be up to something! She had to see him, to know what he was doing. Coming to strike at her in her chambers at the castle, if she knew him-but not yet. She'd hurt him, at Dusking, and he'd go to banish the pain before anything else. Heal, and take up new spells and magic weapons, before he came seeking her.
He'd be in his tower right now. Tarangar Tower, highest turret of the frowning stone fortress of Thentarna-gard, at the very heart of Grand Thentor… that way. Lying on her face on the stone, head throbbing, Aerindel wondered if she could still farsee.
She could. It hurt-gods, it hurt!-but as the fires of agony clawed at her limbs and she whimpered and writhed on the cold stones of Mount Glimmerdown, she seemed to be flying through the night, seeking the dark sword of Tarangar Tower stabbing at the stars. There would be lights in its high window, she knew, and a darkly handsome lord working furiously to gird himself for her doombringing…
There! Like a Thentan eagle she swooped out of the night, racing up to those lighted windows, seeking the hated face of her foe. She saw him at last, striding across a room whose tables were littered with maps. He seemed to sense her, stiffening and peering at the window. She was past, by then, winging her way around Tarangar Tower and climbing, seeing the steep roofs of Thentor-town spread out below her down narrow, lamplit cobbled streets. She soared toward the moon, willing the crown to blast apart the tower behind her.
She saw it shattering into tiny rocks, bursting into a cloud of stones that would rain down on all of Grand Thentor, leaving behind a pit so deep that all Thentar-nagard would totter and then fall into it, sliding into oblivion shrouded in rock-dust… just as the Thentan army in Glimmerdown Pass had met its end.
"This thing can come to pass," the voice of the crown seemed to whisper in the ear, "but it is a very great thing. Doing it will consume a life."
"Many lives, I should think," Aerindel murmured aloud, her forehead resting on the hard stones of the mountain top.
"The life of a being who can wield magic," the crown whispered. "A being you have touched while wearing me."
"A deliberate sacrifice, then," the Lady of Dusklake said wearily. "Or a murder."
"If I can get no other essence," the crown told her, "I will claim the life-force of the one who wears me."
"So if I force you to bring down the tower," Aerindel said, 'Tarangar Tower will fall-but I'll wither and die here, on this mountaintop."
"The tower may survive if it bears strong enough protective magics," the crown replied. "I must feed soon in any case, or shatter."
Aerindel lay silent, cold fear slowly creeping through her. She had willingly chained herself to some evil thing that would be her doom. Picturing herself tumbling down the mountainside as a desiccated bag of skin with loose bones bouncing and rolling inside it, she forced her trembling limbs to move.
Snarling with the effort, the Lady of Dusklake moved her arms along the uneven stone, very slowly and very painfully. She was gasping and drenched with cold sweat when at last her fingertips touched the crown.
It tingled, but did not budge. No matter how hard she clawed and tugged at it, it seemed attached to her head. The Whispering Crown would not come off.
She rolled over, finally, to stare despairingly at the stars. She had slain men who did not matter, and crippled herself in doing so-leaving herself and her realm helpless against their real foe. All too soon, Rammast would return. Rested, and strong, and ready to slay- and she'd be lying here, too weak to do anything… and with the crown and here to sacrifice in doing the first mighty thing he wanted of it, he would endanger all the Esmeltaran.
She felt like crying, but Aerindel Summertyn had no tears left. Bleeding, bitten, half-shorn, and dressed only in tatters, she lacked the strength even to stand. She lay on Mount Glimmerdown and looked up at the bleakly twinkling stars, waiting for Rammast's sneering smile to come into view above her.
Instead, the face that finally loomed up to blot out the stars was an unfamiliar one: a sharp-nosed face adorned with a long beard and blue eyes that held the wisdom of ages. It belonged to a man who wore simple, worn robes. His hands were empty, and he looked down at her with something-admiration? sympathy? cynical amusement?-flickering in his eyes.
"Take the crown off now, Lady of Dusklake," this stranger said curtly, "before it's too late."
Aerindel looked up at him, too weak and weary to care how she looked, or how he knew her name. "Does any mage fighting for her land and herself throw away her best weapon?" she spat wearily, wanting to be alone in her misery, wandering in the welcoming mists.
"Aerindel, do ye want to end up as thy father did?" the stranger asked gravely.
Aerindel felt anger kindling in her. Why did everyone in Faerun know all about the fate of Thabras Stormstaff except her?
"Who are you?" she snapped, eyes flashing. "How is it you know of my father?"
The bearded face bent closer; the man was kneeling beside her. "I trained him in the ways of magic, and made him what he became."
He looked across the pass at High Glimmerdown for a moment, and then down at her again and added softly, "And so, I suppose, am responsible for his doom. I am called Elminster."
"Elminster," she repeated huskily. Suddenly, fresh energy surged through her, and the crown whispered inside her head, Destroy this one. His magic is strong, very strong. He is a danger to us both-and his power is just what I need to smash Tarangar Tower and Rammast with it.
"How?" she asked it, not caring if she spoke the word aloud.
Look at him, and will forth fire, as you did to the soldiers at Dusking… and I'll strike. Keep the flow unbroken, after, so that I can draw his life-force back to us.
Aerindel smiled, slowly, as it was done.
Fire roared forth, and the kneeling man shuddered and flinched back-but it licked only briefly at his robes, seeming to be drawn into his eyes… eyes that darkened and seemed somehow to become larger.
Yessss, the crown hissed in her, and she felt a warm glow of exultation.
Elminster rose and stepped away, and Aerindel turned her head to keep him in view, as the crown had urged her to. There came a sudden, sharp pain in her head, and a shaft of pure rage from the crown that made her gasp and writhe on the stones.
"No, cursed one!" the crown snarled, out of her trembling lips.
Elminster ignored it, raising a hand to slice off the line of flame as if it were a strand of spiderweb. "Aerindel," he said urgently, bending near again, "take off the crown. Please."
The crown flashed, and Aerindel felt fresh energy flowing into her. The crown urged her to do thus, and so-and she did.
Green lightning flashed forth from her brow, to crackle hungrily up that extended arm, outlining it with writhing flames. Elminster grimaced. Clear annoyance flashed across his face for a moment as he made a brushing-away gesture.