Elminster sometimes wondered why his scribe wasn't as wide as old Luth's fabled bull. If Lhaeo wasn't eating, he was cooking (and tasting). If he wasn't cooking, he was thinking about food, and if he wasn't doing any of those things, he was asleep and dreaming about food. Or so it usually seemed.

As the old illusionists' saying has it, however, seemings and truth are often as far apart as one's mind can put them. As smoothly as any warrior, Lhaeo suddenly spun back to face his master. He'd heard a sudden, queer sobbing noise-a sound he'd never heard Elminster make before.

And then the illusionist stood quite still, precious herbs dropping forgotten from his hands.

Power filled the room. Blue-white flames blazed along the Old Mage's gaunt limbs and flared in his eyes like two cold fires. Elminster looked at Lhaeo with those burning eyes and did not see him.

With a sudden crackling of energy, the book fell from Elminster's fingers. Had there been some trap waiting in it?

Lhaeo shrank back, reaching out behind him for one of the flasks on a certain shelf. Elminster had prepared a number of such flasks for emergencies. They held protective potions and antidotes for poisons. But even as his fingers felt along the row of cold, dusty stoppers, Lhaeo knew he hadn't an inkling of what to do. The fire under the cauldron had died to almost nothing, and it seemed as if a great weight were in the air, filling the kitchen.

And then both men heard it: a voice that was kind and yet proud, in pain but enthused. A mind-voice that rolled through Elminster's mind so loudly that Lhaeo heard it clearly across the room. A voice that crawled with echoing power.

The voice of a goddess at the height of her aroused power, and yet in need. The voice of Mystra.

"Elminster! I need thee!"

"Lady, I am here," Elminster whispered. Blue-white flames licked from his mouth as he spoke. He rose from his seat, staggering as if under a great burden.