Arclath forced himself to think of Rune, alone in the night.
No, not alone. She had Elminster with her, riding her mind.
He grimaced, his irritation flaring. Storm hadn’t handed him the answer he was seeking. He gave her a glare.
And found her half smiling at him, a knowing twinkle in her eyes. She looked like someone bursting with a happy inner secret.
“Well,” he snapped, “who was it?”
“Such manners, Lord Delcastle,” she reproved him. Then she laughed like a little girl and said, “It certainly seems to be a goddess many have long thought dead. Mystra, the Greatest of All. The One. Our Lady of Magic.”
Arclath stared at her, his mouth falling open.
Was she mad? Or mistaken?
And if not, what doom would this bring down on Cormyr, and all the world besides?
CHAPTER ONE
KNEELING TO A GODDESSAs he directed Amarune’s borrowed body to pad cautiously through a pale white labyrinth of moonlit trees, Elminster felt himself trembling.
This almost had to be a trap, after all this time-yet, nay, nay, it was her, his Mystra! It was!
He could feel her! He knew that feeling, could never forget the touch of her mind on his… this was Mystra, the vivid blue mists of power swirling around the edges of his mind…
A sharp stick underfoot hurt his-Rune’s-bare feet, and El sank to all fours to crawl like a beast. He tingled with eager haste and had to remind himself to look for what peril that might be aprowl in the King’s Forest.
Halting on a tree-cloaked ridge in the rolling, deepening woods north of the cabin, one hand raised like a questing cat’s paw, he listened hard.