Amarune fought to make her lips gasp; El was too distracted to relinquish control over them. He felt amusement washing through his mind on tides of blue fire as Rune managed her gasp, then gave him a rueful mental shove as she yielded her mouth back to him. It was some moments later before he managed to reply, “Lady, I will.”

“Employ disguises. Be the thief you once so ably were in Hastarl. Steal and copy magic, and then hide the copies so that, whatever befalls the originals, my Art will survive for those yet unborn.”

“Lady,” Elminster repeated, “I will.”

“Recruit new Chosen, and gather them here for me to confer with. I need many, and they must be different from my daughters and from each other, for that kinship was another misstep. Yet, we both know how rarely the needed loyalty and strength are found together-and above all, I must have those I can trust.”

El nodded, remembering Khelben and Sammaster, Laeral, and too many elven ladies who were all so willing, yet had faded so swiftly under the ravages of too much Art. Betrayals, defiances, independence, and weaknesses. Gone, now, all of them. Gone…

His Alassra, fled and mad somewhere, brain-burned by the roaring Blue Fire that was not Mystra, the plague of wild fury that had snuffed out the lives of thousands in a blazing instant, and many more in the days and seasons that had followed…

“Lady,” he said huskily, “I will.”

“Continue what you have done so well for so long: preserve and strengthen the Art-not magic bestowed by others, but magics worked by the caster’s own craft and knowledge.”

“Lady, I’ve done that for so long,” El told her truthfully, “that I do not know if I could now refrain from doing so. It is what I do.”