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.""You aren't ready to resume your vengeance yet.Live, and learn a little more first.Find me when you feel ready to challenge for the Stag Throne, and I'll aid you if I can.Yet if we do not part," Myrjala said softly, "you will have won nothing alone, and that you must do."Silence hung heavily over the fire for a long time before Elmara nodded reluctantly.Then she said slowly, "There is a secret I have kept from ye; I would not have it lying between us longer.If we are to go separate ways, it is wrong to keep the truth from thee."She undid the ties of her gown and let it fall.Myrjala watched as Elmara, standing nude in the firelight, murmured the few words she'd held in her memory since that day in the tomb-and her body changed.Myrjala let fall hands that had risen to weave a swift spell if need be, and stared across the fire at the naked man."This is my true self," the hawk-nosed man said slowly."I am Elminster, son of Elthryn.prince of Athalantar."Myrjala regarded him soberly, her eyes very dark."Why took you a woman's shape?""Mystra did this to me to hide me from magelords, for my likeness had become known to them.and, I think, to force me to learn to see the world through a woman's eyes.When I tended ye, ye came to know me as a maid.I feared that seeking my true form would upset thee and smash the trust between us."Myrjala nodded."I have come to love you," she said quietly, "but this-changes things.""I love ye, too," Elminster said."It is one of the reasons I.stayed a maid.I did not want to change what we share."She came around the fire then, and embraced him."Elminster-or Elmara, or whoever you are-come and eat, one last time.Nothing can change the good work we've done together."*****It was dark, and the fire had died down low.Myrjala was a shadow across the flames as she turned her head and asked quietly, "Where will you go?"Elminster shrugged."I know not.west to see the Calishar, mayhap.""The Calishar? Take care, Elminster-" her voice caught on the unfamiliar name, forming it with difficulty "-for Ilhundyl the Mad Mage holds sway there.""I know.It's why I'll go.There's a score I must settle there.I can't go through life leaving everything unfinished.""Many do.""I am not many, and I cannot." He stared into the fire for a long time."I will miss ye, Lady.take care.""Gods keep you safe, too, Elminster." Then they both dissolved in tears and reached for each other.When they parted, the next morn, both of them were weeping.*****Ilhundyl let the lions into the maze when he saw the intruder-but they froze in midsnarl as the intruder's spells caught them.The hawk-nosed mage who'd paralyzed the beasts strode on without even slowing, finding his way unerringly through the illusory walls and around portal-traps to stalk across the terrace before the Great Gate, toward the hidden door.Ilhundyl's lips thinned, and he spoke words he never thought he'd have to use.Stone statues turned, creaking.Clouds of dust fell from their joints as lightings leapt from their palms.The blue bolts leapt at the hawk-nosed man, who ignored them.The lightnings struck something unseen around the walking man and encircled it, crackling harmlessly.One of Ilhundyl's long-fingered hands tapped the table before him.Then he raised the other hand, made a certain gesture, and muttered something.Golems stepped out of the solid stone walls of the Castle of Sorcery and lumbered toward the walking wizard.As they came, the lone intruder spoke an incantation.The air in front of the hawk-nosed stranger was suddenly full of whirling blades.In a flashing cloud, they spun over to strike sparks from the armored colossi-who strode stiffly and ponderously through the storm of steel.Ilhundyl watched the scene expressionlessly, then leaned forward to ring a bell on his table.When a young woman in livery hurried in, face anxious, he said in calm, cold tones, "Order all the archers to the wall by the Great Gate.They are to bring down the intruder by any means necessary."She hurried out as the golems closed in on the intruder, lifting massive arms to smash him like a rotten grape against the stones.The wizard raised his hands.Invisible forces cut a slice of stone away, severing one moving leg from its foot, and slowly, but with awesome, quickening force, the first golem fell.The Castle of Sorcery rocked, and Ilhundyl started up from his seat in rage, in time to see the second golem fall over the broken remnants of the first, and topple in its turn.Gods take this intruder! He was perilously close to the walls already.Where were those archers? And then arrows lashed on the terrace like hard-driven black hail, and the Mad Mage smiled as the wizard's body jerked, spun around, and fell, transfixed.Ilhundyl's smile collapsed into a frown as the screaming body was suddenly upright again.Another arrow took it through the head, which flopped loosely, and the corpse reeled and fell headlong, only to appear upright again with no shaft standing out of its mouth.Two arrows sped into it and the body spun, legs kicking-to jerk erect again in different garb."Stop!" Ilhundyl snarled."Stop firing!" His hands stabbed for the bell, knowing it was too late.By the time his orders were heard and relayed, all the archers were dead.His foe was using some spell that switched one person for another, in a double teleport!That was a spell he had to learn.this young mage must be taken alive.Or at least destroyed in a way that left his spell-book intact.Ilhundyl strode out of the room and down the Wind Cavern, where smooth shapes of glass stood on all sides, pierced by many holes that sang mournful songs when the wind blew.Taking down this mage might cost him all of his Winged Hands-but it would be done, whatever the price.He could always make more.He was still a few hurrying paces short of the archway that led into the north tower when the horned suit of armor beside it clanked down from its pedestal and strode toward him, raising its weapons.Ilhundyl spoke a soft word and turned one of the rings on his hand, then cast a spell with a few swift, snarled phrases.Acid burst out from between his fingers in a sphere of acrid purple flames that expanded as it flew.The hissing sphere crashed over the armor and spattered to the floor beyond.Smoke rose from flagstones as it ate away at them; the molten blobs that had been the armor crashed down into the widening pits in the stone, breaking into vapors and droplets.Another suit of armor was already coming through the door from the next chamber.Ilhundyl sighed at this childishness and hurled his second-and last-acid sphere spell.There was a flash this time as the purple flames struck something in the air and rebounded on the master of the Calishar.Ilhundyl had time for a single pace back before the acid drenched him.Smoke hissed, and Ilhundyl fell without a sound, dwindling into vapor rather than blood and bone
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