The mist came at him again in an almost gloating dive, its chiming rising around him as he twisted and slashed desperately. When the burning came again, it was in his intact thigh and he was rolling helplessly over, flailing at nothing with his useless sword. One limb at a time...it was toying with him.

Was he going to be reduced to a helpless torso, unable to do anything but stare as it slew him very slowly?

A few panting breaths later, as he stared up at the uncaring stars through swimming eyes, he knew the answer was going to be...yes.

He wondered just how long the mist would make him suffer, then decided he was past caring. Almost his last thought was a rueful realization that all who die slowly enough to know what is happening must come to a place beyond caring.

He was ... he was Paeregur Amaethur Donlas, and he had come to his cold end here on a rock in the wilder-lands of the accursed High Duchy of Langalos in the early summer of the year seven hundred and sixty-seven (as Dalereckoning ran) with no one to mourn or mark his passing, and his dead comrades all around him.

Well, have my thanks, all you vigilant gods.

Paeregur's last thought was that he really should remember the name of that star... and that one, too....

The Crypt of the Moondark family was overgrown with brambles, creepers, and contorted, curving trees deformed by warding enchantments that were still strong after centuries. The Moondark house, a happy mingling of elf and human blood, had been known for its fell sorcery, but no Moondarks had walked Faerun for something like one hundred and sixteen winters ... and Westgate was quite content about that. No more powerful spells that might challenge a king or discomfit self-styled nobles, and no more need to be polite to half-bloods who were graceful, handsome, learned, bright, all too merry...and all too insistent on fairness and honesty in ruling. There was even a sign, much more recent than the spell-locked gates: "Behold the ending of all who insist too much."

Elminster smiled grimly at that little moral notice. It was the first thing to crumble into dust at the touch of his most powerful spell. The long-untested wards beyond were the next thing. Dawn was almost upon Westgate, and he wanted to be safely inside the tomb-house before folk took to the streets.

The guards at the corner were still yawning and dozing against the outer wall of the crypt as Elminster slipped inside. On his short walk along the statue-flanked path to the doors of the pillared tomb house, El's magic burnt away an astonishing number of magical triggers and traps. An odd thing for one in the service of Mystra to practice … but then Mystra dealt in a healthy array of "odd things." What he was here to do was one of his most important tasks as a Chosen, one he spent a lot of time at these days. One that seemed to awaken an almost girlish glee in the Lady of Mysteries.

Elminster Aumar would do anything to see her smiling so.

The door wards, falling beam trap, and weave-of-jutting-blades traps were all to be expected, were anticipated, and were dealt with in but a few seconds. The fact that folk from time to time had to enter a family tomb for legitimate purposes...burials, not thefts... meant that such defenses had to be of a lesser order. In a matter of a few calm breaths Elminster was inside the dark chamber, with the door shut and spell-sealed behind him, and a radiance of his own making awakening everywhere along the low, cobwebbed ceiling.

Moondarks lay crumbling on all sides of him in stacked stone coffers that must have numbered nearly a hundred. The oldest ones were the largest, carved with ornate scenes along the sides, their lids effigies of the deceased, the more recent ones were plain stone boxes, some lacking even names. Thankfully none were stirring in undeath, he was running late as it was and never liked to hurry the fun part.

The bright and wealthy Moondarks had even been considerate enough to leave a funeral slab in the center of the crypt...a high table on which the coffin of the most recently dead could lie during a last service of remembrance, before it was muscled onto one of the stacks of the dead that lined the walls, to be left undisturbed forever. Or at least until a clever Chosen of Mystra happened along.

Elminster hummed a tune of lost Myth Drannor as he laid out his cloak on the empty slab...a large but nondescript lined leather cloak that wasn't much of any color anymore and sported more than the usual assortment of patches. The inside of the cloak bore several large, crude pockets, though they seemed flat and empty as El patted them affectionately then turned away to wander around the chamber peering at dark corners, particular caskets, and even the underside of the funeral slab.

When he returned from his stroll, he slid his fingers into an upper pocket and drew forth a lacing-wrapped flask full of an amber liquid. Holding it up, he murmured, "Mystra, to thee, as always. A pale shadow of the fire of thy touch." A long, gasping pull later, El stoppered the flask, sighed contentedly, and put it away again...in a pocket that still looked empty.

He dug in the next empty pocket with both hands and drew forth a wand in a shabby, almost crumbling wyvernskin case. He'd spent two careful spells and a lot of running around trailing the case along the rough stone blocks of an old castle wall getting the case to look this elderly. He was even prouder of the wand, discolored by decades of handling that he'd accomplished in a few minutes with goose grease, sand, and soot. Now, Eaergladden Moondark had died destitute, begging his kin for a few coppers with which to buy a roasting-fowl .. . but who save one Elminster was still alive to remember that? So accomplished a mage as Eaergladden could quite well have had a wand, and of course a spellbook...El reached back into the empty pocket and pulled forth a worn and bulky tome with huge, much-battered brass corners...that he hadn't sold in his last year of life, after all. Not to mention the usual dagger enchanted so as not to rust or go dull, and to glow upon command, these enchantments were made to last, say, three centuries by a hire-cast elven longlook spell, from one of the poorer Myth Drannan apprentices. Aye, so.

El calmly lifted the lid of Eaergladden's casket, murmured, "Well met, Master Mage of the Moondarks," and gently laid the wand, dagger, and spellbook in the proper places around the mummified skeleton that had been Eaergladden. Then he closed the casket and went back to the cloak for a few scrolls...on carefully aged parchment...and a battered little book of magical observations, copied runes, and half-finished spells that should lead even a half-wit to the creation of a spell that would temporarily imbue the non-magically gifted with the ability to carry and cast a spell placed in them by a mage.

This work took up much of his time in the service of Mystra, these days, at her bidding, Elminster traveled Faerun visiting ruins and the tombs of dead mages, planting "old" scrolls, spellbooks, minor enchanted items, and even the occasional staff for later folk to find...and all such leavings were in truth items he'd just finished Grafting, and made to look old. Almost always, part of the treasures he left for others included notes that should lead anyone with a gift for magic to experiment and successfully create a "new" spell.

Mystra cared not overmuch who found these magics, or how they used them...so long as ever more magic was in use and ever more folk could wield it, rather than a few archwizards lording it over the spell-poor or magically barren, as had happened in the days of lost Netheril. El loved this sort of work and always had to fight a tendency to linger in the ruins and crypts, mischievously letting his lights and spell-effects be seen by others, to lure exploring adventurers toward his leavings.