by Ed Greenwood
The hand that then set down the half-empty wineglass trembled only slightly. “I understand. Speak then, Lord; tell me of the part I am to play.”
“You will continue to do what you are doing as Talane. The blade in the night, the silken threat, the use of coerced or unwitting intermediaries whenever possible. Pursue your career of self-enrichment, insofar as it doesn’t conflict with the tasks I give you to do. I will not explain why you’ll be asked to do this or that—though you are welcome to your own speculations—but the ends I seek include a new rule for Cormyr in which more of its folk enjoy better lives. Some noble families will abruptly disappear, but others will be rewarded, even elevated. Given present company, I might mention the Truesilvers, who should, if your loyalty to me holds, rise to be the foremost family of the realm, firmly separated from the royal House and therefore unlikely to be dragged down with them by the seemingly endless would-be usurpers, but wielding more real power than anyone short of, say, the Royal Magician.”
“I … appreciate that.”
“As a measure of my unfolding trust in you, Lady, let me speak of the powerful magics that will almost certainly soon be in play in Cormyr. Listen well; familiarity with these perils may keep you alive.”
His guest smilingly turned her head and cupped an elegant hand behind the ear she’d just put closest to him.
The darkly handsome man did not quite smile. “About a century ago,” he told her, “certain mages began to forcibly imprison particular persons within magic items—or rather, in stasis. Their return was linked to specific actions taken upon those items.”
He spread his hands in a gesture of loss. “Their reasons for doing so did not come to fruition and are now largely obsolete; all of the imprisoners have perished. Some of their imprisonments persist, but the great chaos of magic that befell back then twisted their magics awry. Some of the prisoners were lost forever when their items were destroyed; some escaped their captivity but also lost their wits; and some are still imprisoned, but … changed. Having powers like spells they never had before, for instance.”
“They emerge uncontrolled?”
“Your own wits are as swift as always, Lady. Some are indeed self-willed and dangerous to whomever releases them. Others can’t be returned to imprisonment, once out, but can be compelled by the bearer of their item. A few may yet be the perfect slaves they were intended to be. All that have thus far emerged have been wreathed in eerie blue flames, and so are known among wizards as ‘blueflame ghosts,’ though what rages around them are not flames any stoker of a hearthfire would recognize, and they are not ghosts.”
“And some of these items are in Cormyr.”
“Indeed. Notably some containing members of a once-famous band of adventurers known as ‘the Nine.’ Rumor has spread among certain of your fellow nobles that all of the Nine—including the lady mage who later became notorious as the bride of the Blackstaff, and one of the Chosen of Mystra—are secretly under the command of a handful of Cormyrean nobility, who can use them to slay, harass, or seize things from rivals or … anyone. As is the way of rumors, these views are overblown. It’s highly likely that the Lady Mage of Waterdeep never survived to be imprisoned, and it’s simply untrue that nobles are striding around this fair realm right now knowing what prisoners are linked to their baubles and covertly using them.”
“Yet.”
The darkly handsome man smiled like a wolf. “You continue to please me. ‘Yet,’ indeed. In truth, a very few nobles do have custody of one of these imprisoning items, and others are kept in the royal palace in Suzail, the property of the Crown—who, so far as can be determined, have no idea what they’re harboring.”
“And as these blueflame ghosts may well be very dangerous, it’s best they be handled through expendable dupes. Nobles and courtiers you can manipulate.”
The darkly handsome man was suddenly beaming. “Your mind outleaps storm lightning.”
His guest eyed him thoughtfully. “You’re not telling me much,” she said. “Of course.”
“Of course. Prudence is not unknown to me.”
The noblewoman regarded him in silence for as long as it took to enjoy another slow swallow of wine, then asked, “And so?”
“So our work together shall begin. Worry not about contacting me; I’ll speak to you when I desire to—and I’ll be aware when you feel the need to contact me. You should assume that I am aware of your smallest breath and your slightest facial expression, from this moment on.”
That earned him another silent, cool look. “And so?”
The brief ghost of a smile did touch the man’s lips at that. “Your first tasks shall be these. Legend recalls Elminster, sometimes known as the Old Mage or Elminster of Shadowdale; he is real and is somewhere in this city right now. Seek to learn what guises he uses and what he’s busy doing. Learn also what magic in the royal palace and royal court buildings can easily be removed. Be aware that I have other eyes, ears, and hands in the palace; sadly, like the high houses of many a kingdom, it comes furnished with traitors behind every door. Feel free to liberate all you can without bringing Crown suspicion or pursuit down upon you—so long as you bring every last enchanted item, hiding or holding back not one of them, to me for inspection. The items I deem needful to my purposes, I shall retain; the rest you may keep for your own ends. Go now.”
The lady who betimes called herself Talane set down her empty wineglass, said formally, “My lord,” bowed her head, and withdrew.
The darkly handsome man regarded the door she’d closed behind her for some time before he murmured, “And if you dare turn traitor on me, Lady, I’ve someone who will enjoy dealing with you appropriately. Someone too dead to disobey me.”
He took another glass from the sideboard, filled it with Arrhenish, sipped, then made a face at himself in the mirror.
“I must do something about these Cormyreans and their execrable tastes in wine,” he told his reflection. “When I sit on the Dragon Throne, those who make and sell overly sweet swill like this will be swiftly drowned in it. My subjects will share in my delight in the finer things. I won’t even style myself ‘king.’ ”
Giving the mirror a smile, he tossed the wineglass casually into the fireplace. As the musical peal of its shattering died away, he sketched a herald’s flourish with one languid arm and added mockingly, “All hail Emperor Manshoon.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
OVERHEARD AND SPIED UPON
Wild terror had seized Elminster the moment he summoned his wits to begin casting the guise of Elgorn Rhauligan on himself—the madness. Come hard and early.
So he’d given up trying the spell and stood shaking and sweating in the dank deep darkness, disgusted and alone.
Storm was gone on her slow, careful, skulking way back to Shadowdale, overland by back lanes, winding creekbeds, and game trails to the familiar trees where, of late, Yelada and the elves kept busy preventing her farm from vanishing entirely back into the forest. Back to the farmhouse hearth where Alassra, too, always ended up sooner or later, seeking warmth and solace no matter how sunk in madness she was.
A kitchen Elminster wouldn’t mind relaxing in, himself, to sip warm soup with his boots off and battered old feet up on the table, with Storm winking at him as she menaced his toes in mock fierceness with her carving knife. With onions sizzling in a pan and the promise of a really good meal rising to tantalize his nose, setting his mouth to watering …
El smiled tightly as he firmly shook his head to banish the daydream and bring himself back to the tunnel he stood in, a short stroll away from being under the grand, sprawling royal palace of Suzail. It was a narrow, low-ceilinged way, ancient and crumbling … but not unguarded.
Quite possibly not just by the guardians he knew, but by new perils. The soaring seat of rulership it led to was, after all, under the protection of a society of young and ambitious wizards. Mages who must all be under orders to watch for the infamous Sage of Shadowdale and to destroy or e
ntrap him if at all possible.
And if there was one thing a long, long life in Faerûn taught even a slow-witted man, it was that all things are possible.
He took a step closer to the royal palace—and abruptly stopped, peering into the darkness ahead.
Something had moved, something brown and … bony.
Ah. An old friend, of sorts, if he wasn’t mistaken.
El felt in a belt pouch, brought forth a pinch of powder, used his other hand to do the same to another pouch as far away from the first as his girth would permit, then brought his hands together and rubbed.
A faint glow kindled where the two powders met and mingled. He lifted his glowing palm like a pale, feeble lamp and stayed where he was.
As the first, familiar guardian shuffled into view.
He’d guessed right. It was a human skeleton, trudging with slow, unsteady menace. As it came, it raised a sword dark with rust.
Elminster gave it a calm stare. “Do ye really want to strike at me? Will thy shrewd strike bring crowning triumph to thy day?”
Empty eyesockets stared at him, expressionless but somehow uncertain. Then brownish bones shifted—only spell-bleached skeletons were truly white, all bards’ ballads notwithstanding—and the sword wavered down again.
The old man in the ragged robe waited patiently. Three of his calm breaths later, the undead guardian of this nigh forgotten, deep passage of the palace undercellars stepped back to let him pass.
With a smile and a nod, he did so, looking back only once. The skeleton was staring after him, as still as a statue, its sword still point down.
Elminster walked on into the darkness. It was a curious thing; down the many years of his long life, he’d spent not all that much time in the Forest Kingdom. Yet being back in the haunted wing of the royal palace of Cormyr, he felt at home.
He belonged.
Not back under the trees of Shadowdale he knew and loved so.
These cobwebbed shadows and empty, echoing rooms had somehow stolen into his heart and head and had become home.
Just when had that happened? And how?
Elminster came to a halt. Here, at the lowest spot in the passage, where the walls glistened with seepage, there was always a puddle of water. Sounds from the palace end of the tunnel always echoed here, clearly audible far from their source, and unless a foe was hard on one’s heels with a blade drawn or a spell on his lips, ’twas always worth halting for a breath or two to listen for what might be waiting in one’s near future.
Aye—there! The scrape of a boot, again. Someone was waiting up ahead where the passage opened out into the wider undercellar. Someone who’d already grown bored.
“My foot’s asleep again, stlarn it,” came a thin, waspish male voice, startlingly loud and sudden. “Taking his godsfire-damned own time about it, isn’t he?”
“Huh,” another, deeper male voice muttered in reply. “Probably wounded and wary—and so, slow. Thal didn’t see him, remember; just Storm Silverhand heading away from the city wall right quick. Meaning the Old Mage’s wits are his own again, or she’d not leave him—so back here he’ll come. Back to where the magic is.”
“Where he’ll find us ready for him.”
“I hope.”
“You doubt the Royal Magician’s wisdom in this?” That was a snapped, swift challenge.
The reply was wearily calm. “How many went up against him out at Tethgard—and how many came back alive?”
There was a short silence before the other man snarled, “I don’t want to talk about it. I … Things did not go well.”
“So much half the palace knows—as all of Suzail will, tomorrow. How’s Tethlor?”
There was a loud sigh. “Still in a bad way, to tell true. Almost as bad as Elminster.”
The Sage of Shadowdale smiled wryly in the darkness and started walking forward again. Reception foreguard or not, he wasn’t getting any younger.
As he went, he felt in the breast of his jerkin beneath the scorched smith’s apron and among the pouches at his belt for the things he’d probably need when he reached the far end of the passage. Handy things, Storm’s Harper caches, if one didn’t mind wearing gowns at the flashier end of the wardrobe …
Yet all gods blast this creeping madness and the magic he dared not hurl. He was going to have to waste so much time arguing with fools, instead …
Like yon two, standing with thumbs hooked through their belts, barring his way with confidence that was probably more outward seeming than truth. One was in faintly glowing black leathers: a highknight of Cormyr. The other wore the robes of a wizard—and any wizard walking around the royal palace of Suzail, even its dingiest, deepest undercellar, must be a wizard of war.
They stared back at him. The old, bearded man striding unconcernedly up the passage in the darkness, alone and swordless, didn’t look like a great wizard. His clothes looked as old as he was, worn and none too clean and befitting a laborer who saw few coins and even fewer baths. Old, down-at-heel boots, stained and patched breeches, and a burn-scarred apron over a jerkin. The belt at his waist sagged onto his slim hips, loaded down with bulging pouches. He was hefting something in each hand; both somethings were small, dark, and round. And he was smiling.
Elminster gave them both a polite nod as he came to a halt and let silence fall.
It didn’t last long.
“We’ve been waiting for you, old man,” the one in robes said, his waspish voice now all smug menace.
“I had in fact figured that out, youngling,” Elminster replied pleasantly. “Once, I’d’ve been flattered, but down my long years so many have lain in wait for me that the thrill is quite gone.” He peered at them both, one after the other, tendering the same gentle smile. “I do hope ye’re not disappointed.”
Two faces glowered at him. One belonged to a highknight he knew, one Belsarth Hawkblade, a grim, oft-unshaven man of brutal ruthlessness but iron-hard loyalty to the Crown. The other was the man in robes and had a face unfamiliar to him—but kin to one he’d seen briefly in the fray at Tethgard; that of a war wizard busy mastering the art of the headlong, panic-ridden retreat. Scared down to his boots, he was.
“Hawkblade,” he asked, nodding toward the pale, tight-faced mage, “who’s thy friend? Wizard of War—?”
“Lorton Ironstone,” the wizard answered curtly, not waiting for Hawkblade to speak. “And I am charged to ask you, Elminster of Shadowdale, if you will now surrender yourself peacefully into our custody to face the king’s justice.”
“Charged by whom?”
“Ganrahast, Royal Magician of the Realm,” Ironstone snapped. “At the request of the king himself, Lord Vainrence gave us to believe.”
Elminster nodded. There would be a third member of this welcoming foreguard, probably busy creeping up behind him right then …
“Well?” Ironstone snapped. “We require a reply, Old Sage of Shadowdale! In case it’s escaped your notice, we’re in Cormyr here—where we uphold the laws, not you. Laws that apply even to clever old archmages who customarily defy rules and do as they please. You, Elminster, stand accused of theft of Crown magic and of murder—of many sworn highknights of the realm, including their lord commander, and of no less than four wizards of war.”
“Murder? I was abed with my lady at night, out under the stars in the depths of the forest, when a dozen men set upon us, hurling spells despite my warnings that doing so would mean their deaths. We were attacked by a force that well outnumbered us, and we fought to defend ourselves. Some of our attackers fled by magic, and the rest perished in battle. Ye—who were not there—now deem their deaths ‘murder’? A murderer is one who goes seeking the deaths of others and achieves them. They tried to be murderers, aye. They were also warned, all of them—and learned too late that foolish aggression has consequences.”
Elminster paused then to give Ironstone a smile as thin as a ghost’s. “A lesson ye, too, might well ponder at this time.”
The war wizard’s reply w
as an unlovely sneer. “Hoary old advice from a lone graybeard with a large mouth? I quake. Between, that is, gasps of disbelief at what some have the effrontery to say to try to justify their misdeeds. You admit you slew loyal Cormyreans who were on Crown business, while defying them. So you’re a murderer. Don’t seek to evade your fate through clever words. Nor by claiming you’ve led a long and high-minded life protecting and defending everyone.”
The old man cast a swift look back over his shoulder, as if he could see clearly in the darkness, then faced the two Cormyreans again, still hefting the small items in his hands, and shrugged. “Yet I am a protector and defender. Why should that not be my justification? Ye are a wizard of war and use that to account for what ye do and the arrogance with which ye do it.”
Ironstone was unimpressed. “You? Protector of what? Your own interests, most likely, that you trumpeted as those of Mystra when you were challenged. You were a meddler, a defier of authority, and a foe of kings. You never stood for any law, order, or rightful government—not like our mighty Vangerdahast.”
“Thy last two sentences, I’ll grant. I was not like him, though he grew to increasingly see matters as I did, as the years did to him what they did to me. He began as my apprentice—and in those days, when folk spoke of Vangey and used the word ‘mighty,’ the next word they always uttered was ‘annoying.’ ”
Hawkblade hastily quelled something that sounded suspiciously like a snort of mirth.
War Wizard Ironstone shot him a look then turned his head to thrust that same glare at Elminster, who added, “Peace, fairness, and order I’ve sought, aye, but I’m still seeking a ruler who consistently seeks to achieve those, as opposed to finding them by accident from time to time. I may yet find one, mind; I’ve only been looking for twelve centuries or so.”