Elminster Must Die: The Sage of Shadowdale

by Ed Greenwood

  The door behind them promptly opened, and Tress stepped in with a tray that held a decanter and three metal goblets.

  “Thought you’d say that,” she told them with a nonchalant smile, obviously not caring that they’d know she’d been listening at the door. “Compliments of the house.”

  Arclath and Amarune exchanged glances. Then, slowly, they both started to chuckle.

  The passage was a long one, and the moment the laughter died away, the furious swordcaptain set a brisk pace along it, forcing his prisoners almost into a trot. He speeded up still more as they approached a darkened stretch, where by some servant’s oversight no lamps glimmered in the sconces that in an earlier age had held torches.

  Into the gloom they plunged, Vandurn snarling orders, and his men beginning to pant, the prisoners stumbling as they were prodded into greater haste.

  “Get going!” the swordcaptain barked at everyone. “I’ve half a mind—”

  “Well, that’s true,” Vainrence agreed loudly, drawing snorts of mirth from several of the nearest Dragons.

  Then it happened.

  There was a sudden burst of light around the Royal Magician’s head, and a smaller one abruptly flamed into being around the brow of Lord Vainrence, wildly whirling and crackling bolts of light out of nowhere that stabbed from one man to the other, brightening into a shared nimbus.

  “Stop that!” the swordcaptain roared. “Stop it at once!”

  Then he saw his prisoners were staggering and clutching their heads as they sagged, clearly as taken aback by the sudden magic as he and all his men were.

  The eerie light snarled louder than Vandurn could, drowning out his shouted orders with a louder voice, a panting madwoman’s voice that soared and wavered in lost, mournful pain as it thundered up and down the passage: “El! Oh, my Elminster! Where are you? I need you! I’m dying … dying! Elminsterrrrrrrrrr!” The last word became a shriek, a raw animal cry of agony and need that sent everyone to their knees, clutching their ears as that scream raced through their heads and ran around and around in their minds, howling in desperation and keening in despair … keening …

  When at last it faded, Swordcaptain Vandurn lay senseless on his back, his sweat-drenched face staring at nothing. Around him, most of his Dragons were the same, sprawled and motionless; the remainder were curled up and sobbing or groaning, spears fallen and forgotten.

  Elminster and Storm stared at each other, their own faces wet and wild.

  “Well?” Storm panted, bosom heaving; her Vainrence guise was melting away with every sobbing breath.

  “Go to her,” Elminster snapped, snatching things of magic from inside his robes and pouches at his belt in almost feverish haste. “As fast as you can, and feed her everything you have to! Then get back here!”

  “But, El—”

  “Go! I’ll be fine here. Something’s happened to her, and we must find out what. Go! Use the Dalestride; the time for stealth is past.”

  “It’ll be guarded,” Storm warned breathlessly. The Dalestride was a portal linking the Room of the Watchful Sentinel with a certain glade just west of Mistledale. Reinforced by Caladnei, it had survived the Spellplague, and King Foril and his wizards of war and highknights knew all about it; it was never unguarded.

  “Good.” Elminster’s sudden smile was as ruthless as that of an old and hungry wolf. “I’m glad of that.” Almost hungrily he added, “I’ll go with you to open the way.”

  “If they stand against us—Alusair and Foril, Ganrahast and Vainrence—”

  “The wise ones will stand aside and live,” the Sage of Shadowdale told her grimly, snatching her hand and starting to stride back down the passage. “The fools will taste consequences … and Cormyr will be the stronger.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  TALONS AND PEACOCKS AND WORSE

  Marlin Stormserpent loved the Old King’s Favorite. Oh, it was stiffly expensive, even to a wealthy noble heir, but it was also one of the most glittering lounges on the promenade, a place to see and be seen in. Not to mention that the food was good, the wine even better.

  Moreover, it had been a very useful place to dine in, down the years. Upper-rung courtiers frequented such eateries—fattening themselves on the public purse, stlarn them—and by listening to the excited converse going on around him without seeming to do so, he learned a lot about what was currently afoot in Crown matters. Without all those expensive bribes and even-more-costly spies.

  So the younger Lord Stormserpent had made it his custom to take highsunfeast at the Favorite most days, despite the cost. It wasn’t as exclusive as, say, Darcleir’s, derided by the lowborn as “the House of Peacocks” for all the flamboyantly dressed nobility to be found there daily, but the gossip of courtiers tended to be more intriguing than the usual airily empty boasting—or endless complaining about new ways and those who forged them—of nobles. Even when House Stormserpent couldn’t profit from what its heir overheard, Marlin learned a lot of interesting things.

  Just now, for instance, word was spreading like wildfire around Suzail of some mysterious invading army that had been slaughtering people in the palace. Parts of which—the table to his right was whispering loudly enough to be heard down the far end of the room—had been, as a result, sealed off to everyone.

  “Filled with scores of dismembered corpses,” an underclerk of protocol hissed excitedly.

  “The floors ankle deep in pools of congealing blood!” a gentleman usher hissed back.

  Not to be outdone, the two cellarers at the table to Marlin’s immediate left wanted most of the room to overhear just how upset Understeward Corleth Fentable was. The man was driving them—to say nothing of the high chatelaine and the clerk of the shield—into seething rages with his prohibitions on anyone opening this door or walking down that passage.

  “If we aren’t allowed to go a few more places in the palace, the king’ll find nothing but well water in the glasses set out at this council—and nothing for him and his oh-so-exalted peacocks of guests to nibble on but boiled potatoes with a side of horse mash!”

  As the specifics of just what parts of the palace had been made off-limits were excitedly discussed, Marlin had to hide a smile behind his ornate goblet of best Berduskan dark.

  Everyone was being kept away from the palace-end of the passage he’d recently used, and the vicinity of the Dragonskull and the Wyrms Ascending.

  Which meant that the stalwart wizards of war didn’t know what to do. They’d searched that part of the palace from top to bottom, found nothing useful, and had decided to hide their futility behind the usual cloak of mystery.

  So sea and sky were clear, as the sailors liked to say; a certain heir of House Stormserpent could freely use that passage to get back into the palace, take his two items of the Nine to the Dragonskull Chamber, and see if he could summon two flaming ghosts out of them to obey him.

  Marlin got rid of his smile, drained his goblet and set it down, and rose, tossing just enough coins onto the table. It was time to fetch a certain sword and a particular chalice and do a little testing. And then …

  Well, then it would be high time to set about transforming Cormyr to his liking.

  Manshoon turned away from casting careful spells on a thing of tentacles and strolled across the cavern to another of his glowing scenes.

  For some months, through a variety of minds he could eavesdrop upon, he’d taken to lurking around Stormserpent Towers.

  There were larger and grander noble mansions in Suzail where louder preening peacocks dwelt, and there had never been any particular shortage of idiot nobles desiring to overthrow the Obarskyrs or work smaller treasons … but there was something interesting about the Stormserpents. Young and ambitious Marlin Stormserpent in particular.

  Perhaps it was the feeling that something long-brewing and uncontrollable was soon going to break forth, regardless of what befell Cormyr in the process. Marlin was heir of his House and one of an all-too-common sort of no
ble heir. Purringly handsome and bright-witted—but only about a tenth as brilliant as he considered himself to be. All such tended to be more rash than wise and more ambitious than competent … but that was part of what made spying on them entertaining.

  So Manshoon wormed his way into the mind of servant after servant at the Towers until he could skulk, listen, and watch at will—riding the unwitting mount of his choice as just one more black shadow in a mansion that had become largely unlit, sheet-shrouded, and neglected. Oh, yes; long before he’d taken any interest in it, House Stormserpent had become a mere shadow of its former self.

  Marlin’s father was long dead, leaving real power in the hands of his widow Narmitra. Who hated everything about Suzailan high society and court intrigue and was letting her brother-in-law Mhedarlakh play patriarch because she knew Marlin hated it all, too, and would prefer the freedom to pursue his own interests as long as Mhedarlakh could totter along.

  It amused her vastly—just as it did Manshoon—that Mhedarlakh’s feeble wits and his being neither the head of his House nor its heir frustrated other nobles no end. The Stormserpents couldn’t be bound by any agreements old Mhedarlakh made, and fellow nobles couldn’t use him as a reliable source of information about the family nor as a bearer of proposals, agreements, or opinions to any Stormserpent.

  There was nothing foolish nor slow-witted about the Lady Narmitra. No peacock, she.

  It had been almost immediately clear to Manshoon that Marlin, whether he admitted it to himself or not, was more than a little afraid of her.

  Even before Manshoon had stolen into his mind, the young lord’s occasional murmurings to himself revealed all too clearly that Marlin suspected his mother knew what he’d done to Rondras but said nothing because she had always liked him far more than his brothers—and because she was, in turn, a shade scared of him.

  And so they danced, mother and son, in a slow and endless duel of barbed comments, deployments of servants, and tacit accords.

  Manshoon observed all their little ruses and conversational gambits with frequent delight. It was better than a play.

  For his part, Marlin dealt with his mother cordially but firmly, and early on obtained her promise to keep out of certain towers of the house, which were to be his alone. Manshoon admired the lordling’s patience over that. For a long time after obtaining that promise, Marlin did nothing at home that Lady Stormserpent would find at all suspicious—so she could, and did, pry and spy in “his” towers many times only to find nothing worth the looking and eventually lose interest.

  At long last, Marlin Stormserpent’s long-awaited breaking forth might just be about to happen. He’d returned home in a hurry, and was bustling about getting the Flying Blade and the chalice out of hiding with a distinct air of glee.

  Marlin took off his customary sword belt and weapon, replacing it with the enchanted one, then put on an oversized dark jerkin, thrusting into its breast both the chalice and the notes he’d assembled on how to compel and call forth the blueflame ghosts.

  Then he went looking around Stormserpent Towers for the two men he trusted most in the world. The bodyguards he’d hired, rewarded well, and worked closely with the past six or seven seasons.

  “The two men,” Manshoon murmured as Marlin rushed off down a passage, paying the dark and motionless form of the House servant whose mind Manshoon was riding no heed at all, “who are almost as personally loyal to you as you believe them to be.”

  He shook his head. Marlin Stormserpent had thus far been very fortunate in the trust he’d placed in his servants. Far luckier than most nobles.

  And just how long would that luck hold out, hmm?

  An insistent chiming wrenched Manshoon’s attention away from Stormserpent Towers and back to another of the floating scenes in his cavern. He peered at it for a moment, thrusting his nose forward like the beak of an eager hawk, and slowly smiled.

  Well, then.

  Mreldrake was close enough … and it was almost better than he could have hoped for.

  A battle that should take care of another generous handful of these irritating and meddlesome wizards of war and highknights—and at the end of it, Storm Silverhand would be gone again, leaving the Sage of Shadowdale standing alone.

  Just where Manshoon wanted him.

  Yes, this should be good …

  In midsmile his eye fell upon another glowing scene, and mirth faded into thoughtfulness in an instant.

  Then he nodded to himself. It was high time to remove the head wizards from circulation in the palace, before they had a chance to do anything dangerous. Such as waking up enough to provide some organization and leadership for their magelings, once news of the battle with Elminster reached them.

  So what were they up to, just then? Kordran was one of his dupes, so it would be simple to eavesdrop.

  Manshoon let his mind descend into the quavering pool of fear that was Kordran’s mind at the moment. From there, he would be close enough to leap into Vainrence, probably undetected …

  “I—uh—I—Lords, I—we—”

  Wizard of War Aumanas Kordran was as white as new-fallen winter snow and quivering with terror under his streaming mask of sweat, his eyes large and staring.

  Abruptly those eyes rolled up in his head, and he slumped to the floor like the proverbial sack of potatoes. A large, limp sack of potatoes.

  Ganrahast and Vainrence exchanged weary glances. Their shared opinion of the terrified young war wizard was not a high one, and his report had been neither coherent nor conclusive. Moreover, it was the second time he’d responded to their increasingly sharp questioning by collapsing.

  “Leave him,” the Mage Royal said curtly.

  Vainrence nodded. “Orders?”

  Ganrahast said promptly, “Set a guard over the palace-end of that passage: Nelezmur, Tomarr, Baerendrith, and Helharbras. No doubt all manner of curious courtiers will come sidling up to have a peek at what’s so horrible, the moment word of my more general order gets around.”

  Vainrence smiled a trifle bitterly. “And that order is?”

  “No courtier nor visitor is to be allowed within earshot of the Chamber of the Wyrms Ascending until specific orders to the contrary are proclaimed by the king or by me,” Ganrahast replied. “And any unfamiliar person seen in the palace is to be retreated from and reported to me—even if they claim to be royalty or an envoy or a ghost or a highknight.”

  Vainrence nodded and made for the door.

  Ganrahast watched him open it, look out, and acquire the near-smile that meant something had met with Vainrence’s approval.

  Something had. The guards had been facing the closed door from the other side of the passage, spaced apart from each other and to either side of the door a good distance away, not pressed against the door trying to listen.

  Vainrence beckoned to the courtier he saw beyond the farthest guard, standing by another, open door farther along the passage—and murmuring instructions to a steady stream of scurrying servants. It was Understeward Fentable, who bowed his head and hastened forward to hear Vainrence’s will.

  As Vainrence started to repeat Ganrahast’s orders to the courtier, the Mage Royal turned away and stalked across the room to stare grimly down at the sprawled and senseless Kordran.

  It hadn’t been much of an interrogation. Perhaps something was awry with the man’s wits.

  So with that dark possibility raised, what did they really know of these latest murders?

  If some sort of resident undead had done the slayings, why now—when it had supposedly been haunting the palace for years?

  What deeper darkness was it going to herald or goad into happening?

  In the darkness of his cavern, Manshoon smiled. Clinging lightly to a small part of Lord Warder Vainrence’s mind, he sent his will plunging somewhere else, into a mind darker, colder, and deeper.

  Awaken, my Lady Dark Armor. A little task awaits …

  Hurrying along a passage in the darker, damper depths of th
e royal palace, Ganrahast and Vainrence stiffened in unison and exchanged anxious frowns. An age-old alarm spell had interrupted them, unfolding in their minds like a forgotten door. An unwelcome surprise telling them one of the caskets in the royal crypt had been broken open!

  Now fresh tumult was unfolding in their minds. A second Obarskyr coffin had just been breached.

  “Should we warn Mallowfaer?” Vainrence snapped.

  Ganrahast emitted a very un-Royal Magician-like snort. “Lot of good that will do.”

  His second-in-command smiled. “Heh. Point made. Well, then, shall we warn Fentable?”

  “Time enough for that later—when we know what we’re warning him about.”

  They turned the last corner, wands raised and ready and shielding spells spun into being in front of them. A thief’s poisoned dart could be a very nasty greeting.

  The passage stood empty, and the doors of the crypt were closed.

  They exchanged silent glances. Undead, within?

  Ganrahast drew a rod he’d hoped never to have to use from its sheath down his leg, and Vainrence activated one of his rings.

  At a nod from his superior, the Lord Warder unsealed the doors.

  Then he opened them, wand up again, to reveal … darkness. Still and silent darkness.

  The two mages looked up and down the passage, then at the ceiling, then peered at the ceiling inside the crypt. Nothing.

  Ganrahast held up one hand with a ring pulsing on it as seeking magic stole forth, and waited tensely as it found … nothing.

  The two men exchanged doubtful looks again. Then, hesitantly, they stepped into the crypt, wands held ready.

  The silence held. Nothing moved, nothing seemed out of place—hold!

  The royal crypt was not visited often, but to both men it seemed the coffins and the few relics on the shelves along the back wall were undisturbed, everything very much as it had been the last time they’d been there.