by Ed Greenwood
The Sembian sampled the fresh jack that Marlin’s signal had just set in front of him, set it down again with a sigh of nigh tipsy contentment, and added, “Three of them got trapped and bound into magic items.”
A murmur of interest rippled around the table, and the old lord nodded and beamed triumphantly, as if he’d already heard something of this and was very pleased he’d be hearing more.
Meddanthyr waited for someone to answer the cue, and one of the younger and more impatient lordlings obliged. “Well? Who did it, and why, and what’re they like? Curse you for being so secretive, wizard!”
The Sembian smiled. “Secrets are what wizards deal in, Lord Mhorauk. No one knows who did it, which is to say there are so many competing stories and accusations that we can be certain of nothing beyond most of them being pure fancy. Someone very powerful in Art, obviously—and any answer to your ‘why’ will have to wait until we know that ‘who,’ or we’ll be merely spinning new fancies. Yet I can tell you a little of what they’re like … and will.”
He sought to sip from his jack again, discovered it empty in an almost mournful pantomime, then waited in satisfaction as three irritated lords all signaled to the Favorite’s hovering maids to refill it.
A trio of jacks were swiftly set before the Sembian, who in priestly pious manner both smiled his thanks and contrived to look surprised at the same time.
“Right now,” he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice to gather all nearby ears to his words, “somewhere in the Realms, there are three metal objects—a sword, a rather grand chalice, and a largish hand axe, most of the writings say—that are the prisons of three of the Nine. Anyone who has hold of one of these can order the trapped one to come forth from it, or send them back in, and when they are out of it can compel them as exactingly as a willing and eager slave. A servant who’ll never disobey, tire, hesitate, nor feel pain, and so can never fail for reasons of weakness or treachery.”
Meddanthyr held up a finger in warning and added softly, “You can know these slaves by their flames. At all times when outside their items, they are wreathed in leaping blue flames that burn no one and nothing and consume them not. So it is written, by several wizards and sages who saw them nigh a century ago. They’ve not been seen since, at least by anyone who survived to write or speak of it. The three objects that imprison these three of the Nine, I should add, do not themselves flame.”
He fell silent, leaving the table waiting for more, but sat back and spread his hands to silently indicate what he’d said was all.
An excited babble arose, all of the men asking or telling each other the same thing: the murderers of Huntcrown had been wreathed in flames, hadn’t they?
“And how sure are you, of all of this?” Marlin asked through that chatter, making his voice sharp as well as loud, hoping to goad. He succeeded.
The Sembian turned to glare at him and snapped back, “Wise men know they can never be sure of anything when it comes to the Art, saer, but I know what I’ve just said to be true—and also know I’m surer of matters magical, large and small, than you’ll ever be. I’m well aware that nobles are reared to belittle their lessers and to think all who lack titles are their lessers, but such thinking is wrong, and those who cling to it all pay stiff prices for doing so, sooner or later. Be guided accordingly—or ignore me and be just one more noble fool. I’m a wizard; I’ve met many noble fools. They’re not nearly as special as they believe themselves to be.”
Marlin waved aside this blustering with casual impatience. “But three adventurers? Three, and no one’s found even one of them?”
Meddanthyr shrugged. “They may never be found. Buried and lost, or lying at the bottom of the sea, perhaps—or found by some dragon, who’ll keep the chalice, the blade, and the hand axe in his hoard and never call forth the adventurers from them!”
“That’s true enough,” Marlin agreed, sitting back to let other questions come, and the wizard burble on about other things.
Finding a largish hand axe was a tall order for one young noble, but he could call on six nobles to do the seeking—and thereby draw attention to themselves and not him—just as soon as he returned to Stormserpent Towers.
Though they were still breathless from climbing the stairs of Marlin’s turret in such haste, Delasko Sornstern and Sacrast Handragon looked not just excited at Marlin’s news. They seemed delighted.
Marlin Stormserpent turned back to triumphantly telling his table of conspirators all he could remember of what the talkative wizard in the Favorite had said … and he could recall almost everything.
“That axe must be found!” he added, bringing his fist down on the table. “Find it, seize it, and bring it here! I—there’s, ah, a spell I’ll have to awaken, to call forth the slayer inside it to do our bidding!”
Your bidding, more than one noble around the table thought, but that thought made their faces slip only momentarily, for Marlin was watching them closely.
Eager enthusiasm was what they strove to show. With one exception.
“But how?” Irlin Stonestable asked sourly. “There must be a lot of hand axes in Suzail!”
“Call on the nobles who’ve come to town for the council, in their rooms,” Marlin snapped. “Say you want to really get to know them and strike up friendships. Bring your House wizards along with you’ to sniff out magic with spells they cast before you go in to meet any lords. Your mages only have to pay attention to hand axes, remember.”
“Or things that look like something else, but that their spell sees as a hand axe,” Handragon pointed out.
“Yes!” Stormserpent agreed excitedly, whirling to point at Handragon. “Well thought! Well thought!”
There were nods around the table, ranging from Sornstern’s gleeful one to Broryn Windstag’s grimmer agreement.
Every lordling in the room knew Huntcrown’s flaming slayers must be two of the three Nine survivors who were bound into items, and it followed that the sword and the chalice must already be in the hands of someone in Suzail who knew how to use them. Stormserpent’s outburst had just left them all with the strong suspicion that he was that “someone.”
The someone who commanded two flaming men or ghosts who’d slay anyone he chose. Any young noble lord he took a dislike to, for instance.
“Just the hand axe?” Stonestable asked confusedly. “You already know who has the sword and the chalice?”
“The palace does,” Marlin snapped, after a hesitation that was just a whisker too long. “The war wizards keep them both hidden, or I’d have had them already, and we’d be using them to make inconveniently nosy wizards and courtiers—and, the Felldragon forfend, nobles, too—disappear for good. Our good gain, that is.”
He was almost babbling. “But enough talk for now! This news overrides all! Get up and get out there, everyone! There’s a hand axe to be found!”
Chairs scraped back and lordlings clapped hands to the hilts of their blades out of long habit as his words rang around their ears. Then there was a general rush down the stairs as everyone hastened to do his bidding.
Or go back to bed.
At the moment, he cared not which.
Behind their departing backs, Marlin was busy wincing at the slip he’d made. He turned to seek his favorite decanter again.
If some of them said too much, and wizards of war came around poking long noses into the affairs of House Stormserpent, could they tell that the sword at his hip or an innocent chalice held a blueflame ghost inside it?
They’d not noticed the one or the other—even under their very noses, in their own palace—all these years, but then, they hadn’t really been looking, had they?
What did they spend most of their time really watching instead?
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
DRIVING WIZARDS TO DRINK
There were more guards than usual stationed about the palace—and no wonder, with the council almost upon Suzail, a flamboyant riot of nobles freshly arrived in the
city, and more lords on the way.
Nevertheless, Lady Highknight Targrael made her way up two floors and across the vast building with casual, almost contemptuous ease. With Ganrahast and Vainrence missing, their wizards lacked both orders and attention for much else but finding their commanders—and as they’d long since scoured the palace several times over, most were seeking elsewhere.
Which meant borrowing long-dead Queen Gantharla’s double-ended dagger from where it hung in the Blackrood Chamber was largely a matter of strolling there, plucking up the nearest chair to stand on, and tugging the weapon free of some old and brittle leather thongs that bound it on display, high on the wall.
Those bindings collapsed into swirling dust, and the deed was done. Chair back where it should be, and strolling away, with the young, yawning guard in the passage outside the door none the wiser.
The dagger was a beautiful, slender thing—elven; all flowing lines, deceptively delicate shape, and razor-sharpness, even after all this time—and rode in Targrael’s hand well.
She hefted it, smiling to herself, and murmured, “Elminster must die.”
The black-armored death knight was still triumphantly uttering that last word when the secret door she was reaching for swung wide—and she and the armored Purple Dragon who’d opened it from the other side found themselves staring at each other.
“Hold!” he snapped, striding through the doorway and bringing the spear in his hand up to point at her breast. Its tip glowed with a hue that told Targrael its magic could destroy her. His shield came up, too. “Drop that steel and hands to the ceiling, you! Your name?”
A lionar, by his badge. Whatever next? What was a lionar doing stalking about the palace with a spear and shield?
“Having the temerity to challenge me, that’s what,” she murmured aloud as she ignored his order … and their locked stares both grew colder.
“Your name!” he snapped loudly and insistently.
Targrael sighed. This was becoming tiresome, and he was getting a very good look at her.
“Lady Highknight, to you,” she told him coldly, “and I’ll give the orders here, Lionar. Point that spear elsewhere or pay the price.”
The spear was suddenly almost up her nose. “You’re no highkni—”
“Enough,” Targrael snarled disgustedly, calling forth what sages liked to call “unholy flames,” right into his face—and sidestepping as she did so, to avoid any desperate spearcast. She held Gantharla’s dagger behind herself and didn’t bother to draw her sword. Not when his despairing howl would be over in another moment, and by then she’d be through the secret door and have it closed behind her.
Leaving the luckless lionar down for days, or worse. If he awakened at all, he’d be raving about his unfortunate encounter with one of the palace ghosts.
Pesky things, ghosts.
A lone chuckle bubbled forth in the great cavern deep in the heart of the palace undercellars. Ah, Targrael …
Once, the cave had been Baerauble’s most secret spellhurling chamber, where the founding archwizard of the human realm of Cormyr had conducted his boldest magical experiments.
Some of those castings had gone very awry, and it had become a place of crawling wild magic. Best abandoned, behind heavy wards to keep the unwary from blundering into deadly peril or venturing spells of their own that might bring most of the palace down on their heads in shattered ruin.
Wild magic had lurked there for centuries until the Spellplague had boiled it away and had left the great cave yawning empty, awaiting anyone’s arrival.
That arrival had befallen, and the anyone who stood there chuckling was a man who intended to soon rule Cormyr and more.
A man whose archwizardry would have given Baerauble himself pause, who stood alone yet rode the minds of many others.
Both in the cavern and in the depths of Targrael’s mind, Manshoon chuckled again.
Ah, but his Lady Dark Armor was a treat. He’d almost been seduced by his enjoyment of her coldly malicious mind into keeping her active too long. At an ever-increasing risk of losing her to the spells of frightened wizards of war as they finally awakened to the growing perils all around, as nobles poured into Suzail, the day of the council rushed nearer, conspirators plotted busily on all sides, blueflame ghosts stalked the streets slaying at will, and Elminster strolled the passages of their own palace uncaptured.
They were still an utter chaos of incompetent, overly officious fools, but they were starting to face life without Ganrahast and his faithful hound of a Lord Warder and—at last—trying to make some decisions themselves.
The wrong ones, thus far, and all of them too late, but even idiot magelings can’t help but notice a beautiful, elegant, and very dead woman striding around their palace in black armor of archaic style, defying all orders … and even idiot magelings can aim and trigger wands.
Yes, it was more than time to send Targrael back to her slumber to await the day when he’d need her again.
He’d need others, too, at least one war wizard among them, so it was time to also withdraw from the minds of Talane, Rorskryn Mreldrake, and various Stormserpent servants as if he’d never been there at all.
Which was something he—perhaps he alone—could do.
A certain Emperor Manshoon would need all his useful tools after Elminster was dead and he’d dealt with the pitiful remnants of Cormyr’s past; what was left of the wizards of war, of Vangerdahast, and of Alusair the Ghost Princess.
Then it would be time to rule, and truly loyal agents would be most useful.
Until then, no one would ever know they’d ever been his creatures at all.
“Not for me the clumsy mind-reamings of Cormyr that so often drive wizards of war and those they violate into madness,” Manshoon told the dark emptiness around him, as his beckoning finger brought a decanter and a great crystal goblet floating out of the darkness to his hands. “Vampire I may be, but I am before all else a real archwizard; I ride minds and depart them leaving no traces that lesser fools can find.”
Simple truth, not vainglorious boasting; he had worked hard on crafting spells while others played tyrant or meddler. He could do things no mage of Cormyr could even hope to achieve through magic. Hah, he could do things most would think impossible.
Manshoon unstoppered the decanter and poured, savoring the delicate scent of the rare and ancient elven vintage wafting up from the goblet.
Very soon, Targrael would step through yonder door and put into his hand the enchanted dagger that he could compel into magical flight to swoop and fell Elminster from behind, if a fight with the Old Mage should erupt before the old fool’s carefully plotted doom befell him.
Once the dagger was his, he could send the death knight back to well-earned rest. He no longer needed her to guard this cavern, as he had it ringed with undead beholders under his command, and he’d fully mastered a living beholder body of his own—and blasting that mind had been a feat to celebrate—to occupy whenever he pleased.
Or if someone destroyed the human body he was using.
Manshoon scowled at that thought, remembering who had slain more of his bodies than anyone else, down the centuries … and had played with him, as an unwitting tool, even more often.
“Elminster,” he whispered gleefully, “you will die. Very soon now.”
Soon indeed, for as he’d intended and so patiently arranged, the Sage of Shadowdale was alone.
Elminster’s lover had gone howling mad again, and his lone remaining loyal ally and healer, Storm, was off to Shadowdale to see to her. Where both silver-haired bitches would die or be kept too busy fighting to cling to their lives to return to Suzail in time to help the kindly old Sage of Shadowdale. What he’d made his dupe Mreldrake tell the Highknight Starbridge should ensure as much.
That diligent hammer of Cormyr’s foes should even now be scouring the dale for signs of Elminster and his two silver-haired wenches, believing those three were preparing to magically attack King Foril just
after his council.
Manshoon sipped and nodded appreciatively. Yes, his plans were unfolding nicely.
He would use Talane to kill Gaskur, the mind he’d most often inhabited and of necessity altered, in Stormserpent Towers—after enspelling Gaskur to look like Ruthgul. Scrying to make sure Amarune Whitewave saw Ruthgul dead, he’d then dissolve his spell so she’d witness her dead client “melting back” into Gaskur, a man she should not know.
That little ruse should frighten her into repudiating Elminster rather than agreeing to work with the Old Mage.
Not that she had much aptitude for magic. Whitewave was very little more than an accomplished thief, and could be slain with ease—but she was far more useful as Elminster’s tormentor. If she repudiated her ancestor, it would crush the old fool more than anything Manshoon himself could do.
And Elminster must suffer.
Rejection or betrayal at the hands of everyone the Sage of Shadowdale depended on should bring on that suffering nicely, before an unexpected longtime foe—the oft bested and belittled Manshoon—revealed himself and killed the old goat.
Manshoon smiled at his decanter. “And when Elminster is dead and these hands have slain him, I’ll be out from under his shadow at last,” he told it. Then he noticed it seemed to have half-emptied itself rather quickly.
He shook his head. That was the problem with decanters …
It was time to bid farewell to the mind of Marlin Stormserpent, too. A young fool doomed by his own ambitions, yet thus far playing his useful—if unwitting—part.
“I have loosed him like a wild arrow among the court and nobility of Cormyr, to see how many lives he can reap before he’s brought down,” he purred. “Whereupon someone else will seize the blueflame ghosts and use them against their rivals and foes … and so on.”