by Ed Greenwood
She heard another tiny sound, the most fleeting of clinks. Metal, touching stone or other metal as it was moved; probably a blade being stealthily drawn, in another spot from the first noise that had alerted her. So more than one steel-armed foe awaited, just ahead. Drow, most likely, given the largely successful stealth, but they could be dwarves or gnomes or even humans. Now, which of those foes would show the most patience?
El had been making good time along a tunnel deserted in the wake of the glaragh, and had walked far from the riven citadel, moving faster than any wary pursuer not using wings or scuttling along the passage ceiling. She’d kept close watch on the ceiling, both before and behind, and seen nothing more than occasional small bats, beetles, and spiders. The glaragh had evidently devoured or frightened away anything larger and more intelligent.
Yet she’d passed through several caverns where the great worm could have taken a different route. She’d kept following the breeze, because the tunnel, though far from straight, was tending onward in the general direction she desired to head. The glaragh might not have taken this particular tunnel, this far. Fair fortune, even for the most favored of Tymora, only lasted so long … and the luck of Elminster of Shadowdale, it seemed, had now turned.
Her ears caught the faintest of hisses, sibilants of words she couldn’t quite make out. Someone whispering in Undercommon into the ear of someone else; someone with a high-pitched, light, soft speaking voice. Drow, or she was a real arachnomancer.
Not that this new body would protect her in the slightest. Priestesses of Lolth were not loved at the best of times, and if caught alone were likely to be …
You have been caught alone, El, Symrustar reminded her tartly. So, now?
Now, of course, it was spell hurling time.
For an archmage with mustered spells ready, this would have been a mere moment’s concern. For a prepared and unharmed Chosen of Mystra, with Mystra and the Weave to call upon at will, even less of a challenge. But for what was left of this particular Chosen, right now …
El backed away around a buttress of joined stone pillars-fused stalactites and stalagmites-surrounded by a small forest of lesser stone fangs, and sank down again.
Was that movement, across the tunnel?
Aye, someone seeking to steal forward and flank her. Over there, too, a flash of movement-not forward or back, but a raised hand flicking fingers in intricate patterns. The silent sign language used by drow. Letting a tight smile cross her face, El cast a long, careful spell that would shape stone, on the fissured roof of the tunnel ahead, directly above where most of those waiting to pounce on her were probably waiting. If a worker-of-Art forced stone into a shape that was anchored insufficiently-a large inverted mushroom, say-then sought to rapidly flatten it out …
With a sharp crack and roar, a lot of stone ceiling plummeted down, to crash amid shouts and shrieks, shatter, and hurl shards in all directions.
El spared no time watching or gloating. She was already snatching out knives and turning to face-
Her stealthy outflanker. The dark elf sprang up over rubble along the far wall and raced toward her, firing a handbow as he came.
El’s first flung knife met the bow’s dart in midair, sending both missiles skittering wildly aside. El’s second snarled across a bracer on the charging drow’s raised forearm. And El’s third found one of the drow warrior’s eyes, and made the last moments of his charge collapse from a hard sprint into a wavering, dying stagger.
El danced back down the tunnel, turning to face the area where she’d brought the ceiling down. More drow warriors rushed her from there, some bleeding from jagged cuts made by flying shards of stone. Males, every one, a scarred and ragtag bunch clad in all mismatched manner of salvaged, patched, and no doubt stolen armor. Outcasts, seven strong-no, there were nine or more. None of whom would revere or obey a lone priestess, no matter how tall and menacing she seemed.
A scrape of sword on stone behind El made her spin around and leap for the tunnel wall at the same time.
Five more drow males were coming at her from behind, grinning unpleasantly.
Surrounded, greatly outnumbered, and-
Doomed?
“Symrustar,” El told her gently, “ye’re not helping.’
Drow rushed in from all sides.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MURDER IN IRLINGSTAR
Royal Magicians and the senior courtiers they most trusted have been many things down the long years of Obarskyr rule over the Forest Kingdom, but one thing they were not-often-was fools.
Wherefore it had long been the practice in Cormyr to order matters such that one official or soldier watched over another, as part of daily duty. So it was that in Castle Irlingstar, Lord Constable Gelnur Farland was warden of Irlingstar’s prisoners, commander of those who guarded them and responsible for that guarding, but did not have command of the keep itself. Above Farland was the seneschal of Irlingstar, Marthin Avathnar, who gave direction to the lord constable and was in charge of the physical upkeep of the castle, but in truth had the most essential task of being a watchdog over any lord constable who might get too friendly with such urbane and wealthy noble prisoners.
Avathnar was a pompous little man, short and stout but proud of his appearance when he strode around Irlingstar in his brightly polished silvered armor. Yet he was neither dull-witted nor lax in his diligence, and had reported three lord constables in his time, all of whom had promptly been reassigned and one of whom had soon met with an unfortunate “accident” that many suspected hadn’t been accidental at all. Word of that had reached him, Avathnar knew, as a gentle reminder not to stray from the path of diligent loyalty.
He hadn’t the slightest intention of doing so. Cormyr was the fairest land in all the Realms, not to mention the best place to dwell in any hopes of enjoying a retirement to a modest country estate with a decent cellar of wine, boar and rothe enough to eat roasts every night if one wasn’t sick of them, and a fair young wife to wait upon one’s needs-even if one was short and unsteady and afflicted with bunions.
If Lord Constable Farland loved him not, too bad, and what a proud badge that dislike was, betokening his own proper fulfillment of his duties. A beloved seneschal was a lax seneschal, or even a seneschal happily and frequently bribed. And he would never be either the one or the other, by the Dragon on the Throne, oh, no, not Marthin Avath-
Someone interrupted his thoughts, just then.
Forever.
Someone reached out from a dark, yawning doorway just behind the strutting seneschal-where a door should not have stood open, a lapse Avathnar really should have noticed, though securing interior doors was more properly a constabulary duty-and briskly plucked the seneschal’s grandly plumed helm off his head. That headgear had always been a trifle too large for Avathnar, and came off easily-straight up, into midair. The same someone then stabbed a fireplace poker with brutal force, log-spike first, into the back of the seneschal’s exposed and balding head, crushing Avathnar’s overlarge skull like a raw egg.
There was just enough time, as the little man swayed onward but hadn’t yet toppled, to drop the helm back into place. A bare instant before Marthin Avathnar smacked down on his face like a large and fresh flounder being slapped down on a kitchen beating board to be flensed into mush for a fish sauce.
The wielder of the poker melted silently away, and a tomblike silence descended on the passage. It lasted for some time before the sound of distant boots arose, strolling in the right-or wrong, depending on one’s viewpoint-direction.
Marthin Avathnar had been a coldly polite, precise man. It was his duty to be so, but it was a duty that suited him and one he did all too well. Wherefore no one in Castle Irlingstar liked him. Not even his personal staff. As for the noble prisoners confined at Irlingstar, they didn’t like any of their captors much. So it was hardly to be expected two of them would grieve when they came upon Avathnar’s body. In fact, had a guard not been right behind that first pair of nobles, and ha
stened upon catching a glimpse of an armored form sprawled on the flagstones, they’d have swiftly plundered the dead man for weapons or keys. As it was, the two nobles merely bent to make sure the gleaming-armored seneschal of Irlingstar was dead, smirked when they saw he was, then went to lean against the nearest wall to fold their arms and enjoy the spreading tumult among their captors.
“I’m left quite desolate by this,” one noble murmured merrily.
“Oh?” another drawled. “Myself, I grieve deeply.”
“Desolated, are you? I was desolated once …” A third sneered, joining them.
“Go from this place,” the guard snapped at them. “All of you.”
None of the prisoners moved.
“Move,” the guard added. “Get you gone. Now.”
“Or?” A noble asked tauntingly, eyebrows rising in exaggerated fear.
“Or I’ll regard you as murderers, and execute you forthwith,” the guard said firmly, half-drawing his sword. “Before you can get word to your families or anyone else.”
Scowling, the three nobles pushed themselves off from the wall as slowly as they dared, dispensing rude gestures and insults, and retreated. Not far.
Glowering at them and keeping one hand near the hilt of his ready sword, the guard unlocked a door and struck the alarm gong waiting in the closet behind it. Then he went to stand over the body, giving it a glare for good measure.
This was going to be bad.
It was bad already, and if his years of service had taught him anything at all, things were going to get worse at Irlingstar before they got better.
Much worse.
The little eyeball floated just out of reach, just as it always did, its silent stare mocking him.
Mreldrake tried not to look at it, but he could feel the weight of its regard every instant, as he struggled to wield his new magic with ease and precision and not the wild, sweating messes his last few castings had been.
It was hard, hrast it all! Holding empty air together in a sharp, slicing edge of hardened force, an edge gathered around his own awareness, so he could “see” out of it at a distance and through solid walls and other barriers he couldn’t truly see through or around. That edge could cleave stone, with enough firm will behind it.
Far more strength of will than Rorskryn Mreldrake seemed to have, even when fiercely determined or desperate. Whenever he dragged his wavering edge of force into a wall or floor, the spell broke, leaving him reeling and clutching his aching head, half-blinded by a sudden flood of tears and momentarily at a loss to recall where he was or what he’d been trying to do.
Right now, in a bare room very similar to the one he was trapped in, on the far side of what until a short time ago he’d thought was a solid wall, a chicken was roaming freely. Pecking, strutting, even fluttering … as his will-driven edge of force pursued it, seeking to decapitate it.
It had seemed such a simple command: “Behead yon fowl.”
His view of the room wavered again, and with a curse he fought to focus the air once more into a sharp, clear edge. And … succeeded. He was drenched in sweat, tiring fast, and this hrasted chicken seemed to want to fly!
It fluttered its wings again, bounding into the air and squawking loudly. Across the room it scurried, flapping this way and that as it went, and bobbing up and down, too. Almost as if it were taunting him, just like the watching eyeball.
Die, you stupid bird, die!
Savagely Mreldrake bore down with his will, sweeping his invisible blade of force up and after the chicken.
Which obligingly landed, folded its wings, blinked, and started to peck.
It bobbed up, took a few steps, looked around-and bobbed again, a scant instant before Mreldrake’s blade swept through the spot where its neck had been.
“Nooo, you tluining little harrucker!” he spat, his mind-view of the room next door wavering again as his blade started to thicken, wobble, and slide toward collapse.
“No! Not this time!”
In a sharp surge of rage he narrowed the blade again and turned it, not caring if he crushed the fowl or starved it of breath by sucking every last whit of air in that room into his killing blade. This chicken was doomed!
Thinner and sharper than ever, the blade swept down. The chicken bobbed down to peck, took two slow steps forward without straightening up, then suddenly reared up to blink, look around, blink again, and look satisfied.
Which was when he finally reached it-and took off its head with the ease of a rushing wind, without it so much as uttering a peep. The bloody head landed with a wet plop behind him as his sharp awareness rushed on, and the room around him turned over and over, wavering … and was gone.
Exhausted, Mreldrake sagged down, stinging sweat running into his eyes, seeing his own prison chamber once more. The secret door he’d not known about before today, the one that connected his room to the one he’d just beheaded the chicken in, swung slowly open by itself to reveal the tiny, headless feathered bundle swaying amid much blood.
“Well, now,” came the voice of one of his captors out of the empty air above him. “Progress we can all be proud of.”
Yes, those words held distinct mockery.
“Rorskryn Mreldrake, you’ve earned your supper. Well done.”
Too breathless to answer, Mreldrake lay with his eyes closed, already knowing what the voice would say next.
“And it’s very fresh. Killed moments ago, in fact. Chicken!”
“Did you see the way Lady Glathra was looking at us?” Amarune murmured. “I was hard put not to shiver. She doesn’t want us working for throne and king, to be sure. I think she’d be happiest if neither of us lived through this night.”
Arclath smiled. “You think it was an accident Ganrahast told her he needed to meet with her urgently and immediately, as they left? Or that the king seems to have left more than a dozen guards behind, to spend the night standing around outside our walls?”
Rune frowned. “You think she’d dare-?”
The heir of House Delcastle shrugged. “ ’Twouldn’t be the first time a wizard of war-or a high-ranking courtier-decided to ‘help’ the hand of Tymora. Or even the most likely unfolding of events, either. I doubt Glathra’s that bold, myself, but the prepared warrior is the less dismayed warrior, as they say.”
He paused at a particular door and knocked softly at it. It promptly opened, and an elderly servant stepped out of the room beyond it to bow deeply to Amarune and hand her a lit lantern.
“All ready, lord,” he murmured to Arclath, and he hastened off down the passage without another word.
Lord Delcastle ushered his lady love through the open door. “My mother chose this room for you because the door has stout bolts, here and here, so you can keep all Cormyr at bay, the night through. The window’s too small for most men to get through, and overlooks a long fall into the courtyard-where some of our men are always standing guard. Oh, and there’s no secret passage.”
They traded grins, ere Arclath added, “Above you is only roof, and beneath you the ceiling of the back feasting hall-a good twelve man-heights above its floor. We’ve only two ladders tall enough to reach it, and we could scarcely fail to notice anyone trying to sneak in here with a ladder that long …”
“But if she tries anything at all,” Amarune murmured, “she’ll use magic, not the swords of Purple Dragons storming your house, surely?”
Arclath shrugged. “We have wards. If they aren’t strong enough, well, I guess that’ll be that.” He grinned. “You really think one angry Crown mage will go to all that trouble to punish the notorious Silent Shadow?”
Rune did not smile back at him. “Arclath,” she whispered, “I wasn’t thinking about me. My worry is for you.”
The lord constable of Irlingstar stared down the passage, over the body of the fallen seneschal, at all the Purple Dragons he’d summoned. Every waking guard in the castle was here except for the on-duty door guards, the stair wardens, and of course the mages. They were all
his to command.
The faces staring back at him were grim. The guards of Castle Irlingstar were upset, of course. They’d been more angry than fearful at first, but that had changed when they’d discovered the kitchen staff slaughtered, and much of the food in the castle pantries taken or deliberately tainted. They had been less than gentle while shoving the prisoners back into their cells and locking them in-and the lord constable had agreed wholeheartedly with that rough treatment. Sneering murderers.
“Dumped chamber pots into the open ale keg, they did,” one Dragon snapped indignantly, “and emptied their bladders all over the puddings.”
“The spitted birds? The sausages?”
“Gone,” was the bleak reply.
Lord Constable Farland wasted no effort on curses. He merely pointed at two men and commanded, “Stand guard over the kitchens. They’re not to be left unattended for as long as it takes you to blink, from now on. Choose two more to relieve you when you grow tired.”
Then he pointed at four more Dragons. “Search everything. The flues of every last chimney, all the spices in the pantry; the lot. Set aside everything that’s been spoiled or even possibly poisoned, and make very sure the chimneys haven’t been blocked and no little traps left waiting for anyone trying to use kitchens or larders. When done, one of you-you, Illowhond-report to me. In my office, where I’ll be conferring with both senior constables.”
Farland looked slowly around at all of the gathered guards, his face as calm and expressionless as he knew how to make it, and said curtly, “There will be goading. Pay careful attention to anything any prisoner might let slip, but keep a close rein over yourselves. I expect you to remain the professional veterans you all are. Return to your stations and duties.”