Harbrand shook his head. “Too small, too distant. Flung us all down the rooms—good thing the walls weren’t closer, or we’d have been smashed like flung eggs. Stunned everyone good and proper, ’cept maybe the drow and Lord Constable Mightyroar.”
“And us,” his scarred partner grunted, heaving himself back up off the green, moldy tree trunk. “I’m thinking we were shielded from the worst of it by everyone else’s bodies.”
“Ah, but our luck continues to be simply glorious,” Harbrand replied bitterly, taking him by the shoulder to hasten him on through the verges of the Hullack, away from Irlingstar.
“A bright new morning,” Vangerdahast rasped in Glathra’s ear.
She winced. The mere thought of a man-headed, oversized spider riding on her shoulder gave her—no, enough, she was not going to think about it again. She was going to get over this, going to—
“Relax, lass. I’m not going to bite you,” what was left of the most infamous Royal Magician in all of the kingdom’s history that most living Cormyreans knew said rather gruffly, shifting on her shoulder. “Not on our first dalliance, anyhail.”
Glathra stiffened. “Lord Vangerdahast,” she said warningly, “I …”
“You what? You’ve realized your blusterings don’t frighten me, and you’re not sure of my powers, so you don’t know what to threaten to do? Is that it?”
“You tluining old bastard,” she whispered feelingly. “You—you—”
“Ah, the young,” the spiderlike thing on her shoulder said almost merrily, “such eloquence they command. Call me ‘Vangey,’ lass; it trips off the tongue swiftly, so you can get to the swearing faster.”
“You sound just like Elminster,” she muttered. “Will I start to sound like that in a century or two, I wonder?”
“You’re highly unlikely to live that long, lass, given your temper and inability to hold your tongue. You might learn to curb both those things, but I see no sign of that.”
Glathra sighed and retreated from battle into silence. It was bad enough she had to stand and watch Storm Silverhand ride out of the palace on one of the best horses in the stables—one of King Foril’s personal mounts, hrast it!—to travel the realm soothing angry nobles and contacting potential Harpers. It was worse that Ganrahast and Vainrence had both ordered her to serve as Lord Vangerdahast’s steed and viewing platform; she suspected they’d done it so that she was forced to accept his presence, and he could keep her from doing anything to thwart Storm or warn fellow war wizards of her impending arrival in their particular corner of the kingdom. She settled for telling Vangerdahast—Vangey? That made him sound like a toy, or a pet!—grimly, “We must get a look into Irlingstar—or at what’s left of it, if that blast was as powerful as I fear it was.”
They could trace Arclath magically, and had, but that merely confirmed he was in or near Irlingstar, yielding them nothing about his condition or circumstances at the castle. Moreover, there were no safe or “familiar” teleport destinations, to anyone currently in the palace, near Irlingstar. Given its proximity to the Hullack and the Thunder Peaks, and the generally shaky reliability of teleportations thereabouts since the Spellplague … portals might be faster and more reliable than a series of translocation jumps, or teleporting to Immerkeep and faring overland from there. The closest reliably functioning portal linking the palace with anywhere near Irlingstar had its near terminus in an always-guarded room in Vangerdahast’s tower, a short stroll east of where she stood. Its far end was inside Castle Crag, three hard days of riding on good, fast horses west of Immerford.
“Hmmph,” Glathra commented, as Vangerdahast raised one of his spider legs to wave to the departing Storm. She did not join in; his farewell could do for the both of them. “Given how wildly busy the Thunderstone-based wizards of war are just now, it’ll be faster to farcall the three Crown mages in Hultail, and send two of them on horseback up along Orondstars Road and around most of Hullack Forest to Irlingstar.”
“Indeed,” Vangerdahast surprised her by agreeing. “So why, most decisive leader of war wizards, didn’t you farcall them the moment after Ganrahast told us about the blast?”
“I suppose,” Glathra replied icily, “my mind was elsewhere.”
She hastened back into the palace, not caring if he fell off her shoulder or not, to farspeak Hultail and issue crisp orders that two of the duty wizards of war stationed there were to depart for Castle Irlingstar in all haste and report back what they found immediately—including the fates of all inmates, Lord Delcastle and his fellow prisoner Amarune Whitewave, in particular.
The Hultail war wizards scrambled to obey.
Well, that was one thing that had gone the way it was supposed to, this day. Would that there might be more before sunset …
Manshoon smiled. Problems, always problems. People, he could take great delight in slaughtering fittingly. When the problems didn’t involve people, some devious thinking was always involved … and over the years, he’d grown to enjoy such scheming. So, now …
Irlingstar wasn’t that old a prison. Oh, a keep had crowned that ridge for a fair while, but hadn’t it been some robber baron’s hold, way back when? Then the fortress of a border baron of Cormyr, as the reach of the realm widened … well, whether he remembered a-right or not, the wards in place had to be new; no older than the reign of the current king. Which meant they would be relatively puny magics he might be able not just to breach, but to destroy.
Yet was the time right for such a bold display of power? It would rouse the wizards of war in earnest, and if Foril wasn’t too gone in his dotage, he just might be able to portray it as the kingdom under magical invasion, wherefore all loyal Cormyreans must rally to king and banner, or Cormyr itself might well be swept away …
No, that sort of tumult and armed alertness would make his own work far harder, and a lot less fun. So, no great hurling down of the wards.
Which left him facing the same challenge: with the wards up, how was he to spy into Irlingstar? If there was to be no breach, then slyness must suffice … corruption … just which Crown mages were nearby, that he might coerce or cozen? For wizards of war could pass through the wards magically, if they bore the right tokens—rings, usually—or else be admitted into the castle if they showed up at its gates and convinced the guards to admit them. If a future emperor of Cormyr happened to be riding the mind of such a supplicant at the gates, that patient and clever mindrider could see inside the prison fortress that way, without any need to attract unwanted notice by forcing a way through its wards or bringing them down at all.
Now, there should be war wizards stationed at Immerford, Hultail, and Thunderstone … they accompanied border patrols, didn’t they? Yes, especially since Sembia had begun using griffon riders. So he’d best start looking for handy wizards of war …
Manshoon’s smile widened. These matters were really so simple.
The lady clerk of the rolls leaned across the table and snared the thick and hairy wrist of her dining partner before it could lift and drain a flaring flagon that was as large as her head.
“Lord Mirt,” she said gently, “there’s something I must say to you.”
Mirt fixed her with a fond smile and rumbled, “Hmmmm?”
“Last night, you were kind gallantry itself to me. After playing the swashbuckling hero and saving my life—and I’ll never forget that. You took me home and fed me, then bundled me into bed and told me old nursery tales until I fell asleep. I’ve never before had a breakfast of half warm broth and half warmed wine, but—just the once, and because of the delightful company—it, too, was splendid. I … I’ve never before been treated so kindly by any man, in all my life. And you … spurred no charge against me.”
“Well, lass, if you’d been Waterdhavian born and bred, I’d’ve assumed the spice of danger would have had you roused for a good romp, but … every lady is different, and deserves the treatment she needs. I want a lady to lead the romp, not be deceived or forced into anything.”
>
“Good,” Rensharra Ironstave said firmly, “because tonight, I think I’d like that romp. Will you come home with me?”
A twinkle appeared in Mirt’s eye. “Well, now,” he rumbled. “Well, now …”
Aye, ’tis me. Kindly gasp or otherwise react not. The two war wizards are watching.
Rune smiled wryly before she could stop herself, but kept her eyes closed and said nothing.
Except in her mind, where she didn’t try to hide—couldn’t have hidden—her delight at learning the beautiful dark elf bending over her was really Elminster.
You found a body, I see, Rune thought.
I did. Like it? ’Tis wonderful, to be inhabiting someone young and supple again, without all the aches and pains.
What happened to her? Did you …, Rune thought.
Nay, lass, I did nothing but come along after a nasty worm from elsewhere had devoured her mind, and claim the empty body left behind. I watched the war wizard I’m pretending to be die, though. I need ye and thy gallant Arclath here to keep my secret about this, though. Or matters may very swiftly get very messy.
That much, I can see well for myself, Old Mage. El, it’s good to have you here with us.
Ye may not think so, soon. Trouble has a way of skulking after me like a hungry beast.
That, I also know, Rune thought. Yet I’m starting to expect it—and to enjoy watching the wildness unfold.
“This one seems fine,” El said aloud then, and Amarune felt new hands on her wrist, then neck, then forehead.
“She’s awake, or nearly so,” Gulkanun agreed, his voice coming from just above her. “I’d rather let her surface on her own than slap or shout at her, though.”
“Her companion is rousing,” El—no, Lucksar, she must think of him only as Lucksar now, or she’d make a slip—added.
Indeed. I’d appreciate no slips for the next tenday or so. Longer, if ye can manage it.
So it was that Rune came awake nodding and chuckling.
Across the room, a rather scorched-looking Imbrult Longclaws gave her a stare. “Never seen that sort of awakening after a battle blast,” he commented.
Farland winced. “Better’n my knee.”
“You still have both your legs—and you can even walk,” Longclaws replied. “Beyond my bruises and a little burned hair, everyone seems fine. After an explosion like that? The gods must love us!”
“Really?” Farland grunted, getting up, putting weight on his bandaged leg, and wincing again. “They’ve a hrasted funny way of showing it.”
“I thought trying it in such an open, popular, fashionable place like Thessarelle’s was a bad idea from the start,” old Lord Haeldown grunted.
Lord Loroun shrugged. “And so you wagered against success and made some coin. Stop complaining! I lost a fair purse.”
“Pah! That’s not the point, youngblood! If you have to count your coins, you shouldn’t be wagering at all. Keeping score in wealth is all too common a practice in the first place. I meant that intending to do something and then not elegantly carrying it out at our first attempt bespeaks clumsiness on our part, and tells the rest of Cormyr—titled Cormyr, anyhail, and that’s the Cormyr that matters—that our reach is neither strong nor sure.”
Lord Loroun flushed and said coldly, “I seldom need lectures on how to be noble from older men. I seldom listen to them twice. After the first one, I draw my sword and duel—removing anyone’s need to listen to that particular source of advice ever again. Be warned, lord.”
“Ah, the young are so subtle, too,” Haeldown told his tallglass, raising it to the light to enjoy the play of color in the wine. “And patient. Straight to the threat, without any wit beforehand. Perhaps it’s because you can muster none, hmm?”
“I’ve no need to listen to this—” Loroun retorted angrily, planting both hands on the table as if to rise, but Lord Taseldon slid a long and elegantly tailored arm across Loroun’s chest with a sigh.
“Loroun, this elder lord dug a pit before you, and you leaped right into it. Learn, master your temper and stretch your patience, and learn some more. It’s how youngbloods last long enough to become sly old dogs like Haeldown, here. Now let’s get back to discussing the failure of our initial attempt to murder the lady clerk of the rolls, and more importantly, how things will be different this time.”
“Tonight,” Loroun snapped, “you didn’t even try for a slaying at a dining lounge! I want it to be public, dramatic, so all Suzail sees and talks about it! How does it strike fear in anyone, if we poison her alone in her bed, and the palace can pass it off as fever?”
“He took her to Razreldron’s,” Taseldon replied, “and with all those private booths—”
“Huh,” Lord Haeldown grunted, “and all those lowcoats Purple Dragon officers, who just love to run their swords through people!”
“—quite so, lord; and with all those lowcoats officers, we’ve little chance of success. However, later, when they seek a bed to dally in …”
Loroun smiled slowly. It was a fox’s satisfied smile.
Lord Haeldown frowned. “Sword them while they’re rutting? Seems unsporting to me! Still, there are worse ways to go …”
He held out his tallglass, Taseldon and Loroun clinked theirs against it, and they all chortled together.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
THE SWEETEST SIGHT
I never thought the sweetest sight I’d see this tenday would be a drow handing me a goblet of my own wine,” the lord constable of Irlingstar grunted. “Yet I thank you.”
The way his eyes roved up and down the shapely dark elf bending over him made it clear he was regarding drow in a whole new way.
“Inside this,” she replied in dry tones, “I’m Brannon Lucksar, wizard of war, remember?”
“Oh, er. Ah. Of course,” Farland grunted, flushing.
They were all back in his office. New guards were in place on the door the two hireswords had fled through, and none of the doubled guard detail had keys to the locked and closed door they were standing watch over.
Aside from bruises—Farland’s knee was so stiff he lurched along rather than strode—and a slight, recurring ringing in Arclath’s and Gulkanun’s ears, they seemed to have recovered from the explosion unscathed. Gulkanun and Longclaws even seemed to be starting to trust the dark elf.
“I … I’m sorry we were so stern with you,” Longclaws said to her. “I … well, I still find it hard not to be alarmed when I find myself staring at a drow.”
Lucksar shrugged and smiled. “I feel somewhat alarmed when I see the hands assisting me turn into tentacles, or”—she gestured at his hands—“vinelike sucking things. Yet I step past that and move on, for the Dragon Throne.”
“Indeed,” Gulkanun said politely. “You seem … preoccupied.”
“I am,” the dark elf replied, taking care not to look directly at Arclath and Amarune. She’d mind-touched both while reviving them, so they knew she was Elminster. They’d been rather quiet since then; best not to make it harder for them by looking their way or talking to them overmuch. It would be all too easy for an “El” to pass their lips, and all war wizards would have been warned about Elminster skulking around the kingdom, by now …
“Well?”
El shook her head. “Turning over all I’ve seen and heard since arriving in my head, to see if anything occurs to me.” She looked at Farland. “You’re sure those two who escaped hadn’t managed to get into the castle before the blast, when you discovered them?”
Farland frowned then shook his head. “They couldn’t have. No. Absolutely not. Nor did they strike me as the sort of killers who’d pounce and then get clear so swiftly. Twice.”
Gulkanun nodded. “I judge them as you do. Not skilled enough.”
El nodded. Good, he’d successfully turned aside Gulkanun’s query. He was preoccupied, but not by anything to do with uncovering murderers or hurlers-of-bombs. Yet. Rather, he was trying to think of a good place to remove and
hide the team ring he was wearing, in case Vangerdahast or Ganrahast or anyone else could trace him—or launch hostile magic, like the mind-touch from afar he’d felt, just before the blast had flung it away from him—through it. He had to remove it without Gulkanun or Longclaws or anyone else noticing, and stash it somewhere it wouldn’t be found but that he could readily retrieve it from …
Hmm … Every jakes in Irlingstar was thoroughly inspected before and after each use to prevent them being used as ways of transferring items from prisoner to prisoner. There was very little extraneous furniture—Hells, very little furniture at all—to offer places of concealment for anything …
“I’m tired, if none of the rest of you are,” Farland announced. “We need a battle plan. The six of us against everyone else in Irlingstar.”
Arclath nodded. “Until we know who’s been killing and causing the blasts—and they may not be the same persons—we have to treat the guards, the prisoners, and the passages and stairs where some unknown intruder might be lurking, all as foes.”
“Exactly,” Farland agreed. “So how do we get through the night ahead of us, and wind up alive come morn?”
“Work on the wards,” Lucksar suggested. “Use them to make new walls, and doors that can’t be forced. After we securely confine all the remaining prisoners in separate rooms for the night, we work a ward around all of them, wrapping them in one big box. Then we work on the wards to securely seal all exterior doors. Then confine all the guards and staff except the six of us together in a cluster of rooms that include the kitchens but are away from all doors—so any kitchen back doors must be excluded—and ward them into their own box. And then we barricade ourselves separately in rooms we can lock from within, and get some sleep. All save for Wizard of War Gulkanun and myself; we’ll stand watch.”
“Over each other,” Gulkanun said wryly.
Farland nodded wearily. “I like the sound of that. The rest of you?”
He saw nothing but nods. “Good. Let’s do it,” he said, draining his goblet and heaving himself to his feet with a grunt of pain. “I’m not getting any younger.”
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