by Ed Greenwood
"Leave us," the Royal Magician snapped, "and close the doors behind you."
He did not bother to look at the hastening courtier, and did not move a muscle until the huge and heavy bronzed double doors boomed closed behind him… and he was alone with the thing.
The thing that should not have been there.
His predecessors, generations of War Wizards under their command, and a rare few visiting mages deserving of such trust had cast spell after crawling and flickering spell on the walls, floors, and ceiling of the hall and the rooms surrounding it. Defensive magics, all, designed to foil each new method of scrying or translocation or other means of access. Growing thus over the centuries, they formed a complicated web that no man alive knew or could unravel without months of work and considerable personal peril.
Vangerdahast himself had overlaid the existing magics with several subtle misdirections designed to foil all but the most exacting users of wish spells. He had also cast far less subtle backlash enchantments that would twist intruding spells-unless preceded by a secret key-into paralysis, feeblemind, and smashing-blow effects against their casters. He would be loath to send even a magic missile at the thing protruding from the floor right now, lest each of its pulses come back at him.
The Royal Magician let out the breath he hadn't until then noticed he was holding. He took a few cautious steps to one side and peered at the mystery that had appeared in the hall.
A convulsed male human hand-long-fingered, bereft of the rings that had left pale bands of flesh, and with a few dark hairs adorning its back-protruded from the glossy-smooth marble of the vault floor. The forty-foot-square slab weighed many tons. It seemed that the owner of the hand was now entombed in that slab, for the hand did not look severed.
Vangerdahast had a sudden urge to give it a good kick to make sure, but royal magicians of Cormyr don't grow old and fat by undertaking stupid acts. Wherefore he did nothing more than peer around the hall until he was sure nothing else was out of place or missing He circled the hand, which hadn't moved in the slightest, and grew no wiser.
The Royal Magician let himself out. He sternly ordered the anxious Keeper and the ring of stone-faced Purple Dragon guards clustered outside to clear this entire wing of the palace, and then take themselves as far away as the Chamber of the Brazen Fool. He stood silently, waiting until the echoes of their obedient movements faded.
Vangerdahast spoke a quiet word. It awakened guardian magics that would reveal any hidden, lurking spy. He received with complete lack of surprise the lore that no such intruder existed within range. Making sure he was standing on a specific floor tile, he touched one of the rings on a hidden chain around his neck and spoke a word he'd hoped never to have to use again.
There was suddenly a taller, black-robed man standing on an adjacent tile, rubbing his beard and looking less than happy. "Yes?" he snapped.
Vangerdahast bowed slightly to his guest. "My apologies, Lord Khelben. Be welcome in the royal palace of Cormyr, in Suzail."
"Oddly enough, Vangy," Khelben growled, "I know where the royal palace is. I'll even accept that apology. The honor of your hospitality overwhelms me. It will do so even more if you unfold the reason for my summoning." The edge of his mouth curled. "A sufficiently interesting answer may even blunt Laeral's wrath at my abrupt disappearance. Note that 'may,' and speak accordingly."
Vangerdahast drew in a deep breath as their eyes met. "We stand outside the Hall of Scrolls and Ledgers. You had a hand in casting some still-active defensive spells here. Something has appeared therein; it's my hope that you can identify it and explain its appearance."
The Blackstaff raised one dark eyebrow, turned to face the massive double doors, and made a twisting gesture with one hand.
There was an instant of singing silence. Then the doors collapsed into shards and dust with a roar that swelled and shrank away to nothing again. The torrent of falling metal had vanished, swallowed up by thin air just above the floor tiles the two men stood on.
"How-?"
"One of the spells I cast, long ago. No door in this palace can stand against me."
It was Vangerdahast's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Oh? Why did you do that?"
Khelben shrugged. "We all have our own ways of doing things." He pointed across the mirror-bright floor of the Hall to the human hand jutting so improbably out of the smooth marble. "This, for example, is Elminster's work."
"What!'' the Royal Magician snarled. "You're sure?"
Khelben strolled over to a certain spot on the floor and murmured a word. The air glowed for a moment, he raised his hand into the glow, and when the radiance faded, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep was holding a large, ornate decanter.
"Unmistakable. I've seen this spell before. Someone sprang one of his traps-probably cast on a spot where he meets with the Simbul."
"So, that's a Red Wizard." Vangerdahast mused. "Or… was."
Khelben nodded, sipping from the decanter without bothering with a flagon.
Vangerdahast looked at the decanter rather unhappily. How many more hidden surprises did the hall's web of spells hold? He asked rather hesitantly, "And to get rid of it?"
Khelben licked his lips and raised the decanter again. "I'm sure you know how to call on him," he replied. "Even if you don't want to."
Vangerdahast winced, as if something painful had struck him. Stepping reluctantly out through the entrance that the doors no longer guarded, he lifted one hand and murmured something.
Khelben watched, not quite smiling.
Abruptly a ring of light glowed on the floor tiles. A moment later, someone stood in its center.
She was tall and slender-some would almost have said bony, for her ribs showed clearly as she spun around. Unruly silver hair writhed about her like a nest of roused snakes. She faced her summoner. Vangerdahast swallowed.
The angry eyes of the Simbul, Witch-Queen of Aglarond, were barely three paces from his. She wore nothing and did not look amused.
"Vangerda-" she began, her voice dangerously low and soft. Blue motes of magical fire gathered above her left palm, and she turned to look into the hall.
Her face changed. She crowed in delight and raced across the floor on silent bare feet to where the hand reached up from the floor.
Bending over to peer at it-both men stared a moment, looked away, cleared their throats, and turned again to regard her-the sorceress clapped her hands and hissed happily, "Adrelgus, yes! Foolish enough to try to slay me!"
She spun around to regard the two wizards, planted her hands on her hips, and bubbled, "This is what El meant by my 'little present, reaching for me'!"
She clapped her hands, muttered something. The hand was abruptly gone, the marble floor as smooth and unbroken as if it had never been there.
The Simbul gave them a cheery wave, tossed her hair in a defiantly alluring pose, and snapped her fingers- whereupon she vanished too.
Inevitably, the two men stared in unison at where she'd stood, cleared their throats, and slowly turned to look at each other.
"If you're ever captured," Khelben said in a very dry voice, "try not to let it be by a woman… or at least, not that one."
Vangerdahast glanced involuntarily back to the floor where the hand had been. It bore no trace at all of ever having held a Red Wizard.
"How many palaces, vaults, and castles across Faerun, which their owners think are secure," he asked, looking sick, "can be breached so readily?"
Khelben smiled with only a corner of his mouth. "Oh," he said quietly, "you'd be surprised."
No, no! [ripple of rage] not mages you taught or now take to bed! Early days, i said!
Bah! If mystra didn't breed you or create you, she choose you. Take me back, beyond youk birth, into whatever memories she gave you of your choosing… And let's see why.
stupid wizard.
***
The Royal Magician of Cormyr looked up into Queen Filfaeril's eyes and found them just as sparkling with anger as he'd expected. Than
k you, O watching gods.
"You were right to send for me, Highness," he said gravely.
The queen nodded, face frozen, and began pointing-at the door guards, her ladies-in-waiting, the two war wizards behind Vangerdahast, and finally, the door.
"R-royal Lady?" one of the guards dared to ask, earning himself a regal scowl and an imperious gesture toward the door. That was enough to start the hasty, wordless migration.
Vangerdahast stood motionless, facing the queen, until the stream of swift, quiet bodies was gone, and they were alone.
"Lady?" he asked, not bothering to hide his sigh.
"Vangy," the queen said with an exasperated sigh of her own," call me Faeril or Fee or even 'stupid bitch,’ but stop looking at me as if I've singlehandedly doomed the realm! What could you have been doing that can possibly be more important than uncovering another plot against the throne?"
"Lady," he said, stepping forward to clasp her hand, "I know not. I was on my way here, in answer to your call, when I–I remembered something."
The queen let her incredulous eyebrow speak for her.
Vangerdahast gave her a sour smile and added, "I'm not quite in my dotage yet, Faeril. It was a rather important memory-of the Blackstaff and the queen of Aglarond, here in these halls-and I can't think why it came back to me. So sudden and so vivid-all of it playing out in front of me as if I were living it."
The queen's eyes narrowed. "Khelben and the Simbul here? When was this, exactly?"
Vangerdahast sighed. "Lady," he said, "it's no part of present treacheries. I'll explain later, when you've unfolded whatever this latest plot is. Would it be Lady Kesse-mer's, by any chance?"
Filfaeril stared at him. "How did you know?"
The Royal Magician coughed. "Lady," lie reminded her mildly,"I am a wizard."
That royal sparkle of anger was back, in full force. "You knew, and you didn't tell me?"
Vangerdahast took great care neither to sigh nor to roll his eyes. "Lady," he began carefully….
"Ssso, Queen of Aglarond, at lassst you stray within my reach! One little missstake, but I fear 'tisss your lassst!"
The gloating devil's great bat wings struck her tumbling from the sky. She fell hard onto rocks. The cruel talons of dozens of laughing fiends held her captive and raked her mercilessly before she could rise, laying her bare-just in time for the great beast's whip to come down.
Mystra! What fire! Screaming and sobbing in the grasp of the fiend's minions, the Simbul could not even convulse under the lashing pain. Claws caught at her hair and her throat, dragging her head back, bending her over backward. Her blood-drenched front, laid open by the lash, turned toward a sky that matched its bleeding hue.
"Sssoo, what does a god-touched human taste like, I wonder," the great fiend purred, stretching down an impossibly long black arm.
Spread-eagled and helpless, the Simbul could only moan as that great taloned hand closed on her breast and tightened cruelly. Nails dug into her. The fiend's flesh was hot. She could smell her skin sizzling as it burned, the stink choking her even more than the fresh pain. Somehow she managed to scream, "No! No! Nooooo!”
Her cry sent crystals and gems humming and singing all around her in the darkness. Gasping, Alassra Silverhand stared up at her own bedchamber ceiling.
No devils, no blood-red sky… she was alone, thrashing on her bed, drenched with sweat. Her hands were twisted in the samite beneath her, and there was nothing covering her but air-cool air. Yet she was afire, hot and burning, as if she had a fever-
No, the fire was raging in her breast! The Simbul gasped the word that made the ceiling glow. In its light, she looked down along her body. There was dark, dried blood all over her… but not enough to hide the horrible scar seared on her breast.
It was a deep burn-a brand she'd wear forever, unless magic banished it. It looked like it had been left by large, long, sharp-taloned fingers.
Panting with rage and fear and pain, she sat up and ran a hand over her twisted flesh. Aye, it was real.
Her jaw tightened in anger even before her hands flashed out to two of the gems set into the edge of her bed. Magic kindled within them. The flash of the first told her that no taint lurked within her, and she let the second do its healing work.
Breathing more easily now as the pain ebbed, the queen of Aglarond threw back her head, her hair writhing like soft snakes along her bare shoulders. "Tharammas of Thay, and his spell of nightmares! It must be!"
The healing gem winked out, and bare feet struck the floor. Imperious, furiously striding, the Simbul charged along darkened corridors, doors flying open-and almost cringing-before her.
Sleepy guards snapped to careful attention and dared not move another muscle as their monarch raged by. Rings and staves and robes and cloaks whirled to the queen of Aglarond as she went, clothing her for battle. A snarled word made spell-locked doors at the end of one last passage fly open, to let in the chill moonlight.
"Well," she told the cool night wind savagely as she stepped onto a moon-drenched balcony, "at least this time I know which Red Wizard isn't going to live to see the dawn!"
Spells sparkled around slender fingers. The robed queen melted away into a raging shadow. It quavered a moment under the moon, and then whirled away into the wind, east into the night, and was gone.
[Amid the raging of Hell, one Old Mage sinks back with a sigh and looks at his empty, broken hand.] Aye. Stupid wizard, indeed.
Chapter Five
HERE BE WIZARDS
"If you please, Lord Mage," the lady servant murmured, turning with a swirl of cloth-of-gold and white silks to indicate an ascending side-stair, whose carpet was deeper and less worn than the dusty ways they'd been traveling, "to follow me…"
The doddering War Wizard straightened out of his customary stoop and inclined his head with a leer that he probably meant to be a pleasant smile. His hand unfolded in a grand gesture indicating she should precede him.
The lady servant kept her face serene as she gracefully gathered her gown and set off, soaring up the stair. The bony old mage watched. She was Vangy's latest apprentice, wasn't she? And a Crownsilver…
I see wizards but no Elminster ok silver fire. You're hiding something from me behind this too.
I warn you again, human, my patience is not infinite.
I appear in this soon enough, Lord Nergal-with secrets of magic, too.
[sneer] You sound like a merchant trying to make a sale. This had better please me, worm.
I strive to give satisfaction. Always.
And i strive to refrain from ending your miserable life. Always.
A Crownsilver, wasn't she? Hmmph. As if that mattered a whit to him. Still, it had been long years since a maid as beautiful as this one had flown eagerly up palace stairs in front of this old War Wizard. That had been another lady, dust now, in a different tower.
Bolifar Geldert firmly set aside that memory and did not let either of the silently hurrying servants who brushed past him hear his sigh. Bolifar was studious, careful, and hard-working, more than most senior war wizards of Cormyr. That was its own reward and carried impressive weight in this place.
He'd dwelt long enough on past glories. Memories do not keep one warm nor fill one's hands with comfort, like the reassuring heft of a favorite dagger or the roiling power of a risen spell. It was his turn to mount the narrow stair.
At the top, standing ajar, was an arched gate of heavy iron. Its bars were as stout as his own forearms, and studded with blunt spikes. It looked like something made to hold dragons long ago.
In the cross-passage beyond waited the lady servant. She tried not to look nervous as she shrank from two restless panthers, who pulled taut the rattling chains that held them. They leaned forward, licking their lips and staring hard at her.
The other end of those chains was wrapped around the strong and hairy hands of a smiling man. Dark eyes, a goatee, and a cruel face between, the Master of the
King's Beasts, looking ev
ery bit as dangerous as the two great cats he was walking.
Bolifar gave him a slow, deliberate nod and received the briefest of brow-inclinations in return. Not an unexpected insult, but something Vangerdahast should be apprised of nonetheless. It sat not well when beast-tamers thought themselves higher in rank than senior War Wizards.
Their stair crossed the hall where the panthers crouched and switched their tails. They stared a little less hungrily at a bony old wizard than they had at the curvaceous grace of his guide. The lady servant ascended the next flight, relief written plain down the splendid curve of her back. Bolifar Geldert followed, clutching his writing satchel a trifle more tightly than usual. He took care not to hasten-even when he heard the rattle that meant the master had loosened the chains. The first panther who dared to sink claws or fangs into this War Wizard would also be the last.
There were no beasts in the next passage their stair crossed, but silent hurrying servants and a pair of stiffly saluting guards. Gods above, hadn't he asked for a chamber with a door he could lock, somewhere off the "little-used, out-of-the-way upper passages"?
There was nothing at the top of this last stair but a closed door. Metal rattled as the lady servant turned her key. Her touch brought the glowstone adorning the door-plate to crimson life. In its ruby light, she aimed and pressed a key, warm from its ride in her bodice, into Bolifar's hand. Without a word, she slipped past him down the steps and was gone.
Thoughtfully Bolifar watched her go. He unhurriedly turned and pushed the door open, stepping into the deep darkness beyond. Unfamiliar this turret-top room might be, but it was also heavily spell guarded and isolated-just the place he needed to write his report.
Vangerdahast had waited long enough-far longer than his patience was wont to stretch. What Master Mage Geldert had learned thus far of possible traitors to the crown in the minor noble family of Cordallar would have to be set down right smartly; Old Hammerspells was undoubtedly pacing his chambers already and scowling like an Immersea storm.