by Ed Greenwood
They exchanged glances again, then hastened on their way. Being tardy in appearing before Glathra would not be wise.
“So which lord was trying hardest to slice up the king, anyhail?” Tracegar asked. “I came to the west doors, staring straight into twoscore brawling lords, and couldn’t see a thing befalling the royals!”
Nurennanthur snorted. “Well, that’s a matter of some dispute, as old Hallowdant is fond of saying. I got there too late to—”
Engrossed in this exciting discussion, both men entirely missed the beautiful young woman who sprinted across the passage right behind them, her hair streaming behind her, following the same route the man with the sword had taken.
An ambitious young wizard of war, whom both Tracegar and Nurennanthur held a low opinion of, could hardly miss her, however—being as she ran into and right over him as he stepped out of a room with his head down, intent on the scroll he’d just selected.
The scroll went flying; he crashed to the flagstones fighting for breath and feeling decidedly bruised; and his assailant raced on without a moment’s hesitation.
Toward the well-lit Loyal Maid’s Hall, as it happened, so Wizard of War Surgol Velard could watch her gale-swift sprint.
To his mind, an unfamiliar young woman running through the palace could only mean trouble. She must be a thief—or worse.
Having regained his feet and his breath, Surgol Velard raised his hands grandly, aimed his wand with his usual unnecessary but satisfying flourish—and sent her to sleep.
Velard walked over and blinked down at the fallen woman. Crown and Throne, but she was beautiful! Not much older than he was, if that. This was one interrogation he’d handle himself.
His first, and overdue. Veteran war wizards seemed to think him unready for such duties, but thankfully—during this brief reign of chaos—there were no older Crown mages around to order him about, finding fault with what he said and did, or to step in and sweep him aside.
“Guards!” he called hopefully, excitement rising in him. “Guards!”
Two duty Dragons were always stationed in Loyal Maid’s Hall, and he was pleased when they came trotting, respectful frowns on their faces just as if he were the lord warder, or Lady Glathra in full roar.
“Manacle this captive,” he ordered sternly, “and secure her by the throat to a wall ring in the Mages’ Dutychamber off the Long Passage. The keys here in my hand, the moment you’re done.”
“Of course, saer,” they murmured, plucking up the limp woman as if she were a rag doll. A beautiful rag doll that needed handling as gentle as it was thorough.
“What’re you doing to her?” Velard snapped.
“Orders, saer. All captives to be searched for weapons, saer.”
“Unless I countermand such standing orders, loyal blades! Stop pawing her, and get her to the dutychamber!”
“Yes, saer.”
Was that unison reply sullen? Well, no matter. As long as they obeyed.
“Bear up, Lord Stormserpent,” Illance said sternly. “You can’t expect to prod the sleeping lion and then quail when it awakens with a roar.”
“B-but they’ve been waiting for this,” Marlin hissed at him, eyes wild. “The man with the beholders, the one who takes over minds! He’s of the palace!”
“A courtier?” Illance asked sharply. “How do you know this?”
“He’s been in my head,” came the snarled reply, accompanied by a trembling grab for the nearest decanter.
After a long, deep swig—amid the gasps that greeted his latest words—Stormserpent added, “I know not his name or face, but he’s someone of rank who gives orders. Not a maid or cook or doorjack—someone who matters.”
“These beholders,” Lord Illance snapped. “Were they alive—or did they look dead or wounded, perhaps rotting? Think hard, now. Try to remember how they looked.”
Marlin stared at him then blinked. Frowned, and blinked again.
“They did look rotten, here and there,” he said slowly. “Yes …”
Lord Illance nodded and sat back, looking around the table. “Some of the older, more madwits wizards of war were working with such foul things. Your mindworm must be one of them. If they’re after you now, these Crown renegades, we’ve no time to waste.”
Three lordlings started to speak at once, but Illance held up a hand, and silence fell in an instant. He leaned forward to peer into Marlin’s eyes.
“Hear me well, Lord Stormserpent,” he said, in a voice that was soft yet had a hard, sharp edge to it. “The only way to avoid being hunted down and butchered as a traitor is to use your pair of blueflame ghosts—”
A sudden tension filled the air, a bristling around the table. Illance held up his other hand to quell it and continued.
“Oh yes, lord, your mastery of them has been noticed by more than a few lords of this land, believe me. No courtiers yet, I hope, save perhaps this traitor with the death tyrants—but your only hope is to trust that he dare not reveal himself yet. Use your ghosts, just as soon as you can, to seize King Foril.”
The tension this time came with amazed oaths, but Lord Illance had run out of hands with which to quell.
“Then,” he continued, his eyes still locked on Marlin Stormserpent’s, “you must deceive our aging Obarskyr into thinking you are daringly rescuing him from the ghosts, in a staged battle. Which all of us around this table must help you plan, without delay.”
Marlin stared at him, eyes brightening as he saw the way out of certain doom before him.
“Yes!” he shouted, bringing an eager fist down on the table, which made the decanters dance. “By all the gods, yes! Brilliant, Lord Illance! Simply brilliant!”
For so it was. Most nobles knew King Foril Obarskyr was a lot less than the kindly and just man the commoners thought him to be. He was a deluded, out-of-touch old fool.
So this “rescue” of him from fell ghosts was almost certain to succeed.
Storm paused at the open door, seeing the door opposite standing open as well. Then she strode across the grand passage as if she were a queen.
A queen managing very regally to utterly ignore the fat, wheezing old man in floppy boots who was following her.
What she saw three steps down the next stretch of narrow passage made her stiffen, then glide to one wall and freeze there, waving at Mirt to do the same.
With a sigh that should have been soundless but wasn’t, he obeyed. Not that he could see past Storm’s curves to learn what had alarmed her.
Storm cared not; she was too busy intently watching two Purple Dragons carrying a limp, senseless Amarune Whitewave off in the direction of the Long Passage, with a self-important young war wizard preening in their wake.
“Can you proceed very, very quietly from here on?” she whispered over her shoulder.
“I believe so,” Mirt growled amiably, not much louder than a husky whisper.
Storm nodded and stalked forward in utter silence.
He followed, just a trifle more noisily.
Which meant the two curtly dismissed Dragons, returning to their posts in Loyal Maid’s Hall with mingled regret and resentment, didn’t hear either of them.
Storm hoped that the door she chose to bypass the guards and reach the Long Passage unnoticed would lead to a deserted chamber.
She and her wheezing shadow reached one door of what she knew was a war wizards’ dutychamber, in time to hear a faint rattle of chain.
Unashamedly, she put her ear to that door.
“They didn’t find any weapons,” a nasal young voice mused, “but I stopped their search, didn’t I? Which means it’s only prudent, before I awaken this intruder, to search her myself. Now how does this undo, I wonder?”
Storm turned, met Mirt’s questioning gaze, and moved back to where she could whisper into his ear. “Go along the passage to the other side of this room, and very noisily bang open its far door. Take care to keep behind the door, in case he casts a spell.”
Mirt grinned, nodded
, and lurched off to obey.
The moment she heard that far door bang, Storm wrenched open the door in front of her and launched herself at the back of the young wizard’s neck.
He heard her and was starting to turn—
But “starting” was more than a breath too late.
To the floor he went, struck senseless, keys rattling out of his hand.
Storm closed the door she’d come through, then went to the other door and looked out. There was no sign of Mirt. After peering up and down a deserted passage, she frowned, shrugged, and closed the door.
The young mage had a wand at his belt, a slender coin purse, and a knife so small and blunt it could only see practical use spreading pastes and jams. She took the wand, knowing the symbols painted at its ends; this end gave sleep, and that one awakened.
She touched Amarune with “that” end, then slid the lone ring from the wizard’s finger. By its design, it had to be one of the spell-reflecting bands Caladnei had enchanted, and betimes loaned to certain Harpers.
Donning it, Storm caught up the keys and freed Amarune. Ankles in a walking chain, wrists to a chain passed around her back, and a throat collar chained to a wall-ring with a length of links short enough to keep her standing—or she’d strangle. Such restraints might prove useful later, but she had no place to hide them and no quiet way to carry them, so she let them be.
“S-storm?” Rune asked quietly, staring around the room and feeling her throat. “What happened to me? One moment I was running, starting to lose my breath, and then—”
“This bright young wizard cast a spell of sleep on you,” Storm told her. “Which means time enough has passed—being as I’ve heard no great tumult in that direction—that Arclath must have got out of the palace without dispute or alarm, and clean away into the city.”
“Meaning?”
“There’s no use chasing him. We’ll seek him at Delcastle Manor later, but right now I’m hungry, and by the rumblings your innards have been making, you are, too. So, kitchens first. Then we’d best have a little talk with Lady Glathra, if we don’t want wizards chasing us every time we turn a corner in this palace.”
Rune opened her mouth to protest, then sighed and shut it again. She was hungry. And weary, too.
Once again, the wisest thing Amarune Whitewave could do was give in.
Thank the gods, the Sammartael woman had gone away again without daring the dimness of Sraunter’s back room—let alone the darkness of his cellar.
The alchemist was back at work in his shop, having slipped Crownrood a few sips of wine tainted with something harmless that had sent him to sleep. Manshoon, sitting alone on the alchemist’s best chair—which didn’t say much for the man’s taste in comfortable furniture—felt much better.
He would just have to be mindful from now on that he did have limits. No more than two minds at once, and only one if it was strong and hostile.
His scrying globes had all burst or faded while he’d been fighting to stay conscious, leaving the cellar very dark.
As he needed no light, he didn’t bother seeking any. Instead, he worked a spell to reach out to the mind of Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake.
And waited, sitting in the darkness, a very long time as surprise gave way to irritation, then anger … and then resignation.
His spell had failed.
Mreldrake was well shielded, dead, or his own newfound limitations were greater than he’d thought.
Manshoon cast the spell again, this time seeking the mind of Lady Highknight Targrael.
Again, a long time later, he was forced to admit failure.
Future emperor or not, he had limitations, all right. Which meant he should behave accordingly.
Time to think again as a mortal, living man. Wary, prepared for battle, and hunted by alert foes.
His beholders would be better scattered. One death tyrant and a beholderkin hidden—separately—in the palace, another pair in Sraunter’s attic, and the rest elsewhere, in some more defensible stronghold than this shop …
Was it time to reawaken Talane? Probably, but given the happy reign of chaos at the palace, he had to know what was going on there. So, Fentable first …
“There’s always soup, hot biscuits, garlic butter, and sausages in the end kitchen,” Storm explained, “for servants who must eat at full scurry. These covered tankards aren’t for ale; they’re for soup.”
“I’ll try to bear that in mind,” Amarune replied, feeling full and much better for it, “the next time I storm the palace.”
Storm chuckled as she went to a small, worn old door at the end of the room.
Rune sighed. “Whither now?”
“A particular pantry.”
“Where the rarest dragon meat’s curing?”
“No, it’s all crocks of jam and pickles.”
“Then why—?”
“It has a loose stone.”
“I … see.” Then a thought struck Rune. “A stone Harpers know about?”
“Precisely.”
Evening was coming down outside as they hastened past a small window into a maze of passages and pantry doors. Storm seemed to know where she was going, and soon enough snatched a glowstone from its wire rack, flung open a nearby door, and stepped into a dark, low-ceilinged room crammed with large crocks and smelling faintly of brine.
“It’s been threescore summers since I last set foot in here,” she murmured.
“Oh, surely not,” Rune began, but her words faltered when the silver-haired woman turned eyes as old as kingdoms on her.
“It wasn’t until I went into the inner kitchen, just now, that I remembered this place,” Storm said. And sighed. “El has the same problem. Doors open in our minds unexpectedly—doors we often didn’t know were there. Sometimes what’s revealed is neither safe nor comfortable, and we rarely have time to deal with it properly, no matter what it is.” She smiled crookedly. “As my sister still says from time to time, at least it’s never dull, being mad.”
Amarune stared at her, not knowing what to say.
Storm gave her a wink and turned to a particular fat crock on the floor, under a shelf. Moving it out into the room, she pushed on one end of a stone that had been beneath it. The stone shifted a trifle, and she thrust a finger into the revealed crevice and flipped the stone up into her hand. The recess under the stone was small, and she drew out something that looked like a scrap of chainmail. A purse?
“What’s that?” Rune asked.
Storm put a finger to her lips for silence, replaced stone and crock, then fished inside the chainmail for something and held it out to Rune.
It was a plain iron finger ring.
“Put this on.”
“It’s magical?”
“Yes. Ironguard. Doesn’t affect any metal you carry, but unenchanted metal coming at you goes right through you as if you’re made of smoke. There are four other rings just like it in this—which is a paralyzing glove that I don’t think works, anymore. All of these are old Harper items the Crown mages won’t readily be able to trace. Tell no one about this.”
“And I’ll be needing this why, exactly?”
Storm gave Rune a sad look. “I rather think, Amarune, that we’re going to war.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
FRIEND AND FOE
Sir Winter shook his head.
“A few lords have traveled the streets from club to club, or from lodgings or their city mansions to various eateries,” he replied, “ringed by well-armed bodyguards, of course. But as for pitched battles in the streets, or signs of armed men gathering anywhere for an assault—nothing. None at all. Thus far, at least. We remain watchful.”
Glathra pursed her lips. “Perhaps the lords of this land are more sensible than I judged them to be,” she muttered.
She nodded a farewell to Winter, who returned her nod and hurried away. A steady stream of reports was reaching his office, and it would be tragic to miss something crucial because he was busy relay
ing “no troubles at all” to a demanding wizard of war.
“Thornatar?” she barked.
“Here, Lady Glathra. We’ve restored order in the palace. The wounded nobility have all been tended, questioned, and removed to their own lodgings. Three listening spells cast on them have abruptly been ended, we presume by hired mages, but the rest remain in force and have thus far turned up nothing of interest.”
“Good. I am particularly interested in anything involving Lords Emmarask and Halvaeron. If even the slightest possibly useful or cryptic utterance is heard, my ears are to be apprised of it without delay, no matter the time or circumstances.”
“As you decree,” Thornatar replied, bowing as low as if Glathra had been an Obarskyr.
She grimaced, shook her head, and turned to look for Menziphur, the court alchemist. The man could creep around as silently as a spider! Where, by all the—
Her eyes fell on two faces in the crowd patiently standing around her—faces that should not have been there.
Storm Silverhand and the young mask dancer, Amarune Whitewave.
Biting back a curse, she snapped, “And what are the two of you doing here?”
“Well met, Glathra,” Storm said dryly. “We’d like to meet with King Foril Obarskyr. Soon, if that’s at all possible.”
Glathra stared at her, guilt and rage rising in her with almost choking speed, emotions she’d thought she was done with, and—and—
“Absolutely not,” she heard herself snap. “Your powers, Storm, are no doubt exaggerated by legend, yet remain mysterious. I could be dooming His Majesty by letting you within two rooms of him, for all I know. As for mask dancers, King Foril’s standards have always been rather higher than that—and though she’s young and there’s but one of her, she’s a mystery, too. For all I know she could be full of poison and sent to work regicide by foes of the Obarskyrs.”
The courtiers, Dragons, and war wizards around her were silently bristling, all now facing Storm and the dancer—and drawing back from them.