by Ed Greenwood
Coaches were already rumbling along the streets, and from her highest window the lady could see some nobles on foot, too, walking in their finery.
Dressed in her best, she hurried down into the streets to join them.
Then she was gone, and Manshoon’s dark amusement was all Mreldrake could see… that and flames rising and crackling from hay bales as Sraunter carefully set each one alight with the burning brand in his hand.
Then Mreldrake could discern something else through the heavy dark weight of Manshoon’s mind. Shouting and the pounding of feet. A bobbing view of a grand palace passage-through the eyes of the same servant who’d brought Manshoon to him-and thick, acrid smoke, its coils a deep, menacing blue warring with a greasy, baleful green, billowing out around the closed doors of the Council chamber.
Hay bale after hay bale his spells plucked from the dim crowding of Sraunter’s back room to the smooth oval of hitherto-empty flagstones at the heart of the Hall of Justice, with its rising tiers of empty, glossy, dark wooden benches all around, until… the work was done. All the little fires had been sent.
The alchemist’s shop went away, and Mreldrake was plunged into a strange, multiple-eyes view of hurrying Purple Dragons, various guards and war wizards being overcome as they arrived to try to investigate… a confused chaos of falling, staggering, then more shouting and barked orders and booted guards scrambling. Name of the Dragon, but Manshoon must have command over the minds of a dozen courtiers or more!
One scene swam nearer, of a palace passage with an angry woman storming along it, a wizard of war he knew all too well…
“No more fanfares!” Glathra called furiously down the passage.
“Lady Glathra?”
“You heard me!”
On the heels of that furious bellow, Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle spun around to part a curtain and say in a far gentler voice, “Your Majesty, I fear the Council cannot proceed. This day, at least. Not unless you want to die-and all the senior nobility of the realm with you.”
“Understood,” came the calm reply from the alcove behind the curtain. “There are some who would welcome that particular extermination, but I can’t count myself among them. I take it you’d prefer I withdraw, bodyguards and all, to the royal wing? Right now?”
“Your wisdom is as swift and keen as ever, Majesty.”
“Would that your flattery were shining truth,” came the affectionate, rather sad murmur. “We go.”
“Good,” Glathra breathed, letting the curtain fall and spinning around again to glare at a Purple Dragon lionar who was stumbling up to her, coughing hard, his face gray. He waved a hand, fighting to speak but failing.
A swordcaptain behind the lionar tried to speak in his stead, only to be plunged into helpless coughing and retching. “I–I-”
“Fools!” Glathra snapped. “Keep clear of the smoke! Close the doors across the passages by the Hall of Victories and by Queen Alvandira’s bower-open all windows and doors hard by us, here! We must get rid of the smoke!”
Catching sight of a wizard hurrying up from the other direction, she pointed at him and ordered, “Tracegar, strip all wizards of war from their assigned guardposts and get into the Hall of Justice and get rid of whatever’s causing this!”
“B-but-”
“There’ll be no Council this day! Do it!”
She turned back the other way, saw a young mage she recognized peering anxiously out of one of the rooms along the passage, and snapped, “Tarmuth, go after the king’s bodyguard, and make sure all of them put on night helms to keep them from being traced or influenced by spells! Hurry!”
Tarmuth nodded hastily and ran, but someone else was shouting at Glathra, and his voice was not friendly.
“Glathra,” an older mage called, appearing through a door with a handful of fellow senior war wizards behind him, “I don’t recall you being named lord warder! Surely-”
“Surely someone must guard the king before all else, Raeldar! Seeking to do anything less courts treason, does it not?”
“But why call off the Council?” another of the mages growled as they hastened up to her. Courtiers were appearing now, too, fleeing the smoke or appearing out of various chambers, drawn by the shouting. “The king will be less than pleased!”
“I have spoken with the king,” Glathra roared, her voice as deep and clear as many a burly Dragon swordcaptain’s, “and he saw in a moment what you have not: that the fires are not normal-hence magic is involved-and there must therefore be a traitor among the wizards of war, unless someone read our minds and so knew how to defeat our wards without alerting us or breaking them. Now, where does that compel your thinking, Brandaeril?”
The older wizard regarded her soberly, nodding as he considered and then announced, “Glathra is right. We have no choice but to delay the Council while we investigate. To do aught else could well be to doom King Foril and imperil the peace of the realm.”
“Aye,” Raeldar agreed reluctantly. “Ganrahast and Vainrence, if they were here, could hardly act differently. We must quell the smoke, learn all we can, cleanse the room, and cast new wards around it, then cry a new time for the Council across the city.”
Manshoon tightened his grip on Mreldrake’s mind, thrusting like iron-hard talons, and the suddenly mute, helpless wizard of war felt himself torn away from the scrying that had been showing him Glathra. In bewildering haste, his limbs not his own, he threw open his chamber door and hurried to the passage where everyone was gathering around her, to offer his obedient services.
It was too much to hope she’d be careless enough to let anyone who had a hand in crafting the first set of wards also work on the second, but a loyal war wizard would eagerly make the offer, so…
As he flung open the door and stepped into the crowded passage, Manshoon abruptly left Mreldrake’s mind. Entirely.
Which could only mean Mreldrake wasn’t expected to succeed in trying to be a part of the new wards.
He could grasp that much, no matter how dazed and shaking he was. Wiping sweat from his face and gulping to calm his panting, Mreldrake tried vainly to relax.
“You thought your work was done? Ah, but no, brave master of alchemy!”
Manshoon’s smile was gentle, but Sraunter broke into helpless shivering, chilled anew by sudden sheer terror. What now?
“We’ve merely begun,” Manshoon murmured, bursting into the alchemist’s mind before the man could even whimper. “We’re going for a little ride, you and I. You’ve done so well with the hay bales that you deserve good food and better drink, not to mention some laughter and a chance to restock your sadly depleted larder, in a score or more of the best-and worst-clubs, taverns, and shops across this fair city. Places in which you’ll oh-so-slyly spread rumors of various wild and mysterious attacks upon the palace.”
“But-but I don’t know what to say!”
“Ah, as to that, lose all fear. I’ll guide your tongue, and I’ve done this a time or two before. Rulers must learn to hear and steer rumors, or they soon run out of time to learn anything at all.”
CHAPTER FIVE
TRAITORS, TRAITORS EVERYWHERE
A Purple Dragon horn call rose into the air.
“Gods, again?” The veteran Dragon lionar was running out of profanities. He spun away from the table of drunkards he’d been about to glower down at, and strode hastily back out of the tavern. His men, some of them groaning, followed him in a weary thunder of hurrying boots.
Manshoon drifted out of the shadows to watch them, not quite smiling. Tension had been rising in the city all day; skirmishes had erupted between various nobles’ bodyguards in clubs, taverns, and then the streets, and not long past highsun the “to arms” had been sounded, calling all Dragons out of barracks to establish order.
The Council of the Dragon had been proclaimed to begin not this day but on the morrow-and Suzail was not taking the news well.
Rumors were racing from table to table and along the alleys. Of course. Some
had King Foril dead, and others swore a dozen nobles had been hunted down and butchered by royal command, though no two tales seemed to agree on just which lords had met their bloody ends. Still others said tombs in the royal crypt had burst open and the dead kings of Cormyr were stalking the palace, furious at Foril for even thinking of curtailing royal powers-and rending servants, courtiers, and wizards of war alike limb from limb in their displeasure.
Vangerdahast had returned from the grave, transformed into a horrid skull-headed monster, one particularly gruesome tale insisted, and was demanding noblewomen be brought to him “to breed a new line to warm the Dragon Throne.”
Manshoon had chuckled aloud at that one. It sounded so unlike that old fool Vangerdahast-and so much like something Elminster might have tried.
Yes, he was going to enjoy blaming things on Elminster. Why, he might be able to keep that useful line of besmirchment going for decades, and use it to cloak all manner of wayward butchery…
Not that he had overmuch time to spare for such pleasant musings just now. Not with half a dozen new blackhearted traitors to recruit from among the ambitious lesser nobility. The young Houses, those lowly highborn so hungry for more power that they’d do almost anything. They were here to gain anything they could and would listen to a certain sort of whispering.
A handful of them might be capable enough to prove useful, and Manshoon would seek out these few.
He smoothly thrust aside a curtain and stepped to the elbow of one of the useful few. “Lord Andolphyn?”
A sharp-featured man looked up with a doubtful frown from the splendid decanter he’d been about to unstopper, the twin daggers of his forked chin-beard glistening with the scented wax that kept them teased into two points. “Do I know you, sirrah? How did you get in here?”
“Your guards are… mere swordswingers, Naeryk. No match for a wizard of war.”
A gasp came from the men clustered around Andolphyn in this back tavern alcove, but Manshoon gave them all a soft smile and added, “And still less of a match for me.”
After a moment of uncertain silence, many of the men cast swift glances at their master, seeking guidance with hands hovering near blade hilts.
Lord Naeryk Andolphyn seemed to be having some sort of silent seizure; he’d gone stiffly upright in his chair and trembled violently, his eyes rolled up in his head. Then, quite suddenly, he’d relaxed. His face went smooth, his eyes reappeared, and a smile swam onto his face.
“At ease, all,” he said huskily. “I… remember this man. An old friend. A very old friend.”
Manshoon clapped the lord’s shoulder gently. “Until next time, then,” he murmured and slipped back through the curtain.
One mind invaded and conquered; one man now his. If all of them had such paltry magical protections, all six were going to be that easy. Yes, six should be enough-though it would be far too much to hope that six lordlings, even minor ones, would lack enough magic to prevent such unsubtle assaults.
Andolphyn down, Blacksilver not far ahead…
Smiling his gentle smile, Manshoon strolled on.
“You are here,” Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle said earnestly, leaning forward to stare into the faces of the handful of courtiers in the room, “because the Crown trusts you most deeply, and seeks your counsel.”
“Thank you, Glathra,” King Foril said quietly. “Very well put.”
The four courtiers facing the monarch and the lady wizard refrained from pointing out that the “most deep” trust just mentioned couldn’t be all that deep, given the two mountainous knights in full plate armor kneeling in front of the king, and the three stone-faced wizards of war standing behind him with powerful-looking magical scepters in their hands… but then, they were senior courtiers.
The palace steward was notably absent. In his place sat the palace understeward, Corleth Fentable. The head Highknight Eskrel Starbridge was also missing, gone from the city on a secret mission, but his immediate underling, the well-spoken clerk of vigilance, Sir Talonar Winter, was present in his stead. Next to Winter sat the old, gruff, and very capable Steward of the Regalia Langreth Ironhorn, his towering height and ample girth settled in the stoutest seat, the two sticks he tottered around on gathered into the crook of one of his massive arms. In the last seat, which she’d hitched a hand’s breadth or two away from the others, was Lady of Graces Jalessa Windstone, every bone of her a prim, disapproving perfectionist. Palace protocol was “her charge and her only child,” it was said about Windstone.
“You are here,” Glathra added, “because we are frantically trying to learn the identity of the traitor who introduced the deadly smoke into the Hall of Justice-or at least hit upon some way of finding out who that traitor is.” She watched Fentable’s gaze move to the three mages behind the king, and added quietly, “We are using all the spells we can think of, never fear. We are hoping one of you can think of some other means we might employ, to make sure that-”
Sir Winter gasped, shivered, and reeled in his seat.
Even before anyone could react, they all saw the cause. A ghostly, translucent figure had stepped through the wall behind Winter’s seat and then through the courtier himself to stand facing King Foril Obarskyr.
“Majesty,” she greeted him gravely, ignoring the swords the knights snatched out to thrust at her, “your traitor is Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake. He’s working with others, I believe, but the spells that brought the hay into the palace were his. He couldn’t resist bringing himself into the room to check, just for an instant, after sending in the third burning bale. I saw him.”
“Who are you?” Fentable snapped furiously-as the Lady of Graces fainted dead away and old Ironhorn leaned forward with a delighted chuckle.
The Princess Alusair favored the palace understeward with a look of scorn. “You know very well who I am, Fentable. We’ve seen each other often enough-and I’ve seen rather more of your doings than you’d like me to have witnessed, I’m sure.”
Three scepters were now leveled at the ghostly figure, but Glathra held up a warning hand to keep the mages from unleashing magic just yet. Drawing a wand from her belt to menace the princess, she told Alusair curtly, “I’m not sure we should even listen to a ghost, let alone believe anything you have to say.”
The longtime Steel Regent kept her eyes on those of the king as she shook her head sadly, sparing Glathra not even the briefest of glances.
“Foril,” she sighed, “it seems you’re surrounded by fools. If you’d like a larger one, I can fetch Vangerdahast-or what’s left of him.”
Lord Danthalus Blacksilver proved to be a tall, mellifluous dunderhead. He and the effete, oh-so-sophisticated Lord Lyrannus Tantorn were as easily subverted as Andolphyn had been.
Rather more easily, as both were straining for any chance to win greater influence and respect in a Suzail teeming with wealthier, more arrogant, and far more powerful nobles.
However, Manshoon felt his smile fading when he found Lord Melder Crownrood hunched over a gleaming platter of skewered roast quail at the best table in the Merdragon. Two steely-eyed hired wizards were seated on either side of the nobleman, wands ready in their hands as they stared watchfully at the diners all around. One shifted his scrutiny to Manshoon and sharpened it into a baleful challenge.
Servers hovered nervously in distant doorways, and no wonder. This was the most exclusive and expensive room of one of the haughtiest and most overpriced clubs in the city, the Rearing Merdragon, and those wands were menacing some of the wealthiest citizens of Suzail. Any misunderstanding could mean disaster.
“Come no closer,” one of the wizards told Manshoon in tones of soft menace.
The advancing future emperor took no notice of the man; his slow, deliberate stride continued without hesitation, and his urbane, slightly bored expression never changed.
“Crownrood,” he asked in the gentle purr an indulgent lover might use, as he bent over the quail-chewing lord, “are these lackspells yours? I was unaware
they allowed pets in the Merdragon.”
“As they seem to tolerate walking bones in here,” Crownrood replied without looking up, “I suppose they’ll put up with hired mages.”
His tone was dismissive, even bored, but Manshoon noticed the man was clutching his just-emptied skewer like a dagger. A ring on the lord’s dagger hand had begun to glow fitfully.
Ah, Crownrood’s means of knowing his undeath.
Manshoon sighed, sat down in the vacant chair across from Crownrood, and murmured, “I’d like to discuss a little treason with you. Profitable treason, mind.”
A sharp singing, tinkling sound marked a wizard’s point-blank use of his wand-and the twisting of whatever magic it had unleashed into otherwhere, along a silvery astral conduit. Manshoon felt one of his rings crumble to dust in the wake of that defending, its fading taking the wizard’s deadly magic with it, and he quelled a flare of irritation. Such defenses were expensive these days, not swiftly or easily replaced.
“You are refreshingly direct, undead stranger,” Crownrood muttered, turning to meet Manshoon’s gaze for the first time. “Suppose you convince me why I shouldn’t be just as direct with this skewer. Quickly.”
The wizard on Crownrood’s far side glared at Manshoon and then looked away again, surveying the room for other perils. Such as accomplices.
Manshoon bit down on the dried pea he’d been carrying in one cheek, let its cargo of acrid dust fill his mouth, then turned and blew it in the face of the wizard right beside him, who’d just used his wand and was hauling out another one.
The wizard started to cough helplessly, unable to breathe. Not a surprising result, given what the dust was, and that he wasn’t a vampire.
Manshoon went back to ignoring him. Crownrood chose to do so, too, but lifted the skewer meaningfully.
“I have plans for the future rulership of Cormyr that include you, Melder Crownrood. As chancellor of the realm, you will oversee the Purple Dragons and directly command the wizards of war,” Manshoon told him.