by Ed Greenwood
“It was you? That’s, ah, good,” Arclath replied uneasily. “Tell me, Rune, what sort of horse are we seeking?”
“Anything good and sturdy that will carry her and not go wild on us,” she said a little helplessly. “I don’t know horses.”
“Ah,” said Arclath, turning her about. “Back here. We’ll take the most suitable of the ready mounts-those that by standing order are kept saddled and bridled, in shifts.”
He chose an older, sleepy-looking beast and used a long leading rein to lash Storm’s body onto its saddle. The horset stood still as he worked, so he deemed it acceptable and led it out of the stables.
At the gates they encountered a fresh and rather breathless handful of guards and war wizards, who gave them-and Storm’s bound body, scorched gown and all-rather startled looks, but Amarune told them brightly, “Another of her fits-too much excitement. She once took an evil spell meant for the king and has suffered from these ever since, poor thing. They know what to do, down at the temple, to stop her from sliding into even worse shape.”
They waved a farewell and led the horse out into the busy Promenade before anyone thought to stop them or ask more. Such as which temple.
“That did not go well,” King Foril Obarskyr said grimly, accepting the goblet of flamewine Glathra-after sniffing it suspiciously and taking a tiny sip-passed him.
“Your Majesty has a peerless gift for diplomatic understatement,” Glathra replied curtly and turned to give the priests working on Crown Prince Irvel another glare. “How is he?”
“Only a few bruises now,” one replied soothingly. “There were three cuts, none of them deep. Our healing has made them disappear completely.”
“How many lords were lost?” the prince muttered sleepily, from somewhere beneath the attentive clergy.
Glathra was about to ignore the question but caught the look Foril gave her, an unspoken command to provide a full and honest reply.
“We know not. For one thing, there’s still fighting going on, as some seek to settle old scores. For another, some lords were sorely wounded-at least, so all the spilled blood tells us-but fled the palace. Whether they’ll reach healing in time…” She shrugged.
“There were deaths,” the king said heavily.
Glathra nodded. “The bodies of the Lords Dragonwood, Ambrival, Foulweather, Barelder, Tantorn, Hardivyper, Ravenhill, and Briarbroke have been identified and taken to the Chapel of the Valiant, where they lie under guard.” She started to pace. “I can’t find Sir Winter, yet, nor my fellow wizards of war Blamreld and Lareikaun, but I want all three to examine the bodies before priests or kin get to them.”
Running a hand over her weary eyes, she added, “Most of all, I want the wielder of our new blueflame ghost identified and found! Right after young Lord Stormserpent, who commands the two who have caused so much butchery in the city already, is taken into custody-alive, if we can manage it-and the items he uses to control his ghosts seized by us and put somewhere secure.”
“Busy days,” Irvel murmured, from the drawling edge of slumber.
Glathra stiffened, then quelled the angry reply that rose to her lips. One does not rebuke princes. Over trifles, at least.
She sighed instead, looked at the king, and told him bluntly, “If the nobles set to fighting each other and the commoners and our Dragons, in the streets, we’ll be hard pressed to hold the palace. We’ll have to call on every ally, from Alusair’s ghost to the Sage of Shadowdale-when he inevitably reappears. Even that self-proclaimed Lord of Waterdeep who’s skulking around our halls stealing food and wine as if he were eating for a dozen. I hate to trust any of them, but right now we must. We need them-or at least need them not to be our foes.”
“And later?” one of the king’s Highknight bodyguards asked with a bleak smile.
“Later,” Glathra said viciously, “we’ll take their measures and settle scores accordingly. When the Dragon Throne is safe again.”
“Do what you must,” King Foril said wearily, looking at the soundly sleeping prince, “but don’t presume I’ll hide forever. My place is leading my kingdom, not vanishing because the palace-or the city or the realm-is deemed unsafe.”
“Majesty,” Glathra said hastily, “I would never presume-”
“Glathra, you do nothing else,” Foril told her with a wry smile. “I know. I’ve been watching you. Don’t turn into another Vangerdahast on me, now.”
Before she could stop herself, Glathra spat out an oath that made the priests wince and the Highknights all grin.
Then, mortified, she bent low to add, “Of course not, Your Majesty,” then spun around and fled without meeting the king’s gaze.
After she was gone, he sighed, reached for more flamewine, and murmured, “Busy days, indeed.”
Outside the guarded chamber, as if on cue, there was a muffled crash.
“The king is dead! They killed King Foril and chopped him up into so many butchers’ roasts!”
“Who killed him?”
“All the highnoses-the high Lords of Waterdeep, what met with him in this Council and all! Went for him, every last one of them!”
“Well, I heard he’s alive and well, and brought in hireswords to carve up the lords before they could lay a finger on him!”
“Get out of it, the both of you! ’Twas no regicide, nor nothing to do with the royals! It was noble knifing noble-and they’re still at it, right across the city!”
So went the excited shouting as patrons rushed into The Goose of Doom, a dockside tavern not known for its loyal support of House Obarskyr or the lowliest Purple Dragon.
No sooner were they hunched around the tables with tankards in their hands, arguing excitedly about who’d been seen dead and who’d done the slaying, when the loudest and proudest of the Goose’s regulars, the fat, retired Dragon swordcaptain Brorn Roril, stumbled through the front doors, wild-eyed and streaming blood.
“The Obarskyrs are dead!” he panted, “and it’s civil war, saers! Lock up your daughters, or get out of Cormyr, as fast as you can! The Forest Kingdom is at war!”
The Delcastle stablemaster took one look at the horse Arclath was leading into the stables and sneered. “Where, lord, did you get that? I hope you won the wager rather than losing it!”
“This was the most docile ready mount in the royal stables, Burtland,” Arclath replied crisply, “and it’s soon returning there. However, I find myself in need of a short stretch of privacy, here and now, so if you’d like to take yourself off to the kitchens for an early feasting, and tell them I sent you…”
The stablemaster rubbed his hands a trifle cleaner on his belt linen, looked Amarune up and down, and gave the younger Lord Delcastle a broad wink. “But of course, young master! I know-”
“Burtland,” Arclath snapped, “you will apologize to the Lady Amarune for what you were just about to say, and amend your thinking. Regard this sorely wounded lady, here on the horse! We must tend to her and discuss her future and ours. So banish all thoughts of, ah, trysting from your head, and-”
The stablemaster surveyed the scorched and unconscious Storm-who chose that moment to open one bleary eye, notice him, and give him a wan smile and a solemn wink-bound to the horse. Bending to examine her bindings, he looked back at Arclath, then at Amarune, at Storm again, and back at Arclath.
And winked.
“Indeed, young master!” he boomed. “I wronged you dearly, that I did! Only one maid was I thinking of, and here you have two willing wenches! Not to mention bonda-”
“Burtland!” Arclath roared. “Go! Not another word out of you! Just go!”
The stablemaster went, hastily, but wasn’t quite swift enough to get out of earshot before he started chuckling.
Amarune watched him dwindle across the gardens. “Aroused old goat,” she commented flatly.
“I-ah, my apologies!” Arclath said hastily. “That was unforgivable! I-”
“Should think nothing of it,” Storm told him, twisting around as much as she
could in the bindings, “because you haven’t time. El is… badly overstretched and likely to be wandering half-witted this next little while. I’m not much better. So you’re more or less on your own.”
She squirmed against the leather looped around her. “Get me free of this, will you?”
“Sorry,” Arclath said hastily, leaping forward. “I-” He fumbled with the knots briefly, then hissed in exasperation and started slashing with his belt knife. Storm rolled weakly over-and thumped to the straw-strewn stable floor.
“Oh, gods, sorry!” the young lord burst out, reaching for her. Amarune smothered a sudden attack of giggles.
Storm chuckled, too, as Arclath helped her into a sitting position. She looked down at herself. “Your mother’s going to be none too pleased with me,” she said, surveying the ruined gown without apparent concern for how much of her was now on display. Then she looked up sharply. “Is the realm at war yet?”
Arclath shrugged. “We’ve been a bit too busy getting you out of the palace to survey matters. Yet, I’ve seen no smoke and heard no warhorns…” He looked at Rune.
Who shook her head. “A few men running, shouting about this or that doom. No clash of arms that I saw, but Storm, we were busy. Folk are upset, all right.”
“Then we need to get to the palace,” Storm decreed. “Quickly.”
“The palace? We just got you out of there!” Arclath protested, aware that his debonair facade was long gone and he was increasingly sounding like a naive village idiot aggrieved by his status-and aggrieved anew by each new thing that happened to him.
“And I thank you for it. You didn’t find it necessary to kill too many annoying wizards or obstructionist guards, I trust? In circumstances where there were witnesses?”
“No, but-”
“Then back we go. Now. Tell your servants to arm themselves and guard your mother as if an invading army is about to sweep down on Delcastle Manor; get me my own leathers back-this gown is melted into me in spots and hurts like the Nine Hells-and let’s go find Mirt and Alusair and what’s left of Vangerdahast, before all of us seek out Glathra. We’ve got to rally Crown and court and try to prevent some of the more gleefully enthusiastic rebel nobles from riding the kingdom right into civil war.”
“But I thought we were turning our backs on all of this, and-”
“We were, but things have turned bad enough that Cormyr’s needs now outweigh ours.”
Rune frowned. “Talk to Glathra about what, exactly?”
“Taking Marlin Stormserpent into custody,” Arclath said grimly, “and getting our-that is, the Crown’s-hands on the Blade and Chalice that give him control over his two slayers. The blueflame ghosts that murdered Seszgar Huntcrown and everyone with him.”
“No, you were right when you said ‘our,’ ” Storm said firmly. “Glathra’s no more to be trusted with the ghosts than young Stormserpent. They’re too powerful for her-or anyone at the palace-to resist. However, she doesn’t need to know I feel that way about her just yet, or that we don’t intend to get both Blade and Chalice straight into her hands.”
Rune rolled her eyes. “And just how is what I’m now hearing different from what nobles do, that you and Glathra and everyone else of Crown and court thunderously denounce as treason?”
Storm smiled. “That’s easy. They’re blackhearted villains-whereas, we’re good folk, with nothing but heroism and shining intentions in our hearts.”
Manshoon’s head hurt.
Or rather, his mind throbbed with aches brought on by strain, and sagged with weariness, and that made whatever head he inhabited at the moment hurt, too.
However, he was still on the scene.
Others had not been so fortunate. Lord Lyrannus Tantorn and Lord Jassur Dragonwood were both down and lost, slain in the brawls that had raged through the Hall of Justice.
He’d had to flee Dragonwood’s dying, dimming brain precipitously, bursting into the nearest mind he’d already conquered-which had happened to be that of Lord Melder Crownrood.
His arrival had saved Crownrood’s life by making the overwhelmed noble reel and fall-down behind some seats that shielded him from the vicious hackings two longtime rivals had been trying to deliver to the back of his head. As they leaned down from the tier above to get at Crownrood, and overbalanced when his body collapsed down out of sight as they were in mid-swing, their blades had lodged in seat backs-and doomed them, as nearby lords who’d mistaken themselves for the targets of those attacks retaliated bloodily.
Though he was almost certainly still alive because his sprawled position underfoot had kept him out of the furious fighting that had thereafter raged so closely above him, Crownrood was far from grateful. His bruised mind had plunged into a nasty headache and had birthed its own swift black rage at his unwelcome rider.
For his part, Manshoon cared not a whit what Crownrood thought. The man’s body could run-and for that matter, crawl and stagger, too-well enough, and had served to get Manshoon out of the royal palace of Suzail and away, back to the home and shop of the alchemist Sraunter.
Through streets where nobles’ bodyguards had glowered, exchanged sharp words, and threatened each other with half-drawn swords, men had fled the palace shouting all manner of dire overblown dooms, and some fearful citizens had hastened to shutter their shops.
Yes, it was all very satisfactory.
King Foril still lived; wherefore, no one had a good excuse for mustering armies for open war over an empty Dragon Throne. Yet, confusion ruled the city, and fearful folk everywhere were reaching for swords and daggers.
Which meant a certain deft villain known as Manshoon could start to work violence openly, a killing here and a disappearance there, amid the wider fighting that was sure to erupt-and if the Crown clamped down on such bloodshed with the full might of the Dragons, the populace would grow angry at such tyranny. Angrier. Weakening this weak king still more, and giving the future emperor more room to do what needed to be done.
Yes, Crownrood could stew. On a cot in an otherwise empty room, safely locked away in a corner of Sraunter’s cellar. If the man had any sense at all, he’d get some sleep-but then, heads of noble Houses in the Forest Kingdom weren’t noted for their abundant sense. Low cunning, yes. Arrogant schemes and the notion that the world owed them everything and the gods smiled on them, indeed. Common sense, more rarely, and in far more paltry supply.
Crownrood’s handy little prison was actually the alchemist’s wood room, but its current lack of firewood bothered Manshoon not at all. By the time cold weather came again, he’d be enjoying the comforts of the royal palace-and if for any reason he wasn’t, and the alchemist remained too useful to let the cold claim him, there would be time enough then to seize or steal someone else’s firewood.
Right now, more important matters beckoned. Manshoon needed to discover which noble commanded this new blueflame ghost, in a hurry.
Right after he checked on the ghost-commanding noble he was already familiar with, to make sure Stormserpent still had his life, freedom, and possession of the Flying Blade and the Wyverntongue Chalice.
So it was that the largest room of Sraunter’s cellar was flooded with the eerie glows of freshly conjured scrying eyes, and a darkly handsome future emperor was strolling among the floating, glowing, spherical scenes, peering hard.
The Promenade in front of the palace was seething. Someone-was that Dathcloake? — was trying to get back into the palace within a moving wedge of his bodyguards, and learning that Purple Dragons not only could not be ordered, blustered, threatened, or shoved out of the way, but that they had procured crossbows from the armories and were sternly threatening to use them if the coldly furious lord didn’t cease his attempts to storm the palace and didn’t return to his lodgings, peacefully and promptly.
It was tempting to tarry and watch that fun unfold, but the death of Elminster didn’t mean this particular incipient emperor was entirely without foes…
In this darker sphere, one scene
demanded his immediate attention: Lord Marlin Stormserpent was badly scared and pacing in an upper bedchamber of Stormserpent Towers, not knowing where to run, or how. Clearly visible out the room’s window were the Crown’s hounds, coming for him: half a dozen wizards of war with two dozen Purple Dragons, most in full armor, and a few of their fellows wearing lesser war-harnesses, but bearing crossbows.
The Flying Blade scabbarded at his belt and the Wyverntongue Chalice clutched to his chest, a sweating Stormserpent mumbled fearful possibilities to himself.
His two ghosts could easily slaughter mere Dragons-but six wizards, now, could likely deal with his blueflame slayers in a trice. Teleporting the ghosts halfway across Cormyr rather than destroying them would still seal Marlin Stormserpent’s doom.
Wizards of war without their lord warder or some cool-headed Highknights or a battle-axe like the Lady Glathra to lead them were proving to be cautious, prudent men. The Crown force was still carefully encircling the walls of Stormserpent Towers, not yet ready to thunder upon the doors of the Stormserpent mansion and demand entry-let alone force it.
That gave Manshoon all the time he needed.
He turned. The alchemist sat uncertainly on a barrel amid heaped packing crates and coffers along one wall of his cellar, watching Manshoon-who obligingly gave Sraunter his best softly menacing smile.
“Faithful alchemist, fetch whatever you need that can make enough poisonous smoke to quickly fill Stormserpent Towers. That ‘whatever’ should be something you can easily carry, that you can have back down here less than ten breaths from now.”
Sraunter gaped at him, so Manshoon added cheerfully, “Hurry. Or I’ll spend your eleventh breath summoning enough boring worms to eat your body apart while you lie watching them, paralyzed and screaming.”
The alchemist swallowed.
“Go,” Manshoon prompted him gently-and with a speed hitherto unseen in Immaero Sraunter, the alchemist sprinted up the cellar stairs.
Manshoon chuckled and sent the unleashed beholderkin soaring after the man, to keep an eye on him.