by Ed Greenwood
His face was so close to hers that he was almost brushing her with his lips.
Storm reached out with her glove, kissing him to quell any swift and desperate incantation-and Tracegar stiffened into helpless silence.
“My sentiments exactly,” Storm purred in reply, as she wrapped her free arm around the paralyzed mage and swung him around to thump against Arclath. She held him there, against a frozen Delcastle flank, so Elminster could get to work on the war wizard.
“El?”
The Sage of Shadowdale had no way of replying, but she could see by the movements of Arclath’s eyes that he’d noticed a healing potion-a shiny steel vial marked with a sun-at Tracegar’s belt.
Then ashes were trickling out of Arclath’s nose, and Storm knew El was on his way to Tracegar’s nose and mouth, to invade and conquer the war wizard’s mind.
To work a spell by will alone was beyond Tracegar’s skill at Art, but not Elminster’s.
Tracegar stiffened, and then his eyes flickered and he was moving, as smoothly and matter-of-factly as if he were an old friend. Taking the vial from his belt, twisting the stopper to break the wax seal but not opening it, then putting a finger under Storm’s chin so gently that it was a caress.
Storm opened her mouth obediently, and El made the war wizard pour the healing potion into her slowly and carefully. The familiar warm, then minty-cool flood coursed through her, banishing all pains and aches and weariness, leaving her feeling wonderful.
She sighed out her contentment as Tracegar stepped back and worked another spell, murmuring the words El chose for him aloud as he spell-spoke Vangerdahast from afar, telling him what had befallen.
Then the enthralled war wizard murmured a reply.
“Mirt will bring a coach to the Three Dolphins Door, for the conveyance elsewhere of Wizard of War Welwyn Tracegar with three still-shackled prisoners,” Vangey informed Elminster. “Provided you have the good sense, for once, to get out of Suzail fast. All of you.”
The alley behind the shop of Sraunter the alchemist was apt to be deserted in the dark, chill hours of very early mornings, but things were different this night. Two closed and loaded wagons stood in the nightgloom, their horses hitched and dozing, and the drover and carter of each wagon sitting like statues with their reins and whips, seemingly lost in personal dazes.
The lithe figure in dark thief’s leathers was little more than a shadow until it suddenly mounted one wagon, sat down beside the drover, and kissed him very thoroughly.
Whereupon he stirred, turned his head, and told her in a coldly familiar voice, “Go home now, and enjoy what’s left of Lady Deleira Truesilver’s slumber. Go to ground until I reach out to you again. You are not much suited to my next few battles.”
Talane nodded, dared to squeeze the drover’s hand in farewell, slipped down from the wagon, and was gone, melting into the night in silence.
She was three streets away before she dared to murmur, “You might have thanked me, Lord Manshoon. I merely saved your life. Not much suited… bah.”
She’d expected no thanks, but being left out of the fun rankled.
“Got it?”
Mirt winced. “Aye. Not that I enjoy having views of rooms an’ passages thrust into my head, mind ye. I can feel a headache coming on.”
“If you got yourself lost and ran afoul of the wrong war wizard, you’d soon learn what a real headache feels like,” Vangerdahast snapped. “Waste no time, mind. The longer you’re in the stables, the more loyal Cormyreans you may have to brawl with.”
Mirt grunted a wordless reply and set off along the passage.
Vangey smiled thinly at the Waterdhavian’s ample back. Well, at least the man had picked the right passage and was heading down it in the proper direction.
At that moment Mirt stopped, turned, and growled, “So, while I’m stealing coaches an’ horses an’ all, what’ll ye be doing?”
“Pretending to be a much younger and more callow wizard of war than I am,” Vangerdahast replied, “as I spell-send Glathra a false alarm about intruders getting into the palace to try to slay the king, to draw her-and most of the Dragons and other court mages who are up and awake right now-to the royal wing of the palace. Yet, I’ll be far from there.”
“Huh,” Mirt grumbled, setting off again. “Always take the easy part, wizards do. The talking. Always the talking. Some of us actually have to do things, ye know.”
“Where’s he going?” Amarune whispered as Tracegar strode out of the cell, leaving them chained to the wall.
He had just ended the paralysis on her and on Arclath, who looked at her now and replied-in his own voice, thank Tymora! — “Elminster’s using a spell to ride his mind from my mind; that’s why Storm pressed us together, all that time. He’s off to find the guard who has the keys to our shackles, and deal with him.”
“Deal permanently?”
“No,” Storm put in. “The gods frown on folk who slay unnecessarily-and they send misfortune by way of ‘reward.’ The Dragon will find a short sleep or paralysis, no more.”
Rune was still nodding when Tracegar reappeared and silently freed them all.
“Leave the unlocked shackles on,” Storm directed, as her hair, holding its ropelike shape, arched up to feed itself down the back of her neck, inside her clothes, “and move and act as if they’re still locked and we’re still prisoners. We’ll probably run into someone in the passages. We follow Tracegar.”
The silent war wizard waved a wand threateningly, his face grim, and strode out of the cell. Looking just as grim and keeping her wrists crossed, Storm followed him, so Arclath and Amarune fell into step behind her.
Behind a door that looked like many others they’d passed was a closet whose door shone with a warning sigil that Tracegar ignored, opening it to display shelves of gleaming vials. Storm gave them one each to drink, banishing all hurts and weariness, then two more each to carry.
Tracegar put the emptied vials in a basket on the closet floor, closed the door again, and waved his wand, pointing along a new passage.
Storm crossed her wrists again and looked glum, so Rune and Arclath did the same as they shuffled along after the silent war wizard, chains clinking.
They were heading for a distant lantern, by a large door that looked like it led out of the palace. Standing under the lantern were four impassive Purple Dragons, watching them make the long, long walk.
As they got closer, two of the guards lowered their spears to the ready, points up and inclined in their direction. The other two set their spears against walls, drew their swords, and stepped forward, looking decidedly unfriendly.
Mirt sighed heavily.
“I know not which harness to use, or what horses, either! But I know right well I was ordered to bring a closed coach-like this one, or that one yonder-around to a particular door just as fast as I could. And being as those orders came from the highest-ranking wizard of war ye’re likely to find, I’m not inclined to disobey them. Why are ye of a mood to, I wonder?”
“Because I’ve never seen you in my life before,” the senior hostler said bluntly, “because you talk like an outlander, and because it’s the middle of the stlarning night and what you’re telling me you want to do would be unusual at highsun! Why don’t we just wait for this highnosed wizard to show up himself and demand his coach, eh? After all, it’s you he’s going to be angry with, not me. I’m just the man responsible for all the coaches and horses and tack here, who’s not letting any of them out of my sight without clear orders from my superiors.”
Mirt sighed. “I was afraid ye were going to be like this, an’ I want ye to know that I regret what I’m now going to have to do.” He rubbed his knuckles, made a fist, and started forward threateningly.
The hostler sneered, stepping back and reaching for a long-tined hayfork-as a massively muscled telsword of the Purple Dragons stepped out of a stall to confront Mirt. “Any trouble, Neld?”
“Yes,” the hostler said triumphantly, glaring a
t Mirt. “This fat outlander is trying to steal a coach-and wants me to harness up the horses for him, first.”
“Nay, I’m not trying anything of the sort,” Mirt growled, still advancing with his hairy hands balled into fists-and ignoring the looming telsword. “I’m trying to get ye to obey orders that came from the royal magician himself.”
“Are you, now?” the telsword asked softly. “Being as the royal magician’s been missing for days, I’d like to hear those orders directly from him myself. In the meantime, what’s your name, outlander, and what’s your trade?”
“Mirt, an’ I’m a Lord of Waterdeep. It pays well.”
“I’ll bet it does, if you acquire coaches this way everywhere you go,” the telsword snapped, stepping forward to confront Mirt.
The Waterdhavian was a big man, but the telsword was head and shoulders taller and just as wide, his bulk being muscle and bone where Mirt’s was fat and bone. “Well?” he asked silkily. “Still going to try to bully Neld into helping you clout a coach, Lord Mirt?”
“I was asking nicely, but I suppose if local custom demands I bully him, then bully him I must,” Mirt growled. “Stand out of the way, Nameless Dragon.”
“Heh. My name is Voruld, and I don’t take orders from outlander thieves.”
“Stand out of the way, Voruld,” Mirt growled.
“Or you’ll what?”
Mirt shrugged, snatched one of his handy bags of pepper from his belt with the twist that undid its binding, and flung it in Voruld’s face. Sidestepping the inevitable blind charge, as the telsword bellowed in pain, he deftly slit the man’s codpiece straps with his dagger-and from behind the roaring Dragon, delivered a good hearty kick where it would cause impressive results.
Then he ran up the Dragon’s shuddering body, temporarily out of reach of Neld’s jabbing fork, stamped on the back of Voruld’s neck with both boot heels, and, as the Dragon fell heavily to the floor, snatched some filled and ready feedbags from their pegs and fed them into Neld’s face.
Avoiding the fork, he followed the blinding doses of oats with his fists, taking solid satisfaction in hammering Neld to the floor twice. When the hostler seemed disinclined to rise on his own the third time, Mirt took him by one ear and hauled him to his feet.
“I’m in a hurry,” he growled with a jovial smile, wiping away spattered oats until Neld could see him out of swelling eyes that were going to be impressively purple-black by highsun, “so I’ll refrain from breaking your nose or jaw. If, that is, you get the proper horses harnessed to that coach there, right away without any delays at all. And in case you’re thinking of giving me lame horses or the wrong harness and reins or some such trickery, I suppose I should warn you that I’ve readied coaches in my time. Cut a strap or leave anything important loose or undone or just missing, and I’ll break your fingers. Backwards.”
Neld swallowed.
Mirt gave him a tender smile. “Yes, I mean it,” he added lightly. “And I do believe time is sliding past us, Neld, my new friend. Just like the royal magician’s patience. And where I’m a simple man who just knows how to break things, he’s a mage who knows how to really exact lasting revenges.”
Neld ran to the nearest tack table. Fast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
BEDCHAMBERS INVADED
Got you here, didn’t it?”
Glathra Barcantle stiffened as if she’d been slapped, then turned slowly, trembling hands clenched and a wordless, rising-pitch snarl escaping her lips.
Her towering rage at discovering no danger at all in the royal wing, that she’d been duped, and that she’d awakened Obarskyrs for no good reason had not been improved by angry royal aspersions upon her competence.
She was facing a sleepy King Foril right now, and he continued to be none too amused.
So an unwelcome voice from behind her was a last slapping insult, by the throne!
“Give me one good reason,” she hissed as she addressed a spiderlike intruder that had somehow gotten past several posts of guards and into the outermost anteroom of the king’s own bedchambers, “why I should not blast you to your grave, right now.”
“You’ll be dooming the realm, entirely for your own selfish ambition and shortsighted stupidity,” the black, wraithlike head atop spiderlike human fingers replied calmly, lifting one finger to wag it at her disapprovingly. “To put it diplomatically.”
The king had caught up a scepter that could do all the blasting that might be necessary to dispose of all of his guests and most of the wall beyond them, too, but was staring past Glathra at the walking head atop the high back of his best guest chair with interest rather than fear.
“Are you who I think you are?” Foril asked quietly. “Vangerdahast?”
“I am,” the spiderlike thing replied. “And I needed to lure this noisy wizard up here so I could converse with her before a royal audience. Vastly increasing the chances she’ll listen and obey.”
Glathra exploded. “What? Don’t presume to give me orders! Your time is past, old man-by the Dragon, your time as a man is past!”
“I serve the realm still. And do so far better than you’ve ever done, Barcantle. Bluster, highhanded rudeness, and lashing out before you consider consequences is never superior to subtle manipulations-even if you weren’t now facing a city full of angered nobles just itching to find provocations. So spare me your shouts, and tender me your ears and whatever small part of your brain you still use for thinking.”
“How dare-? I’ve never been spoken to-”
“Indeed, and what a problem that’s created! Now, will you listen?”
Glathra folded her arms across her chest and tossed her head. “I don’t even know you are the infamous royal magician! You look like a construct an ambitious but not accomplished mage might cobble together! The words we’re hearing from you right now could be those of any traitor noble, Sembian, or other foe of the Dragon Throne!”
“Or they could be my own. Foril, call to mind the line of verse Queen Filfaeril left to you, written in a locket, but say them not.”
The king frowned then nodded. “I remember them.”
“ ‘The Crown of the Dragon is a thing so heavy, that I send my love to all who may wear it when I am dust, because only love can hold it high,’ ” the spiderlike thing declaimed, then asked, “Believe I’m Old Vangey now?”
“No,” Glathra snapped, before the king could speak. “Scores of courtiers know those words now, because of various royal scribes and palace gossip and the Highknights’ use of parts of it, some time back, as pass phrases.”
“Very well,” the wraith-spider replied and murmured something too softly for either the king or the wizard of war to hear.
Foril’s scepter suddenly vanished from his hand, two suits of armor in the corners of the anteroom stepped down off their plinths and knelt to the king, and a dusty stone statue at the end of the room shifted its pose to hold forth and open the stone book it was carrying, revealing it to be a pipe coffer holding three pipes and four small and rather moldering lines of pipeweed.
“Do you believe me now?” the spiderlike intruder asked rather testily. “I come on a matter of some urgency, as it happens, and would rather not deprive the crowned head of Cormyr of any more royal slumber because I’m being challenged to do tricks.”
“I believe you,” King Foril Obarskyr said firmly, “and that should be sufficient. What do you want, Royal Magician Vangerdahast?”
“To tell Your Majesty that I’ve found Ganrahast and Vainrence in magical stasis, down in the royal crypt.”
“What?!” The king and wizard of war shouted that word together.
“Reduced to what I’ve become,” Vangey continued calmly, “I can’t cast the necessary spells if they awaken crazed or hostile or enthralled by a foe of the realm. So, I need Glathra here to gather four or five war wizards of experience and accomplishment, and go down and release them.”
“Is this another ploy, old madwits? Another deception?” Glathra spa
t. “What sort of trap awaits us down there, hey? You just want us all gone, so you can rule again!”
“I want nothing of the sort,” Vangerdahast snapped. “Other than to know just why you didn’t search the palace well enough to find them yourself, days ago. I would hate to think you were either that incompetent or that much of a traitor.”
Glathra went white. “You dare accuse me of treason?”
“Yes. Twice now. I’ll do it again, if you’re hard of hearing. Foril, will you please order this witch to go down to the stlarning crypt and free the royal magician and the lord warder? I don’t need to sleep anymore, and even I’m getting weary of endless snappish debating.”
A sudden commotion erupted outside the doors, the gruff challenges of veteran Dragons overruled by stern orders-and then the doors were flung wide.
Three Crown mages stood there. Seeing the king in his nightrobe, they hastily went to their knees. “Forgive us, Your Majesty, but there’s grave peril! Statues and suits of armor-solid stone ones, and empty suits, that is! — are on the move, all over the palace! They’re tramping places and rearranging things, and we can’t-”
The wraith-spider chuckled, muttered something, then said, “Sorry. That should all stop now. I hope.”
The war wizards all stared at the spider-thing, and some of the Dragons behind them raised spears as if to try to stab at it over the heads of the gaping mages.
“Behold,” Vangerdahast said gleefully. “Here are the wizards you’ll need, Glathra. You might actually reach the crypt before highsun, if you stop arguing and start obeying!”
Glathra glared at him. “I-”