by Ed Greenwood
“Can provide us with no good reason not to go down to the royal crypt to investigate Lord Vangerdahast’s claims,” the king said firmly. “Wherefore, I now give you, Lady Glathra, these explicit orders-you are to free the royal magician and lord warder if you find them, and bring them unharmed here to this chamber without delay, that I may converse with them. You are to take these wizards and all of the loyal Dragons outside my doors except Launcel and Tarimmon, there, who will remain as my guardians. Go. Go now. See that this is done.”
With alacrity Glathra bowed low and replied, “It shall be, Majesty.”
After she’d swept out, she looked back to see if the wraith-spider was offering any menace to the king-but it had vanished.
She hesitated, but the king gave her a cold look. She hurried off toward the nearest stair.
The royal crypt was a long way down from there.
“Th-the Three Dolphins Door,” Neld quavered. “Now, will you stop hitting me?”
Mirt gave him a jovial grin and slap on the back that almost pitched the hostler off the coach and onto the rump of one of the hindmost horses.
“Of course,” the Waterdhavian agreed. “Down ye get, now, an’ run along, an’ I’ll say nothing at all bad about ye to the royal magician. A pleasure, Master Neld-a distinct pleasure!”
Neld said something in an incredulous voice as he launched himself in a heroic leap out from the drovers’ seat to the hard cobbles of the Promenade, quite a distance to one side of the coach.
Mirt gave him a cheery wave and brought the coach to a rattling stop outside the Three Dolphins Door.
Four impassive guards held their positions, spears slanted just so, as if he, his coach, and their dust weren’t there at all.
Behind the four Dragons, the double doors that made up the Three Dolphins “Door” started to swing inward.
Smoothly the door guards swung around to face inward, so that whoever was departing the palace would pass between them.
“These prisoners,” an officer’s voice inside began suspiciously.
“I have my orders,” came a flat reply, then the same voice snapped some orders of its own. “Forward. Into the coach. Remember, my wand is ready.”
Storm Silverhand strode out of the palace in shackles and dangling chains, her head bowed. The Lord Delcastle followed her, then Amarune, also in shackles. Behind them came the War Wizard Tracegar, his wand in hand.
Storm stopped in front of the coach and waited. After a long span of hesitation, one of the outer-door guards stepped forward, opened the coach door, and folded down its pair of steps. She ascended, and the other two prisoners followed, under the frowningly suspicious stares of all the guards.
As Tracegar got into the coach with them, one of the guards peered up at Mirt, then snapped, “I’ve not seen you before, and you wear no uniform! Who are you?”
Mirt gave the man a hard stare. “Ask the king. Keep in mind that your low rank will limit the answers you’ll get. And may well wind up lower, when you’re done asking.”
Tracegar rapped on the inside roof of the coach then, so Mirt flicked his whip, clucked to the horses, and set the coach in motion, his stare never leaving the guard’s eyes.
Unhindered, Glathra’s prisoners were conveyed in stately splendor up the Promenade-and out of her reach.
For a while.
The Lady Deleira Truesilver was not in a good mood. Wherefore, fools and those who merely happened to displease her did well to get themselves out of her sight and stay there. Though it was true she was eye-catchingly beautiful, lithe, and elegant, her exquisitely styled white hair contrasting with her flashing yellow eyes, it was the edge of her tongue and the weight of her formidable wits and character they were apt to remember instead, on nights like this.
To put it plainly, she ruled Truesilver House like a tyrant, and in the so-late-they-were-early hours since her reappearance from her chambers, she had verbally demolished two of her kin and a few servants for various stupidities. Having grown tired of having to find fresh words to find so much fault when it seemed to besiege her on all sides, she retired to her chambers again, dismissing her maids and locking them out.
Certain of her inner chambers had bars as well as bolts, and she used these with the deft vigor of a woman half her age, her movements both graceful and imperious.
When the last door was firmly fastened, leaving her only the windows, balconies, and certain secret passages as ways of departing her self-imposed retreat, the Lady Truesilver turned and began to disrobe as she walked toward her favorite bedchamber, kicking off her dainty boots and then doing off her gown and petticoats and hurling them aside for all the world as if she were a club dancer.
When she was down to the most scandalously brief of clouts-definitely the fashion of club dancers, and not aging noble matriarchs-she padded barefoot to a particular relief-carved wall panel, did something to the eye of the doe carved on it and then something else to a moon depicted in a panel across the room-and then returned to the first panel, put two fingertips around some gnarled tree roots in the carving, and drew the panel gently open.
The revealed recess beyond was just large enough for her to hide in-she’d done so just twice, and one had been only a short trial-but held, on foldout hooks, things that did not look at all ladylike. She drew them out, one by one, draping them on handy furniture: boots, several weapon-belts, and then some garments.
The tight leathers of a thief.
All that was left in the closet were wigs-long, dark hair that hung on their hooks like cowls-and a coil of dark, slender cord.
She shook out the leathers, reached for the well-oiled, supple breeches-and froze.
The curtains that framed the door to her balcony were swirling, and no one should have been there to make them move.
Someone was. Not of Truesilver House, but someone she’d never seen before. An intruder. Dark, agile, feminine… and bearing a drawn sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.
Lady Truesilver glanced over at her swordbelt- just out of reach, slung over the back of a chair, with her dagger-baldrics impossibly distant on the lounge beyond-and asked calmly, “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“I am one who has served Cormyr since your grandmother was young,” the intruder replied almost mockingly, the voice female, gentle, and at the same time colder than Deleira Truesilver’s frostiest tones, “and I want to know your secrets. Talane.”
Lady Truesilver stiffened. No one should know that she was She whirled and fled, seeking her innermost bedchamber and a door she could slam between her and this intruder.
Who shed a dark helm as she sprang across the room like a panther and pounced, slamming Deleira Truesilver bruisingly to the floor and easily overpowering her in a chilling, steel-strong grip.
“Not so fast,” the intruder hissed, their faces almost touching. An eerie glow came from between the unfamiliar woman’s teeth. “Your death can be easily achieved, but I want what you know first.”
“And just how are you going to get that?” Lady Truesilver snarled defiantly, arching and struggling, trying to buck her attacker off.
“Like this,” Targrael replied, opening her mouth to reveal a glowing white gem on her tongue-before she forced Deleira Truesilver’s jaws open with iron-hard fingers, and kissed her.
A flash of light erupted as their tongues met that Deleira Truesilver felt, like a silent roar of surf crashing through her very bones, and she felt the cold, somehow minty feeling of magic awakening within her.
Her attacker was now more than a stronger, colder body than hers, holding her down. There was another mind in hers, a dark and looming presence growing larger and closer.
Lady Truesilver did not hear the words that Targrael spoke then so much as she felt them.
“The royal magicians of Cormyr left some very interesting magics hidden around the palace. This was the one that most interested me.”
Enthralled and helpless, Deleira Truesilver couldn’t move or spe
ak as the dark malice of her foe’s cruel, hostile mind flooded into hers, drowning her in shivering darkness…
The Horngate, of course, was locked and barred for the night. The stone-faced guards there crisply informed Mirt that they had no intention whatsoever, short of the correct horncalls from the palace, or the king himself wagging “crown and scepter” in their faces, of opening it before morning.
“All Cormyreans know these rules,” one of them added sharply. “Climb down from there, man, and yield up to us your name, your business here, the land you hail from, your passengers-and their destination. Now.”
Mirt sighed. “I have my orders, an’ they don’t sit well with the ones ye’re giving me, man. So a little less of the ‘now,’ if ye don’t mind.”
“But I do mind, saer! Now, there are ten crossbows aimed at you, so I’m going to tell you agai-”
“If ye put a quarrel through any of my passengers,” Mirt roared, “ ‘tis yer lives as’ll be forfeit, idiot Dragons! Now, down bows, an’ pay heed to who’s stepping out of my coach!”
His shout rang back at him off the closed gates, and he sat down sweating, hoping very much he’d bought Elminster enough time to think of something.
Under him, the coach made the slight rocking that meant its door had been opened and someone was stepping down.
There was a stir among the guards, and he could see crossbows being lowered. They obviously recognized the passenger who’d alighted.
“Open the gate,” came a crisp, simple order.
Mirt hid a smirk. The voice was a very good imitation of the Lady Glathra Barcantle’s shrill of excitement, but it was Elminster’s very good imitation.
And now the guards were opening the gate, and “Glathra” was climbing back into the coach.
Mirt waited for the rap on the coach roof before he urged the horses forward again, and they rumbled out of Suzail into the last dark hours of the night.
Or were they the darkest hours of the morning?
Even after twenty seasons of leading raids in those dark hours, Mirt had never decided.
He waited until they were out of bowshot from the walls before opening the little hatch that let a drover talk with passengers, and asking, “Where now?”
“We take the coach to the paddocks nigh Eastgate,” Elminster’s voice came up to him, “and leave it there, hobbling the horses. Then we go for a long walk on Jester’s Green, well out from the walls. We’ll go well west, around to the Field Gates. Accompanied by this pet war wizard of ours, we’ll trudge back into the city through them at daybreak, looking suitably different than we do now. We’ll be burying those shackles.”
“Oh?” Mirt growled. “What’re ye going to make me look like?”
“Old Lord Helderstone,” Elminster told him. “He has no heirs and has dwelt in seclusion in Sembia for years-no one in Suzail should know that he’s dead yet. I know where a handsome fortune in coins can be had, and ye can lord it up in a highnose inn as long as they hold out. Storm will be thy servant. I’ll make Rune look like a retired Highknight I recall, who died a few months back, who’s now in Suzail and investigating just why rich old Lord Helderstone has returned to Cormyr-in other words, which faction of treason-plotting nobles he’s drenching in floods of coins-and the rest of the time she can look like Amarune and be with Arclath, the two of them keeping well away from ye.”
“While I do what?”
“Wench, trade, work a few swindles, get rich-in short, be thyself,” El replied. “No noble of Cormyr would spend a score of summers in Sembia who did not love coins and the winning of them.”
“And what will ye be doing?”
“Trying to hunt down and slay Manshoon, and hold Cormyr together, and find and come to command or destroy all the blueflame ghosts, of course.”
Mirt shook his head slowly. “Ye’re as crazed as ever.”
“Of course.”
Mirt could hear Elminster’s grin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A LADY OF GHOSTS
The morning sun was reaching bright fingers in through the windows. None of the dozen senior wizards of war gathered around the long table, which almost filled this locked room on an upper floor of the sprawling royal court, cared a whit about sunlight, however.
Their minds were on darker things, specifically, the foremost current threats to the realm.
The royal magician of Cormyr and the lord warder had been too long absent from such conversations, and there was much to catch up on.
“Of course our tirelessly treasonous nobles are brewing civil war in earnest in the wake of this disastrous Council,” the Lady Glathra was declaring, “but there are other, smaller players we must now pay attention to.”
Ganrahast held up his hand to stop her. “I want you to list them for us in a moment, lady, but first-Erzoured?”
“Our ongoing work to, ah, take care of every crony and ally he develops,” a thin and dour mage replied, “continues, and he remains isolated, as he has found himself time and time again. Many of the nobles’ factions and Sembian and Suzailan merchant cabals are reaching out to him right now, but he has joined none of them, yet-and all of them fear the possibility he’s a spy for the king.”
Dark chuckles made note of that irony, ere the royal magician stilled them with his hand again and asked, “Glathra? Those smaller players?”
“Targrael, the death knight who believes herself the true guardian of Cormyr. The rival claimant for that role, the ghost of the Princess Alusair. Whoever sent the eye tyrant to attack us last night. The scuttling wraith-spider-I know of no better name for it-who claims to be the infamous Vangerdahast and certainly commands as much about the palace as that royal magician was reputed to-statues, and the like-not to mention the escaped Elminster, and his companion Storm Silverhand, who for some years have stolen magic from us, in the palace.”
“Have any of these joined in common cause with ambitious nobles, while we’ve been… asleep?” Vainrence asked with a frown.
“Not that we know of,” Glathra said slowly, after no one else ventured a reply, “yet all of them are capable of such treason.”
Ganrahast snorted. “So is any dog or passing falcon. We must avoid raising phantoms and fearing them. The real foes are formidable enough.”
“I do have my suspicions about one of us,” Glathra added, raising a finger, “though I admit it is early yet for my alarm to have gained any serious substance. Yet, we all follow our hunches or noses or itches… and this is my newest.”
Ganrahast waved at her to continue. “Raise your suspicions. Please.”
“Welwyn Tracegar,” she replied bluntly. “Last night I ordered him to take three persons into custody for questioning-Storm Silverhand, Lord Arclath Delcastle, and a mask dancer of the city who seems to be descended from the notorious Elminster, one Amarune Whitewave. He did this but has since vanished, along with the prisoners and a man calling himself Mirt, who claims to be a Lord of Waterdeep. Though that name was better known in Waterdeep about a century ago.”
“We can all banish our suspicions about Wizard of War Tracegar,” Ganrahast announced firmly, “and leave him be, to operate without hindrance.”
Glathra leaned forward to look at him, frowning. “Why?”
“I’ve taken counsel with Vangerdahast-or what is left of him-and we have agreed on this,” the royal magician replied curtly. “Ask me no more.”
Eyebrows went up all around the table, but Glathra merely sat back and asked the ceiling, “Will there come a day when someone else besides a former royal magician-who richly earned himself a very fell reputation-will decide things for the Forest Kingdom?”
“Vangerdahast swore to dedicate his life to guard Cormyr, and he is still guarding Cormyr. Guided by wisdom and experience none of us can match,” Ganrahast replied quietly. “In this, I am willing to trust him for a little longer.”
“How little?”
“We’ll see.”
This cellar was beginning to feel l
ike a prison cell. Manshoon paced it, thinking dark thoughts.
He was back in the body of Sraunter, who was given to such gloomy thinking-but the worrying that was consuming him at that moment was all his own.
He could find no trace of Mreldrake or Targrael-or Talane!
Dared he creep back into Understeward Corleth Fentable’s mind, using one of his wagon drovers, who supplied the palace with foodstuffs daily, to reach Fentable? And so seek to learn the current thinking of the Crown?
Or was it time to lie low, going nowhere near the palace? He could instead take fresh measure of the war wizards, with an eye to which ones he could isolate and destroy or ruin with scandal, either by entrapment or deceit.
It went against his desires to lurk idle and let others seize power-it had angered him just to return his beholders to hiding in the cellar-but perhaps that was the best path to take over the next few months. He could work through Dardulkyn to keep some sort of watch over the various ambitious nobles…
He nodded, feeling grim.
He’d succumbed once again to the urge to take a direct hand in things, and the results had been disastrous.
Two beholders gone, for scant gain, and his presence very close to being revealed or at least suspected strongly enough to set the wizards of war to hunting him.
No, lying low and keeping his beholders hidden was best, for a while.
He would work through Dardulkyn-he had, after all, managed to destroy everyone who’d seen his tyrants-and use various lesser thralls, servants and carters, to try to discover just which Cormyrean noble besides Marlin Stormserpent commanded a blueflame ghost.
This stealth should keep him away from Elminster’s notice, too. He would wait until the Sage of Shadowdale revealed himself, and then pounce and destroy Elminster again.
“And bury him deep, this time,” he told the cellar fiercely, as the shop bell rang and he started up the stairs. “As often as it takes, until he’s gone forever.”
“Well?” Marlin Stormserpent snapped. It was full morning and foresters would be about, all too soon. His bodyguards should have managed this a lot faster.