by Ed Greenwood
So, Elminster plunged into the nearest handy flowerbed-it belonged to Lord Relgadrar Loroun, as it happened-to have a good roll, and rid himself of some of the dung and cover himself with the scent of fresh-crushed flowers. At the end of the raised bed was a fountain, and he happily slid into its shallow surrounding pool to rinse himself off, then hurried after Downdagger’s procession.
Two streets later, the bodyguard dispersed at the doors of The Three Ravens, a nobles’ club Elminster knew. A small, quiet, stone drinking-house much favored for swift and private discussions, and currently the seat of power for the cabal of nobles led by Lord Dauntinghorn.
Morligul Downdagger strode inside as grandly as any highborn patriarch, and Elminster gave him two breaths to order a drink and get clear of the door before he followed.
As the door guards smoothly moved to block the path of this wet and bedraggled stranger, El murmured, “Urgent message for Lord Dauntinghorn,” and strode right on, the door guards expressionlessly stepping out of his way again.
Inside, the Ravens was quieter than usual, with many empty tables, but the closed curtains across the entrances to the private booths along the back wall told him every one of them was occupied.
Downdagger was just gliding up to one of those booth entrances-one of the few flanked by two impassive private bodyguards.
“Rorn, Brabras-well met,” the mage greeted the guards by name as he slipped between them and through the curtain.
Elminster promptly sat down at a table with his back to the booth and murmured a spell to eavesdrop.
It faded almost immediately, countered by a stronger ward, but not before El heard a man’s voice say, “Ah, Downdagger! How did matters unfold?”
An impassive flagonjack appeared above Elminster. “Saer’s pleasure?”
“Firewine, one flagon,” El murmured. “Mind that it’s aged, not last season’s vintage or”-he shuddered- “fresh.”
The server nodded and glided away, evidently taking Elminster for an eccentric lord rather than a commoner who should be ejected.
He returned almost immediately with the flagon, and El made a show of sniffing it critically before nodding and casually dropping a sapphire the size of his thumb into the flagonjack’s outstretched hand.
The server’s eyes widened, but he bowed low and glided away without a word, correctly interpreting El’s “stop” raised hand gesture as a refusal of all coins back.
El was confident that Lady Greatgaunt, the owner of forty-six almost identical sapphire-trimmed gowns, wouldn’t miss one gown-and being as three sapphires that Storm had been wearing had ended up out on the street with him after the spellblast, he still had two stones to spend.
A firewine-filled flagon makes an excellent mirror if the light is right, so El had no difficulty at all in seeing Downdagger emerge from the booth again, or of identifying the noble who emerged with him. Kindly old Lord Traevyn Illance. Well, well.
Illance and Downdagger strolled along the line of booths to the line of garderobes at the end of the room, Illance’s two bodyguards a careful three paces behind them. Carrying his drink, Elminster strolled languidly toward the same destination.
When the lord stepped into a garderobe, Downdagger hesitated, shrugged, then entered an adjacent one. Elminster worked a silent spell.
The veil of darkness he’d conjured was wide enough to wall off this end of the room from all eyes, thick enough to surround the bodyguards’ heads and blind them, and moved in accordance with his will, so he could keep it around them… if they didn’t move too far in opposite directions.
Elminster finished his firewine, set the empty flagon down on a table he was passing, and strode right up to Rorn and Brabras-whose wildly waving arms and swiftly drawn swords betrayed their consternation at being plunged into utter darkness. They were going to start to shout, so El raced around behind them, touched both of them on the backs of their necks to enspell them into unconsciousness, caught their swords to prevent any loud clangs, laid the blades atop their bodies, and stepped over those bodies-into the garderobe where the wizard had gone.
The staff of the Ravens had noticed something amiss, but all they heard was a brief, wordless exclamation of astonishment from behind an area of obviously conjured darkness.
The senior flagonjack rolled his eyes. These younger nobles! Couldn’t wait to rut until they got home, but didn’t want anyone seeing their faces as they rode some coinlass-or a noble lass of a rival family. So, a little conjured darkness… they’d be using magic to disguise themselves while here in the Ravens, next!
On the other side of the veil, Downdagger emerged from the garderobe, dragged Rorn into it and dumped him and his sword in on top of the unconscious Morligul Downdagger, and shut the garderobe door on them both and checked that it would stay shut. It did. The second Downdagger then sat down at an adjacent table and bent his attention in another direction… as his veil of darkness moved smoothly into the garderobe he’d just filled up with bodies.
The flagonjacks, staring down the room, saw the darkness vanish, and beheld nothing amiss except a man sprawled on the floor with a sword atop him.
The senior flagonjack started down the room to see what had happened, but he was still a good twelve hurrying strides away when a garderobe door opened and Lord Illance emerged, to find his hired wizard sitting at a table-and one of his two bodyguards sprawled senseless on the floor.
He could see the man’s own blade-clean of all gore-was lying atop his body, and there was no blood or visible wounds.
“A wench did that,” Morligul explained before he could ask, pointing down at the body. “Rorn’s chasing her right now.”
Illance looked down at the unconscious Brabras, shook his head, sighed in exasperation, and grunted, “Can’t even get good bullyblades these days! Come!”
He stalked off, heading for the front door of the Ravens. Elminster hastened to follow.
The third hard, ringing slap brought Mirt awake.
By the burning sensation down that side of his face, previous slaps had been administered with powerful enthusiasm, yet had failed to rouse him.
“I hope ye’re a pretty lass,” he growled, “because those are the sort of folk I like to be slapped by.”
He tried to turn his head, which was when he discovered he was bound-by quite a lot of rope, knotted very tightly-to a chair in a cavernous warehouse.
Standing in front of him was Lord Traevyn Illance, wearing an unpleasant smile as he stared at Mirt. The old lord was flanked by five bullyblades in matching surcoats, and another man who looked more like a mage than any sort of warrior. As Mirt looked at all of them, Illance nodded to his five bodyguards, and they disappeared through a door in the wall behind him, seeming rather eager to be gone.
“I think we both know why you’re here, Rauligus,” Illance said coldly.
“Ye’re smitten with me and seek to enjoy my charms in private?” Mirt asked hopefully.
Illance’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the mage, then back at Mirt. “Your voice is different, the words you use, too… you are Lord Rauligus Helderstone, are you not?”
“Have been these too many seasons,” Mirt replied cheerfully. “Getting good at being Lord Helderstone, I am.”
Illance nodded. “Then you will recall that you owe me a quite considerable sum. Seven hundred thousand golden lions, to be precise. Not to mention ten thousand more on the year-day mark, every year since you borrowed it. Twenty-nine summers ago.”
“Aye?”
“You dispute this?”
“Nay.”
“Good. Then you should also recall that the entire sum was due if ever you returned to Cormyr. Which you have obviously now done. Probably because you had to depart Sembia in a hurry, thanks to some new foe-and considered me the lesser peril.”
“Aye.”
“I’ve heard you’ve been here in Suzail for almost a tenday, now. Yet, I had to hear it from others, because I heard nothing from you. You failed to conta
ct me promptly upon reaching the city to offer me the repayment of my loan, despite such action on your part being a clear part of our agreement. I am hurt, Rauligus. Hurt. Almost as deeply hurt as I’ve been all these years, living in near penury without my gold. It’s been calling to me, Rauligus, as I scrimped and saved and did without… but I took what scant consolation I could from the knowledge that my gold was at least in the hands of a fair man, an honest man. A rival, some might even say a foe, but an honest man.”
Illance was pacing now, drawling airily, the wizard in the background smiling and enjoying the performance.
“I am that,” Mirt agreed happily.
Illance stopped. “Oh? You claim so? How is it then that you shatter our agreement, returning to fair Suzail to live like a decadent king, drinking kegs upon kegs and rolling in perfumed bedlinens with playpretties night after night, without even a word to me? For in that, I do not see the conduct of an honest man. I see the brazen behavior of a swindler.”
“Nay, nay!” Mirt protested, trying to strain against his bonds without appearing to do so. Gods below, but they were tight. He was trussed like a roast, and every whit as doomed. “ ’Twas nothing of the sort!”
“Lies are no more attractive when retold,” Illance replied coldly and waved his hand dismissively. “Enough of this. I was hoping for pleading, for desperate bargaining for your life-or at least the retention of some of your limbs-but you seem to have become some sort of happy half-wit. So, hear now your fate-my five bodyguards are going to torture you into yielding up the whereabouts not just of what you owe me, but all your properties and wealth. Everything. If you’re still alive, we’ll put you on a boat to Westgate to be unloaded, naked and broken, onto the docks, to see how long you survive in that pleasant den of vipers.”
“B-but you sent them away,” Mirt pointed out brightly.
Illance smiled. “Oh, they’ll be back. Just as soon as they finish enjoying your maid, in yonder room.” He leered. “She’s really your wife, isn’t she? Wearing quite a few sapphires, wasn’t she? Oh, yes, I’m expecting them back soon. Yet, we mustn’t rush my loyal blades… and there are five of them.”
Mirt let himself look downcast for the first time. He was done. The ironguard ring Storm had given him protected against metal weapons-until, of course, they took it from him-but there were many other ways a man could be hurt. Roasting alive, or breaking most of his bones, one after another, for instance.
“And how d’ye know I won’t lie to ye?” he asked. “Send ye headlong into trap after trap?”
Illance smiled thinly. “This handy hirespells mage here will tell me when you’re lying. And keep you alive and awake through the pain, so you can enjoy every last moment of it.”
The wizard gave Mirt a solemn wink. Then he turned to the door the bodyguards had disappeared through and called, “Done, lass?”
The door opened and Storm stepped through it, dragging the limp body of the largest bodyguard by his throat.
She was barefoot and bloody, the gown torn to shreds that still clung to her largely because the blood was making them stick-but she was grinning.
“Done,” she said simply, striding across the room. Behind her, through the doorway, the rest of the bodyguards could be seen strewn senseless all over the room she’d departed.
She was coming for Illance, who after one look at her turned and fled across the room with surprising speed.
El hurried after him, caught him up, and calmly tripped him.
Illance had just time to scramble up to his knees before Storm reached him. Her kick took him under the chin, snapped his head back, and lifted the rest of him right off the ground.
They watched the old lord bounce, out cold. Storm waited until Illance lay quite still before plucking out the noble’s belt dagger and heading over to Mirt.
“Hey, now,” Mirt said, “ye look dangerous with that fang.”
Storm smiled through the blood. “I feel dangerous with this fang. Yet, Mirt, why the worry? You always wanted bondage, and bared women to come for you…”
“Not with knives, and not me bound,” Mirt protested.
Storm sighed as she set about cutting him free. “Details, details…”
“Hoy!” Mirt yelped. “Get yer knife away from that! It’s not a detail!”
Elminster looked up from Lord Illance’s body. “Stop playing with Mirt and get over here. Undressing unconscious men is harder than I remember.”
“Undressing…?” Storm teased. “El, is there something you should be telling me?”
“Just help me get all this clobber off him,” El growled. “By Siamorphe, Tiamat, and Waukeen, but nobles wear more costly tripe than they ever did when I was playing at being one!”
Mirt shook free of the last few coils and lurched to his feet, wincing and growling at the numbness-and the pain, wherever there was no numbness. “What’re ye baring him for, anyhail?”
“I want every last bauble and stitch of magic on him, to take to Alassra,” Elminster replied. “Though none of it-even if we amass a cartload of it-will do her as much good as a blueflame item. If I could get one of those before we go to her…”
Mirt shook his head. “Well, I just want to be free of nobles trying to harm me. D’ye know if anyone else in Suzail is likely to treat kindly old Helderstone like this one was planning to? For that matter, what’s to stop him trying again, when he wakes?”
El and Storm looked at each other, then shrugged.
“We’ll change thy appearance again and give ye another name, so ye can dwell in Suzail free of that particular problem,” El told him.
“And we’ll spread word that Illance tortured and killed Helderstone, then hid his body, so our kindly old lord here will receive some very unwanted attention from the war wizards,” Storm added with a sly smile.
Mirt grinned. “The two of ye would have made very good Lords of Waterdeep, ye know?”
El and Storm exchanged glances again.
“As I recall,” Storm added sweetly, “we did.”
Lady Greatgaunt’s rented suite boasted three guest bedchambers, and although her war wizard escort bedded down in the most distant one, there was no one at all to see that he stayed there.
Particularly in the hours just before dawn, when two tired walkers came home with some wine and a filched wheel of Illance’s cheese to share between them.
“So,” Storm asked Elminster as they munched and sipped, “how do we find the mysterious noble who has a blueflame ghost up his sleeve? We can’t just go from mansion to tower all around Suzail knocking down doors and trying to shake the truth out of every lord and lady we meet!”
El grinned. “No,” he agreed, “so we’ll lure a ghost to us, instead. I’ll use a spell to grace a certain mask dancer with blue flames, and wait for word to spread.”
“Tress won’t thank you for getting her club wrecked by a blueflame ghost,” Storm said quietly. “And young Arclath will probably try to serve your beard up to you on a platter-attached to your head or not-for endangering his love.”
“The dancer isn’t going to be at the Dragonriders’ and isn’t going to be Amarune,” El told her happily.
“Then who…” Storm gave him a sharp look. “Oh, no, El. Oh, no!”
“I’d much rather see you barepelt than young Rune, and I’ll wager most of Suzail will, too. You’re something splendid, lass. Truly. And you don’t look a day older than, say, twenty-two summers.”
“You rogue,” she replied with a twinkling smile. “You lying, flattering rogue.”
“Aye, that’s me,” he said serenely. “Shall we go out and purchase a mask?”
“After I’ve had a good long sleep,” Storm replied emphatically. “There’s no longer a Weave to replenish us, Old Mage, and I get tired, these days. Weren’t you ‘about done’ most of the night ago?”
“I was,” El agreed-and fell face-first onto her bed. He was snoring in a trice.
Storm rolled her eyes.
“Now t
hat’s a useful trick, Sage of Shadowdale,” she told him.
Then she bent closer and frowned. He really was snoring.
She kicked off Illance’s boots, wriggled out of his clothes-they fit terribly, and she resolved to burn them before someone recognized them; Suzail these days seemed a city of tireless spies-and cuddled against him.
In his sleep, Elminster stroked her then put an arm around her.
Storm amused herself by trying to undress him, but fell asleep in his arms before she got very far.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE DANGEROUS WORK OF LURING GHOSTS
Manshoon leaned eagerly forward in his chair, straining to see and hear better.
Or rather, to urge Ironhand, ever so gently, to shift to where he could see and hear better.
Manshoon’s spell would let him observe what Ironhand was seeing and hearing for just a little longer. He wasn’t riding the man’s mind, because he didn’t want the risk of being where Ironhand was just then.
He had found his best blueflame hunter yet. Imglor “Imhammer” Ironhand was very expensive, but worth it. The man was almost as ruthless, careful, and coldly calm as Manshoon himself, and had carved himself out an impressive career as a slayer-for-hire specializing in swift and covert killings disguised as accidents.
No slaying was necessary, this time-only a slayer unmasked. The noble who commanded the lone blueflame ghost that had appeared at the Council.
Thus far, Ironhand had helped make almost certain that three candidates for the blueflame noble were not, in fact, the one Manshoon sought.
At that moment, Manshoon’s new hireling had wormed his way onto the roof of a high house adjacent to the one where Lord Harkuldragon was strutting around an upper room that had open windows. Through which Ironhand could hear a discussion between Harkuldragon and his longtime hired mage, the homely, aging sourface Sarrak of Westgate about the slaying of a certain inconvenient courtier.
The courtier was one whose death half Suzail would greet cheerfully. The pompous Khaladan Mallowfaer, Master of Revels, was no one’s favorite or confidant, and as far as Manshoon knew was kinless, had never married, and had never romanced anyone. He’d hired doxies aplenty, of course, but that was an entirely different matter. His inconvenience to Harkuldragon was that he’d inadvertently learned something of the noble’s planned treason, and so could expose Harkuldragon, if he so desired. A situation the lord naturally found intolerable.