Bury Elminster Deep sos-2

by Ed Greenwood

  “Because using mask dancers as lures works so well,” Storm sighed.

  “This will be different,” El said sharply. “None of us will be on that stage.”

  “An illusion, sent from afar? They’ll see through it in an instant,” Storm told him.

  “Not an illusion,” the Sage of Shadowdale replied and pointed at Amarune. “She will be the Blue Flame.”

  “What?” Arclath roared, breaking free of his beloved’s embrace to confront Elminster.

  “Easy, young lion,” the wizard replied, “easy! She’ll be dancing on the floor of an empty room somewhere, for me-and before ye get all huffily defensive of her virtue, lordling, know that I intend to have ye standing there as her bodyguard, never fear! My magic will make her image, mirroring her movements and wreathed in blue flames, of course, seem to dance on the stage of whatever club we’d most like to see destroyed.”

  “Destroyed?”

  “Aye. When the war wizards, Manshoon, the nobles’ various pet wizards, and our ghost master all converge on it to snap at our lure, that club won’t last long.” Arclath nodded, then grew a wry smile. “I know a suitable place. Let’s do it.”

  Word spread across Suzail like the howling winds of a shorestorm gale. She who was known as the Blue Flame was going to dance-a performance not to be missed.

  No one knew quite where word of this had first come from, but everyone agreed on the where and the when.

  It was to happen on the eve of the Festival of Handras, Suzail’s annual late-Mirtul reception for the senior caravan traders of the Sword Coast, when it was customary for such far traders and wagonmasters to present “fresh wonders from the Sword Coast” in dockside warehouses, where free food and drink were served to all who came to gaze on the latest goods, curios, and exotic fashions.

  And the dance would take place at The Bold Blazon, an exclusive club catering to certain jaded young nobles and socially ambitious folk those nobles liked to drink, trade, and sleep with.

  As it happened, the Blazon was not one of Lord Arclath Delcastle’s haunts, because the nobles who liked to frequent it included several of his longtime foes and rivals, such as Maerclorn Wintersun-the younger heir Lord Wintersun, not the patriarch-and Kathkote Dawntard.

  In vain the proprietor of the Blazon, a greedy, shave-pated, many-earring-adorned snob by the name of Daerendygho Vrabrant, protested that he’d arranged no such performance for Handras Eve or any other night, had never even met the Blue Flame, and did not desire to host such “epicene diversions” at the Blazon.

  Besieged with demands from half Suzail to rent stage-side tables, atop the clamorings of all his usual patrons, he hurriedly hired extra security-only to discover that dozens of nobles were outbidding him to buy the “first loyalty” of his security force to obey them first, rather than him. In other words, to let those nobles into the Blazon at will, and allow them to bring along extra friends and their own wine, weapons, and anything else they might desire.

  Despairing and seeing both ruin and the palace dungeons in his nightmares, Vrabrant went to the wizards of war in secret and entreated their help in providing “unseen security.”

  Not that Elminster or any of his companions knew about that entreaty until later-though Arclath slowly came to suspect the Sage of Shadowdale had anticipated it.

  “Count me out,” Vainrence said with a grin, slurring the words.

  The eyes of Ganrahast and Glathra met above the lord warder, and it was Glathra who said gently, “We didn’t expect you to leap up out of this bed and do anything about it, Rence. We just wanted you to know the particular disaster we were wading into, this time.”

  “After all, once you asked about it,” the royal magician added, “we had to admit that, yes, all Suzail is talking about it, for you to hear about it in here.”

  “So who is this Blue Flame?”

  “No one knows,” Ganrahast replied.

  “But,” Glathra added with wicked glee, “I suspect Elminster is behind it, that it’s an attempt to flush out the mysterious noble who commands that blueflame ghost-and it’s highly likely the Blazon will suffer greatly in the trouble that’s bound to erupt.”

  “Including the trouble we will undoubtedly cause, after your scrying turns up something we absolutely must rush in to deal with?” Ganrahast asked dryly.

  She widened her eyes into an innocence that fooled no one at all.

  “Undoubtedly,” she said solemnly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  RATHER NOISY BATTLES

  The Blazon was packed that warm and breezy Handras Eve. Half of fashionable Suzail had shown up, crowding the doors to get in. They stood tightly packed along the walls and between the tables. More, who’d tried in vain to get inside, were milling around in the streets and down alleyways, all around.

  Inside, all eyes were locked on the stage-that is, on the small cleared space where a lone dancer was leaping and whirling, her bare body glistening with sweat and ceaseless blue flames wreathing her body.

  There had been no such space a few breaths ago. A despairing Daerendygho Vrabrant had gone to the trouble of having the Blazon’s tiny stage torn down, a new floor installed where it had been, and new chairs and tables brought in to fill the space. However, to his open-mouthed horror, several patrons had suddenly put down their tankards in unison, murmured magic-and made certain chairs, tables, and the startled diners seated on or at them vanish. The revealed wizards had similarly disappeared an instant later, leaving only their tankards behind.

  This had not amused Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle, who was standing on a nearby rooftop trying to oversee a team of Crown mages, a lot of Purple Dragons, and a covert force of Highknights. She was already uneasy at the dozen-some bands of bullyblades and hedge wizards loitering in the alleyways below, obviously sent by various ambitious nobles. This evening was racing toward real trouble.

  The sudden appearance of some startled diners, with tankards, platters of fried bustard, the tables those were standing on, chairs, and all their belongings in the middle of one filthy, refuse-choked alleyway did not strike Glathra as particularly helpful, though it made some of the wizards on the roof with her chuckle.

  “Just watch for blue flames,” Glathra snapped at them, returning her attention to the conjured scrying eye floating in the air before her.

  In it, she could see the Blue Flame, whom she’d been entirely unsurprised to learn looked very like a certain Amarune Whitewave.

  “Elminster,” she snarled, as she kept one eye on the sensuous dance for any sign of something suspicious, and with the other tried to survey what she could see of the crowded audience. “You’re behind this, you are…”

  She could tell Amarune was dancing elsewhere, and magic-Elminster’s, for all the gold in the palace vaults-was making the dancer’s image appear in the Blazon, and providing the cold, burning-nothing blue flames wreathing it, too.

  There! A man among the many along one of the club walls toppled forward, face-first into the lap of a startled drinker at the nearest table, and a blue, flaming glow could be seen behind him. Men started abruptly scrambling to flee from that spot, clawing and shoving, as a figure surrounded in flowing blue flames stepped through the wall, sword first, stabbing ruthlessly at anyone in the way.

  Shouts went up in the alleys-other scrying eyes besides Glathra’s were in use-and the bullyblades started to surge forward.

  Dragons looked to Glathra. “Lady?”

  “Stay where you are!” she ordered. “We couldn’t get through all the flesh down there, anyhail! Wait and watch, to see where we should rush, before we do it!”

  Chaos had erupted inside the Blazon. The lone blueflame ghost was stalking through the crowd, apparently seeking specific nobles to slay. Everyone was shouting or screaming, swords and daggers were out everywhere, and men were fighting viciously just to get out of the club, hacking and trampling those in their way.

  As the bloodshed grew, tables overturned, and chairs were hurled, t
he dancer danced on.

  A stretch of the Blazon’s outer wall abruptly vanished, as some hired mage or other cast a spell no one should use in crowded city streets-and the elder Lord Wintersun, surrounded by a tight knot of bullyblades, charged inside.

  He was making for his white-faced and weeping son, who was about seven men distant from the pursuing ghost and vainly trying to get farther away-as behind him, one by one, those seven fled or were hewn down.

  Another spell burst right behind the ghost, shooting flames in all directions and flinging the blueflame slayer into the air and halfway across the club. Howls and shrieks arose as the fire spread, and in a trice men who were aflame were staggering helplessly about, tripping over the wounded and senseless.

  “Firequench!” Glathra shouted at the four war wizards who’d prepared for that duty. “Now!”

  Someone else’s spell brought another section of the Blazon’s outer wall down, and patrons fled wildly, streaming out into the streets in all directions.

  “Keep watching the ghost!” Glathra snarled at the senior war wizards standing with her. “Whatever happens, don’t let it slip away!”

  “Uh, Lady Glathra?” one asked, daring to pluck at her sleeve.

  “What?” she almost spat in his face, fury rising fast. He pointed over the rooftops.

  Where a beholder had just risen into view and was floating serenely nearer.

  “Lady!” an older, deeper-voiced Crown mage called, before she even had time to gape. “Over here!”

  “We must get down there!” the ranking Highknight snapped, waving to his men. “Down the stairs! Move!”

  “I give the orders here!” Glathra almost shrieked, but his reply, delivered at the full run without even bothering to look in her direction, was a silent but emphatic gesture of the sort never seen in polite company.

  With a wordless snarl of rage, Glathra rushed across the roof to the deep-voiced mage, to see why he’d hailed her.

  In the alley below, marching in a line abreast with their swords out and ruthlessly slaying the few bullyblades who hadn’t sense enough to flee from them, were five blueflame ghosts.

  “The Blazon’s burning,” Mirt rumbled as they hastened together along a sidestreet.

  “And not a moment too soon, from all Arclath’s told us of the place,” Storm replied as they came to a corner where their way joined a larger street. “Now, if I’ve guessed right, our lone blueflame ghost should be fleeing now and coming right along… here.”

  “Fleeing? I didn’t think they ever fled!”

  “They do when their commander wants them to, or when they face five of their own kind. See?”

  In the distance, down the street, a wall of bright blue flame was moving closer as five ghosts walked abreast, striding swiftly along the street.

  “Oh, naed,” Storm muttered. “Things can never just be stlarning simple, can they?”

  She was eyeing the unmistakable shape of a beholder, descending silently in a smooth and unhurried arc, to float just above and behind the line of ghosts.

  And in front of Storm and Mirt, about a dozen paces away, a noble was standing facing the ghost who’d been in the Blazon. The lord was holding something that was glowing blue, something flat and about the size of his hand. The ghost, still walking hurriedly toward him, was fading away.

  Its flames pulsed in time with flares of light from whatever the lord was holding.

  “Lord Calantar?” Storm whispered.

  “Ye know him?”

  “By sight. I’d never have guessed he’d be the…”

  “ ’Tis always the quiet ones,” Mirt growled, stalking forward and hefting his dagger.

  The ghost vanished. A moment later, the cobbles all around Lord Calantar suddenly sprouted war wizards.

  “Traitor!” Lady Glathra shouted into the lord’s face, trying to grab his hand and the glowing item in it.

  “Hey!” Mirt shouted. “Mind out!”

  He pointed, and some of the Crown mages turned to look.

  They saw the beholder swooping down on them, its many-fanged maw gaping and its eyestalks writhing like angry snakes.

  The war wizards let fly with their swiftest, strongest battle spells, chanting and gesturing frantically-as Mirt swept out one arm, caught Storm around her sword arm, and dragged her hastily back.

  She was trying to fight free of his dogged, wheezing grasp when the spells started to strike the beholder-and it exploded with terrific force, shattering windows, balconies, and cobbles, dashing their ears into ringing numbness, and hurling scores of folk in all directions, like so many dolls.

  Another trap.

  Glathra was smashed flat by two of her own war wizards as they were flung into her from behind-and Lord Calantar was sent tumbling down the street to fetch up against a cart, dazed and mumbling.

  Storm stumbled after him, the blast having snatched her out of Mirt’s grasp, and pounced on the noble. Who stabbed up at her with a dagger as he tried to call out his ghost again. The item in his hand-a belt buckle-started to pulse a bright blue once more.

  Storm fended off one thrust, took another in her forearm with a hiss of pain, then lost patience and brought her sword down, chopping Calantar’s buckle-holding hand down onto the cobbles. He spat a curse at her and stabbed again, so she swung her sword up and chopped down harder, cutting his hand off.

  It was still clutching the belt buckle.

  Storm snatched the spurting, severed thing up, buckle and all, and tried to ignore the pulsing blue glow.

  She could see the five blueflame ghosts all staring at her and running now, coming for her as fast as they could.

  Glathra was on her feet again and running at Storm, too-and was much closer. She was trying to gasp out a spell as she came, but as she trampled on an apparently unconscious Mirt, the Waterdhavian tripped her deftly with one hairy hand. He rose with a grin as Glathra bounced on her face, to shout at Storm, “Go, lass! Get ye gone! I’ll try to-”

  The five ghosts were almost upon him.

  Storm winced, not wanting to see what was going to happen to Mirt-and then, in a sudden flash and a moment of silent, gentle drifting, it was all gone.

  The street, ghosts, Glathra, and all.

  Elminster’s magic had snatched her away.

  Abruptly, Storm was standing on a hard, smooth, and familiar floor.

  She was in the warehouse, holding Lord Calantar’s severed hand, and the buckle clutched in those gore-dripping fingers was losing its blue glow.

  Elminster was running to her, Arclath and Amarune right behind him. Rune wore her mask but nothing else; the blue flames El’s magic had shrouded her in had vanished.

  “I-” Storm started to say, but a frowning Arclath snatched up a rickety chair at a dead run and flung it, hard.

  Storm ducked aside and the chair smashed right into-Wizard of War Glathra, who had just appeared behind her.

  Glathra fell to her knees, spat out a curse, snatched a wand from her belt, and triggered it, blasting Elminster, who’d leaped in front of Storm. Flames crashed into him with a roar.

  In a trice his familiar face and beard were gone, mere wisps of illusion dashed to nothingness in the flames that tore apart the body that had been Applecrown’s.

  The staring face of a much younger man was sent flying through the air as Glathra’s wand blast flung all that was left of Reldyk Applecrown in a dozen directions.

  Severed limbs flew, ashes swirled, and Arclath was flung into a stack of crates, to land groaning.

  Storm slid past him across the warehouse floor, silver hair clawing at crates and barrels to try to slow herself.

  Nude and weaponless, Amarune Whitewave flung herself on Glathra, backhanding the wizard viciously across the face and snatching the wand away. Glathra made a grab for it and got a hard elbow under her chin instead as Rune twisted away to fling the wand as far and as hard as she could, off into the dim distances of the crate-heaped warehouse.

  The two women clawed and rol
led for a frantic breath or two before Glathra broke free, sprinted out of Rune’s reach, and turned to catch her breath and get out her other wand, the one that paralyzed.

  Which was when Storm hit her, launching herself over crates in a wild dive with arms spread wide to make sure the wizard of war couldn’t dodge away.

  Glathra tried.

  They ended up on the floor together, bouncing and struggling. Storm’s tresses promptly shackled Glathra’s wrists and assaulted her mouth, preventing her from uttering any magic-until the Bard of Shadowdale could get a hand on the war wizard’s head.

  Ruthlessly Storm slammed the war wizard’s head against the floor, then clawed it up by Glathra’s hair and slammed it down again. And again.

  And again, until her foe went limp under her.

  Then once more, just to be sure.

  Glathra was far beyond feigning anything. She was out cold.

  Panting, Storm rolled away, snatched up the belt buckle-it glowed blue, just for an instant-and cried, “We must get to The Simbul right now! El?”

  Elminster’s ashes were slithering across the floor like a snake, making for Amarune, but Arclath roared, “No! To me, El! To me!”

  The ashes obediently turned toward the young lord.

  Who got up, wincing, to call, “Clothes on, Rune! To the palace!”

  “Well, the gods smile on us in at least one way,” the royal magician muttered as he scooped powerful scepters and rods out of coffers onto the table. “Something must have happened to Elminster. They have to walk here, not translocate right past us or up to their chosen palace gate. That will give us time to at least try to get ready.”

  Sir Talonar Winter and Highknight Eskrel Starbridge stood in front of him, already clad in all the magical bracers, helms, breastplates, and codpieces Ganrahast had been able to hurriedly find. He continued on to daggers, swords, and little bucklers, as novice war wizard magelings trotted into the room in a steady stream, bearing weapons, shields, and armor plucked from various walls and stands all over the palace.