by Ed Greenwood
Vangerdahast gave her a sour smile and added, “I’m not quite in my dotage yet, Faeril. It was a rather important memory—of the Blackstaff and the queen of Aglarond, here in these halls—and I can’t think why it came back to me. So sudden and so vivid—all of it playing out in front of me as if I were living it.”
The queen’s eyes narrowed. “Khelben and the Simbul here? When was this, exactly?”
Vangerdahast sighed. “Lady,” he said, “it’s no part of present treacheries. I’ll explain later, when you’ve unfolded whatever this latest plot is. Would it be Lady Kessemer’s, by any chance?”
Filfaeril stared at him. “How did you know?”
The Royal Magician coughed. “Lady,” he reminded her mildly, “I am a wizard.”
That royal sparkle of anger was back, in full force. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”
Vangerdahast took great care neither to sigh nor to roll his eyes. “Lady,” he began carefully.…
* * * * *
“Ssso, Queen of Aglarond, at lassst you stray within my reach! One little missstake, but I fear ’tisss your lassst!”
The gloating devil’s great bat wings struck her tumbling from the sky. She fell hard onto rocks. The cruel talons of dozens of laughing fiends held her captive and raked her mercilessly before she could rise, laying her bare—just in time for the great beast’s whip to come down.
Mystra! What fire! Screaming and sobbing in the grasp of the fiend’s minions, the Simbul could not even convulse under the lashing pain. Claws caught at her hair and her throat, dragging her head back, bending her over backward. Her blood-drenched front, laid open by the lash, turned toward a sky that matched its bleeding hue.
“Sssoo, what does a god-touched human taste like, I wonder,” the great fiend purred, stretching down an impossibly long black arm.
Spread-eagled and helpless, the Simbul could only moan as that great taloned hand closed on her breast and tightened cruelly. Nails dug into her. The fiend’s flesh was hot.
She could smell her skin sizzling as it burned, the stink choking her even more than the fresh pain. Somehow she managed to scream, “No! No! Nooooo!”
Her cry sent crystals and gems humming and singing all around her in the darkness. Gasping, Alassra Silverhand stared up at her own bedchamber ceiling.
No devils, no blood-red sky … she was alone, thrashing on her bed, drenched with sweat. Her hands were twisted in the samite beneath her, and there was nothing covering her but air—cool air. Yet she was afire, hot and burning, as if she had a fever—
No, the fire was raging in her breast! The Simbul gasped the word that made the ceiling glow. In its light, she looked down along her body. There was dark, dried blood all over her … but not enough to hide the horrible scar seared on her breast.
It was a deep burn—a brand she’d wear forever, unless magic banished it. It looked like it had been left by large, long, sharp-taloned fingers.
Panting with rage and fear and pain, she sat up and ran a hand over her twisted flesh. Aye, it was real.
Her jaw tightened in anger even before her hands flashed out to two of the gems set into the edge of her bed. Magic kindled within them. The flash of the first told her that no taint lurked within her, and she let the second do its healing work.
Breathing more easily now as the pain ebbed, the queen of Aglarond threw back her head, her hair writhing like soft snakes along her bare shoulders. “Tharammas of Thay, and his spell of nightmares! It must be!”
The healing gem winked out, and bare feet struck the floor. Imperious, furiously striding, the Simbul charged along darkened corridors, doors flying open—and almost cringing—before her.
Sleepy guards snapped to careful attention and dared not move another muscle as their monarch raged by. Rings and staves and robes and cloaks whirled to the queen of Aglarond as she went, clothing her for battle. A snarled word made spell-locked doors at the end of one last passage fly open, to let in the chill moonlight.
“Well,” she told the cool night wind savagely as she stepped onto a moon-drenched balcony, “at least this time I know which Red Wizard isn’t going to live to see the dawn!”
Spells sparkled around slender fingers. The robed queen melted away into a raging shadow. It quavered a moment under the moon, and then whirled away into the wind, east into the night, and was gone.
* * * * *
[Amid the raging of Hell, one Old Mage sinks back with a sigh and looks at his empty, broken hand.]
Aye. Stupid wizard, indeed.
Five
HERE BE WIZARDS
“If you please, Lord Mage,” the lady servant murmured, turning with a swirl of cloth-of-gold and white silks to indicate an ascending side-stair, whose carpet was deeper and less worn than the dusty ways they’d been traveling, “to follow me …”
The doddering War Wizard straightened out of his customary stoop and inclined his head with a leer that he probably meant to be a pleasant smile. His hand unfolded in a grand gesture indicating she should precede him.
The lady servant kept her face serene as she gracefully gathered her gown and set off, soaring up the stair. The bony old mage watched. She was Vangy’s latest apprentice, wasn’t she? And a Crownsilver …
I SEE WIZARDS BUT NO ELMINSTER OR SILVER FIRE. YOU’RE HIDING SOMETHING FROM ME BEHIND THIS TOO.
I WARN YOU AGAIN, HUMAN, MY PATIENCE IS NOT INFINITE.
I appear in this soon enough, Lord Nergal—with secrets of magic, too.
[sneer] YOU SOUND LIKE A MERCHANT TRYING TO MAKE A SALE. THIS HAD BETTER PLEASE ME, WORM.
I strive to give satisfaction. Always.
AND I STRIVE TO REFRAIN FROM ENDING YOUR MISERABLE LIFE. ALWAYS.
A Crownsilver, wasn’t she? Hmmph. As if that mattered a whit to him. Still, it had been long years since a maid as beautiful as this one had flown eagerly up palace stairs in front of this old War Wizard. That had been another lady, dust now, in a different tower.
Bolifar Geldert firmly set aside that memory and did not let either of the silently hurrying servants who brushed past him hear his sigh. Bolifar was studious, careful, and hard-working, more than most senior war wizards of Cormyr. That was its own reward and carried impressive weight in this place.
He’d dwelt long enough on past glories. Memories do not keep one warm nor fill one’s hands with comfort, like the reassuring heft of a favorite dagger or the roiling power of a risen spell. It was his turn to mount the narrow stair.
At the top, standing ajar, was an arched gate of heavy iron. Its bars were as stout as his own forearms, and studded with blunt spikes. It looked like something made to hold dragons long ago.
In the cross-passage beyond waited the lady servant. She tried not to look nervous as she shrank from two restless panthers, who pulled taut the rattling chains that held them. They leaned forward, licking their lips and staring hard at her.
The other end of those chains was wrapped around the strong and hairy hands of a smiling man. Dark eyes, a goatee, and a cruel face between, the Master of the King’s Beasts, looking every bit as dangerous as the two great cats he was walking.
Bolifar gave him a slow, deliberate nod and received the briefest of brow-inclinations in return. Not an unexpected insult, but something Vangerdahast should be apprised of nonetheless. It sat not well when beast-tamers thought themselves higher in rank than senior War Wizards.
Their stair crossed the hall where the panthers crouched and switched their tails. They stared a little less hungrily at a bony old wizard than they had at the curvaceous grace of his guide. The lady servant ascended the next flight, relief written plain down the splendid curve of her back. Bolifar Geldert followed, clutching his writing satchel a trifle more tightly than usual. He took care not to hasten—even when he heard the rattle that meant the master had loosened the chains. The first panther who dared to sink claws or fangs into this War Wizard would also be the last.
There were no beasts in the next passage their s
tair crossed, but silent hurrying servants and a pair of stiffly saluting guards. Gods above, hadn’t he asked for a chamber with a door he could lock, somewhere off the “little-used, out-of-the-way upper passages”?
There was nothing at the top of this last stair but a closed door. Metal rattled as the lady servant turned her key. Her touch brought the glowstone adorning the door-plate to crimson life. In its ruby light, she turned and pressed a key, warm from its ride in her bodice, into Bolifar’s hand. Without a word, she slipped past him down the steps and was gone.
Thoughtfully Bolifar watched her go. He unhurriedly turned and pushed the door open, stepping into the deep darkness beyond. Unfamiliar this turret-top room might be, but it was also heavily spell guarded and isolated—just the place he needed to write his report.
Vangerdahast had waited long enough—far longer than his patience was wont to stretch. What Master Mage Geldert had learned thus far of possible traitors to the crown in the minor noble family of Cordallar would have to be set down right smartly; Old Hammerspells was undoubtedly pacing his chambers already and scowling like an Immersea storm.
Bolifar gave the warm and waiting darkness a rueful smile. Vangy’s scowl was fated to grow darker soon. This old War Wizard was here, at the top of too many steps—rather than in his usual offices in the Royal Court—because he had his suspicions about the involvement of certain of his fellow War Wizards in the plotting of House Cordallar.
HUH. FEEBLE INTRIGUES COMPARED TO THOSE HERE IN HELL, BUT I CAN FEEL MAGIC NEAR—AND GETTING NEARER. NO LEADING ASTRAY, NOW!
None. The memories merely unfold.…
Vangerdahast found himself yawning again. Quite deliberately he reached out to the nearest candle and snuffed the flame between his finger and thumb.
The pain brought him fully awake. Letting the smoke curl up undisturbed, he stepped back and shot a glance across the chamber. The tall, slender form was slumped and still: Sardyl, sitting patiently in her usual chair, had slipped into slumber.
It was late. Time had passed—too much time. The chambermaids would long since have begun clucking at the thought of the Royal Magician’s personal messenger and scribe shut in with him this late, this long. As if the Lady Sardyl Crownsilver didn’t trust Vangerdahast absolutely … almost as deeply as he trusted her.
“Wake, lass,” he said, stroking her cheek with one finger, far more gently than the chambermaids would have believed Old Hammerspells was capable of.
Sardyl blinked awake and looked a silent question up at him.
Vangerdahast nodded impatiently, angry at the tardy Geldert. “Aye, fetch him,” he growled and wheeled away to pace across the room once more, seeing not the desks littered with tomes and parchments, but his increasingly welcoming bed and much-needed sleep. “Give him no more time. I’ll have whatever he’s got ready now,” he added, quelling yawn after yawn.
Without a word, his scribe rose, stretched like a cat, and set off to bring back Master Mage Geldert from the turret she’d conducted him to earlier. Vangy turned by his desk and watched her go. The Lady Sardyl Crownsilver might not have spells enough to best a good guardsman yet, but she was far more blessedly silent and tactful than a dozen of his most senior War Wizards—and more trustworthy, too.
Mmm. Trust. Always a rare commodity in Cormyr.
HO, HO! A LITTLE LUST IN THE OFFING, PERCHANCE?
[mental eyebrow raised] Devil, ye make me look like a prude—and that, I fear, is an accomplishment.
The door at the top of the stairs was still spell-locked. Sardyl lifted a shapely eyebrow and raised her hand again, feeling the faint prickling that told her she hadn’t been mistaken. “Bolifar,” she called softly, knowing how small the turret room beyond was.
There was no reply. Sardyl frowned, cast a quick look back down the stairs to be sure no guard was watching, and turned her hand in a swift circle as she murmured the words of a spell known to very few, even among the War Wizards.
The lock spell died with a tiny flash, and she turned the door ring and went in.
The lamp was lit, its soft light falling warm and steady across the turret room’s rug, chair, table, and wall map. All of these things, and the lamp itself, occupied their usual places—but the chamber was entirely empty of Bolifar Geldert, his pens and ink, his parchment and blotter, and his writing satchel.
There were no corners to hide in. Sardyl looked up, found the ceiling every bit as bare as it should have been, and took two smooth steps into the room. She turned slowly, looking all around, reaching out to touch nothing. The windows were closed, their solid-slab shutters locked from within, and there was no sign of anything unusual in the turret room. Neither was there any sign of Bolifar Geldert.
The Lady Crownsilver’s mouth tightened. She backed hastily to the doorway. From there she cast a magic-seeking spell into the turret room—and found only what had always been there: the old, many-layered magics on the map. Preservative enchantments laid down well before she’d been born, perhaps before her grandmother’s birth.
Yet, standing here, she did not feel alone, somehow.
Eyes large and dark, Sardyl took several steps back and cast another spell, one that sought out invisible creatures. When it found none, her face grew white and grim. Securing the door, she spell-sealed its lock again. With the added flick of a finger, she made her seal different from another caster’s, and went to find Vangerdahast.
AH, A WHIFF OF MYSTERY! SHOW ME MORE!
Of course.
“If what Lady Crownsilver says is true,” the sage said, an edge of asperity in his voice as he knuckled the last sleepiness from his eyes, “I’ve been brought up several hundred stairs to see nothing.” He took two restless steps along the passage and then turned back to look up the last flight of stairs. At its top, the mightiest wizard in Cormyr stood glowering at a closed door.
The sage burst out, “Is there no trace of him? I mean—could the man not simply have taken himself away somewhere? There’re over a thousand rooms in this wing alo—”
The Royal Magician turned and gave the Court Sage a level look. “Alaphondar,” he said flatly, “we know our work. I’d not have summoned you to bear witness without trying to trace the man first. My spells would find him, if he were alive and anywhere in Faerûn, unless he’s magically shielded.” He turned his head to the third person present. “Is that your seal, lass?”
“It is, milord,” Sardyl said quietly, her fingers poised over the door ring. “Shall I break it?”
Vangerdahast frowned. “No, let me.” He made a little wave of his hand that everyone in the palace knew meant “stand back,” and cast a spell that neither the sage nor the scribe had ever seen before. They heard a snarl of magic race away from the other side of the door, a faint whistling echo as if it had struck the walls and come shuddering back, and then—silence.
Sardyl and Alaphondar both looked at the Royal Magician. Vangerdahast stood with his head bent to one side, listening intently to the stretching silence. After a long time, he stepped forward and flung open the door.
The turret room was just as Sardyl had left it.
Alaphondar frowned. “Who lit the lamp?”
“Bolifar, apparently,” Sardyl replied. The sage looked at Vangerdahast as if expecting a different answer but received no utterance at all. The Royal Magician was hastening to the shutters.
He held his hands over them for a moment before turning the thumb-keys on their locks and throwing them wide. Long-unused wood squealed and stuck momentarily. Dust curled up from the sill into the wizard’s face. Vangerdahast sneezed like a bull bellowing in a thunderstorm. The sage and scribe joined the Master of the War Wizards at the sill. They looked down over a sheer drop of a hundred feet at the cobbled courtyard below and saw the faces of startled guards in the lantern light, gazing back up at them.
Vangerdahast let the sentinels get a good look at his face, watering eyes and all, but said nothing. These shutters hadn’t been opened for some time. Anything enterin
g or leaving by way of them would have been reported. He nodded sourly. He hadn’t expected to see blood below or anything of interest hanging from the turret roof above, and his expectations were met.
The Royal Magician drew his stout body back into the room and turned, rocking slightly like a heavily laden cart dragged around a tight corner. “Is there anything,” he snapped at Sardyl, “different about the room since your earlier look? Anything at all … the smallest detail or impression.”
The shapely Crownsilver turned with more grace than the portly wizard. She wrinkled her nose as well as her brow when she frowned. “The rug … it seems different, somehow … more worn.” She shrugged and added, “Yet how can that be?”
Neither man replied. Vangerdahast was already bending over the rug suspiciously, gathering its weave in his hand and plucking it up to glare at the solid stones of the floor beneath. Alaphondar knelt and almost angrily poked and prodded at hitherto-hidden flagstones, seeking a seam that would part or something that would shift.
After some fruitless time he sighed, straightened his back, and looked at Vangerdahast. “Well, O master of weaves?”
The Royal Magician did not bother to smile at the weak joke. “As an Obarskyr prince once said of a far grander gift than this,” he said grimly, “it’s just a rug. There must be forty or more like this around the palace. Woven in Wheloon eighty years back or so. Bought in bulk, in 1306, when the Lion Tower was built and all the furniture moved about. Proper chaos that was, too.”
Feeling the stares of his two companions, Vangerdahast gave them both a glare and added, “Yes, I was here in 1306. The weather was fine that year, and the five before it, too, as I recall. I’ll thank you to direct your disbelief elsewhere, and spare me any comments about wizards’ dotage.”
Sardyl sighed. “Secret passages?”
Her master gave her a weary look. “You’ve been reading too many fantasy books, my dear.” Alaphondar, who’d been about to ask the same thing, shut his mouth with an audible snap.