by Ed Greenwood
He could hear the echoes rolling back from six or seven rooms away, setting various distant and unseen metal trophies to ringing in sympathy. Grinning, Mirt dented the shield even harder, paint flying into dust all around him.
A door flew open, and a man staggered through it, face contorted in anger.
A war wizard.
Of course.
Seeing Mirt, he waved his hands imperiously and snarled, “Stop that, sirrah! Madwits! Old fool! Folk are trying to sleep!”
Mirt went right on ringing the shield but used one hand to point back the way he’d come, and then waved the dagger he was holding.
The Crown mage was unimpressed. “Under attack, my left elbow! Bah!”
Snatching out a wand, he marched up to Mirt, planted himself dramatically to blast this noisy nuisance—and collapsed senseless to the floor, struck on the back of his neck by something plummeting from above.
Mirt peered down at the mage with interest, then recoiled. The thing that had felled him looked a little like a wraithlike wisp of something dark, and a bit like a spider. It was unwrapping its long legs—which began to look more like human fingers—from around a ceiling tile it had obviously ridden down on. Spiderlike, it scuttled toward Mirt, who resisted the urge to stamp on the thing with both boots.
Now the wraith looked more like an old man’s face, the cloud trailing away in the suggestion of a beard. Beneath that face were definitely human fingers, a hand, rather … but the face was walking across the floor on the tips of those fingers.
Aye, the floor; it had come down off the unconscious wizard and was crawling toward Mirt. Who devoted himself to backing away warily.
“Mirt of Waterdeep,” the spiderlike thing greeted him dryly. “Well met. Vangerdahast, Royal Magician of Cormyr, at your service. Keep ringing that shield.”
Mirt bowed, nodded, and resumed striking the shield, with enthusiasm.
The din was tremendous, almost deafening when the echoes got going, and it wasn’t long before someone who looked both groggy and angry lurched around a corner and came striding along the passage toward Mirt.
Watching this second arrival closely for any signs of a wand or a spell being cast, Mirt barely noticed that the spiderlike thing had crept around to stand in the lee of his boots, hidden from the oncoming courtier.
Who shouted, “Cease your noise! Who are you, anyhail, and what do you want? I am Palace Understeward Corleth Fentable!”
The man had said his name as if he expected Mirt to be impressed, so Mirt shrugged and smiled. “I’m Mirt, and I’m ringing this shield to let all the palace know there’s a beholder out in the street blasting Dragons and war wizards—oh, and a big hole in the side of the palace, too. Well met.”
“Oh?” Fentable seemed less than impressed. “Wait right here. I’ll be back with suitable minions.”
Whirling around, he marched back the way he’d come.
“He’s going to get Dragons to come back and arrest you,” Vangerdahast said quietly, from down by Mirt’s boots. “Run after him, and smite him cold.”
Mirt smiled. This seemed the best advice he’d heard in some time. Drawing in the breath he’d need for a swift lurch down a passage, he hefted his daggers in his hands, pommels up—and did as he’d been told.
When he looked back at Vangerdahast from above the understeward’s sprawled body, one spiderlike finger was crooking to beckon him back.
Mirt bent down, grabbed a good handful of palace understeward tunic-front, and gave the royal magician a questioning look.
Vangey nodded, so Mirt dragged the man back to the lamplit shield.
“This man’s a traitor to the Crown,” the royal magician explained. “Just whom he’s working for, and to what ends, I don’t know yet—and right now, we haven’t time to try to force answers out of him. And the realm needs answers, not all this shouting and chasing about after disasters have befallen. So, I need you to take him down to the royal crypt for me.”
Mirt shrugged. “As long as the guards won’t try to inter me there, that’s fine with me.”
“Good. Hold still.” The man-headed spiderthing started to climb Mirt’s leg. “I’ll ride on your shoulder and guide you. It should be unguarded, except by the sealing spells, and I can take care of those. We have some empty coffins there, and anyone put in them is held in spell-stasis. I can think of quite a few persons in this kingdom I’d prefer to entomb there until I’m ready to deal with them, but this wretch is a start.”
Mirt chuckled. “Guide me.”
“We take this passage, to the bend there. See that square stone, right down by the floor? Kick it with your boot. Another stone should move out a bit, right in front of you. Push in on it, hard, and a hidden door will open.”
“Better and better. Is there any treasure hereabouts that no one would miss, hey?”
“No,” Vangey said flatly. “Yet the royal magician of the realm has been known to reward those who serve Cormyr well.”
Mirt followed the instructions, and a door grated open with surprisingly little noise. He dragged Fentable through it and went on, the door swinging closed the moment the understeward’s dragging boots were clear of it.
A bare breath later, just as he was opening his mouth in the pitch darkness to ask the spiderthing on his shoulder for more instructions, he heard a commotion on the other side of the wall.
Many men in boots were hurrying around the corner he’d just vacated, and at least one woman was with them. The Lady Glathra’s unmistakable voice was berating them as they went, telling all within earshot that she was simply spitting mad, and someone was going to pay for it; and that she wanted to know just who’d dared to rouse this part of the palace, and she’d ring his clanging gong for him, good and hard.
Mirt and Vangerdahast were both wily old veterans, so they waited until the sounds had died away to utter silence before they chuckled. In unison.
The King’s Forest was a cold place at this time of deepest night, shrouded in streaming wisps of mist and awake with eerie calls.
One of those sounds was coming from a shallow dell not far from the Way of the Dragon. It was the deep, loud snoring of an exhausted young lord of Cormyr.
Pillowed on a bodyguard’s cloak and lying on the layered cloaks of two more, Marlin Stormserpent was deep in his dreams, wrapped in his own cloak, while his shivering bodyguards stood grim guard over him.
“He’s not paying us near enough for this sort o’ duty,” one of them whispered hoarsely, not for the first time.
“Shut it,” came the familiar reply, made more curtly than ever.
“Hear that?” the third bullyblade hissed, sword singing out. “Something’s coming—yonder!”
They caught a glimpse of distant blue flame through the trees, and fearfully roused their lord, shaking him and nudging him with their boots in hasty unison.
The master’s blueflame ghosts were coming back, and the cursed beyond-dead things obeyed only him.
He came awake as fearful as they were, sweat-drenched and cursing, and had to scramble up to have both Blade and Chalice ready in hand when the two flaming slayers stalked up to him, dragging a hairy mass larger than both of them. It was leaving a wide, wet trail of gore through the leaves and fallen logs, which made the bodyguards look even grimmer and shuffle until they stood together, swords out and watchful.
“What is it?” Stormserpent asked, unenthusiastically.
“You ordered us to get evenfeast. Behold. It’s a bear—everything else in the forest fled from us.”
The three bullyblades traded silent glances that all said, “That surprises me not,” as loudly as if they’d bellowed it.
Stormserpent merely nodded, held up the Chalice and the Blade, and bent his will upon the two ghosts. Who leaned forward as if in belligerent challenge but said nothing.
In eerie silence the noble strained, trembling and going pale … and slowly, very slowly, the men wreathed in cold blue flames faded away, their last wisps rising up in
to the two items the lord was clutching.
Stormserpent let out a deep sigh, let his hands fall to his sides, then turned and snapped at the three bullyblades, “Butcher yon bear, light the fire you laid, and start cooking it. You can wake me again when it’s done.”
Crossing Chalice and Blade across his breast as if he were a priest sleeping vigil on an altar, he laid himself down on the cloaks and closed his eyes.
The bodyguards grudgingly set about following the orders he’d just given. As they bent down around the bear with their daggers out and started sawing, the looks they sent their master’s way were almost as baleful as the ones the blueflame ghosts had been offering him, a dozen breaths before.
“Cheerful place,” Mirt commented, watching Vangerdahast’s approach to the double doors cause the expected sigils to glow into eerie visibility. Warning off tomb robbers and fools.
Well, he’d been both, in his day, and probably would be both again …
He glanced back at Fentable. The understeward looked a little the worse for being dragged down two flights of stairs and along more passages than Mirt had bothered to keep count of, to reach this cold, silent lower cellar.
The doors sighed open, and Vangerdahast said, “Thank you for looking away. Waterdeep is well lorded over, I see.”
Mirt managed to quell the snort he usually greeted such sentiments with, and watched a pale glow kindle out of the empty air as the spiderlike royal magician advanced cautiously into a large, dark vault.
“Are there occasional … problems?” Mirt asked warily, staying where he was.
“More than a few coffins have been opened since I was here last. I know it doesn’t appear that way, but I can tell. Leave the understeward, and come in. I’ll need your help with the lids.”
“And I’ll need your help blasting the undead when they burst out and try to throttle me,” Mirt replied meaningfully.
“You’ll receive it,” came the flat reply.
Mirt rolled his eyes and lurched forward. “Which one first?”
The seventh coffin Mirt opened with a grunt held an immobile, intact-looking man. Who moved not at all in the heart of the faintly singing magical glow that filled his stone resting place.
“Don’t reach in,” Vangerdahast warned.
“No fear,” Mirt retorted. “I was just looking for traps.”
“He’s caught in one. A stasis trap,” the royal magician snapped, scuttling to the top of a nearby royal catafalque to get high enough to look down into the open coffin.
“That’s the lord warder, Vainrence,” he added in a satisfied voice, the moment he’d surveyed the still form in the coffin. “Just step back and leave him be. I’m hoping one of the three remaining disturbed coffins holds Ganrahast. This is the last place in the palace I had left to check for the two of them.”
The next coffin contained the royal magician, in the same sort of singing, gently pulsing stasis.
“We dare not disturb them without a senior wizard of war on hand, in case spells are needed, fast. Swift casting is something I can’t do, given what I’ve become.”
Mirt regarded the spiderlike mage with interest. Vangerdahast hadn’t sounded bitter, only matter-of-fact.
“What do I do with the dolt I dragged down here?”
“Put him in that coffin, and set the lid back into place over him. He’ll keep until I have time to cast this same sort of stasis. I can manage it, but slowly.”
“Right, and then?”
“Let’s go get Glathra. She might as well do something useful, for once.”
Arclath looked around, wearily. Purple Dragons and war wizards were murmuring triumph to each other. Any moment now, they’d notice one noble lord in their midst—with a mask dancer clinging to him, and an infamous Harper with silver hair everyone recognized at a glance lying senseless at his feet. Storm looked as lost to the world as Elminster was, inside Arclath’s own head.
Silent, not answering. Gone.
“Rune,” he whispered, into the closest ear of the mask dancer whom he loved more and more with each passing moment, “if I carry Storm, can you take her feet?”
“Take her where?” Rune whispered back. “Into the palace?”
Arclath shrugged. Where else could they go? He very much doubted they’d be allowed to depart, if they tried to take Storm across the Promenade right now. Plenty of these men had heard Glathra’s orders.
Naed. They always seemed to be wading deeply in fresh, warm naed.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
LIES, CHAINS, AND KISSES
Well, lad, ruling a realm usually turns out like
The stormier sort of marriage: it’s all lies, chains, and kisses.
Old King Sandral, Act II, Scene V of the play
How Ralindarria Fell by Ohndravvas Duskingstone,
Bard High of Darromar, first staged in the Year of the
Fallen Tower
Ahem, ah, dauntless guardian? Saer Dragon?”
Mirt put what he fondly hoped would be taken for a friendly smile on his face, and lurched up to the palace guard with his hands empty and spread out before him, to show that he was unarmed. The man did not look friendly.
“I’m looking for the Lady Glathra. Wizard of war, usually in a hurry, loud and forceful? Ye know her, aye?”
The Purple Dragon turned his head to give the stout Waterdhavian a long, measuring look, from his untidy hair down to his flapping boots and back up again, before settling in one spot. Mirt saw that.
“Heh-heh. Pay no heed to this that rides on my shoulder. ’Tis a pet, no more. Harmless, I assure ye. Harmless.”
Close beside Mirt’s ear, Vangerdahast gave a low, warning growl.
Mirt hastened on. “So, saer, can ye take me to the Lady Glathra? Or tell me the way to where she might be found?”
“Why?” the Dragon made reply, shifting his spear from “ceremonial upright rest” to a menacing, ready position. “Who are you, and what’s your business with her? What are you doing down here, anyway?”
“Looking,” Mirt explained patiently, “for Glathra. I’m Lord Mirt of Waterdeep, visiting my good friend King Foril Obarskyr. As for my business with Glathra …”
He leaned forward to give a wink and a friendly leer, but the horrific result made the guard recoil—then flush with irritation at having abandoned his urbane, neutral manner, and snarl, “I don’t believe you. Show me your pass!”
Mirt sighed and strode past the man. “I pass,” he explained, “like this. See?”
“A jester, eh?” the Dragon snarled, lowering his spear to point at Mirt’s ample belly.
“Hey,” Mirt said agreeably, steering the spearpoint aside with one hand. “I take it ye’re unaware of Glathra’s whereabouts? Aye? Well, then, I’ll just be—”
“Halt! Stand and surrender, you! Lord of Waterdeep, indeed!”
The Dragon made a jabbing movement with his spear, threatening to use it if Mirt tried to flee. Then he stood it against the wall with one hand and drew his sword with the other.
“Consider yourself,” he said sternly, “under arrest. As my prisoner, you will accompany me without challenge or violence, seeking neither to deceive me nor to flee from custody. And we won’t be going anywhere near the Lady Glathra, believe me—”
Without warning, Vangerdahast launched himself like a striking spider, right into the Dragon’s face. The Dragon fell to the floor.
“So, what did ye do to him?” Mirt rumbled, stepping over the fallen guard and hastening at full lurch farther down the passage.
“Enspelled him to sleep, at my touch,” Vangey replied. “Dragons didn’t dare to be that officious in my day. With a visiting head of state, too!”
Mirt chuckled as he rounded a corner and caught sight of another guard, standing to attention against the wall under another lantern.
“So, care to place a little wager on the conduct of this next one?”
“No,” Vangerdahast replied flatly. “You provoke them—an
d I’m just a pet, remember?”
Mirt had the grace to wince.
Glathra’s reappearance at the greatly enlarged hole in the palace wall caused an immediate clamor, as war wizards hastened from all sides to try to push through the Dragons and speak to her.
“Silence!” she barked—and the Crown mages obeyed, in midword. All around them soldiers blinked, raised eyebrows, or grinned openly.
Despite the way she felt, still lying on the ground in pain and feeling utterly drained, Storm joined in the latter reaction.
Glathra had it, all right. Dominance, with a single word.
Yet the wizard of war wasn’t done. “You can report to me later. The engagement here is obviously over, yet I observe my orders have still not been carried out, despite an assembly of more loyal soldiers and oathsworn wizards in one place than I’ve seen for a good long time. So let this disobedience be remedied, forthwith. Use spells to paralyze these three—this mask dancer, Amarune Whitewave; this Harper outlander, Storm Silverhand; and this noble lord of Cormyr, Arclath Delcastle. They are to be taken into custody and chained to the wall in the main Westfront holding cell to await interrogation. Do this now.”
Storm didn’t even try to stir. She was so exhausted that she’d be asleep at that moment if it weren’t for the pain. The beholder’s searing ray had caught her, though three Dragons had unintentionally shielded her from its full effects with their bodies and had paid the price. The Westfront cell was clean, dry, and well lit, and she could sleep dangling from chains about as well as she could in the street, where she was liable to be walked on or have a cart driven over her.
The war wizards obeyed Glathra with alacrity, probably because she stayed to watch long enough, this time, to make sure her orders were carried out. When the two standing over Storm finished their brief chanting, she felt no more than an immediate numbness. Followed by the inevitable itches she could now not scratch, of course. When she flexed a finger, she found she could move it—though she stilled it instantly to avoid anyone noticing.