by Ed Greenwood
“Kind of old for a playpretty,” one of the armsmen lifting Storm’s frozen body commented. “Expensive gown, too.”
“Looks noble,” said another.
“They said he has a maid,” a third one put in, “so unless old noblewomen are suddenly hiring themselves out as coinlasses, this has to be her. She’s about the same age as him, right? This is Helderstone’s maid, probably dressed up for a night out.”
“They’re not finding him,” Downdagger said suddenly, staring off into the distance.
“Stlarn,” Heldeth muttered. “I hate loose ends.”
Armsmen were coming back to the doors now. He could see by their faces that Downdagger was right.
He looked at his fellow mage, whose face wore the same uneasiness he was feeling.
“Let’s be gone from here,” he muttered.
Downdagger nodded, then snapped at the armsmen, “Leave the playpretty in the bed, but take Helderstone and his wench to the warehouse—and hurry!”
The armsmen hurried Mirt’s limp body down the stairs to where they’d laid the old woman in the gown, snatched her up, and rushed off into the night.
“We should be with them in case they meet with any watch patrols,” Downdagger muttered as Heldeth laid a staying hand on his arm. “Besides, the reek of yon dung wagon isn’t impressing me.”
He would have been surprised to know a scorched and angry Wizard of War Reldyk Applecrown was crouching in the fresh, wet nightsoil on the other side of the weathered boards of the dung wagon’s side, listening to their every word—and even more astonished to learn that Applecrown was really Elminster, the legendary dragonslaying and throne-toppling Chosen of Mystra.
As it happened, Elminster wasn’t interested in enlightening him. Yet.
“We have to decide what to say about the one who got away,” Heldeth snarled.
“Tell him we tarried for a moment because we knew he was hiding, found the fool, and blasted him to ashes,” Downdagger snapped. “What else?”
“You tell him,” Scarmar Heldeth snapped right back. “He only paid me for one night’s work—and now that I’ve tasted this work, I want to be well away from Suzail before he decides to rid the realms of those who could tell others too much of what he’s up to. Guard yourself accordingly.”
“Huh,” Downdagger sneered. “He dare not do that to me. If I die, half the spells that protect him from scrying and prying vanish with me—and his own swift death at the hands of the war wizards is certain.”
“Suit yourself,” Heldeth replied, rushing off. Two running steps later, he was suddenly surrounded by a winking cloud of sparks. A warding.
Downdagger smiled crookedly. Deep trust, indeed. Yon shielding could only be meant to thwart any spell he might hurl.
He hurled nothing but shook his head and murmured after Heldeth, “Idiot. You could have been rich.”
Then Downdagger glanced all around, saw no one watching, and set off in the direction the armsmen had gone. “Well, off to tell the good news.”
He looked back one last time before he turned a corner but never saw the befouled, squelching man who’d climbed quietly out of the far side of the dung wagon to skulk slimily after him.
He did smell something, but after all, a dung wagon was right there.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
MURDERING LORD HELDERSTONE
We now know some nobles were far from noble,
in principles and purpose; some sought wealth by any means
And some were busy murdering Lord Helderstone.
Alander “Anyman” (a pseudonym)
from the chapbook Aftermath of the Council of Dragons
first published in the Year of Deep Water Drifting
It had been years since he’d had a body that could really sprint, leap, and go like the wind for a fair while, and running hard seemed to keep some of the otherwise overpowering chamberpot stench down, so Elminster ran.
If he tried to follow Downdagger—an unscrupulous local mage-for-hire he’d seen in dockside taverns a time or two, back when he was busy being Elgorn Rhauligan—he had to admit that he’d only be able to sneak up on the man if Downdagger had almost entirely lost his sense of smell. Yet, if he ducked into a parallel alley and ran ahead of the mage, he would at least not be seen if the wizard looked back the way he’d come.
El sprinted until he was out of breath, then turned down a side street to come out ahead of Downdagger. Who was looking back, as he turned into a side street where there was a covered carriage yard.
The mage gave a low whistle, and five warriors in identical surcoats promptly melted out of the shadows amid the coaches and wagons to surround Downdagger. They all moved together, the mage strutting like a haughty noble, and the armsmen forming a ring around him and marching like any bodyguard.
They were heading for better streets, where mansions would be larger and walled, but just then were in a “high houses” neighborhood of the sort favored by wealthy merchants and nobles who weren’t rich enough to, say, buy a village upon a whim.
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 contact 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 S
torm 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!”