by Ed Greenwood
“Well met,” he said brightly, his smile growing even broader.
Amarune was too startled to be polite. “What are you doing here?” she blurted.
“Waiting for you, obviously. I paid your fellow dancers some rather large sums to be primped at the Gilded Feather today, to leave the room clear for me. For us.”
The Gilded Feather was the most expensive pretty-parlor in all Suzail. Though it was only a street away, Amarune had never been inside it. Its noble patrons tended to sneer at mask dancers, and its staff did rather more than sneer.
“Us?”
Gods above, no. Trapped by the mysterious Talane, and now this.
Oh, he’d been nice enough to her, and all nobles were crazed, but … stlarn it, she and probably most of Suzail thought the prancing fop Arclath Delcastle preferred men in bed and admired women merely as diversions.
But it seemed as if he was going to turn out to be another nightmare. One of the “obsessed” who stalked dancers and made dangerous nuisances of themselves until they had to be dealt with. Not that dealing with noble heirs was easy.
Well, farruk the Purple Dragon, she was going to deal with him, right away! It would cost her lots of forgone coins in the years ahead, but-
Whether or not it dissuaded him, she was going to beat the natal innards out of him! He’d be a laughingstock if he went to the Robes about her, so the worst that could happen would be her arrest-which would at least get her away from the spying of Talane and out of that bitch’s reach, and perhaps win her a little time to think of a way to flee that trap.
Without another word or wild thought, Amarune set her teeth and went for him, hands like claws and knees ready to drive in hard and see if she could dent that ridiculous codpiece he was wearing.
“Lady!” he said reproachfully, ducking and twisting with surprising speed-and lashing out a hand to ensnare one of her wrists.
Successfully. Gods, but he was strong!
She clawed at him with her free hand, catching a nail on something.
“Lady,” the lordling panted, wriggling like an eel under her, his free hand grabbing at hers, “I don’t want you to misunderstand my-uhh! — motives. I’m not here to-ah! — assault your-uh! — charms!”
He caught hold of her other wrist. With a shriek, Amarune slammed herself down on him, pelvis riding his belt buckle bruisingly, so she could get close enough to bite him. And managed it. Hard.
He roared out a less-than-coherent curse of pain as she wrenched her hands free and clawed at him again, raking at his face.
“Easy, wench!” he snarled, slamming a forearm across the side of her head hard enough to twist her half off him into dazed darkness. “I might need some of these limbs in the years ahead, you know!”
“You should’ve thought of that-,” Amarune panted at him as light and sound came back to her in a throbbing rush that left her head ringing, and she tried to claw at him again viciously, “before you-”
“Sat down in a chair in an empty room, after paying for the privilege?” he snapped. “Stop this! By Tempus, lass, leave off! I just want to ask you-uhhh! — some questions!”
“Oh, like how many of your friends will I pleasure for a cut price? Or will I let Lord Delcastle’s pet hired wizard give me feathers and a tail for the night, so you can ride a peacock at last? A peacock on a peacock? Hey?”
Right out of breath from that outburst, Amarune had to put her head down, shuddering, to snatch air as they struggled. Under her, the noble straightened one arm and thrust her up and away from him.
Gods, he’s strong. If he really loses his temper …
Amarune twisted, slapped at him, and tried to jerk free all at once-and Delcastle’s hand slid from a tight grip on her shoulder to a good hard grip on her left breast.
Farruk! That hurt!
“Sorry!” he blurted hastily, letting go. Amarune backhanded him one across the face as hard as she could, then used her other hand to do it again, rocking the chair.
“No,” he groaned as she slammed an elbow into his ribs, “not those sort of questions! H-heed me, lass! You-unhh-you were listening to all we said, my friends and I, when you were dancing for us! Whom did you tell?”
“Tell what?” Amarune snarled into his face. “You think I’m some sort of spy?”
“Yes, but I need to know for who-uh, whom! The nobles behind the murders at the palace?”
“What?” Amarune lost her temper utterly, sheer rage almost choking her. “You think I-”
Words failed her. Shrieking, she clawed Delcastle’s belt dagger out of its sheath and stabbed at him, the blade going wide as his forearms slammed against hers in a desperate parry. Before she could try again he’d clutched her dagger wrist, fingers tightening this time.
Sobbing in pain-he was crushing her wrist, he was crushing it! — she flung all of her trembling weight and strength behind trying to drive it down into his throat, before …
Just as Delcastle kicked out desperately, trying to make the point of the dagger miss the throat it was just about to slice-the door banged open.
The blade missed its mark as the chair lurched sideways, giving Amarune a momentary glimpse of Tress looking horrified, with some of the club bouncers right behind her, before they all rushed forward.
A moment later, Amarune’s head rang from a furious slap. Tress tore the dagger away from her even as that blow landed.
“Are you mad?” the owner of the Dragonriders’ shrieked into Amarune’s ear. “D’you know what will happen to us-to the Dragonriders’-if you kill a noble? Girl, you’re fired-fired! Get out of here at once, or I’ll call the Watch and let this noble set the Black Robes on you!”
“A-a moment,” a battered Arclath groaned hastily from beneath Amarune. “Good Lady Tress, I fear you misunderstand. I paid this, ah, highly professional dancer to do this!”
Sudden silence fell, and the club bouncers stopped trying to haul Amarune off the man under her and hurl her bodily up at the waiting ceiling.
Tress stared at what she could see of Lord Delcastle, then at the panting, obviously furious Amarune atop him.
“Isn’t she a peerless actress?” Arclath managed to croak, waving his free-and bleeding-hand at the dumbfounded, on-the-verge-of-tears Amarune. “Superb, eh?”
Tress returned her stare to him, incredulity warring with disgust across her face. To hide her own similar expression, Amarune dropped her head to stare at the floor, her disheveled tresses falling over her face.
“You … you welcome being beaten and overmastered, Lord?”
“By the right high-spirited lass, yes,” Arclath assured the club owner almost eagerly, his bright smile returning. “My friends and I saw this one yestereve, and I knew she was the one for us; I came asking for her this morn, you’ll recall. Now, please believe me, I did not intend to imperil her position here, and she did not want to trammel the routine of this night’s mask dancing … wherefore we sought to transact the seeing-to of my needs here and now. Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding and the upset this has caused. The arrangements-and therefore all fault-are entirely mine. I’ll happily pay for any damages; your dancer has been magnificent, far outstripping even my high expectations!”
Tress stared at him for a while longer before turning her gaze to Amarune.
“Is … is this true, Rune?” she asked in obvious disbelief, but seeing the offered road out of this for them all.
Struggling not to cry, bewildered and seeing nothing but traps yawning on all roads she might choose ahead, Amarune managed to lift her chin and say, “Y-yes.”
Tress sighed a long sigh, closing her eyes for a moment, then gave a polite nod to the torn and bleeding noble in the chair.
“Please accept my apologies for the interruption, Lord Delcastle. Pray proceed.”
Without another word she ushered the half-grinning bouncers out, not seeing Amarune open her mouth and raise a hand to protest-only to freeze and stay silent.
When the door ha
d closed again, Amarune glared at the man still beneath her and hissed bitterly, “So now you have a hold over me, just as you sought! What’s this all about, anyhail? What foolish game are you playing?”
“No game,” Arclath murmured, rising from the chair but with gentle courtesy holding out a hand to assist her in standing rather than being dumped on the floor as he did so, as if she were his equal.
When he faced her, however, standing very close to her so that their noses almost touched, his smile was gone.
“You were listening to us while we talked, my friends and I,” he murmured, his voice low and his eyes boring into hers. “Why? Whom did you tell what we said about the council-or will you tell?”
“No one,” Amarune hissed back scornfully. “Who would care?”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “I can call to mind a score of nobles who will be hungry indeed for every detail,” he said slowly. “How much will it cost for your silence?”
“Why do you ask?” she whispered bitterly. “Whatever answer I give, having me killed will be cheaper, won’t it? For a silence you can truly trust in?”
Arclath stared at her expressionlessly, then bent, plucked up his knife from the floor where Tress had flung it down, and handed it to Amarune, hilt first.
“I trust you right now,” he told her quietly, pointing at the dagger and then at his throat, before leaning forward to offer it, undefended. “Completely.”
They stared at each other, Amarune trembling-until she slapped his dagger back into his hand and snarled, “I need a drink.”
The door behind them promptly opened, and Tress stepped in with a tray that held a decanter and three metal goblets.
“Thought you’d say that,” she told them with a nonchalant smile, obviously not caring that they’d know she’d been listening at the door. “Compliments of the house.”
Arclath and Amarune exchanged glances. Then, slowly, they both started to chuckle.
The passage was a long one, and the moment the laughter died away, the furious swordcaptain set a brisk pace along it, forcing his prisoners almost into a trot. He speeded up still more as they approached a darkened stretch, where by some servant’s oversight no lamps glimmered in the sconces that in an earlier age had held torches.
Into the gloom they plunged, Vandurn snarling orders, and his men beginning to pant, the prisoners stumbling as they were prodded into greater haste.
“Get going!” the swordcaptain barked at everyone. “I’ve half a mind-”
“Well, that’s true,” Vainrence agreed loudly, drawing snorts of mirth from several of the nearest Dragons.
Then it happened.
There was a sudden burst of light around the Royal Magician’s head, and a smaller one abruptly flamed into being around the brow of Lord Vainrence, wildly whirling and crackling bolts of light out of nowhere that stabbed from one man to the other, brightening into a shared nimbus.
“Stop that!” the swordcaptain roared. “Stop it at once!”
Then he saw his prisoners were staggering and clutching their heads as they sagged, clearly as taken aback by the sudden magic as he and all his men were.
The eerie light snarled louder than Vandurn could, drowning out his shouted orders with a louder voice, a panting madwoman’s voice that soared and wavered in lost, mournful pain as it thundered up and down the passage: “El! Oh, my Elminster! Where are you? I need you! I’m dying … dying! Elminsterrrrrrrrrr!” The last word became a shriek, a raw animal cry of agony and need that sent everyone to their knees, clutching their ears as that scream raced through their heads and ran around and around in their minds, howling in desperation and keening in despair … keening …
When at last it faded, Swordcaptain Vandurn lay senseless on his back, his sweat-drenched face staring at nothing. Around him, most of his Dragons were the same, sprawled and motionless; the remainder were curled up and sobbing or groaning, spears fallen and forgotten.
Elminster and Storm stared at each other, their own faces wet and wild.
“Well?” Storm panted, bosom heaving; her Vainrence guise was melting away with every sobbing breath.
“Go to her,” Elminster snapped, snatching things of magic from inside his robes and pouches at his belt in almost feverish haste. “As fast as you can, and feed her everything you have to! Then get back here!”
“But, El-”
“Go! I’ll be fine here. Something’s happened to her, and we must find out what. Go! Use the Dalestride; the time for stealth is past.”
“It’ll be guarded,” Storm warned breathlessly. The Dalestride was a portal linking the Room of the Watchful Sentinel with a certain glade just west of Mistledale. Reinforced by Caladnei, it had survived the Spellplague, and King Foril and his wizards of war and highknights knew all about it; it was never unguarded.
“Good.” Elminster’s sudden smile was as ruthless as that of an old and hungry wolf. “I’m glad of that.” Almost hungrily he added, “I’ll go with you to open the way.”
“If they stand against us-Alusair and Foril, Ganrahast and Vainrence-”
“The wise ones will stand aside and live,” the Sage of Shadowdale told her grimly, snatching her hand and starting to stride back down the passage. “The fools will taste consequences … and Cormyr will be the stronger.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TALONS AND PEACOCKS AND WORSE
Marlin Stormserpent loved the Old King’s Favorite. Oh, it was stiffly expensive, even to a wealthy noble heir, but it was also one of the most glittering lounges on the promenade, a place to see and be seen in. Not to mention that the food was good, the wine even better.
Moreover, it had been a very useful place to dine in, down the years. Upper-rung courtiers frequented such eateries-fattening themselves on the public purse, stlarn them-and by listening to the excited converse going on around him without seeming to do so, he learned a lot about what was currently afoot in Crown matters. Without all those expensive bribes and even-more-costly spies.
So the younger Lord Stormserpent had made it his custom to take highsunfeast at the Favorite most days, despite the cost. It wasn’t as exclusive as, say, Darcleir’s, derided by the lowborn as “the House of Peacocks” for all the flamboyantly dressed nobility to be found there daily, but the gossip of courtiers tended to be more intriguing than the usual airily empty boasting-or endless complaining about new ways and those who forged them-of nobles. Even when House Stormserpent couldn’t profit from what its heir overheard, Marlin learned a lot of interesting things.
Just now, for instance, word was spreading like wildfire around Suzail of some mysterious invading army that had been slaughtering people in the palace. Parts of which-the table to his right was whispering loudly enough to be heard down the far end of the room-had been, as a result, sealed off to everyone.
“Filled with scores of dismembered corpses,” an underclerk of protocol hissed excitedly.
“The floors ankle deep in pools of congealing blood!” a gentleman usher hissed back.
Not to be outdone, the two cellarers at the table to Marlin’s immediate left wanted most of the room to overhear just how upset Understeward Corleth Fentable was. The man was driving them-to say nothing of the high chatelaine and the clerk of the shield-into seething rages with his prohibitions on anyone opening this door or walking down that passage.
“If we aren’t allowed to go a few more places in the palace, the king’ll find nothing but well water in the glasses set out at this council-and nothing for him and his oh-so-exalted peacocks of guests to nibble on but boiled potatoes with a side of horse mash!”
As the specifics of just what parts of the palace had been made off-limits were excitedly discussed, Marlin had to hide a smile behind his ornate goblet of best Berduskan dark.
Everyone was being kept away from the palace-end of the passage he’d recently used, and the vicinity of the Dragonskull and the Wyrms Ascending.
Which meant that the stalwart wizards of war didn’t know
what to do. They’d searched that part of the palace from top to bottom, found nothing useful, and had decided to hide their futility behind the usual cloak of mystery.
So sea and sky were clear, as the sailors liked to say; a certain heir of House Stormserpent could freely use that passage to get back into the palace, take his two items of the Nine to the Dragonskull Chamber, and see if he could summon two flaming ghosts out of them to obey him.
Marlin got rid of his smile, drained his goblet and set it down, and rose, tossing just enough coins onto the table. It was time to fetch a certain sword and a particular chalice and do a little testing. And then …
Well, then it would be high time to set about transforming Cormyr to his liking.
Manshoon turned away from casting careful spells on a thing of tentacles and strolled across the cavern to another of his glowing scenes.
For some months, through a variety of minds he could eavesdrop upon, he’d taken to lurking around Stormserpent Towers.
There were larger and grander noble mansions in Suzail where louder preening peacocks dwelt, and there had never been any particular shortage of idiot nobles desiring to overthrow the Obarskyrs or work smaller treasons … but there was something interesting about the Stormserpents. Young and ambitious Marlin Stormserpent in particular.
Perhaps it was the feeling that something long-brewing and uncontrollable was soon going to break forth, regardless of what befell Cormyr in the process. Marlin was heir of his House and one of an all-too-common sort of noble heir. Purringly handsome and bright-witted-but only about a tenth as brilliant as he considered himself to be. All such tended to be more rash than wise and more ambitious than competent … but that was part of what made spying on them entertaining.
So Manshoon wormed his way into the mind of servant after servant at the Towers until he could skulk, listen, and watch at will-riding the unwitting mount of his choice as just one more black shadow in a mansion that had become largely unlit, sheet-shrouded, and neglected. Oh, yes; long before he’d taken any interest in it, House Stormserpent had become a mere shadow of its former self.