by Ed Greenwood
Why now? And why me?
Seething, Laeral staggered to her feet, her head ringing. She could barely see, couldn’t feel the Weave-flows at all now … she was dazed and numb.
She reeled like a drunkard sideways into the wall, rebounded off it, and when she determinedly kept walking, found herself crashing into it again and sliding along it, her cheek crushing a long streak through the black ash.
She tried to recall some sufficiently sulphurous curses, and couldn’t collect her wits enough to remember any of them. Oh, gods!
Not now, not now … She was outside the ruined building now, out in the street, and she knew vaguely which way the Palace was. She started trudging in that direction.
El? She thought dully. Any brilliant strategies? We’re in no condition to trade spells with anyone. If we arrive at the Palace and get into any sort of fight—any sort at all—we’ll be destroyed.
Lass, the faint voice that was in the depths of her mind replied, we’re Chosen of Mystra. We don’t turn our backs, or slink away to await a better battlefield. We go in.
Laeral found some curses, and spat them out, loudly and with feeling.
I know that, El. I don’t need rallying-talk, I need a scheme or secret up-your-sleeve weapon. Give me one!
El chuckled ruefully. That’s right, order me to save the day. That’ll work, when ye have my body and all. I’ve no secret weapons, lass, but as for schemes … I’m not advocating we confront Cazondur and any mages he has left in some sort of spell duel. We sidle into the Palace and gather whatever magic items we can, before any confrontation. I’m crazed and inexorable, not a fool-head.
Now that’s a rallying cry, Laeral snorted. So we sneak in the back way, and make it up as we go along?
I have every confidence in thy ability to carry that off. ’Tis what I’ve been doing for over a thousand years, lass; it must work.
For you, Old Weirdbeard—for you.
Laeral was dimly aware that she was heading south, and that she could now walk more or less upright, and more or less in a straight line. The fire of roiling, dancing agony in her head and the fog of confusion wrapped around it told her not to attempt any Weave-work or, for that matter, spellcasting for a while yet.
There was so little left of El’s boots that she was practically walking barefoot on the cobbles, and his robes were such scorched rags that she wasn’t all that far from naked, either.
Which explained the many curious looks she was getting.
“Who’s that, Mother?” The voice was young, and from behind her, not far away to her left.
“You’re in Waterdeep, dear. It’s probably some high-coin lass who got drunk and rolled into someone’s hearth fire. Just look the other way and hurry past!”
And a block later: “Who’s the half-naked, half-scorched lady?”
“Dunno, but I like what I can see of her—and I can see a lot of her!”
It took another block before she ran into a Watch patrol.
Luckily, the duty Watchful Order mage walking with the Watch guards recognized her even before the Watch could issue a challenge. “Lady Silverhand! What’s happened?”
“Treason,” Laeral said grimly. “I need you to use your horns to summon other patrols, until at least three mages are gathered together—four or five would be better—and go to Tarnath Street, three doors east of the High Road, where you’ll find the smoldering remnants of a building. Look for two forcecages there, and take into custody the two wizards inside them. One of them is Imindur Glenmaur, but take no commands from him; his treachery is clear. Drug them into slumber if you must, but at all costs keep them alive but unable to work magic or to escape until I can deal with them. Oh, and be warned: magic is going wild in the ruin, right now, so the force cages may have failed, or have done strange things to Glenmaur and Qasmult, or—”
“Q-Qasmult, did you say?” the Watchful Order mage gulped.
Laeral smiled thinly, stepped around him, and repeated to the Watch guards, “Use your horns.”
Then she walked on, without looking back.
Behind her, the horns blared out.
• • •
“THE ENTIRE CITY now knows I’m a Lord! Someone is going to pay for this!”
Braethan Cazondur knew that voice; the shouting man was Lammakh Heirlarpost, enraged, but with fear swamping his anger.
“Is the crazed witch Laeral having us all beheaded?” Open fear in that cry, followed by wild curses and babbled orders that were obviously being ignored by the impassive Watch guards hustling Heirlarpost along.
At Cazondur’s orders, of course. And with him, all of them converging in their own ring of Watch escorts, unmasked fellow lords Gruthgar Hrimmrel, Kassalra Maremthur, and Sarathlue Serendragon; the first two looking as angry and frightened as Heirlarpost felt, but Serendragon seemingly calm. Various nobles and guildmasters were crowding in, too.
“Why are they here?” Heirlarpost demanded furiously. “By what right are they being admitted?”
“There should be citizens to witness what’s likely coming,” a senior Watch officer replied.
“What? Just what is ‘likely coming’?”
But there came no reply as they were all hustled in through the doors of the Lordsmoot. The huge, floor-oil-reeking chamber, where Braethan Cazondur, his identity hidden beneath his full helm-Mask and complete formal vestments, was standing alone atop the great meeting table, grandly addressing his growing audience.
He was good at full-on doom-laden haranguing, if he said so himself.
He spread his arms now, as the Watch brought in another fearful and angry Lord—one of the newly voted-ins, the wealthy merchant investor Halark Tarncrown—and raised his voice over Tarncrown’s loud demands to know what was going on.
“A dark threat lies upon our fair city,” he thundered. “An evil monster masquerading as Lady Laeral Silverhand is on the verge of ruling us all, beginning a reign of murder and tyranny that threatens every one of us—and every last member of our families, too!”
A murmur of alarm and consternation arose, and Cazondur cut through it with a bellow, “This foul beast has killed and impersonated the real Lady Silverhand! The only way to foil its diabolical plan is to remove Laeral Silverhand as Open Lord, by open public vote, here and now!”
CHAPTER 29
The Howling Of One Angry Man
Hark! I hear a curious sound
Ringing off yonder keep
’Tis not the roar of a triumphant raider
Nor yet a dying scream, but
The howling of one angry man.
—Prince Maerdalan, in Act II, Scene 6, of the play One Crown Cheaply Bought by Darra Oalthlone, Playwright of Melvaunt, first performed in the Year of the Prince
SISTER, YOU SMELL LIKE ELMINSTER. DOVE SOUNDED MORE AMUSED THAN disapproving.
That’s because I am Elminster, Laeral told her. I walk in his body, that he altered to look like mine.
You lost yours? Syluné did sound disapproving. Careless of you.
‘Careless’ is my latest tactic.
Hmph. Needs work.
Down, girl. Later. Busy saving Waterdeep right now. Where’s Cazondur?
Making speeches in the Lordsmoot, where at least four other Lords have been hustled in by the Watch. Syluné sounded grim.
A lot of the courtiers and Palace servants Cazondur’s bought are in that room, Dove added. We go to see more of what’s unfolding. We’re expecting a grand entrance from you, so make it good.
Such supportive sisters I have, Laeral sighed, but they were gone. She was alone—well, as alone as a girl could be, in El’s body, with El—again, as she skulked through back passages of the Palace.
Cazondur sounded ready for her. Would the few enchanted items she’d managed to snatch up on her way through the behind-end of the Palace be enough?
Lass, we just can’t take the time to go and pluck up more. This particular armory will have to do.
Well, at least El sounded calm.
Yet her gloom didn’t lift. All she had was a pale lavender ioun stone, a ring of spell storing that contained a lone spell—wall of force—and two potions: one of healing and one of gaseous form.
This isn’t going to go well, she thought.
The trick, El thought back, is to make Cazondur think it hasn’t gone well. That’s all.
Ah, but how?
We’ll do what we always do: stumble along and improvise.
That hasn’t worked out all that well recently.
Do we have any other choice, Laer?
• • •
“A VOTE MUST be taken, right here and right now!” Cazondur was in full and confident career. “To stop this menace, Laeral Silverhand must be removed as Open Lord of this city—before her impostor can get here and work dark sorcery on us!”
“What dark sorcery?” a baffled courtier demanded crossly. “If a monster has eaten and replaced the Lady Silverhand, isn’t her magic gone with her?”
“Seize that man!” Cazondur bellowed by way of reply, pointing at the courtier. “He must be in league with her!”
Some Watch officers hesitated, and then started forward, only to be dragged back by others. “The Warden’s standing orders about obeying the arbitrary commands of Lords, remember?”
Cazondur heard this, and yelled, “Yes! The Warden! The missing Warden! Someone Laeral blasted to ashes, so she could rule unimpeded! Did none of you notice that? Wonder about that?”
“This man,” one noble at the back of the room muttered to another, “is mad.”
“Most Waterdhavian commoners are,” the second noble replied. “They just don’t get as good audiences as this one’s managed. I’m waiting for Laeral to show—and the spells to start flying.”
“I call the vote!” Cazondur cried, his voice echoing back off the rafters. “Shall we dismiss Laer—”
“No!” That shout came from Laeral’s seneschal, Talen Telfeather, standing in the shoulder-to-shoulder press of courtiers over by the north wall of the Lordsmoot. “As there are now seventeen Lords of Waterdeep—not counting the Lady Silverhand herself, nor the returned one, Mirt—a winning vote to depose Lady Silverhand must be no less than nine Lords.”
“Listen not to this blatant delaying tactic!” Cazondur tried to shout Telfeather down. “This man may be Silverhand’s stooge, but would the rest of you defy the clear will of the Lords?”
“The vote makes clear the will of the Lords,” Telfeather shot back, “not your blustering. We have clear rules, and I stand firm that they be followed. Any attempt to set them aside will be … treason.”
“You dare accuse a Lord of the city of treason? Watch, arrest that man!”
“No!” the nearest officer barked, and looked to the ranking Watch officer.
Who boomed, “We shall have the rule of law, not the howling of one angry man who wants his own way. There will be a vote only when there’s quorum present. Nine are needed, and I see only six lords here!”
The words had scarcely left his lips when one pair of rear doors into the Lordsmoot banged open, and a seventh Lord—another new face, the moneylender Zereth Keltaerond—was brought in.
Cazondur had scarcely drawn breath for a triumphant comment when the other rear doors swung wide, and yet another new Lord, the shipping fleet owner Perengal Yuskalaunt, was hustled in by his Watch escorts.
And then a concealed inner door opened on the other, inner side of the room, and a lone figure stepped through it without an escort.
It was Laeral Silverhand, smeared and scorched and with her robes half burnt off her.
Utter silence fell.
• • •
LAERAL KNEW BETTER than to pause to make her entrance grander. She headed straight for the great meeting table—specifically, straight for the center of its arc, where Cazondur was standing.
And found her strides suddenly something she had to fight to accomplish, every muscle trembling. Her mind was under an abrupt, silent, and brutal mental assault, from an unseen foe.
A—a mind flayer!
Suthool, she heard Elminster’s voice say in grim challenge, from the very back of her mind. Well met.
There was a surge of surprise from the dark and powerful mind weighing on hers, and then a roiling of memories as warring sentiences thrust at each other, grappled, and stabbed anew. And that searing agony returned, soaring through her until she whimpered. Mystra’s prohibition-pain was back, besetting Elminster but ravaging Laeral’s brain, too—and, she realized with satisfaction, El had found a way, by wrapping his thoughts around the illithid’s, of being felt by it as well.
There came a last frantic flurry from the mind flayer, and then a sort of pulsing, struggling silence.
Which was broken by a clearly pain-wracked El. I can trammel him—for a time. He’s never had a mind embrace his before. Cazondur, however, remains thine.
Her head felt like it had been bounced off unyielding stone walls, and rippling surges of Mystra’s agony still jolted her at every step.
So Laeral staggered, and swayed … and kept on coming.
“A meeting of the Lords? And a vote? I’m glad I didn’t miss this,” she told the room crisply. “So, who called this meeting, and why?”
“I did!” Cazondur snarled, from atop the table. “To have you voted out of office, impostor!”
“Impostor? When did this happen, and however did I happen to miss it?”
Those words brought her to the table, and Laeral started to clamber up onto it. Not easy, with head pounding …
Cazondur came rushing, shuffling his feet as he arrived so as to aim a vicious kick at her head.
Laeral swayed back to let his boot whistle past her nose, then caught hold of his foot and twisted, putting all her weight and strength into a roll of her body.
Cazondur toppled like a tree and crashed heavily to the tabletop, cracking an elbow and letting out a roar of pain as he bounced. Laeral ducked beyond the range of his flailing feet, and managed to get atop the table while he was wallowing.
As she raced for him, he clambered up to his hands and knees, his back to her and unaware of all but his anger, and the curses it was making him spit.
Laeral caught hold of his flaring metal Lord’s collar, wrenched ruthlessly—and then snatched off his helm.
The Lordsmoot echoed with a sudden collective gasp. Unmasking a Lord was … not done.
“How dare you, woman?” Cazondur snarled, making a grab for the Helm in her hands.
Laeral flung it in his face, knocking him back onto his behind again.
“As we were speaking of impostors, Braethan Cazondur,” she told him coldly, “I just wanted to make sure I was speaking to the real one. I should hate to publicly accuse the wrong man.”
“Accuse me of what?” he scoffed. “What desperate tactic is this?” As he found his feet again, he drew a dagger.
“Keep back, everyone!” Laeral snapped. “Yon blade is poisoned!”
“It is nothing of the sort,” he sneered.
“Oh? Then prick your little finger with it. Just a tiny nick.”
Cazondur’s hesitation was so brief that only those nearest could have seen it. And then he was shaking his head almost sorrowfully as he resheathed the dagger. “No, no, none of your tricks! No distractions, false Open Lord! You are not Laeral Silverhand—you are a shapeshifting monster seeking to become the tyrant of Waterdeep.”
“I am Laeral,” Laeral replied levelly, “and you are the one seeking to rule Waterdeep. By having Lord after Lord murdered, and replaced by Lords you control.”
“Hah! Prove it!”
“I can help with that!” a new voice rang out from the rear doors. Tasheene Melshimber had just come through them, with Drake at her back. “You hired me to kill Lords of this city, Braethan Cazondur!”
“By all the gods,” Cazondur exclaimed grandly to the crowd, spreading his hands dramatically, “I’m beset by lying women this day, it seems! Why would I hire some disaffected wild
-blood young noblewoman to do anything? And if I was trying to have anyone killed, why a noble? Everyone knows they can’t keep secrets!”
“I can prove what I say,” Tasheene said firmly, looking around her to meet the surprised gazes of nobles, guildmasters, and staring Lords. “Regardless of what this villain claims. So hear me—”
“Drake,” Cazondur said quietly.
Tasheene turned. Darleth Drake was standing right behind her with a dagger in his hand. It was one of her own, missing blades, so she knew it was poisoned.
He raised it, point gleaming.
• • •
SUTHOOL REELED AND almost fell, shoulders quivering. An astonished Belvarra of Asmodeus turned and thrust herself against him, trying to hold him up by awkwardly pinning him against the wall of the dark passage.
Suthool’s eyes bulged as he stared at her, betraying his startlement.
She was trying to be gentle.
The caresses that followed banished all doubt; she was trying to comfort him!
Through the frustration, the exhaustion …
The speaking stone emitted a despairing, descending wordless babble as he tried to force thoughts through it faster than it could translate them into speech. Suthool dismissed its use with a wave of disgust.
His thought, when it burst into Belvarra’s head, conveyed the same pain and exhaustion of a man’s gasp.
I’ve beaten him, but I can’t destroy him. He clings, he clings, and just keeps on fighting, and calling on the Weave. Can’t break his connection to it!
“So we get out there and destroy his body,” Belvarra snapped excitedly, “before he breaks free and does you worse harm!”
“No,” a new voice hissed at them out of the darkness.
Belvarra whirled, a slender blade suddenly in her hand, but the source of that voice—a maid, in Palace livery—was standing just out of reach. The maid pulled down her blouse to reveal a glowstone, hanging pendant on a chain, depending from a far more innocent luck-charm riding higher in her cleavage, where it could be seen. And by the light of that glowstone, they could see another chain ran down from the glowstone almost to her navel. And at the end of that chain hung a third and lowest gem.