by Ed Greenwood
Arclath bowed deeply to the king, and Amarune hastily bobbed to her feet to thrust back her chair and give herself space to kneel. Storm kept her seat but smiled and nodded a friendly wordless greeting to the aging monarch—and Marantine Delcastle went right on giving him her best glare.
Ignoring the wand in Glathra’s hand that rose to aim right at her, the matriarch of Delcastle Manor spat, “Is there a reason for this unwarranted, unwanted invasion of my home? Has Cormyr fallen so far that we no longer ask admittance, sending heralds ahead to request the honor of a meeting? Is the realm at war? Or have you just utterly forgotten due courtesy and the rights of citizens—those same rights you daily trumpet and hurl in every highborn face?”
“Mother,” Arclath murmured.
Lady Delcastle rounded on him. “Don’t ‘mother’ me, whelp! I bore and raised you, and expect your loyal support! I—”
“Merely desired to point out,” Arclath interrupted her smoothly, “that you’ve asked His Majesty enough questions and that you owe him a breath or two to provide answers before you bury him under the next part of your tirade. As a man, I know when I’m reaching my limits of queries—and my mind is far less burdened than that of our Dragon.”
“That’s for certain,” his mother replied with tart triumph. “Coherent thoughts all too seldom—”
“Cormyr is not at war,” King Foril put in gently, his voice bringing instant silence. He added a wry smile. “Yet.”
He took a step forward. “I apologize unreservedly for the invasion of your home and, ah, family peace, Marantine. I’d not have done this were matters not grave. I appeal to your love of Cormyr to give us of your patience, and I assure you that none of your people have been harmed in our intrusion. Is your friend and colleague Elminster here?”
“What?” Lady Delcastle asked, at the same moment as Arclath and Amarune both replied, “No.”
“Why do you seek him?” Storm asked calmly.
“And why here?” Arclath asked sharply, earning his mother’s approval. She nodded vigorously at his question, still favoring her unexpected guests with a stern frown. “Has Elminster been seen at Delcastle Manor?”
“No, no,” Ganrahast said in a soothing voice. “We, ah, traced Lord Delcastle to this place.”
“How?” Amarune snapped with sudden fire, surprising everyone. “Are you keeping watch over Arclath?”
“Ah, no, no,” Ganrahast replied hastily, with all the uneasy smoothness of a temple priest unused to blunt challenges, “we merely hoped to find Lady Storm”—he favored Storm with a bow—“and Lord Elminster in his company.”
“Evade not the question,” Lady Delcastle snapped. “You traced my son magically, I take it? How, exactly? This high house and most others have wards to prevent such pryings, wards that I assure you will be renewed and redoubled on the morrow, but I demand to know by what means, as well as by what right, you presume to—”
“The means,” Glathra said flatly, “are a state secret.”
In the suddenly silent wake of her words, she realized everyone in the room was regarding her with a sour expression. Even Ganrahast.
“I’m permitted to say more?” she asked him, dubiously. “Is this wise?”
The Royal Magician sighed. “Tell them,” he murmured, waving to her like a grand orator presenting a learned speaker.
Glathra sighed in clear exasperation and misgiving, then said to those seated around the table, “The name Vangerdahast will not be unknown to you. His continued existence to the present day should also come as no surprise to present company. Well, when Lord Delcastle here was recently assisting the mage Elminster to make use of the body of Wizard of War Appledown, Vangerdahast cast … a little something on Arclath. He didn’t tell us this until now, whereupon we made immediate use of it.”
“To find your way here. Does this trace persist?”
“You’ll have to ask Vangerdahast, but he gave us to understand that our use of it ended it,” Glathra replied reluctantly.
The snort Lady Marantine Delcastle emitted then was loud and impressive. “As if anyone can trust anything that old terror says,” she told the ceiling. “I recall a night when he told me he’d respect me deeply in the morn—”
“Not now, Lady Delcastle,” Glathra said hastily. “Please, not now.”
King Foril’s widening smile was a little sad. “We hastened here to confer with you, Lord Delcastle, hoping to find Lady Storm and Lord Elminster, too. We do not want strife between the Dragon Throne and Elminster, whom we judge could slay or harm many war wizards, given that the Crown and court are at present so beset by rebellious nobles and lurking enemies of the realm in Sembia and elsewhere—but his thefts of magic items in Cormyr must end.”
“Foril,” Lady Delcastle asked with a faint smile, “have you learned the habit of stern royal decrees at last? ’Tis a bit late, mind, but—”
“I have, Marantine,” the Dragon of Cormyr said gently, his quiet voice again bringing silence. “Yet pray distract the converse not. I have tarried too long, and in so doing plunged us into urgency. Lady Storm—I address the Marchioness Immerdusk now, as her monarch—where can we find Elminster?”
Storm met the king’s gaze directly. “I know not. Both his fate and current whereabouts are unknown to me. He thrust all three of us back here to Cormyr in some haste. Yet rest assured he has no more need to take any magic from anyone, save for a few, very particular things. None of which, so far as I know, are to be found any longer within the Forest Kingdom, let alone the grasp of the Dragon Throne.”
“Blueflame items?” Glathra snapped, as if interrogating a less than cooperative prisoner.
“Blueflame items,” Storm confirmed.
“How can we trust you?” Glathra asked bluntly. “Forgive me, Lady Immerdusk, but you Chosen—you Harpers, for that matter—are known to say anything to get your own way, and we have no way of proving your words true.”
Storm gave her a wry smile. “Rather like courtiers, or wizards of war, or nobles, aren’t we?”
“There! That’s just what I was speaking of! You turn me aside with a snide—”
“Lady Glathra,” the king of Cormyr said firmly, “enough.” He gave her both a quelling look and a raised reproving finger to still any protest, then he turned back to Storm.
Who said gently, “I should remind everyone I’ve known Elminster for a very long time, and serve the same Divine One he does. Forgive me, Glathra. Hear me, look into my eyes, and judge my honesty as I tell you: Elminster serves the goddess Mystra, as I do, before all other loyalties, even over his love of Cormyr—but he has been watching over Cormyr, in one way and another, for centuries. Longer than every king or queen, each Royal Magician and battle commander, every last highknight and gallant Purple Dragon veteran, Elminster has worked against Cormyr’s foes, so this land could survive to settle its own scores, find its own way, and forge its own destiny.”
“Forgive me, Lady Immerdusk,” Glathra replied. “I think you sincere, and don’t wish to give offense, but I must point out that pretty speeches are just that. You attest to Elminster’s nobility of purpose, but we have most lately seen him as a thief, who repeatedly and very rudely defies rightful authority—and just now, we see him not at all. You tell us of his long service to the realm, but right now he could be anywhere, doing anything!”
“And courtiers deem we nobles ‘rude,’ ” Arclath told the ceiling.
Storm put a quelling hand on his arm, and told Glathra, “Indeed he could be. Yet I’ve spoken with him on many recent occasions, spending more time with him than any other person alive, and can tell you that Elminster very much wants to work with the wizards of war—behind the scenes, that is, neither threatening the independence of the Dragon Throne nor awakening fears among your nobility that yet another sinister wizard seeks to make them dance to his desires. He’ll contact you when he can. Service to Mystra governs him now, and has hold of him.”
“I accept that,” King Foril announced. �
�Let us have no more dispute as to the truth of what Lady Storm has told us. We can trust that Elminster is done with taking Cormyr’s enchanted items, and would be our ally. Good.” He nodded to Ganrahast and Glathra as if giving them a silent command, started to turn away … and then turned around again to give Storm a level look. “And you? Can we count on your loyalty?”
Storm regarded him calmly. “I am Mystra’s servant first, and a Harper second, but serving and defending Cormyr has been one of my dearest strivings for some centuries now. Ask Alusair or Vangey, and you’ll hear those words affirmed. I’ll help Cormyr in any way I can, that Mystra forbids not.”
“You speak of the Lost Goddess as though she yet lives,” Ganrahast observed thoughtfully.
“Yes,” Storm replied challengingly, “I do. Doubt not my sincerity nor sanity, Royal Magician. To do so would be a mistake.”
Glathra shook her head. “Does anyone here suppose, just suppose, that you can be induced to tell us a little of what’s been going on, this last tenday or so? Your running around the palace day and night, to the haunted wing and the royal crypt and seemingly every last broom closet we possess; the Sage of Shadowdale jauntily stealing all of our royal treasures that bear the slightest enchantments; that parade of you and the rest striding into the palace to use the Dalestride Portal … all of that?”
Storm smiled. “How much time can you spare? There’s a lot to tell …”
CHAPTER
FIVE
DEADLY GOOD BREEDING
Dear tart,” Mirt growled wittily, in his best imitation of an alluring purr, “have a tart.”
The longer-limbed of the two beautiful and uninhibited ladies he’d hired for the evening gave him an impish smile and opened her mouth to receive the honey tart Mirt was offering her. The Lord of Waterdeep obligingly stuffed it in.
Then he sank back, a little light-headed. The scent of the mulled wine that filled their shared tub was getting up his nose, and beginning to slosh around in his head. Stars and sea storms, but he could get used to this!
“None for me, lord?” his other companion—aye, Lhareene, that was her name—pouted in his ear, the laughter lacing her voice reassuring him that she was jesting.
“Plenty for you, m’dear,” Mirt replied, turning to kiss her. There was already a tart in Lhareene’s mouth, and a strong thrust of her tongue shared it with him.
The Lord of Waterdeep found himself grinning through the inevitable shower of crumbs. Lhareene deftly glided up his chest, gently submerging him in wine until it started to soften the tart and sail it down his throat.
The taller pleasure lass—Arelle, aye, he must get back into the habit of remembering names, truly—reached past him to pluck some of the spiced and nut-studded sugared fruits from among the tarts on the floating platter. Mirt watched her consume them with as much hungry wanton abandon as if they’d been her lovers, and chuckled as he sank down under the wine and then surged up again, in a location and manner that evoked an explosion of mirth and a flurry of smooth limbs brushing against him.
He was really enjoying it in Suzail.
Free of the role of well-known target he’d grown all too used to in the City of Splendors, for one thing. Suzail wasn’t half as large or wealthy or raw as his beloved Deep, but it offered plenty of excitement and danger, ready pleasures-for-hire such as those he was enjoying right now, and … well, he’d been thrust right into the heart of important doings, in a realm where things were happening. All in all, he was more alive, and having more fun, than he’d been for many a year.
“Lord,” Arelle murmured, sliding over his wine-slick chest, “will you take … more?” She scooped up a handful of sugared, cinnamon-tinged icing and held it out to him.
“After I take care of this icing?” he jested, and her eyes danced.
“Of course.”
Not wanting to be left out of things, Lhareene wormed her way up his other arm … “Aye,” Mirt decided contentedly, aloud but telling himself more than either of his tubmates, “I’ll stay here a while longer, I will.”
Stay, rather than making the long, bone-jolting wagon or saddle trek to Waterdeep. Seeing as magic seemed to have become far less reliable, with fewer mages abroad who could casually teleport an aging Lord of Waterdeep across half Faerûn for any sort of affordable fee with much of a chance at all he’d arrive at his intended destination alive and … unaltered.
Elminster preened.
The tall, slender mirror was undamaged, the bedchamber around it untouched by the ravages of the glaragh. It was an odd, curlicued and dagged crescentiform shape, its “glass” a sheen-smooth sheet of polished mica that had been enspelled into a single gleaming sheet of black that reflected what stood before it.
Right now, that was Elminster in his newfound body. He turned it this way and that, setting his long, lithe legs to strike pose after hip-foremost pose.
This young body looked as good as it felt. Strong, supple, shapely—if a bit sharp-featured, both about the face and below—and attractive, oh yes, by Mystra and Sharess both …
He turned and watched himself—heh, herself, now—move, in the mirror.
“Hungry goddesses, aye,” he murmured, turning again to thrust his behind at his reflection, augmenting it with an impudent flash of his tongue. “I might even fancy myself. Not that many men would dare pursue such a fancy far, given the reputation drow ah, enjoy …”
Oh, have done, old goat. I was never this bad, even at my youngest and most ardent! We’re in a hurry, remember? Portals? Spider-kissing priestesses? Perhaps a bored glaragh coming back?
“Lady,” El protested, “spare me a moment, at least. D’ye know how long I’ve been in pain, dragging around an aging carcass that failed me a mite more and a mite more with each passing day?”
Elminster, I do. Yet think on this: you’ll have that aging to do all over again, dragging yourself around the Realms for another thousand years, or if not that, still long after I’m no more than a memory. A fading memory …
“Ye’ll not be forgotten, lady,” El said swiftly. “This I swear.”
He struck another pose. “Now enjoy this with me! Regard the sleek line of flank, hip, thigh, and calf! I’ve never had that before!”
Not for lack of trying—if half I’ve heard about you is true, Symrustar said tartly. And you sound like a butcher deciding where to land his cleaver!
Elminster made a rude sound, waved one long-fingered hand in a less than polite gesture, and glided into another pose with fluid grace.
Ah, but it was good to have a body that obeyed his will again—without stiffenings and stabs of pain and ever-present aches!
El squatted deep and then sprang high, again and again, in a series of frog hops across the room, just because he could, ere joyously doing a cartwheel through the door into an antechamber that seemed to be half wardrobe and half armory.
He swept up out of it to the tinkling accompaniment of delighted laughter in his mind. Symrustar evidently approved.
Now to cover his oh-so-velvet and shapely newfound hide …
He cared not if this body strode the Realms unclad in any of the various diaphanous drapery robes—hideously hued in dunglike, glistening mauves and yellows, wherever they weren’t black or sluggish-blood russet—he’d seen on most unarmored fallen she-drow around the riven citadel, but he did fancy some of the black drow armor. The lesser leather sort, rather than the fluted, pointed glass stuff. And knives, aye, he’d have himself some of those. There were wicked-sharp little obsidian daggers everywhere, their black blades upswept and beautifully balanced for throwing—and he’d always loved a good throwing knife.
Why, he’d taken down a magelord with a knife in the eye once, about twelve centuries back, and then there’d been that little duel in Cormanthor. Not to mention slicing a finger off that Zulkiir to ruin the spell the Thayan had been so proud of, and—
Is all this rolling around in past glories going to take long? In the depths of his mind, Symrustar sounde
d decidedly waspish. “Long” isn’t something I can spare much of, any more …
“Sorry,” El grunted, and he started to search. Hurriedly.
Despite that haste, it took him quite a while to find armor that fit properly—local dark elf fashion was skintight, which made finding the right garments rather important—but clouts and undercorsets and daggers in clip-on sheaths were plentiful. Good clouts had many uses, so El took an armful. Then he strapped daggers all over his body, not forgetting to fasten two sideways beneath his small, sleek breasts and a trio down inside the front of the corset to serve as extra armor.
“Not what a dark elf of good breeding might do,” El murmured, “but I fear I’ll never be that. Corrupt and fallen human, me.” He twirled, just to feel such a spin done without pain, and laughed aloud as a thought struck him. “I’ll be able to wear some of those splendid thigh-high boots! I’ve got the legs for it at last!”
Trying on the wrong boots can be painful, he discovered, but he was soon shod in comfortably fitting, soft lizardskin boots of a shining ebony hue. The mirror, at least, very much liked the look of them.
Deep in his mind, Symrustar snorted. Loudly.
Now a proper sword—the drow blades on hand all had wicked curves rather than a long, straight reach, but with this supple body he could dance in and out against a foe, rather than leaning and reaching as had slowly become his habit down the years, as his own aging body had gone gaunt and stiff. And he would need a staff.
Then he’d need two grapnel-ended climbing cords of the sort drow patrols hereabouts always carried; they could be tied around the trim waist he now had, riding on the largest hips he’d ever possessed. Then a shoulder sack, and food and drink—especially drink—to make that sack bulge to the last notches on its straps.
Hurry, man. You’re worse than an elf maiden primping for her first revel!
“Oh, I doubt that, lass,” El muttered, rushing along passages in search of kitchens or pantries to ransack. “I very much doubt that.”