by Ed Greenwood
Halaster did not bother to drop his womanly disguise as he snapped, "Aye, so who are you?"
The spell that cracked out of him stripped away the intruder's disguise and sent him flying helplessly across the room. A fat and unlovely man struck the far wall with a groan and slid slowly down it, face tight with pain.
Halaster rolled off the pedestal, becoming himself as he strode forward to deal death. No, best learn how and why this fool had taken his semblance first. And then- ah, yes, and then…
Blue bolts of lightning were already whirling and spitting around one of his hands as he came to a halt above the wincing and struggling man. That face…
"Mirt? Mirt of Waterdeep? What by all of Mystra's whims are you doing here?" Halaster held the lightning where the old merchant could see it and said softly, "I asked you a question. Answer swiftly or die-I shan't stand here waiting for you to ready an attack."
The Old Wolf spat blood and said. “Found y-you. Knew I would." Then his eyes became two blue-white flames, and he began to rise from the floor, floating upward even as he-no, she, for shapely limbs and hips were beginning to spin into being out of what had seemed his own tattered brown robes-glided forward.
Halaster raised his hand full of lightning and snarled, "Who-or what- are you?"
"Call me Mystra," his visitor said gently. The rolling echo of that voice shook Halaster to the depths of his soul.
He found himself on his knees, trembling, tears threatening….
The hand that touched his was firm, solid, and smooth. It sent a wash of power through him that drove back the dark curtains in his mind for a time and left him blinking in grateful awe.
"Don't thank me," the goddess of all magic said to the mad wizard. "We need to talk."
"Because?"
"I have need of a task swiftly done," Mystra said. "A hard task, and one suited for a madman."
Halaster's lips lifted in what was almost a smile, and he asked, "If I live, will you give me sanity?"
"If I can."
"Will you give me magic enough to have a chance of succeeding?"
Mystra nodded." I will. Thrice as much power as you've ever tasted or wielded before, and more."
"That's what made me mad. I think," he whispered. “I’ll do it."
It was Mystra's turn to not quite smile. "Would you like to know what the task is, first?"
Halaster shrugged. "No, but tell me."
“I need a wizard brought back from the Nine Hells. As alive and as intact as you can make him. He's a living man and an intruder there, not a denizen."
“I’ll do it. Who is he?"
A face and a name and a more secret name whirled into Halaster's mind, and he staggered and caught at his head. “Elminster," he said in surprise. "Lady, is he not one of your own?"
Mystra nodded. "He is-as you shall be."
“L-lady, I have been touched by Shar," Halaster dared to whisper.
Mystra tossed her head impatiently. Small winking stars scattered from her long, flowing tresses to stream about the chamber. "I know. Touch me"
Halaster Blackcloak swallowed. He rose and extended one hand timidly toward her. The power that jolted through him made him shriek and go blind. It seemed to him, just for a moment, that his body struck a wall with bone-shattering force…. By then, all was blue-white fire, roaring on and on, and Halaster was laughing in exultation at the power racing through him. He rode it far and away, across planes and great voids and past shadowed, reaching things… or perhaps it rode him.
***
Well, now, what's this? Many folk, some sour of feast, spells going off… Yes.
Though the hour bells had rung but nine, the revel was in full swing. Laughter, snatches of off-key singing, and! fond shouts of friendship echoed off the high ceiling in! an unending din. The minstrels had long since given up trying to be heard and joined the crowds around the drink trays. The ring of empty goblets rolling around tiled floors was the loudest music now.
• Sir Sabrast Windriver watched servants carry a hopelessly drunken noblewoman past on a gigantic fluted silver platter and smiled. Someday, the younger Lady Hawklin might learn to gracefully spew ruby wine all over herself, but she hadn't learned it this night-though she had been practicing.
Beside him, his good friend Andemel sighed and said, "Such a waste of good wine. She could be so beautiful, too… in green."
Sir Sabrast winced. "And waste that much elven menthe? At six lions to the bottle, ruby wine's bad! enough, but…"
"Ah, but if we were truly noble," Master Andemel Graeven said slyly, "we'd not care a whit about costs! and prices."
"If we were truly noble," Sir Sabrast retorted, "we'd! be out of business in a month and a tenday… at about! the time the Crown loans ran out. Tis a pity, to be sures that honest merchants can't get wagonloads of free lionffl from the Crown to indulge their mercantile whims!"
Andemel led the way back through the curtains into the! cozy dimness of their favorite alcove. By the gods, both of! the pillars that held up its arched ceiling had been moved.! There was a new and stonily regal bust of Azoun standings in one comer, too. Did they ever stop rebuilding things at the palace-with tax coins taken from those in Cormyr who! actually had to work for their living? Probably not. Andemel shrugged and asked his friend, "Just who in Suzail, now would you be calling an 'honest merchant?"
"My apologies," Sabrast replied with a smile. "Let us say 'common-born,' then."
Andemel nodded. "Better. Ah, but I'll forgive many haughty nobles a lot of things so long as their vanity keeps them hosting revels like these. Did you see that lass with the glowing gown? When the mock flames died away right down her front, I'd thought I'd choke! How does she keep those emeralds glued on?" He shook his head in remembered admiration. "She's still around, isn't she? Mayhap I'll ask her if she'd like to see the new Graeven garden topiary, hey?"
"Well, friend," Sabrast told him, "old lion you may be… but she's even older."
"What' Magic? She looks not a day over twenty winters- if that!"
"Magic, indeed. Kept you from seeing her beard quite effectively, didn't it?"
"Beard? Sabrast, what're you drinking?"
"Excellent firewine, thank you," Sir Windriver replied. He stepped out through the curtain to deftly procure an entire platter of oysters drenched in garlic butter. The servant carrying it looked very surprised but departed in swift silence. "Andemel, you've met that young lass in the gown of flames before… and, as I recall, you didn't stop shuddering and cursing for a tenday. Yon lass is the wizard Elminster."
" What? Sabrast, you're… serious. Oh, gods!"
"How did you think he learned all the Cormyrean gossip? Can you see him spending days sitting in front of a crystal ball when he can have the fun of spying into our minds in person?"
"But…" a shaken Master Andemel Graeven replied, bravely struggling with the shock of how close he'd come to trying, to win the charms of one of the oldest and most feared mages in all Faerun. "But…"
Another brace of servants struggled past, gasping under the weight of a fat and snoring noble burden. Under the strain, the metal of the silver-plated platter was groaning more loudly than they were. The hairy arm dangling-over its edge might have belonged to Lord Blester… or Lord Staglar. No one else at court was quite grossly fat enough.
Sir Windriver drew the alcove curtains firmly shut. "Glah! I'm not so eager to see more brazen young ladies that I have to watch all of Cormyr's most corpulent being; carried off to bed. Sometimes I wonder how this kingdord staggers along from one day to the next, with the likes of Blester leading the converse at court. Bah-enough of id You lured me here, Andemel, with talk of something that would interest me greatly. I trust 'twas more than thd pleasure of seeing Elminster in a fine enspelled gown!"
Master Graeven settled himself back among the cushions of the most comfortable seat and crossed his silver toed boots atop the gleaming polish of a handy side tabled don't recall having to lure you all that hard,
Sir Wind-river… but aye, there is something of import I wanti to share with you. Something I've just acquired, called 'Godsfrown Shield.' "
"A 'Godsfrown Shield? Explain!"
Andemel reached for an oyster. "If you should have valuable cargo stolen, wagon and all, or have a ware house burn with all that is in it, the gods frown on you no? So Baeaisin takes a stiff fifty golden lions and undertakes to intercede with the gods for a month, or a tenday or whatever you agree upon. If the wagon goes missing or the building burns, he gives you several thousands gold pieces to replace your loss. He is your shield, you 'Godsfrown Shield.' If all is well-and he has agents who watch very carefully over your wagon or warehouse, to keep all well-he keeps the fifty lions."
Sir Sabrast frowned. "Hmmm… a theft on his part, it seems at first-but no guards come all too expensive-especially when one must pay them more than a rival slips them, to avoid betrayals. Shields are always expensive- and if it fails, this one comes expensive to Baenisin."
Andemel nodded. "Exactly. Wherefore, I've purchased a shield on my shop that lasts un-"
The alcove curtains were thrust open, and a face that bore die latest stylish wisps of mustache and beard, adorned with tiny golden rings, peered in. "Ah!" it exclaimed in delighted recognition, a scant second before a servant summered unnecessarily, "Master Raurild Sarpath!"
Raurild turned and made an unmistakable gesture of dismissal to the servant, one that involved the transfer of a golden lion, then strode into the alcove, pulling the curtains firmly shut behind him. "Andemel! You're alive, by the gods! A thousand thanks to Tymora for that! I've just heard about the fire in your shop yestereve and I-"
Master Andemel Graeven peered nervously into the shadow corners of the alcove, seeking spy holes with eyeballs gleaming in them… and thankfully finding none. "Hush!" he said urgently. "By Oghma, let the record be straight: the fire was not yestereve, but this night. About an hour from now."
Sir Sabrast Windriver filled the momentary silence with a chuckle and poured himself more wine. Ruby, of course.
"Raurild, this is late out for you… your good wife grant permission for once?"
Master Raurild Sarpath grimaced. "Yes, as it happens. 'Possibly good for business, so long as I drank but little,' she said-so here I am."
"Your wife decides whether or not you can go out to a revel?" Andemel asked incredulously.
"Aye, quite so," Raurild told him. "In marriage, I leave all of the small decisions to my wife-in fact, she insists on it. The larger matters are mine to deal with."
Sir Sabrast Windriver crooked one eyebrow. " 'Larger matters? Such as?"
Raurild smiled thinly. "I don't know. We've been wed (. only sixteen summers; no larger matters have come up yet."
Sabrast and Andemel exploded in mirth. When he was recovered enough, the knight poured another glass of ft wine and held it out to Raurild, just as the alcove curtains parted again-and a sudden stillness descended upon the cozy scene. A quiet that bespoke tension. The four grim and fully armored Purple Dragons who held the curtains open might have had something to do with, the sudden change of atmosphere. Two officers raised glowing maces, flanking the slender, oily-haired figure off Suzail's most senior tax collector. Those court weapons! could paralyze or turn aside other spells, and they were borne only by the most able and high-ranking soldiers of the realm. Precept Immult Murauvyn wore the thinnest! of crooked smiles.
"Ah, Sir Sabrast Windriver," Murauvyn said softly, "what a pleasure finally to look upon your face. A hard man to catch up with in all sprawling Suzail. They warned! me, and I certainly found it to be so. Yet we meet at last. I bear a fond greeting from the Crown-and the request that you surrender unto me die thirty-six thousand lions in last year's unpaid taxes that you, Sir Sabrast, owe to the Royal Treasury of Cormyr!"
Feeling the sudden weight of interested gazes upon him-those of Andemel and Raurild foremost-Sir Sabras Windriver grew a whit pale. "I seem to have failed to carry such funds about with me," he observed smooth! "It's these new form-fitting tunics… they leave precious little space for thousands of coins, y'see…"
Precept Murauvyn interrupted witheringly. "Sir Sabrast Windriver, my agents have failed to find you with coins enough in your tunic at your villa on Turnhelm Street, you stables on Sarangar Lane, your city manor in Ambel Row, your business offices on Waervar Street, your little romatic hideaway on Westchapel Way, the cottage that so sumptuously houses your mistress on Brightstar Street-"
"Ahem," remarked Sir Sabrast Windriver, hastily.
"— the cottage of your second mistress on Undelmring Street-"
"Ahem, hem, hem," Sir Sabrast Windriver added, more vigorously. "Now, just a-"
“-your country estate at Gray Oaks, your yacht moored at Moonever, your hunting lodge at Mouth o' Gargoyles-and oh, yes, the cottage of your third mistress, in Waymoot. The port rolls in Suzail record sixteen sailings of vessels owned by you so far this season, and twenty returns; at least two of the ships that were unloaded at the docks to your enrichment shared a name and charter but were quite dissimilar in size and age. Fellow agents of the Crown report that the ledger of landings in Marsember that records the particulars of your fleet is mysteriously missing. They have thus far failed personally to examine any of the offloaded cargoes, which would, of course, add taxation to the amount I've just mentioned-to say nothing of any personal transactions you may have accomplished that may also be of interest to us. I speak now merely of the face value of annual land taxes on the properties I've just named, though one of my colleagues reports that you own at least two score houses in this city and some hundred or so upland farms. How is it-with so much land that you could readily sell enough to meet almost any royal demand for monies-that you seem to habitually forget to render unto Azoun what is, undeniably, Azoun's?"
Andemel and Raurild, whose eyebrows had risen at this astonishing catalogue of wealth, looked with interest at their colleague, wondering what Sir Sabrast would say or do now. Without thinking, in an instinctive move to distance themselves from financial embarrassment and Crown suspicion, they'd stepped a pace or two away from him, so that the master of Windriver House now stood alone in a little cleared spot of gaudy Thayan carpet.
Taking one slow stride to where he could lean against one of the recently relocated pillars, Sir Sabrast Windriver managed a smile.
"Actually, Murauvyn," he replied calmly, "you appear unaware of my fourth, fifth, and sixth mistresses, my Olde Lace and Glitterswash chain of souvenir shops throughout Sembia, and the current needs and dispositions of my large family. My eldest son, Falorian, is hard at work founding his own shipping line out of Selgaunt, my middle son Arastor is fast becoming the largest builder in stone in Westgate, and my youngest, Bralzaer, has founded a mercenary company in Impiltur, Bralzaer's Bold Basilisks. I have six daughters, all of whom are in Sembia going through three or four new gowns each a day, trying to snare wealthy Sembian husbands. My sickly wife-of whom I'm sure you've heard-is busily trying every medicine that can be suggested by man or halfling, searching for a cure for… living, it seems. Do you have any idea how many golden lions they can all spend in a day?"
He smiled archly and added, "If I don't give any of them so much as one worn copper coin, why should I give anything to you?"
Into the tense silence that followed, Raurild couldn't help but snort as he tried to smother his mirth. The tax collector gave him a cold look before bending an even more icy gaze upon the unrepentant knight.
"Sir Sabrast," Precept Immult Murauvyn said in cold, precise tones, "your treatment of your family is not the concern of the Crown. Your failure to render tax monies, however, is. In fact, it has become a concern so grave that the Royal Magician of Cormyr has gone so far as to grant me permission to seize whatever of your properties I choose, to meet the outstanding debt-after you have rendered menial labor on the royal roads of the kingdom for a month, as any penniless debtor must. You act the part of the destitute man all too well and drive us to treat you a
s one."
Sir Sabrast stepped away from the pillar, casually moving one hand to cover the rings he wore on the other, and asked softly, "And if I refuse to submit to your demands upon my properties and person?"
The other pillar in the alcove suddenly twisted and blurred. Glowing maces swept up, and Purple Dragoas reached for their weapons on all sides. They paused as the pillar resolved itself into the unmistakable figure of Vangerdahast, the Royal Magician of Cormyr.
"Sabrast Windriver," the old and pudgy mage said calmly, "be aware that daring to cast any spell or commit any acts of violence at this time will earn you a year or so of additional service as a toad… in the palace dung-Middens."
Even as Vangerdahast spoke, the pillar Sabrast had been leaning against became a whirling chaos. An instant later it snapped into the shape of a beautiful maid who was almost wearing a gown of leaping flames.
Purple Dragons gasped and swallowed as those flames died away, shrinking to nothing, to reveal a body that was covered with a shapely tattoo of the Royal Arms of Cormyr. The painted maid blew Andemel a kiss, flickered, and was suddenly a bearded, hawk-nosed old man in plain gray robes.
"Elminster!" several armsmen gasped in startled recognition.
"Just another pillar of the palace," the Mage of Shadowdale told them dryly. "Well met, Vangy, loyal armsmen, and good merchants of Cormyr. Is this a private party?"
Vangerdahast glared at him with a look as sharp as a drawn sword. "Elminster," he asked in a dangerously soft voice, "what are you doing here?"
"Paying Sabrast's tax debt-with handsome interest, ye'll note-and advising ye, in a friendly manner, to reconsider thy rightful demand for his performance of hard labor."
Precept Murauvyn opened his mouth to say something, licked his lips, and looked at Vangerdaliast.
The Court Wizard asked softly, "And just why would you do this?"
The bust of Azoun in the corner was suddenly surrounded by a vivid amber radiance that drew every eye. It J winked, twisted into the shape of a harp for a fleeting J instant, and then slumped into a gleaming, slithering heap.i of gold coins and glass-topped coffers full of gems.
