by Ed Greenwood
Glathra went on, wanting them all to hear her every word, so they’d know to watch over these two when she wasn’t around to give them direct orders.
“Nor are there just the two of you, whatever your protests to the contrary,” she said. “Princess Alusair, Vangerdahast, and Elminster walk with you, whether we can see them or not.”
She raised her voice and pointed at Storm and Amarune dramatically. “I would consider it treason on my part even to let you get close to our king, when for all I know you’d promptly try to take over his wits somehow and rule Cormyr from the grave.”
The two women stood alone, now, in a circle of frowning, hard-staring men. Glathra gave them a triumphant smile.
“Tracegar? Nurennanthur? Wands out, and capture these two for me. Work no magic that can harm the rest of us, and slay them not, but short of that, do anything needful to take them dow—”
Sudden light flared out of empty air right in front of Glathra’s face, and from out of it a voice she knew cried, “Glathra? Lady Glathra! Lord Delcastle broke through our post here! We—our Dragons wounded him, but he cut a few of them, too!”
Glathra felt her temper start to slip, and ground her teeth. “And how is it, Harbrow,” she asked sharply, “that one lone noble is able to fight his way through a guardpost of eight Dragons and no fewer than five wizards of war, you among them? Answer me that!”
“Delcastle wasn’t alone, lady! The ghost of Alusair defended him and froze us all, one after another. She—we could not stand against her. She … stopped us from capturing him.”
“My Arclath!” Rune burst out. “Where is he? How badly did you hurt him?”
“Lady?” the distant war wizard asked, obviously puzzled at who was crying these questions at him.
“Thank you for your report, Harbrow,” Glathra told him firmly. “Defend your post until I order you to do otherwise, or else send relief.”
“Lady, I hear and obey,” came the reply before the light winked out.
Amarune strode toward Glathra. “Where is he?”
Glathra ignored her. “Tracegar!” the wizard of war snapped, turning away. “Deal with these two! The rest of you—”
Something slammed into her ankles, and Glathra toppled helplessly, letting out a startled shriek—a cry that ended abruptly as she lost her breath against unyielding flagstones. Hard fingers clawed their way along her—the mask dancer, who was—
A flash and a ringing sound rose into a second shriek, this one singingly magical, as Tracegar’s wand blast struck the invisible protection conferred by Glathra’s ward-ring and rebounded at him. Only for the spell to be turned back by his lesser ward, and die in a harmless cacophony as it reached Glathra again.
Almost snarling in fresh fury, Glathra Barcantle found her feet and spun to face the mask dancer.
Only to hurtle to the floor again, with even more bruising force.
Storm had tripped her! The bitch had got herself right behind Glathra, somehow, and was now grabbing at the dancer’s shoulder and hissing, “Come! Harbrow was guarding the Hall of Victories—this way!”
The dancer dashed down the indicated passage without hesitation, Storm right behind her.
“Intruders! Villains! Traitors!” Glathra shouted furiously, struggling to her feet with her hair all over her face and her temper in an utter shambles. “Halt! Halt and surrender! I forbid you to flee!”
Storm slowed and looked back. “Glathra,” she replied crisply, “I think you’d better get used to having your commands ignored by those you have no authority over—or should have no authority over. I see neither the royal magician here nor any Obarskyr, and as a noble of this kingdom for centuries, I recall that, except when obeying the direct orders of either royals or the royal magician, wizards of war have very little legal authority. You pretend to have the right to order everyone about, but that’s a very different matter. I, the Marchioness Immerdusk, defy you, disloyal servant!”
Glathra opened her mouth—and choked on more anger than she’d ever in her life felt before. All words failed her. Utterly.
When they returned, an incoherently snarling string of moments later, she spat a single “Bitch!” in the direction of the swirling silver hair dwindling down the passage, and hurled slumber at the two fleeing women.
Less than a breath later, her own magic got flung back at her, staggering Glathra for an instant as it lit up her ward.
The Silverhand woman could reflect spells back whence they’d come.
Even as Glathra glared after Storm, seething, the two fleeing women turned a distant corner and were gone.
Clenching her fists, Glathra tossed back her head to clear the tangled hair from her face and drew in a deep breath, fighting for calm.
Acutely aware of all the silent men watching her.
Be regal. Your authority is absolute, whatever that lying bitch says. Cloak yourself in it, and serve Cormyr. Be Cormyr.
She worked a swift and simple spell, and said into the glow that kindled in the air in front of her, “Harbrow? Two women are coming your way. One of them tall, with long silver hair that moves around her shoulders as if alive; the other one younger, a mask dancer. Storm Silverhand and Amarune Whitewave. Storm—she of the silver hair—can reflect spells back at their casters. The dancer should have no magic at all. You are to capture both, by any means necessary short of slaying them.”
She listened to Harbrow’s “hear and obey” and ended her spell, smiling grimly.
She shouldn’t have to wait long for his report, and it should recount success, now that she’d warned them about Storm.
After all, it wasn’t just Harbrow, embarrassed by his failure to stop Delcastle and eager to make up for it. He did have four other wizards of war with him.
Mirt strolled out the side door of the house behind the stables as if he hadn’t a care in the world, the sack of coins purloined from the palace treasury reassuringly heavy on his shoulder.
And why not? He was leaving the merry chaos of the ruling fortress of Cormyr behind, and its rushing guards and wand-waving mages were his chief cares in this new world of nigh on a hundred summers since he’d last lorded it in Waterdeep.
Those guardians were busy at various doors and gates trying to keep nobles out, so this noble was going to do just that—get out.
He would take rooms at one of the upscale inns along the Promenade, under a false name. “Aghairon Mizzrym” had a certain ring to it. There he’d sip wine and sit awhile and decide what sort of new life to forge for himself.
His first instinct was to flee from the land where at least two young nobles wanted him dead. Flight should be easy, considering Suzail was a port and had always had hidden magical ways that those with coin enough could readily buy the use of, linking it with Marsember, a seedier port where inquisitive Crown authorities seldom received straight answers …
Yet he liked the feel of Cormyr, turmoil and all.
Haularake, he wanted to stay!
Storm was a damned fine woman, and he liked young Delcastle and his lass, too, but their battles were not his. Save in this wise: if the thick-skulled nobles of this land did rise up, they could well shatter the Cormyr he prized—but then again, troubled times offered shrewd merchants wonderful opportunities to establish a profitable business or seize a position of power at court … or perhaps even marry into a powerful noble family …
Mirt looked down at his food-stained paunch, chuckled, and shook his head.
Well, mayhap there were a few powerful matriarchs, sitting all alone because they were uglier than goats or the hind ends of draft horses, or had tempers to match those of a pain-maddened bull, who might have grown desperate enough to entertain the blandishments of such an old wolf.
Had he patience enough left to endure the less pleasant sides, though, to gain the luxuries that might come from tethering himself to a matriach? Boredom had never been his friend. Hmmm.
Thinking on this would undoubtedly unfold better if he were in a good
chair, with his feet up and a decanter of something splendid to hand.
First, find the right inn …
All that was left of the Princess Alusair glided to a reluctant stop in midair, little more than a thin wisp of shadowy air, a dozen strides outside the palace. Arclath Delcastle was gone, vanished along one of the streets on the far side of the Promenade, and she could follow him no farther.
It was time to return to Storm and Amarune and Mirt. She might as well, for she had few enough friends left in the world, and knowing Glathra and how upset all the palace-guarding mages and Dragons were, the three might well need her help, and—
“Hold!” a man’s voice rose excitedly, from four rooms deep inside the palace. “You, there! Halt! Lass—woman—you! I’m speaking to you! Halt!
Halt or I’ll—”
A brief scuffle followed, other men shouted various things at once, and Alusair flew into their midst in time to see a hard-running Amarune Whitewave wobble, lurch, stumble, and fall, head lolling and arms limp. Asleep on her racing feet.
The five Crown mages flanked by two bristling-with-weapons Dragons made no move to catch her. They just watched, a few smirking, as she crashed to the stone floor in a loose, heavy heap.
Alusair swirled up behind them, growing more solid. She could chill all of these cruel swaggerers by plunging through their bodies, but this time she was angry enough that she wanted to slap one of them—Harbrow, who was chuckling heartily down at his spellwork—across the face first, and spit her royal displeasure into his face.
It took a lot of effort to achieve any sort of solidity, even very briefly, and she was still straining to when Storm Silverhand came striding down the passage, long silver hair coiling and slithering about her shoulders like a nest of angry serpents.
“That was not well done, Saer Mage,” she snapped. “Since when do Cormyr’s wizards of war strike down any blameless citizen they see?”
“Since they are ordered to smite particular miscreants and espy two of them,” Baern Harbrow told her triumphantly. “This mask dancer—and you!”
The wand in his hand spat magic at Storm.
Mirt stared around the luxuriously appointed room—hah-hum, nice four-poster; pity he’d no one to share it with—and took a sip of Berduskan Dark.
Then, frowning, he took another.
Frown deepening, he held the glass up to the light.
This was the wine he’d remembered as so special? Either he’d been off his head, this inn was playing him false, or the drink that went by that name these days was poor swill compared to the vintages he’d tasted all those years ago.
He downed the whole goblet in one great gulp, to see if that improved matters. It didn’t, and the servant who’d just brought it winced visibly.
Mirt gave the man a hard and heavy look.
After the man started to back away, the Waterdhavian asked gently, “Have you a better wine to recommend to me?”
“N-no, saer. That is our best.”
“I see,” said Mirt, and sat down heavily in the great chair. It groaned under his weight but held up. Well, at least the gods granted some small mercies.
“Bring more,” he commanded, and he sat back to commence thinking.
Harbrow’s sleep wand struck at Storm Silverhand at the same moment that two of his fellow mages made the mistake of deciding to join in the fun.
Storm smiled.
Caladnei of Cormyr had become her good friend, and they’d worked together for years. She’d shown the silver-haired Harper how to use the ring Storm now wore to do more than simply turn back spells. When more than one magic struck the ring at a time, its wearer could decide where to redirect some or all of those magics.
Storm sent the sleep spells that struck her from three sides all at Harbrow.
Whose feeble defenses bought him just time enough to look surprised before he collapsed to the floor, joining Rune in slumber.
The other four wizards shouted in alarm and scattered, throwing back their sleeves and preparing to hurl real battle magics at this obviously dangerous foe. Alusair promptly plunged through the nearest one, to spoil his casting—and was just solid enough to give his heart and lungs a good bruising that sent him to his knees, gasping in pain and terror.
Storm didn’t wait for anyone to blast her with anything. She sprang at the nearest mage, punched aside his feeble grapplings, took him hard by the throat, and spun him around to serve as a shield as she throttled him.
He tried to shriek and managed to get out a gargling wail—as Storm ran him hard back into the nearest wall, knocking him cold against its stone carvings. As he started to sag in her arms, she took him by one elbow and the opposing thigh and flung him into the next wizard.
By which time the last wizard had gone gray and toppled to the floor, as Alusair hovered in his chest, freezing his heart. Behind him, the mage she’d chilled just before that was crawling away down the passage as fast as he could, with the one whose innards she’d bruised sobbing in terror and feebly trying to follow.
Alusair sped to where she could grin into Storm’s still-angry face. “Want me to fell the fleeing?”
Storm frowned. “Just long enough for me to get their rings and wands off them.”
“Glathra and the other senior war wizards can readily trace Crown-enchanted items from afar,” the ghost warned.
Storm nodded. “If we can put, say, a ring into the keeping of Marlin Stormserpent without his knowing it—in his clothing or belt—it’ll draw them to him. Or we can use the wands as lures, if we hide them in places we want war wizards to find.”
Alusair gave a low laugh of agreement as she swooped down the passage. A moment later, the most distant fleeing mage moaned in pain and fear as she plunged into him.
Storm watched her sport with the two crawling men for a moment, then relieved Harbrow and the other two nearby mages of their rings and wands.
“El,” she murmured, pulling off a boot, “I need you to take over Rune’s body and walk her out of here. The war wizards slept her.”
Where is “here”? Are we escaping the palace?
“Yes,” Storm told the briskly flowing ashes. “Again.”
Well, ’tisn’t as if we haven’t done it before. Glathra still furious with us?
“You could say that,” Storm replied dryly.
Good. So long as a wizard of war is enraged at us, we’re doing something right.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
A CITY CURSED
Mirt tossed the empty decanter onto the empty bed, glared down at both, and let out a growl.
It was no use. He was as restless as a prowling cat with the flea-itch.
As he’d always been, when it came to ponderings. He always mulled over matters better while he was striding somewhere, doing something, rather than sitting idle and alone in luxury … and ever-deepening boredom.
Night had fallen, but no matter. If he could walk Dock Ward in Waterdeep and bring his unlovely old hide home more or less intact, he could stroll the well-lit Promenade of Suzail and have a better-than-fair chance of returning to this tarted-up rental hovel in one piece, too.
The coins were hidden where only a strong and determined thief could hope to take them from, flattened behind a wardrobe it would take two strong men—or one sweating, straining, snarling, fat, old Waterdhavian lord—to shift. He had his blades; the desk would mind his key; there was enough loose coin down his boot to buy a cuddle with a dancer if his wandering feet took him past such a place …
“Moneylenders aren’t alive if they aren’t finding trouble,” Mirt muttered aloud, “and if ye wander a city, trouble generally soon finds ye. Aye.”
Down the sweeping, dark-carpeted stairs he went, under the soft light of many ornate hanging lamps, and wheezed his way out into the street.
Marlin Stormserpent strode along the shuttered shopfronts, his darkest cloak swirling around him in the wind of his own haste. His oldest, quietest boots made little sound as he
hurried through the night.
He was so excited he was almost choking, and a small worm of fear was rising in his throat, blossoming swiftly now. Illance’s plan had seemed so gods-sent, so right, back at Staghaven House, but now …
Well ahead of him, two blue flames moved quickly in the deepening darkness, side by side. His ghosts were heading straight to the palace.
To imperil the king.
Either the nobles were taking their time mustering warriors and buffing their boots so as to look their best when they broke into rebellion, or the Dragons had done a very thorough job of scouring the city—well, this part of it, at least—of armed and excited folk in the streets.
The Promenade, under its usual warm and plentiful lamps, was but lightly traveled in its long sweep around the soaring, imposing bulks of the vast, many-windowed royal court and the older, more castlelike royal palace. Oh, there were people about, aye, all of them afoot—not a cart or wagon to be seen—but no one was shouting or waving a sword or anything else. Most folk were walking alone or in pairs or trios; the only larger group Mirt could see was a watch patrol—Dragons with a war wizard, talking quietly and looking far from excited.
Yet out of lifelong habit, Mirt looked back fairly often as he walked. His first glance was to fix his inn in his mind, the way it looked by night, so he could readily find it again. His second was to mark anyone who might be following him, who’d been in the street at his first glance and seemed to have moved since in a way that suggested Mirt of Waterdeep might be of interest to them.
None such rose to his notice.
Well, hardly surprising, that. He was, after all, no one at all to anyone but a handful of folk currently alive, in this time so long after he’d expected a waiting grave to find him. Living for centuries was for archwizards or god-tainted priests, not fat old moneylenders with smart mouths, who liked to provoke people who thought themselves powerful or important. Why—
