by Ed Greenwood
By his goddess.
His Mystra.
Aye, Mystra was alive and in the realms still.
A part of him wanted to shout that to the stars above, to bellow it until folk came awake in their beds in Suzail to sit up listening.
And a part of him wanted to keep it so secret that not even the young nobleman inside the hut would begin to suspect it.
Let alone Manshoon or any other wizard of power.
Elminster threw back his head, drew in a deep breath-and smiled at the tiny silver flash of farewell that winked out in the darkness above his nose. Then he eased open the door with a fingertip and stepped inside as quietly as he could.
The hearth was dim, almost out, but someone had lit the brazier tray fixed in its spark-shield frame behind the door. Its dancing glow fell upon blankets frozen in the usual twisted chaos left behind when sleepers arise And it fell upon Storm Silverhand, her shirt-clad body bent back in a graceful bow on the floor. Someone had hogtied her to a leg of the table and her hair was over her face. She lay unmoving. Dead or senseless.
She’d been bound with Arclath’s belt.
The door slammed behind Elminster. He spun around, managing to quell Rune’s instinctive urge to leap back and away. He might need to be close.
As he’d expected, he faced a half-dressed Lord Arclath Delcastle, who waved his sword threateningly. Behind its bright edge-and above the burning brazier-the young nobleman held the coffer in which Storm had been carrying Elminster’s ashes.
Arclath’s eyes, as he glared at El, were like two dagger points.
“Luckily for my Amarune’s sake,” he snapped, “you seem unaware that even fine, upstanding nobles of Cormyr learn a few tawdry secrets of the realm-and lack scruples in exploiting them. The uses of darfly-sting essence, for instance. It brings on instant, topple-on-your-face sleep at the slightest scratch and can be found on the heads of the takedown arrows that Highknights of Cormyr hide in the same spot in every royal hunting lodge across the realm. Sleep that takes even legendary silver-haired bards blessed by the gods, it seems.”
Elminster sighed and shook his head, and then he lunged back as the bright tip of Arclath’s sword hissed past his throat.
Inside the mind they shared, El threw all his exasperation at Amarune, who spasmed like a speared fish, sent fury back at him, and stared at Arclath.
“Your ashes!” the nobleman hissed, shaking the coffer. “I’ll destroy them if you don’t surrender Amarune to me.”
He bent into a lunge that kept his sword up and menacing Elminster as he lowered the box into the flames of the brazier. They flared up and crackled, right on cue.
“Wizard, get out of her right now! Or you die!”
He flicked his blade so its tip pointed at Storm’s throat, where she lay with her head on the floor, silver hair fallen across her face.
“And so does she!”
CHAPTER TWO
THE WORD OF A NOBLEMAN
A marune found to her astonishment that Elminster sat silently idle in her mind, all of his control over her body gone. She was free to speak and act just as she pleased.
After a moment of startlement, she burst out, “Arclath, what’re you doing? You idiot!”
“Elminster,” the young noble snapped, glaring at her, “don’t try to trick me! I know it’s you speaking, not my Rune! Let her go! Get out of her, and stay out! Or I’ll destroy all that’s left of you!” He waved the coffer menacingly.
Elminster took control again, so swiftly that all Rune could do was blink.
“Oh,” he made her body reply, this time in the unmistakable drawl of the Sage of Shadowdale when he was being curious. “How?”
“I’ll burn these ashes in the… fire.”
Arclath’s voice fell as his anger faltered into confusion.
“And? They’re ashes, dolt! What do they teach nobles of Cormyr these days, I wonder?” El replied, now sounding for all the world like an arch and mincing marchioness of elder years.
“I-” Arclath’s blade wavered back and forth and then thrust toward Storm. “Well, I can still…”
Amarune strode forward to plant herself right in front of the nobleman’s face, her hands on her hips. He winced and flushed.
“Arclath,” she spat, her voice very much her own again and full of all the disappointment she felt, “you broke your word, didn’t you? You swore as a Delcastle, did you not?”
“I… I did. My word is my honor and that of House Delcastle. But, my lady, I discovered something here this night. I-”
“What could you possibly discover,” she said, eyes flaring in anger, “that excuses breaking your word?”
Arclath reddened even more but he kept his gaze steady on hers. “I discovered,” he replied, “that when you are endangered, I will sacrifice my honor-and everything else, by all the gods-in an instant. I did this for you.”
Amarune trembled, tears welling up, and before her voice might fail her, she rushed out the words, “You struck down one friend so you could better threaten the other? Why? Are you mad?”
“I-perhaps I am. I know not what to do. I don’t know if I’m talking to my beloved or to Elminster holding you captive in your own head… or facing something more sinister. Shapechangers once infested the Wheloon lands, and the war wizards never got them all.”
Amarune sighed out fresh frustration and took a step back. “I am myself, thank you, Arclath. Though I have no idea how I’ll be able to prove it to you.”
She started to pace, and then she stopped and flung back at him over one bare shoulder, “Can you take nothing on trust?”
The young lord gave her a crooked smile. “Evidently not.”
She took an imploring step back toward him, reaching out-but he raised his sword again, adding in a growl, “I dare not.”
Rune glared at him, tears spilling over, and whispered, “So what will you have me do, Arclath?”
They stared at each other for what seemed a long time, as the brazier crackled.
“And what,” Rune whispered, tears running down her face, “will you be able to do, to make me ever trust you again, Lord Delcastle? Answer me that!”
The shop doorbell tinkled merrily as the heavily scented merchant’s wife sailed out, pleased with her purchase.
The alchemist sat back with a sigh, glad to see the back of her. Sixteen vials sampled, none chosen, and an ointment that had been buried on a high back shelf beneath three seasons’ dust preferred instead. By a woman who seemed to think it was highsun and not the middle of the night when weary men must be roused from their beds to serve her. Gods-cursed highnoses…
He set to work tidying up. “If I didn’t need so stlarned much coin just to live in this noble-infested city…”
A sympathetic chuckle from behind the curtain over his shoulder reminded Sraunter that he wasn’t alone.
The fear that never left him reminded him that this particular guest was never to be kept waiting. He hastened off his stool and through the curtain.
“S-sorry, lord,” he stammered. “I-”
“I know you are, Sraunter. No matter, and no apology needed. Commerce must come first. Not to mention the damage to your trade if Nechelseiya Sammartael thought you’d slighted her. Word of it would be all over Suzail before sunrise.”
“Ah, indeed,” Sraunter agreed, leading the way past the man who’d conquered his mind so easily three nights back, to reveal what until then had been his greatest secret.
Alchemists were more feared than loved, and if they desired long careers, they needed powerful secret weapons. These were to be his latest-if he ever learned some manner of commanding them. Until then, they could at least serve as a deadly trap against thieves. Or so he’d schemed, before Manshoon had stepped into his life.
In his fearful haste, Sraunter had some trouble with the locks, fumbling with the chains and the dummy padlock. Twice he dropped the key that opened the hidden coffer that held the real key.
Manshoon smiled an easy
smile. “There’s no particular haste, diligent alchemist. Unless, of course, Goodwife Sammartael takes it into her head to return for something else.”
That horrible thought made Sraunter drop the padlock on his toe.
His involuntary roar and hopping ended as swiftly as he could master himself. He was still wincing, teeth clenched, as he put his shoulder to the door and flung it wide in a loud rattle of chains.
His guest stayed right where he was.
“There’s no particular need to move them, is there?”
“N-no, lord. None at all.”
Sraunter hastened into his strongroom and across to the cage Manshoon had come to see. His guest could take his home and shop and everything in it-blackfire, his very mind! — whenever the whim took him, after all.
Face it, he was a slave already, and slaves enjoyed better lives when their masters were content.
Sraunter undid his special knot and drew back the nearest half of the hide cover. The five occupants of the cage flew in smooth unison to its revealed front, the better to hover there and peer out through the bars.
Five little spheres, each the size of a blacksmith’s fist. Beholderkin, their tiny eyestalks like so many writhing worms, eager to gaze upon something and do it harm, hissing in malevolence.
And falling silent as the smiling man just beyond the doorway thrust his mind into all of theirs at once, overwhelming them as easily as he’d humbled Sraunter.
That terrible smile grew.
“Acceptable, Sraunter, most acceptable. Five little flying steeds, whenever I need them. Release them.”
“R-release them?”
“At once. Give them the freedom of your strongroom. What with all the locks and chains, you use it seldom, do you not?”
“Well, yes, but-”
Sraunter found that the objection he’d been going to raise had vanished from his mind, and his astonished anger with it. A malicious glee rose in him, twisting his dour face into a grin that sought to mirror the smile on his guest’s face.
Oh, Watching Gods Above, what will become of me? he thought.
“The time for all ‘buts’ is long past, Sraunter,” Manshoon purred. “You’ll see the coming sunrise in as much health as you enjoy now, believe me-and you can believe me. I am no courtier of Cormyr nor yet one of its noblemen. My word means something.”
He pointed past the cage with a languid hand. “Yon window opens readily? No? Ah, but I see its panes can be broken should I ever have need of haste. Good. My steeds can get out that way if need be.”
“Need of haste?”
“Such a need is, I’ll grant, doubtful, now that Elminster’s dead; but, one never knows, good saer alchemist, one never knows. During my overlong lives these realms have taught me that much, at least.”
“Overlong lives?”
“You make an admirable echo, good Sraunter, but someone-nay, several someones-have espied your lit lamps and approach your shop entrance. So open the cage and close this door. Now.”
The next few moments were a whirlwind of panting activity for Immaero Sraunter, and his accustomed feelings of grim superiority and darkly sinister accomplishment had quite vanished by the time he found himself puffing and panting his way back through the curtain to blink at the customers shuffling into the gloom of his shop.
Manshoon had vanished sometime during that whirlwind, Sraunter knew not quite where, but he was uncomfortably aware that five beholderkin that could slay him or almost any Suzailan with casual ease roamed free in his strongroom-where he kept his poisons, his best drinkables, and most of his coin.
Not that this undesirable state of affairs would continue for long, if his suspicions were correct. And when it came to matters of personal misfortune for Immaero Sraunter, they usually were.
The boldest shopper’s request struck his ears, then, and he heard himself answering it with the ease of long habit.
“Dragonmere eel essence, Goodwife? Well, there’s not a lot of call for that, particularly at this time of night, but-”
Arclath’s face hardened. “Trust? Trust? Hah, you don’t fool me, wizard! It’s you in there, Elminster, and you have my lady ruined or bound silent. She’s a mask you put on when you seek to deceive me!”
He sliced the air with his sword, weaving a glittering wall of steel as he took two slow, menacing steps forward, forcing his beloved back.
She looked so hurt, through her tears…
He scowled, reminding himself that this was really Elminster, just using his Amarune’s body. “You must cease this evil of riding living folk! Right now!”
“Or you’ll-what?” Rune asked, regarding him sidelong. “Carve me up, Arclath? Kill me, the mask dancer you call your lady and say you’re doing all of this for? And when you’ve butchered me, and I’m lying hewn apart in my blood all over this floor, what then? How will you stop the wizard you so misjudge then?”
Baffled anger was rising in the heir of House Delcastle. She was right, Dragon take it! How could he strike at the wizard without harming Rune?
Arclath realized, as she reached the far wall of the hut’s lone room and sidestepped along it, that his advance had taken him far from the brazier. Hastily he shuffled back the way he’d come, trying not to stumble in the abandoned bedding as he retreated, without taking his gaze off her for a moment.
Spell, she might cast a spell… he needed something to throw and another hand to throw it with. Ah, his dagger, of course, but Oh, damn and blast! Why was life always so difficult?
“These endless complications are irksome, but then, complications are what give life its interest,” Manshoon murmured aloud as he strolled along one of the quieter streets of Suzail’s Windmarket neighborhood, hired lamp boys before and behind.
“Irksome, did you say, saer?” a Purple Dragon swordcaptain asked, passing at the head of his watch patrol.
Manshoon gave the man an easy smile. “Minor annoyances, I assure you. The cut and thrust of mercantile trade brings obstacles to the most prudent investments and stratagems. I’ll be happier when the Council is past, and matters have, ah, settled down somewhat.”
The watchman smiled back. “You and me both, saer. You and me both.”
They traded nods and continued on their separate ways, the patrol in the direction of the distant docks, and Manshoon bound for the walled compounds and grander towers where the wealthiest and most noble citizens dwelt.
Yes, Sraunter would prove useful indeed. The man’s shop was in a central-yet not overly popular-location. Manshoon’s collection of bases across Suzail was certainly growing quickly.
As he walked, Manshoon reached up and slapped himself on the cheek. “I must stop talking to myself. A bad habit, acquired during too many long, dark years of scheming, and all of that is almost behind me now, with Cormyr practically in my grasp.”
He gave a bright smile to a surly carter sweating along under the weight of a full keg, received an astonished stare in return, and sauntered on with a light heart.
Elminster dead. By his own hand, thorough and certain. Yes.
That extermination opened so many doors and made so many perilous trails safer and easier. Though it did mean some rethinking of strategy.
With his need for haste gone, it was now imperative to delay this Council of the Dragon. With Stormserpent and his fellow young hotheads down, he needed time-another day should suffice-to replenish the ranks of noblemen serving him.
When the Council inevitably turned into a bloodbath, he wanted particular royalty, courtiers, and nobles slaughtered, not mere random murders.
Tailored bloodletting saved so much time.
Elminster quelled a sigh. Lord Delcastle was growing wild-eyed, apt to do nigh anything-and becoming truly dangerous.
Oh, Rune’s body was agile enough to snatch up furs and blankets to trammel the blade the young fool was waving around, or even fling them over his head to blind him, and smite him cold-but Rune was naked, and Storm might as well be, and that sword was shar
p. Someone was going to get hurt.
And it was all so unnecessary.
The coffer young Arclath was threatening him with was empty, until El departed Amarune-and Storm could just as easily store his ashes down the toes of her boots, or for that matter, scoop ashes that weren’t him at all from yon hearth for the angry young lordling to destroy to his heart’s content…
Ah, Storm was awake, throwing off the effects of the darfly. Through her glossy fall of silver hair, El saw the gleam of one eye opening a trifle, for just a moment.
Which made his role clear. He had to keep Arclath talking and all the lordling’s attention on him.
“Arclath,” he said in his best imitation of Amarune’s gravely earnest manner, going to his knees and spreading his arms wide, “what can I do to convince you? I am your Rune, and… and you’re frightening me. I don’t know how to prove anything to you!”
He had to keep his eyes from straying to Storm and drawing Arclath’s attention to her-but at the back of the mind they were sharing, Amarune had seen that eye open, too, and had instantly become interested in watching her.
Unthinkingly she reached for control of her eyes. They tussled mentally for a silent moment, until El brutally won that battle by shaking the dancer’s head violently and making her look away and down at the blanket-littered floor.
“Arclath?” he sobbed, not daring to let Amarune look up.
“Rune,” Arclath snarled, “if you are Rune and not the wizard, please believe me when I tell you I’m just as scared. And baffled about how to be sure you are… well, you.”
El managed not to smirk. Would he have been any more eloquent, at Delcastle’s age? Likely not…
Behind the young lord, Storm had set about freeing herself. Arclath knew his work. His belt was stretched tight, cutting deep grooves in her arms. Storm stretched like a great cat, arched herself even further, then relaxed, having tested the limits of her bonds. Which weren’t much.
Yet it seemed she’d learned enough to decide what to do next, without any hesitation at all. As El fought not to watch, with Amarune providing no help at all, Storm made her move.
