by Ed Greenwood
Then there were two smaller groups of oldcoin nobles who wanted the Obarskyrs gone and a new royal House on the Dragon Throne.
The schemers led by Lord Crownrood, on the other hand, wanted “the old rot” of all the long-prominent families swept from the kingdom. The likes of the Illances, Crownsilvers, and Huntcrownsuch would be exiled or exterminated, so past excesses and treacheries would never be repeated as the realm flourished anew under the wise and benevolent rule of King Melder Crownrood, of course. Manshoon could barely suppress a snort just thinking of those arguments.
The schemers led by the Goldfeathers and the Emmarasks wanted a ruling council of six lords-unsurprisingly led by House Goldfeather and House Emmarask-to choose a king to do their bidding, after which all the large and wealthy noble families not on the Council, old and new, would be stripped of wealth and titles and turned out of the realm by order of that stern new king. Just how the six ruling lords intended to manage that, Manshoon hadn’t yet heard… and he doubted they’d prepared any proper plan for carrying out that grand scouring, or could, when the time came, accomplish anything set forth in any plan at all.
The younger and more minor Houses understandably wanted no part of oldcoin rule. Manshoon had heard of factions led by Lords Halvaeron and Torchmore but hadn’t yet identified who really supported them or what plans and preparations-if any-they had made.
He had heard whispers galore among the nobility gathered in Suzail that someone was meddling in nobles’ minds-must be, to make the timid act so boldly and stalwart oldcoats abandon their long-nursed feuds so swiftly and completely-but there was no agreement at all as to who was doing it, and how.
Well, the “how” was magic, of course, but cast by whom? Hired outlander mages, or wizards of war playing their own games or serving the Crown in some dark set-nobles-against-nobles scheme-the identity of the caster was something titled Cormyreans could not agree on. Not even to decide if the mage who’d so emboldened and advised the young fool Stormserpent was the same spellhurler who must be hiding the commander of the blueflame ghosts from all the house wizards-and palace mages, too-seeking the ghost-wielder.
Manshoon suppressed a smile. It was nice to have one’s meddlings noticed and feared, even if no one knew who was behind them, yet. Ah, but the time for that would come…
They were being led into a high-beamed, splendid feasting hall. One of its walls was covered in magnificent relief carvings of hunting scenes, the opposite wall pierced by an impressive row of toweringly, narrow, arched windows. Polished platters gleamed back the reflections of many candles hanging in sconces, which also mirrored flickering flames all along the row of windows.
Glarvreth turned with a smile. “Be welcome to my table, Lord Oldbridle! Let us-”
The rest of his words were lost in a series of nigh deafening, shrieking crashes, as several of the windows burst into the room, shattering into countless tumbling shards under the boots of heavily armed men swinging on stout ropes. The men landed hard, staggering as they whipped out swords and hand axes, then set to work hacking and hewing anyone who moved.
Glarvreth shouted and fled, his guest forgotten.
Guards streamed into the hall, but the invaders ignored them. They raced after Glarvreth as the merchant wrenched open a secret door in the hunting-scene wall and plunged through it.
Lord Oldbridle tried to follow-but got chopped to the floor by the foremost armed intruder.
Burrath drove his sword over the dying lord and right down the throat of Oldbridle’s slayer. Then he sprang free and crashed through the door, shoulder first, before Glarvreth could shove it closed.
Flung backward by the door, the merchant promptly fled.
“Close it! Close it!” he shrieked over his shoulder as he disappeared down a dark and narrow passage that ran along behind the carved wall.
Burrath did so as fast as he could, hacking at an intruder trying to burst through, until the man fell back. The door slammed. Finding a bar and stout cradles to hold it, he barred the door for good measure.
Heavy blows promptly fell upon the closed door. He did not tarry to see how long it would hold.
“Who’s your foe?” he shouted, running after Glarvreth.
“Kormoroth of Westgate!” a shout came back. “Didn’t you recognize him? You just killed him!”
A heavy, metallic crash followed those words as some sort of portcullis slammed down across the passage in front of Burrath, separating him from the fleeing Glarvreth.
The bodyguard stopped, shrugged, and retreated down the passage past the barred door. Enthusiastically wielded axes started to bite through it, but it was stout and thick; he should have ample time to find another way out of Glarvreth’s mansion.
In the other direction, the passage ended at a door that opened into a back pantry. Cooks and maids scurried and screamed; his arrival sent them dashing headlong into rooms beyond.
Manshoon took his borrowed body after them, confident they’d take a back way out-kitchen slops must go somewhere, and almost always through a handy rear exit-and he could follow them to somewhere far from murderous cabals from Westgate.
Not that this night had been wasted. Far from it. Andranth Glarvreth was a badly frightened man, and the struggle for Cormyr’s future was now short one ambitious adventurer-merchant outlander. Ah, well, no doubt the butchery would manage to stumble along without him.
“Here,” Amarune said suddenly, ducking into a gate. “This is private enough!” She dragged Storm into the gateway with her and flung her arms around the taller woman.
“Rune,” Arclath hissed, still panting from having just jumped down from the saddle of a hurrying horse, wrestled the same winded and upset mount to a pawing, bucking halt, then plucked his white-knuckled lady down from that same saddle, “What’re you doing? This is the royal gardens! They’re guarded at night, and-”
“No harm done, lord, if your lasses come no farther in,” the calm growl of a veteran Purple Dragon came out of the darkness on the far side of the gate. “Unless-ahem-ye’re in need of some trifling assistance in, ah, handling them-”
“That won’t be necessary,” Arclath snapped, tugging a little tentatively at the two embracing women. He had hold, he discovered, of Storm’s elbow. In response to his pulling she made an ardent moaning sound, setting Rune to helpless giggling.
He let his hand fall, knowing without looking that ashes would be streaming from the tall Harper to his beloved. His Amarune was surrendering to Elminster.
Again.
“Damn you, wizard,” he said under his breath, catching himself just in time to avoid announcing to the guard-and all the Dragon’s unseen fellows; they never stood guard alone-that a mage was involved in this.
“The palace is still open to those announcing their belated arrival for the Council, I suppose?” he asked more loudly.
“No, lord,” came the firm reply, out of the night. “There’s been… trouble. The Council’s put off until morning, and palace and court both locked up tight now, under full guard. Were I you, I’d take yourselves well away from here until you hear the three horncalls on the morrow. If you or anyone tries to get in before then, we’ve orders to resist. Forcibly.”
“Ah. I quite see. My thanks, loyal sword.”
“Fair even to you, lord,” came the friendly reply.
Arclath sighed and tugged at Storm’s elbow again. This time she and Amarune came willingly back into the street with him.
“You have warm bathwater at Delcastle Manor, I presume?” the silver-haired Harper asked sweetly.
“We do,” Arclath replied curtly, setting a brisk pace down the Promenade toward the brightly lit stretch where it swept around the imposing front of the royal court. “And while you splash, Lady Immerdusk, I have some words I’d like to exchange with a certain Elminster.”
“Ye’re saving them, lad?” Rune muttered in Elminster’s voice. “Are ye now short of words, for some reason? I hadn’t noticed any lack of them!”
Manshoon had the alchemist give Burrath something to drink that would send him right down into slumber and keep him there for a good long time, then forced the long-suffering Sraunter to yield up his own bed to the man.
Sraunter was too falling-down weary to argue. He fell asleep in the next room after scrabbling up the blanket he wanted from a seldom-opened chest.
Manshoon left him that way and rode one of the five beholderkin out into the night. There were dozens of little touches that still needed seeing to, if the Council was to be the splendid success-or, to those who liked Cormyr’s present ways and stability, the utter disaster-he intended it to be.
“These realms,” he murmured, causing the beholderkin to emit a hissing hum, “belong to those who care to shape them to their will. Until I eliminate all others who dare such shapings, of course.”
Arclath had firmly shut the door on the carefully expressionless faces of the servants who’d pumped the hot water up from the kitchen kettles, leaving them to think whatever thoughts they wanted to about the younger Lord Delcastle sharing the manor’s best bathing chamber with a mask dancer and an unfamiliar silver-haired woman.
Storm plunged into the large, pink, marble bath his mother liked to soak in, even before Arclath got himself turned around to offer her a robe. He suddenly faced a swiftly disrobing Rune, who promptly perched on the edge of the bath and told him, in Elminster’s growl, “Ye know this Council is going to fall into bloodshed and civil strife, don’t ye? With Foril slain right then and there, if Tymora smiles not and we don’t fight hard and well?”
“What?” Arclath snapped back at him. “Even with the mighty Elminster standing guard over it?”
Elminster shrugged. “How so?” He waved one of Rune’s arms down at her bare and shapely self-even as Storm rose like a striding sea devil from the bath, gesturing to Rune that the waters were all hers-and told the young noble sourly, “This body won’t even get me through the doors.”
Arclath’s mouth clamped down into a thin, hard line, and his stare became a murderous glare.
“Oh, no,” he spat. “No. I am not letting you into my head. I’m sure you can use some spell or other to force your way in and burn away my hold over my own body in mere moments-but I’ll fight you. I will never surrender my body, nor let House Delcastle’s vote and voice be stolen by… by a wizard I can’t trust, who could in truth be anyone, who… who…”
He ran out of words and clawed the air furiously, in an exasperated “away with you!” gesture.
Storm ducked under his flailing arm and plucked up a robe, leaving Rune to reply, as she in turn sank down in the warm, scented water, “I won’t be forcing my way into thy mind, lad. ’Tis not necessary. Yet. I’m merely warning ye to expect the worst. I can see it ahead, and I’m nigh powerless to stand against it.”
“So you’re not the legendary, all-powerful Elminster?”
“I was never all-powerful. Not even close. I was at best a scurrying, none-too-organized, overworked castle errand-boy. Aye, that’s the best way for ye to view what I did and was. I’m a lot less than that now. And, yes, there’s precious little I can do to stave off disaster at the Council.”
“ ‘Precious little’?” Arclath flung back at him bitterly. “So why do you always act as if you can take care of everything?”
El wagged a wise old finger in a way Amarune would never have done, and said mildly, “That master-of-all-things act accomplishes much, lad. All by itself. Try it; ye’ll see.”
“Gah!” Arclath burst out, words failing him again.
Storm tapped him on the shoulder. “After all that tramping through the forest, you need a bath,” she said gently. “And while you’re in there, sluice off a little of that seething anger and give us back the jaunty, debonair Fair Flower of House Delcastle that all Suzail is so used to seeing sporting airily about the streets.”
Arclath glared at her, trying-and succeeding-to keep his eyes above her chin and not straying down to the rest of her, which she was casually using the panels of the open robe to rub dry.
“And with Cormyr about to plunge into blood-drenched disaster, what good will that do?” he snapped.
“Entertain us all far more than your seething anger,” she replied gently.
“Gah!” Elminster supplied helpfully, before Arclath could find the breath he needed to make that very same comment again.
Arclath stared at him-or rather, at Amarune’s bare, wet body, as she stepped out of the bath to take the robe Storm was offering her-then turned and hurled himself into the bath in a great angry dive that sent its waters crashing against walls and ceilings.
Somehow, as bubbles roared past his ears and the half-dissolved scented soaps in the water made his eyes start to sting, he felt a little better.
He might be heading into the worst noble-slaughtering bloodbath Cormyr had ever seen, but at least he’d be clean and smell sweet.
CHAPTER NINE
INSTATELY CONCLAVE MET
H orns blew a fanfare that the cool morning air carried far across Suzail, summoning the invited heads of noble Houses to the Council of Dragons. Arclath’s rising had awakened Amarune, though he’d dressed and dashed from Delcastle Manor without a word to either of his guests.
Storm quietly opened Rune’s door, the coverlet wrapped around herself in a clumsy way, and wordlessly had handed her a bundle of clothes. They all proved to be magnificent gowns. Borrowed from Lady Delcastle’s wardrobes, Rune guessed, but decided not to ask. Storm had vanished again, anyhail.
Amarune found something dark, long, and simple that more or less fit her. It was too ample for her taste but could be drawn tightly around her waist with a sash, and Storm had provided several beautiful ones. She put on her own clout and boots under it, looked at herself in the guest chamber mirror, winced, then shrugged and flung open the door.
Storm was leaning against the passage wall outside, also in her own worn boots-full of Elminster’s ashes, of course-but above them wore a splendid gown Rune was sure Lady Delcastle would miss.
“Come,” Storm said softly. “We’re off to storm the palace.”
They hurried out of the Delcastle mansion, nodding to servants without slowing, and hastened through the grounds.
Coaches rumbled along the streets, and once through the gates they saw some nobles on foot, too, walking in their finery.
Hand in hand, Storm and Rune set off down the street to join them.
Another fanfare rang out across the city.
“That’s the second,” a wealthy merchant who hoped to be soon ennobled declared to one of the nobles converging on the palace, Beckoning banners flapped above the gates. “The third won’t sound until we’re all seated, to let the city know the talking’s about to begin. Brought your belt flask, I hope, for the boring bits?”
The noble ignored him, striding on without pause or reply.
Citizens came out onto their balconies and peered from their windows and the doors of shops to watch the nobles stroll past.
There was that young fop, Lord Arclath Delcastle, and yonder quiet old Lord Adarl Summerstar (“A proper gentlesir, him!”), and beyond them, in an open carriage and wearing a magnificent hat, the Lady Deleira Truesilver (“Didn’t she take to her bed, not long ago? Looks well enough, now!”)
Those on the Promenade, or whose vantage points were close enough, could see watchful lines of war wizards at the gates.
None of the watchers were close enough to hear one of the older guards flanking the inner doors tell his junior partner-inexperie
nced, but a swifter runner than the veteran-that the visible war wizards were the least powerful, there largely for show.
“The truly powerful are already inside, peering into minds and watching and listening like owls a-hunting.”
“I’ll be glad when this day’s done,” was the muttered reply.
“You and me both, lad,” the older guard replied. “The third fanfare’s when all the fun begins-the actual start of the Council.”
The strong, cloyingly sweet tropical blossoms that scented the wax Lord Naeryk Andolphyn had used to freshly shape the two chin-spikes of his forked beard was making Lord Danthalus Blacksilver feel faintly ill, but Blacksilver forebore from saying so. If his sharp-featured newfound friend hadn’t offered him a ride to the palace gates, he’d have been reduced to walking.
Their coach rumbled over some loose cobbles, then clottered past many a walking lord as the two spent the ride trading opinions of newly discovered wines and superior cheeses from far lands. Idle chatter was something Lord Danthalus Blacksilver considered himself rather good at.
“Oh, gods,” his host exclaimed, breaking off in mid-rhapsody over Sembian soft sharpnip and looking behind them. “Wouldn’t you know it? I thought only the ladies indulged in that sort of nonsense!”
“What?” Blacksilver asked and then saw. “Oh. Oh, I see. I quite see.”
Behind them on the Promenade were large, ornate coaches drawn by matching teams of splendid horses, each conveyance bearing a lone lord, seemed to need a score of horses to pull him along. In the far distance, even grander wagons appeared-one looked like a ship hauled up out of the harbor onto a massive cart, and another appeared to have balconies — all moving toward the palace.
In this, as in most other matters, the nobles of Cormyr were seeking to outdo each other.
Blacksilver peered at a coach team with a peculiar slinking gait. “Are those… lions?”
