Elminster Enraged

CHAPTER SIX

Lurth’s Trading was not a shop in which Suzail’s haughtier highnoses cared to be seen. “Squalid” was a fair description of its dingy, dusty interior, a dark labyrinth heaped with stolen, broken, and well-worn wares of all sorts, from rusty saws and cleavers to rags that had been fine gowns thirty summers ago. Trade was brisk, because “used sundry” needs always outstrip ready coin, but few patrons ventured beyond the front of the shop, where the lantern-wielding proprietor and his two scarred and leering young fetchhands met anyone who stepped through the front door.

Very few visitors ventured through the door adjacent to the front entrance of Lurth’s mercantile palace, let alone mounted the steep flight of dark and narrow stairs to reach the upper rooms of the building: the offices of Thurbrand and Arley, Wendra of the Willing Whips, and Splendors of the Shining Sea Importations.

Perhaps this was because the building was located in the poorer, rougher western part of Suzail. Or perhaps this was because Thurbrand had been dead for more than the decade that Arley had been a guest of the Crown dungeons, or because Wendra was older than many grandmothers and looked it, besides being less willing to taste her own lashes than she’d once been. Yet again, it might have had something to do with the fact that the Splendors had flourished importing illicit physics and powders that were now easily obtained at scores of Suzailan shops, and had since been reduced to selling daring scanty garments to men too embarrassed to purchase them in shops women might enter.

Wherefore business wasn’t, to be blunt, too good, and a new sign was tacked to the Splendors door at the back of the upstairs passage, informing interested Suzail that a sideroom of the Splendors now housed a new establishment. That new sign told the world crisply: “Danger For Hire.”

Judging by the looks of the two down-at-heel men lounging with their boots up on their desks, in lopsided chairs that threatened to collapse utterly and deposit them on their worn, sagging rented floor, the sign told the truth.

The more handsome of the two surviving partners in this crisp new business firm rejoiced in the name of Drounan “Doombringer” Harbrand. He was a tall man who always wore black from head to toe, and sported an eye patch that might have seemed more menacing if he hadn’t long ago fallen into the habit of switching it from one eye to the other. Harband had just returned from an interview with a new client that had-at her insistence, discretion be damned-been conducted in more savory surroundings. Upon his return, in some triumph, he had tossed her payment for the deal they’d struck onto the vacant table between the desks, where it landed with a satisfyingly weighty crash.

That feeling of exultation had ebbed as he’d begun to tell his business partner the particulars of the arrangement, and they now stared rather grimly at the heavy sack of gold coins.

That partner was shorter and uglier than Harbrand, and far less elegant in appearance. Even if his nose hadn’t been broken many times into a wreck of vaguely vertical shapelessness, the many crisscrossing scars that adorned his arms, head, torso, and knuckles told the world all too clearly that he was a brawler. A less than successful one, at that. But Andarphisk “Fists” Hawkspike did not appreciate such judgments, and most folk didn’t dare to dispense them in his presence, given the more than a dozen daggers sheathed all over his rotting, greasy, much-patched leathers.

“Hrast it!” he snarled, spitting at the floor with enough accuracy to hit it, “I knew there’d be a tail-sting in this! There always is, with nobles!”

Harbrand sighed gloomily. “At least it’s work. I’ve grown more than a bit tired of eating rats and table scraps thrown out kitchen doors.”

Their client was Lady Dawningdown, the vicious matriarch of a minor, disgraced noble family of Suzail. She had offered them far too much gold to refuse, to do a “certain task” for her-plus the tail-sting Hawkspike had been expecting: the threat that they’d be hunted down and slain if they turned down her offer, now that she’d confided in them.

“Remember that,” Harbrand added grimly. “Old Skullgrin sat there, flanked by four men who had loaded and ready crossbows trained on me. That fired poisoned bolts, she just happened to mention. If she’s so determined no one learn of our hiring-well, if we succeed in our task, her bullyblades’ll hunt us down and slay us, for that very same reason.”

“Huh. Why don’t she just send them to do it, and save her gold and our necks?”

“Because she has foes she fears, too, and doesn’t want to risk being left unguarded while they make the trip,” Harbrand explained patiently. “S’what I’d do.”

His partner gave him a dark look, and spat on the floor again.

Their task seemed simple enough. They were to journey to the remote prison stronghold of Castle Irlingstar in the Thunder Peaks on the eastern border of Cormyr. Not the prison every Cormyrean knew about, the walled Sharren-cauldron of Wheloon, but a small castle few had heard of, where King Foril Obarskyr sent his special prisoners-such as traitor nobles too dangerous to put with murderers and thugs they could buy the loyalties of, and agents of Sembia and Westgate and other hostile near neighbors who’d use more public imprisonings as a pretext for war or royal assassinations or the like.

They were to free Lady Dawningdown’s son and heir from Irlingstar, and get him safely over the border into Sembia. Officially, fire-tempered young Jeresson Dawningdown had been cast into Irlingstar for murdering a man, and ordering a hiresword to slay two more he’d quarreled with over cards, slayings that had been swiftly accomplished. However, all Cormyr knew Jeresson “the Rager” had really been confined in Irlingstar because he’d joined a cabal of young nobles plotting with Sembian sponsors to murder the entire royal family and put a Sembian on the throne of the Forest Kingdom.

Jeresson was to be delivered safely to Bowshotgard, a hunting lodge in forested northern Sembia, where Danger For Hire would receive the rest of their gold.

“And a handy waiting grave, I’ll warrant,” Hawkspike grunted gloomily.

He watched Harbrand get up and thrust the sack of coins into their usual hidey-hole in the side of the privy chute, and he spat on the floor again.

“Nobles,” he growled. “I hate working for nobles. Trouble, always trouble.”

Harbrand flashed a mirthless smile. “Goes with the gold. Coin, always coin. That’s what makes them noble.”

“Oh? Not birth? Not good breeding?”

Harbrand snorted. “Have you ever noticed any hint or shred of good breeding on the part of the nobles of this land?”

He let silence fall, then snorted again. “Thought not.”

“What puzzles us most,” Ganrahast said slowly, “is this ‘Lady of Ghosts’ who pursued all of you through the Dalestride Portal. Just who-hrast it, what-was she?”

Storm grimaced. “A mistake shared by Elminster and Manshoon. Her name is, or was, Cymmarra. Long ago, she was Manshoon’s lover and apprentice-as were her mother and two older sisters. Eventually, tiring of those three and wanting to be rid of them, the Lord of the Zhentarim sent them to kill Elminster. They failed, of course. Cymmarra alone he held back from that mission, but forced her to watch the deaths of her kin. Wild with grief and rage, she attacked Manshoon. He bested her easily with his spells, manacling her with magic, and forced himself upon her one last time-as he sought to slay her with a dagger thrust. You saw that blade, thrusting out of her, as she strode through the palace.”

“Elminster’s mistake was protecting her but not defending her,” Ganrahast guessed.

Storm nodded soberly. “Manshoon couldn’t kill her, and didn’t-then-know why. She escaped, and for centuries hid from him in various guises, building her skills in the Art, awaiting the right time to take revenge on both El and Manshoon. She thought it had arrived.” Storm shrugged. “She was almost correct.”

“Almost,” Glathra echoed bitterly, shaking her head. “Is Elminster’s life one long succession of such cruelties and misjudgments?”

Storm gave her a calm look that was somehow more a challenge than any glare could have been. “Yes. As are the lives of Manshoon, and Vangerdahast, and any wizard who seeks to rule, or dominate, or defend a throne. As you may yet live long enough to have to admit, Glathra Barcantle.”

Glathra flashed a glare. “I need no lessons-”

Catching the stern eyes of her king, she stopped in mid-snap, and asked more gently, “So are we rid of your meddlings at court and among our nobles, now? Or have you still unfinished work here in Cormyr?”

Storm’s smile was friendly. “We do, so you’re not rid of us yet. Forgive me, Foril, but Mystra commands us in this. She sees the wizards of war as vital to a bright future for all the Realms. Wherefore the corrupt among them-and in the ranks of your courtiers, too-must be uncovered and scoured out. Without causing too much of an uproar amid all the nobles seeking power, who will of course sense weakness and division, and rush to exploit it.”

Instead of uproar and anger among the three guests, there was a silent exchange of meaningful glances.

“Good,” the king said heavily, lifting a hand to forestall anything Ganrahast or Glathra might have said. “Not a moment too soon. Let that scouring begin.”

He looked at Arclath. “With Lord Elminster and Lady Storm serving a higher authority than the Dragon Throne, I find myself still in need of a champion whose loyalty is to me. A personal agent, an untitled hand of my royal will who’s no highknight, and who stands alone. Arclath Delcastle, will you-”

“I will,” Arclath said flatly. “I’ll be your agent, Majesty.”

“The work will be dangerous,” the king warned.

“That is my expectation,” Arclath replied, in identically grave tones. That earned him a genuine royal smile.

Amarune caught the king’s eye. “You are not keeping me out of this,” she announced firmly. “Where Arclath goes, I go.”

King Foril smiled again. “Of course. I was, as it happens, intending to hire you into my service, to be Lord Delcastle’s Crown liaison. At, ah, four hundred lions a month?”

Amarune blinked in astonishment. Across the table, Lady Marantine hid a smile rather unsuccessfully, but beside the king, Glathra frowned, stirred as if to say something, caught another swift royal look-and kept silent.

Rune found herself swallowing, her mouth suddenly dry. She bowed her head. “Majesty, I accept. I hope you’re not-we’re both not-making a mistake, but I will take your service.

Gladly.”

“Good,” the king replied firmly, parting his nightcloak. Unclasping a massive money belt from around his waist, he set it on the table, and gave the Royal Magician a glance.

Wordlessly Ganrahast divested himself of no less than seven such belts, one after another. As they clanked down in front of Amarune, the king told her, “Fifty lions per belt; your first month’s pay. Can you start work immediately?”

“Y-yes, Your Majesty,” the overwhelmed tavern dancer managed to reply.

“Good. Go straight to bed and get a proper sleep. By highsun tomorrow, I need you both well on the way to Castle Irlingstar, on our eastern border. Our worst problem just now, it seems, is there. Sembia-or someone reaching out of Sembia-has decided to take advantage of the current tumult among the nobility to take over that fortress and free the worst malcontents imprisoned there to work treason against Cormyr. I need that attempt stopped. I’m reinforcing the wizards of war there, too, but find myself in need of loyal, capable hands inside that keep that aren’t attached to a Crown mage all nobles mistrust and are guarded against on sight.”

Arclath frowned. “Hmm. I know some of the nobles you’ve-ahem, that have decided to dwell there. There may be deaths.”

“Yes,” the king agreed, meeting his gaze directly. “Unfortunate, but these things happen when a young noble newly sent to Irlingstar due to the displeasure of the Crown rubs up against old rivals and other hotheads, in a confined and remote keep.”

“Ah,” Arclath replied gravely. “I see.”

The Dragon of Cormyr reached within his nightcloak again, and set two tiny metal flasks on the table in front of Arclath and Amarune. “Sovereign remedy. Effective against most known poisons. Given what some nobles are said to dip their daggers in, you may, I fear, have need of it.”

“Foril,” Lady Delcastle spoke up, sounding less than pleased, “it seems to me you intend to stain House Delcastle’s good name. We’ll suffer the disgrace of a public accusation of treason against my son and heir. No, more than accusation-confinement. And as a traitor to the Crown. This annoys me.”

King Foril bowed to her. “Lady, I’m afraid this will be so. Pray accept my apologies. I might point out that given the current mood in Cormyr, the esteem of the Delcastles in the eyes of the populace-the nobility and those who aspire to nobility, at least-will undoubtedly rise. Moreover, I promise to apologize publicly and profusely, later, for the mistaken injustice I enacted upon your son, when I was led astray by the lying testimony of false nobles. I’ll make amends by giving him a Crown office, too-title, salary, a coach and riding horses; the usual.”

“Spoken royal promises,” Lady Marantine said crisply, “are worth the proclamations they’re not written on.”

The king grinned like a young lad enjoying himself hugely, and turned to Ganrahast. The stone-faced Royal Magician reached under his nightcloak and produced a scroll, which he unrolled with a flourish to display to those at the table.

It was an already-written, signed, and sealed royal proclamation, outlining all that the king had just promised.

Amarune looked at the large, uncrumpled parchment, and then at Ganrahast’s chest, and shook her head. “How did you carry all that?”

“Magic,” he assured her solemnly. “It’s all done by magic.”

The drow who was now Elminster stopped thinking of how she might train young Rune-and the difficulties that would undoubtedly attend her appearing to Amarune Whitewave in the body of a dark elf, albeit a beautiful female drow-and stepped to one side, sinking down among the stalagmites and rubble nigh the tunnel wall.

I heard it, too, Symrustar said. A weapon being readied.

El nodded silently. Thanks to El’s very recent work with silver fire and the spellbooks in the ruined drow citadel, ironguard was one of the spells she could now call on at will, without incantation, gesture, or components. She now did so. But it afforded no protection at all against enchanted darts or other weapons, or against poison. If need be she could use the silver fire-of which she still had a leaking overabundance, thanks to what the drow of the citadel had done to Symrustar, but she did not want to spend it in such a manner if she could avoid it.

She heard another tiny sound, the most fleeting of clinks. Metal, touching stone or other metal as it was moved; probably a blade being stealthily drawn, in another spot from the first noise that had alerted her. So more than one steel-armed foe awaited, just ahead. Drow, most likely, given the largely successful stealth, but they could be dwarves or gnomes or even humans. Now, which of those foes would show the most patience?

El had been making good time along a tunnel deserted in the wake of the glaragh, and had walked far from the riven citadel, moving faster than any wary pursuer not using wings or scuttling along the passage ceiling. She’d kept close watch on the ceiling, both before and behind, and seen nothing more than occasional small bats, beetles, and spiders. The glaragh had evidently devoured or frightened away anything larger and more intelligent.

Yet she’d passed through several caverns where the great worm could have taken a different route. She’d kept following the breeze, because the tunnel, though far from straight, was tending onward in the general direction she desired to head. The glaragh might not have taken this particular tunnel, this far. Fair fortune, even for the most favored of Tymora, only lasted so long … and the luck of Elminster of Shadowdale, it seemed, had now turned.

Her ears caught the faintest of hisses, sibilants of words she couldn’t quite make out. Someone whispering in Undercommon into the ear of someone else; someone with a high-pitched, light, soft speaking voice. Drow, or she was a real arachnomancer.

Not that this new body would protect her in the slightest. Priestesses of Lolth were not loved at the best of times, and if caught alone were likely to be …

You have been caught alone, El, Symrustar reminded her tartly. So, now?

Now, of course, it was spell hurling time.

For an archmage with mustered spells ready, this would have been a mere moment’s concern. For a prepared and unharmed Chosen of Mystra, with Mystra and the Weave to call upon at will, even less of a challenge. But for what was left of this particular Chosen, right now …

El backed away around a buttress of joined stone pillars-fused stalactites and stalagmites-surrounded by a small forest of lesser stone fangs, and sank down again.

Was that movement, across the tunnel?

Aye, someone seeking to steal forward and flank her. Over there, too, a flash of movement-not forward or back, but a raised hand flicking fingers in intricate patterns. The silent sign language used by drow. Letting a tight smile cross her face, El cast a long, careful spell that would shape stone, on the fissured roof of the tunnel ahead, directly above where most of those waiting to pounce on her were probably waiting. If a worker-of-Art forced stone into a shape that was anchored insufficiently-a large inverted mushroom, say-then sought to rapidly flatten it out …

With a sharp crack and roar, a lot of stone ceiling plummeted down, to crash amid shouts and shrieks, shatter, and hurl shards in all directions.

El spared no time watching or gloating. She was already snatching out knives and turning to face-

Her stealthy outflanker. The dark elf sprang up over rubble along the far wall and raced toward her, firing a handbow as he came.

El’s first flung knife met the bow’s dart in midair, sending both missiles skittering wildly aside. El’s second snarled across a bracer on the charging drow’s raised forearm. And El’s third found one of the drow warrior’s eyes, and made the last moments of his charge collapse from a hard sprint into a wavering, dying stagger.

El danced back down the tunnel, turning to face the area where she’d brought the ceiling down. More drow warriors rushed her from there, some bleeding from jagged cuts made by flying shards of stone. Males, every one, a scarred and ragtag bunch clad in all mismatched manner of salvaged, patched, and no doubt stolen armor. Outcasts, seven strong-no, there were nine or more. None of whom would revere or obey a lone priestess, no matter how tall and menacing she seemed.

A scrape of sword on stone behind El made her spin around and leap for the tunnel wall at the same time.

Five more drow males were coming at her from behind, grinning unpleasantly.

Surrounded, greatly outnumbered, and-

Doomed?

“Symrustar,” El told her gently, “ye’re not helping.’

Drow rushed in from all sides.