Realms of Shadow

When Shadows Come Seeking A Throne

1 Kythorn, the Year of Wild Magic

A hundred tiny stars flashed and sparkled, their reflections crawling silently along bright-polished silver all around the room.

The Queen of Cormyr set down her tallglass, plucked aside the dark shimmerweave cover even before the Lady Laspeera could ready a royal spellshield, leaned forward, and asked gently, "Yes, Mreen? Are you well?"

The Lady Lord of Arabel looked haggard in the depths of the crystal ball. The dark, ragged line of a recent sword-cut across her cheek was all Queen Filfaeril and the senior war wizard needed to see to know the truth.

Myrmeen Lhal shrugged, smiled, and replied simply, "Highness, I live."

Myrmeen was still in full armor, and they could see the large, well-worn hilt of her warsword where it lay on the table within easy reach.

Filfaeril shook her head at the grim jest. "Not good enough, Mreen-and lay aside my titles. It's me, lass, Fee. Your old friend, remember?"

"Highness," the Lady Lord of Arabel said stiffly, "I perceive that you're not alone."

It was Laspeera's turn to sigh. "Myrmeen," she said with just a hint of weariness, "it's just the two of us. Put your boots up on the table, fill your goblet, and tell us: how fares Arabel?"

There was a muffled thud as two mud-caked boot heels crashed into their field of view, daintily crossing at the ankles, and swiftly-moving gold flashed back candlelight as a man-sized goblet was plucked up from out of sight beneath a table edge.

"Very well," Myrmeen said flatly, saluting them both with the drink in her hand. "As you command."

The Queen of Cormyr chuckled in the same soft, deep way her husband had so often done. The Lady Lord of Arabel almost shivered at the sound. Azoun was dead and buried, yet any moment she expected him to stride around the corner, laughter in his eyes, and "Mreen," Filfaeril said softly, as if she could read minds, "I miss him too. More than anyone, though I know full well how much I shared him. For his sake, I go on, day after day, to keep Cormyr strong. How fares Arabel?" "My Queen, I'm so sorr-Fee." The Lady Lord of Arabel slapped the table in anger at herself, took a quid sip-no, a warrior's gulp-of wine, and said crisply, "The city's retaken. Steady patrols remounted, Crown law restored, we're done fixing roads and bridges, and most of your troops are now out among the crofters, with barn-raisings well underway and folk lifting their voices in thanks for your generosity. Now the real rebuilding can begin."

Filfaeril smiled, and Laspeera sat back, nodding in satisfaction. "Ah, Mreen, it's such a pleasure to talk with someone who thinks, sees, and speaks directly. You've no idea… these courtiers…"

"Oh, yes, I do," Myrmeen Lhal replied fervently. "Were it not for the peril their recklessness and treasonous ambitions would bring down upon us, with the Stone-lands so close and this new dark magic outdoing the Zhents, I'd press you to agree to my old pet plan."

It was Laspeera's turn to chuckle. "Clap all our courtiers in armor and ship them out to you, to work their hands dirty and face war-fear and hear a few harsh orders? Don't think we haven't been tempted."

"So do it," the commander of Arabel said. "If I make loyal and useful men out of half a dozen courtiers and die in the doing, that's six replacements for one down-and a lesson that might just cow the rest into keeping mute and out of the way, lest they be Volunteered' to follow."

"And lose Arabel again?" Filfaeril asked gently. "How many good men would pay the price of winning it back even one more time?"

Myrmeen nodded, took a long drink from her goblet, and said, "Right enough, your-Fee. Gods damn, Filfaeril, but I just can't call у-"

"Oh, yes, you can," Filfaeril said, sudden iron in her voice. "Courtiers down here call me 'the Whore of Ice' behind my back, just loud enough to make sure I hear, and I was 'Lonelybed Longtresses' for years to throw Azoun's amours in my face, and I'll be flayed on the altars of Loviatar before one of my few true friends can't call me by my own пате."

"Don't let the lords who linger at Court hear you use that expression," Laspeera said with another chuckle. "So few ideas fall into their heads as it is."

Filfaeril rolled her eyes. "So true. I've tried dropping choice phrases where their spies can overhear, to start them thinking, and all they do is wonder what I meant-aloud and over drink after drink, until they get the words all wrong and twist what they thought I meant all around-and I have to watch Lous fight down the urge to strangle them barehanded, one more time."

It was Myrmeen's turn to chuckle. "Doth the Steel Regent's temper grow… more tempered?"

The queen sighed. "Yes, more credit to her, yet being away from the saddle and the sword and her young lords to fence with smiling lies every day… I can see it building in her. Someone, someday soon, is going to say one wrong word or do something small and only slightly offensive-and the storm inside Lous is going to break." "It won't be the only thing in the realm to break that day, I doubt not," the commander of Arabel agreed. "But I fear I waste too much of your time, Fee. You should know some other things, of events up here." The queen nodded and smiled.

"Speak."

"Sightings of terrified Zhents fleeing out of the Stonelands," Myrmeen replied. "Oh, yes; hard to believe, but I saw some myself. They've apparently been babbling about great magical battles, therein, between mighty wizards and horrible flying beasts."

A royal eyebrow lifted. "Apparently?"

"So the jailers say, and they're good ones. I’ll make tune tomorrow to question the lone live captive we have." Laspeera had been watching the Lady Lord of Arabel intently through the crystal.

"That was your better news," she said quietly. "Now tell us the rest."

Myrmeen held up one scarred, long-fingered hand. "Just one thing, gods be thanked for small mercies. Our patrols have scoured the east."

"And?" The queen's voice was as gentle as if she'd been soothing a crying child.

"Tilverton is gone," Myrmeen said bluntly. "Truly, utterly gone."

"Destroyed," Filfaeril murmured. It was not a question. The Lady Lord of Arabel nodded sadly back at her through the scrying-glass, as the queen sighed, threw back her head, and added evenly, "Thank you, Mreen. It's good to hear truth, and not…"

"Courtiers' honeyed words," Laspeera said quietly. "Our thanks, Myrmeen. Get some sleep."

The Lady Lord of Arabel gave them a wry smile and a derisive grunt together. This was my sleep, ladies. Gods keep you well, and Cormyr better." She raised her goblet in salute, swung her legs back down to the floor, took up her sword-and the crystal went dark.

"Gods keep you, Mreen," the queen said quietly, staring at it. "One of the few true blades we can trust. Oh, they are so few…"

"Lady Queen," Laspeera said crisply, "we can only wallow in despair when the needs of the realm permit us time for such indulgences."

Filfaeril's head snapped around, her eyes blazed up into flames, and she gave the senior war wizard a twisted smile.

The queen bowed her head, and murmured, "Right you are, Laspeera. Command me."

"My Queen!" Laspeera said, truly shocked.

Filfaeril rolled her eyes and said, "Well then, good Lady, what now is your advice?"

"Alusair must be informed," Laspeera said, nodding at the crystal. "As must the Mage Royal, so she can best order the War Wizards to proceed."

The Queen of Cormyr lifted both her eyebrows. "You've forgotten how to give orders?"

The senior war wizard sighed. "She was Vangy's choice, and we can't expect her to stand strong and loyal when next our need is greatest, if we don't let her so much as give a simple command here and there. I don't want to be Court Wizard, High-Fee. I never have. And what's better, Caladnei doesn't either."

The Queen nodded.

"The reluctant serve the best." Laspeera nodded at the old maxim instead of making face or sticking out her tongue, as she might have done at another time and in another mood. She merely added in thin, tired tones, There's still a ghazneth out there, and I don't think any of us are hungry, just now, for any more magical tumult in our back pastures."

Filfaeril nodded again, and rose in a shifting of silk

"I'll tell Alaphondar as much as he needs to know." Laspeera smiled. "Leaving Lous for me? Thank you."

"You're welcome," the Queen of Cormyr replied sweetly. She swept out of the room, in the space of an instant somehow becoming every inch the grand dowager оnce more.

Laspeera gave the serene royal back a crooked smile, and turned in another direction to go out a darker door.

Offices breed, somehow. The huge, interconnected fortress of the Royal Court now sprawled larger than the palace itself, and almost entirely shielded-or cut rather-the seat of the Obarskyrs from most of the prod city of Suzail.

Yet, gargantuan though it was, courtiers bred faster They spilled out its great arched doors, across the court yard between, and over into the palace itself. Two of them, dandy-cloaks swirling brightly around them, stood by a shimmering tapestry-a lambent turquoise scene of crawling blue dragons that Laspeera had always liked. They were obviously waiting for her, so Laspeera strode on toward them, not letting them see the slightest hesitation in her step.

On their faces were the easy smirks of men who airily considered themselves masters of the realm, and for a moment, as she bore down on them, the senior war wizard hated them enough to turn them into mice-or ashes under her boots.

How dare they sidle into the private chambers of the royal family to warm themselves closer to the flame of power than their fellows, to whom they'd pretend that they enjoyed the personal confidences of the Obarskyrs. At what time had they lost their fear of guards, or for that matter, of swift-striding war wizards?

"Good Lady-" one of them began, as he moved to block her path, his smile almost a sneer.

"My lords," Laspeera interrupted, not slowing or moving aside, "have you personal business with the queen? Or are you merely lost?"

"Ha ha," the courtier replied, in the eager, empty mirth that by its tone announces that its utterer is about to say something important that should-nay, must-be heeded. "Lady Laspeera," the other courtier said firmly, stepping directly into her way, "it was actually you we came to see. It's a matter of some urgency and delicacy… ah… involving authority over magic."

Laspeera called on the power of the ring that adorned the hand she kept low and behind her-and marched straight into him.

Her shield, unseen and noticeable only as a faint, high singing sound, thrust the man back, startling him into momentary silence. The tall, slender woman in the dark gown was reputedly a powerful mage, yes, but he must weigh almost twice what she did, and how by all the gods "Yes," the laughing courtier's voice sprang into the uneasy moment of his fellow's stumbling retreat, "you see, we need to see the Royal Mage."

"I fear you have the wrong realm, gentlesirs," Laspeera told them over her shoulder, as she strode on down the passage. "In Cormyr we have a Court Wizard who is also our Royal Magician, also known as the 'Mage Royal.' We have no 'Royal Mage.'"

"Oh, come, come," the laughing courtier demurred. "Lady, you know well to whom we refer!"

Laspeera swung around, a warning in her eyes, and replied, "Yes, as it happens, I do-and am therefore puzzled as to why you've come to me. The Mage Royal grants audiences to all at times well known to you, and more private appointments with her may be made through the clerks of the court. Their offices lie considerably to the south of here."

She leveled a pointing finger through a handy window at the impressive bulk of the Royal Court, then turned on her heel, and strode on.

"Lady!" the mirthful courtier protested, with a derisive little laugh. "We're not children! We-"

"— have gotten lost to the extent of wandering across a wide courtyard into the wrong building for some other reason, lords? Excessive drink, perhaps?" a new voice said smoothly, as its owner stepped out of a doorway to block their pursuit. He was a Ready Sword of the Palace Guard, and he was not alone.

In the space of a swiftly-drawn breath the two courtiers found themselves ringed by unsmiling Purple Dragons. Guardsmen, in fact, who held weapons half-drawn and looked like they had never in all their long, weather-beaten lives known how to smile.

Laspeera allowed herself a satisfied grin at the alacrity of the response to the song of her rising shield, which would have been very loud in that guardroom, but kept it inside. Her face was its usual pleasant mask as she swept past another courtier-a son of the Helmstone noble family, this one, with rather more right to be on this floor of the palace-even before he could look up from the servant he was snarling threats of dismissal at, and cry hastily, "Lady! Lady Wizard!"

Laspeera neither replied nor slowed, and so-of course-he came hopping along in her wake.

"Lady Laspeera, I must speak with you!"

Not letting her sigh reach her tone of voice, she asked, "Must you, Lord?"

"Well, ah, yes, actually."

Laspeera turned a corner without slowing. "Then do so," she replied calmly.

"Here? In the middle of a hallway?"

"Why not, Lord? Do you find hallways somehow… tainted?"

"No, no, you misunderstand me, lady. Why, I almost fear you do so deliberately. I-it's just that the matter I must speak with you about is, ahem, regarding, ah, future actions of some delicacy involving the Lady Caladnei, and-"

"Lord Helmstone," the senior war wizard replied, "I fear discussing a marriage proposal with anyone other than the lady you wish to become attached to is less than prudent-as is considering anything at all of the sort without first acquiring the approval of your rather formidable father."

"Wha-marriage? To such as her? Lady, you wound me deeply-"

"No, Lord, not yet," Laspeera murmured, passing through an archway and rounding another corner. "Not yet."

The younger Lord Helmstone was bustling after her, still sputtering in outrage. "Lady, I protest! Nobles of the realm are not to be trifled with, not even by-"

Laspeera spun around so swiftly that he was forced to snatch at a voluptuous statuette on a pedestal to slow himself, lest he crash into her. Seeing what rondure he'd laid his hand on, he snatched his fingers away in cringing haste.

Her voice was low and calm when she spoke, but it drained the high color entirely from his face nonetheless.

"Young men of even less prudence than manners? I say again, Lord Helmstone: before you open your mouth again in the palace, seek the wise counsel of your father." The War Wizard turned on her heel, stepped through the next archway-and discovered that it was her turn to come to a swift halt.

"He did," a deep voice said, in tones as challenging as a sword-thrust, "and is now doing exactly what I bade him to. He is attempting, in his own way, admittedly less direct than it could be, to tell you a plain truth. Lady Laspeera, you we know and accept, though some among us mistrust a secretive woman-and a commoner, at that-holding so much power. You have demonstrated your loyalty to the Crown time and time again. You we would accept as Mage Royal, but not another mysterious woman-another commoner worming her way into office over us-not this motherless Caladnei. I but seek to warn you of the general mood. King Azoun is gone, lady, and our tolerance for the excesses of those he's left behind wanes-it does indeed. We won't take much more of this." "King Azoun the fifth is alive and well, I assure you," she replied. "And who, my most gracious Lord of Helm-stone, is 'we'?"

Laspeera's voice was a razor-sharp dagger of ice, but the elder Lord Helmstone did not flinch. A scuffling sound behind Laspeera told her that his son had, but her shield was still up around her. If sudden ambition-or "patriotism"-should move him to fell a hated war wizard to in some small way cleanse the realm, her back was not unprotected.

"The heads of most of the noble houses of Cormyr, Lady Laspeera," Helmstone said quietly. "The flower of the realm. The swords and coins upon whose support the Dragon Throne stands-or falls."

"And if I was to loudly denounce this treason, Lord?" "Lady, as King Azoun-the fourth-himself said to us all, 'tis not treason to seek what is best for the kingdom." Helmstone regarded her gravely, and murmured in tones that barely reached her ears. "You should now be Mage Royal, Lady-not some uplands upstart."

"Do you know so clearly, my lord, what's best for Cormyr?" Laspeera asked him softly, her voice still icy. "Better than does the wizard Vangerdahast, perchance?"

Helmstone shook his head. "I have no love for the old wizard, Lady, but with him at least I knew what I was mistrusting." He drew back, and waved his hand in a gesture that was clearly a signal to his son to depart, swiftly and upon the instant. "I see our time here is wasted. You too must be mind-mazed by the spells of the new witch."

Laspeera shook her head, almost as amazed as she was pretending to be. "Do you misunderstand what wizards do that much?"

Helmstone's response, as he drew aside a hanging to step through a door he should not have known was there, was a growl of menace.

"Our beloved Forest Kingdom is falling on dark days, indeed," he said, "if the last withered branches of the decadent Obarskyrs are now cozened by scheming witches. Steps must be taken."

A startled servant stood blinking in the revealed doorway, a tray of decanters in her hands. With a snarl of anger the noble let the hanging fall right in her face, whirled, and strode past Laspeera, back down the passage in his son's footsteps.

Timidly the hanging was lifted aside. Laspeera gave the servant a wordless, "I don't know about these nobles, either," shrug and swept on in search of the Steel Regent. The short route to where Alusair would be seemed to have grown very long.

Passing a certain doorway, she gave the face regarding her from its shadowed depths a discreet nod and strode on without speaking.

Out of that way, in the senior war wizard's wake, stepped a man whose answering nod was even more subtle. Glarasteer Rhauligan, dealer in turret tops and spires, strolled nonchalantly after the storming noble, humming a popular song of the streets as he went.

Far down the corridor, Laspeera stiffened as she recognized it-and, slowly and ruefully, let a real smile touch her lips. The name of that tune was Wizards, Kings, and Doom, We All Rush to Seek the Tomb. Indeed.

The noble faces staring down into the pit were pale and sweating. It's one tiling to sneer at terror-tales heard in youth, deeming them sheer lies spun by the weak-minded. It's quite another to see them come to life and writhing in pain below you-wounded, yes, but so large and mighty in magic and so terrifyingly near.

Netheriloursonce. Heed, humans. Greatevil returned shadows shadowmen darkwizards, city of Shade now back. In desertofourdevising. Will reachout seizebetter-lands-this one! Soon, plotting evennow! Storm back from exilehidingcravenstealth to seize whatrightfullyy-ours togreat acclaimproperrank bards'esteem Weak women on throne ignorant willdither willbetoolate youCormyr's only hope YOUher salvation!

The hissing mind-voice fell silent, but its echoes still thundered in their heads, and it was only with difficulty that Halvundrar Cormaeril managed to speak, his voice thick, slow, and awkward.

"What… must we do?"

Keepsecretkeepsilent heedmy words!

The voice slowed, mind-speaking each word carefully and firmly, as an angry father might deliver a warning of great importance to a child.

Royal Magician must be slain. First get from her key to Iltharl's Vault. Very powerful magic therein. Take it, cleanse your fair land, and set someone suitable on the throne. Yourselves, for instance. Soon it will be time to strike. Very soon.

In their minds appeared a sudden, vivid image-of a long-barreled key, its silver plate tarnished with age, its wards large and fluted, its handle worked into a dragon's head, jaws agape.

Darkness descended like a curtain, and their minds were their own again. They could see nothing of the pit and the ridiculous-looking, trumpet-shaped bulk shuddering in it, clawed arms and stinger moving restlessly.

Maerlyn Bleth shivered. So that was a phaerimm.

His mind whirled the image of the key they must seize from the Mage Royal in front of him and took it away again.

A flying city of shadow wizards come back from ancient Netheril. All the Realms endangered, Cormyr the closest prize… it was using them, that thing down in the pit, using them like the brainless cattle it so obviously and scornfully believed them to be. When the time was right, its spells would lash out or it would stab at their very minds.

But plots are easily spoken and harder in the doing. Mistakes inevitable-oh, hadn't the gods taught far too many Cormyrean nobles that. Mighty magic is always a weapon worth having-and if Cormyr was doomed, after all these centuries, at least the House of Obarskyr could be driven down in richly-deserved slaughter first, every last screaming woman of it, those sneers wiped off their faces as they saw the nobles they and their forebears had so wronged working revenge upon them at last.

He was grinning like a wolf, Maerlyn knew. Teeth flashed in the dim light around him as they hastened out of the cavern together. Every last one of his fellow conspirators was grinning savagely too.

Ah, but it would be good to see the Obarskyrs get theirs at last.

The Steel Regent struck again, grunting with the effort, and Caladnei reeled. Every blow of Alusair's onslaught was like a hammer in her head, and the Mage Royal was fast acquiring a blinding headache.

Both women were drenched and staggering as they circled each other, cotton tunics plastered to their curves and errant hairs escaping sodden headscarves. Gods, but the princess was as fast as a striking snake!

Her wooden practice blade swept around again, and this time Caladnei dodged away to avoid parrying, stumbling in her weariness.

Her own sword was an edgeless bar of force, maintained by her will alone, and Alusair thrust past her guard, their blades binding, and Caladnei shouted in pain.

"No," the Steel Regent snarled, as the Mage Royal gasped and held up a hand in a gesture of surrender, "don't give up on me now! A murderous noble won't stay his steel because you wave to him that you're winded."

They were circling each other again, both caked with the sand of the practice-floor where they'd clinched, kicked, and tumbled earlier in their bout. Shamra the Healer stood watching them carefully, ready to step in if either woman lost her temper and went too far, or took a wound through a slip at the wrong instant.

"I did not… seek this office," the Mage Royal snarled between gasps. "I didn't want this title… these duties…"

The Steel Regent's grin was as wry as it was fierce.

"I've heard those very same words before, echoing back at me from my own bedchamber mirror."

Her blade skirled and thrust. Caladnei shouted again at the pain in her head-and a wooden blade slid home to touch her just under her breasts, thudding painfully up and in, at her heart. She put a hand on Alusair's weapon and bent over to catch her breath, reflecting ruefully that she wasn't half the swordmaster the princess was.

"Did you die gloriously?"

The calm question made both of the panting, sweating women look up. The voice belonged to Laspeera, and she never disturbed them at practice unless matters were urgent or of the utmost importance.

Caladnei waved away the question with a smile as she struggled for breath.

Alusair handed her sword to the healer, strode up out of the sand, and asked, "What news, Lasp?"

The senior war wizard reported the news from Arabel and her encounters with various murmuring critics of the Mage Royal on the way to them, as the two women did off their tunics and headscarves, washed with mint-water, toweled down, and put on fresh tunics.

Shamra was holding out a hair-ribbon to Caladnei as Laspeera recounted the words of the elder Lord Helm-stone, her mimicry of his tone as exact as her recall of his utterances.

The Mage Royal frowned, stiffened, and snapped, "Later, ladies!"

The place where Caladnei had been standing was suddenly empty. Shamra was holding out a ribbon to emptiness. She blinked once, and calmly turned and put the ribbon back on the side table from which she'd taken it. Alusair and Laspeera were exchanging raised-eyebrow looks.

"One of her telltales went off," the war wizard murmured. "I wonder what disaster's unfolding now?"

The princess sighed as she made for the door, binding back her hair as she went.

"I miss Vangerdahast," she said. "He never told you anything either, but he had this sneering, testy way of doing it that somehow reassured you that he had everything under control. I miss that feeling."

Laspeera's smile, as they went out of the practice hall together, was thin. "You're not the only one. Nor am I. The nobles were never so restless under Vangy's eye."

Behind them, the healer smiled. Out of habit she turned to make sure nothing vital had been forgotten, and struck Alusair's wooden sword against the door post. It was still slick with sweat, and slipped from her fingers-but it never clattered to the floor.

Just for an instant, Shamra's hand blurred into something dark and very like a tentacle, that plucked the blade from the air and reshaped itself once more into the healer's fine-fingered hand.

She was alone, Laspeera's back just disappearing through an archway.

Hefting the wooden sword in her hand, the healer let her smile broaden. Not so wide as to show fangs or seem strange-but as eager and deadly as the sudden glitter in the eyes above it.

Soon it would be time to move at last… very soon. With magic enough, she could hold the throne if she took it. And taking it would be so easy. Wring the neck of a babe, and catch Alusair alone and treat her to the same fate before word spread of little Azoun's doom… and slay Filfaeril, take her shape, and play the sorrowful queen waiting to be wooed by the right noble.

It would not be such a bad thing, to rule a kingdom as fair as this one, if she could keep all these idiots from shattering it around her.

"What can I say, good my Lord, to convince you to join us?"

The elder Lord Helmstone was angry-gods above, couldn't the man see this was the right thing to do? He wasn't a dullard, after all.

"Nothing that comes to my mind," Lord Everran Summertree replied, in a voice that was sharp with disapproval. "Cormyr can ill afford-Helmstone, we can ill afford-another war right now, with so many dead and their crops implanted, and Sembians eager to snap up land in return for just enough coin to see starving crofters warm and fed through the coming winter. Our realm needs peace to rebuild, not another petty squabble over whose shoulders carry this or that title, or even whose backside warms the Dragon Throne!"

Lord Helmstone sighed-the angry gust of a man exasperated by obstinate idiocy. He drew a slow, simmering breath, threw his chin forward like a weapon, and growled, The time will come, Summertree, when you see sense. I only hope 'twill not be too late. In the end you'll find you simply must turn against these witches and foolish women who now misrule us, and so sully the bright memory of Azoun and Cormyr's greatness-before it ebbs entire!"

Out on the balcony-or rather, just beneath it, where he was clinging by his fingertips-Glarasteer Rhauligan rolled his eyes. Did all of these nobles learn their bombast at the same school? Or did the Lord of Traitors answer their prayers by filling their minds with the same grand speeches of self-righteous "for the good of the realm I do this" blurf?

"If you truly cared for the good of Cormyr," Lord Summertree replied coldly, "You'd court Alusair and set your son to wooing the Mage Royal-and win or lose their charms, you'd gain yourself ample opportunity to fill their ears with the policies and stances you think the realm should adopt."

"Take that spitfire to wife? Harness my son to a commoner?"

"Oh, stop squeaking, my lord. Barely two centuries have your kin held nobility-and right now you scarcely seem suited to it. We were all commoners, once. As for taming princesses-think of it as better sport than sticking your lances through stags and a few scrawny boar. Twould keep you busy, at least, and-"

"And out of your regard? That much I can do, my lord! Good day to you!" Lord Helmstone's parting wish was delivered at a roar as he whirled and stormed out, back-handing a wine-bearing manservant out of his way so fiercely that one of Summertree's best decanters clanged off the passage wall.

Its owner waved the servant away with a reassuring smile, firmly closed the door, set its lock bar in place, and strode to his desk.

Lord Summertree was not in a writing mood at this moment, it seemed. He went around behind his chair, kept going-and with surprising speed for a man so muscular and of graying years-snatched aside the tapestry that concealed the door to his cloak closet. His sword was half drawn as he stared into the wide eyes of the still-sweating Mage Royal.

He asked pleasantly, "I trust you heard everything you wanted to. Have you a good reason to give me why I shouldn't just run you through with this good blade right now-as I would any sneak-thief?"

Caladnei cleared her throat. "Are you not afraid of my Art?"

Summertree smiled back at her wryly. "Shouldn't you be afraid of mine?"

The larger of the two ornate rings on his left hand winked, and a singing, glowing aura appeared around the noble. He stepped back and drew his sword. In silence they both watched a radiance that matched Summertree's shield awaken in his blade, and start to silently race along its bright, sharp edges.

"No," the Mage Royal said flatly, tossing her head. "I know you stand loyal for the Crown-and so I have nothing to fear."

Summertree raised an eyebrow. "I know not where you stand," he replied gently, lifting his sword so that its tip was a whisker away from the cotton cloaking her breast, "so I think you do."

The blade lifted, to menace her throat. "Who is Caladnei, really?" the noble asked, his voice almost a purr. "How do any of us know if Vangerdahast really chose you-or if he did, what he intends for our fair realm? Who's he truly loyal to, and whom do you serve? I ask again: why shouldn't I just run you through now, as many of the hotheads among we who bear titles desire me to do?"

Steel flashed as Glarasteer Rhauligan stepped into the room. "Because, my Lord Summertree," he said firmly, "to do so would be the act of a traitor-a man I would be forced to cut down, even in his own manor, for so cruel a murder and deliberate treason against the Crown."

Everran Summertree was not accustomed to being surprised by the silent approaches of strangers-least of all in his own study, and with daggers poised in their hands to throw in his direction. If the old lord was astonished, Caladnei was even more so.

"Who are you?" they said, more or less together.

Glarasteer smiled an easy smile, and replied, "I think you really mean to ask me what I am or rather whom I serve. Well, then, I harp from time to time, and bear with me both a Purple Dragon ring graven with my name by Azoun IV himself, and a Crown commission from Vangerdahast."

Lord Summertree shook his head. "It seems my private chambers have become a popular wing of the court, this evening," he observed, spreading his hands to include both of his guests. "Will you join me in wine?"

Two heads shook in unison, politely declining. The man who'd stepped in from the balcony raised his other hand from behind him, and Lord Summertree watched the light of his favorite lamps gleam along the edge of a very sharp long sword. As he wondered for the first time if he might die this evening, there came a whirling of a different sort of light from closer at hand-and the Mage Royal vanished.

The two men looked at each other-and both shrugged. "A pleasant evening to you, Lord," Glarasteer said softly, ere he took two swift steps and vaulted over the balcony rail into the gathering dusk.

"A bit late for that, don't you think?" Lord Summertree murmured, after a moment of standing alone with his sword raised against no foe.

Setting it carefully on the desk, he went to a sideboard, poured himself a goblet of a favorite wine with hands that shook not at all, and strolled thoughtfully out onto the balcony to watch what bards liked to call "the soft summer stars coming out."

The tentacle that slapped around his eyes and mouth, and broke his neck with a quick, brutal jerk before snatching the noble's shuddering, spasming body back out of sight, was accompanied by a calm, slightly husky, feminine murmur.

"Far too late, my Lord Summertree, but not too late for you to have a change of heart and go to join the conspirators."

For just a moment, as it flexed a pair of tentacles and casually tossed the large, limp body up onto the manor roof for the crows to rend, the shape that had spoken resembled Shamra the Healer. The moment was gone, and it dwindled and thickened, taking on the burly bulk of the much-respected, childless bachelor noble. Barefoot it padded to the robing rooms to choose clothes, plucking up the fallen goblet as it went.

When it set off across the study toward the door and its lock bar a few breaths later, it moved with utter confidence, and a fair approximation of Lord Summertree's stride.

At least she had this one dusty chamber, spell-shielded by Lord Vangerdahast to keep everyone else out, as a refuge.

Right now, Caladnei of the Raging Headache sorely — and that was a mild word for what she felt — needed it.

She clutched at her temples as her head rang and rolled, softly cursing all of the grasping nobles that Cormyr seemed so richly over-endowed with. Gods damn and blast them all!

Even here in the palace, they circled like vultures around Azoun's tomb, eyeing the throne. She didn't want any of this, Royal Magician and Court Wizard and Lady Master of the War Wizards — and all the other barbed, honeyed words at court.

The Forest Kingdom was a beautiful place, and it felt like home — it was home — but why couldn't she just take over an old, ramshackle upcountry house in the woods and be left alone there to work magic?

Every month it surged in her more strongly. Just plain Caladnei could do wondrous things, she knew, if she could take the time to try steering her sorcery thus and so, observe, and try again, unleashing magic that was truly Art, not these dry inscriptions the wizards so loved.

Yet all around her in the gloom were the spells Vangerdahast had left her. Shelves after shelves of fat, mysterious-looking books and pigeonholes of yellowing scrolls. Hundreds of both. Dusty tomes and cryptic symbols and crabbed inscriptions, the things book-wizards loved, true-but to read even one of them awakened things in her, stirred her sorcery to eager life, and left her able to do more… even if it had nothing to do with the written spell. She'd never have been allowed access to such treasures if Lord Vangerdahast hadn't named her his successor.

"Why, take this scroll, here," she murmured aloud, knuckling her head against the pain. She'd found it yesterday, in a cobwebbed corner that didn't look as if it had been disturbed since the palace was built… whenever that was. A translation-by Baerauble himself! — of Names of Power. Words bound into enchantments woven into the Weave in ancient Netheril itself. To utter one of them would summon a Netherese archwizard to you, to render a single act of aid. Doubtless most of those words would bring only a cloud of tomb-dust and perhaps a few crumbling bones, now, but still… think of it! Magic spun when there was no Cormyr and dragons ruled most of the realms of today. Carefully stored here-forgotten, yes, but guarded as the treasures they were-for someone, long centuries later, to find them.

Someone called Caladnei, a wandering adventurer and spellcaster-for-hire. A commoner, a nobody… one топ lowborn wench put in office over us.

The Mage Royal sighed, and let her eye run down the list of Names of Power, wondering if similar intrigues had beset their long-ago owners. Probably, if Netheril was anything like Cormyr or Halruaa.

Brathchacelent. Cathalegaunt. Tarane. Who had they been?

Caladnei sighed. That was the sort of thing she wanted to know, not which blustering noble wanted her horsewhipped and hanged this morning.

Gods, but she might just welcome that about now! The Mage Royal put her head down on a reading desk and moaned, wondering how to master her Art to quell headaches.

Eyes shone like pale moons in the gloom, over the wet scarves that kept them from sneezing in the thick, cob-webbed dust. This secret passage had been forgotten even by the Obarskyrs, just as the phaerimm had said. Maerlyn Bleth looked up sharply as he sensed, more than saw, a blade drawn. Halvundrar Cormaeril gave him a silent glare over it, and jerked his head sharply, pointing at its tip-which slowly, and ever so faintly, began to glow.

Maerlyn stared at it, and by its softly growing light saw the wooden swivel-catch next to it-one of three around the edges of a door or panel that Cormaeril was now patiently tracing. Halvundrar's hand closed on one, and he pointed with his blade at another.

Maerlyn reached for it, but one of the others-Ilryn Merendil; Maerlyn could just make out the line of his short, upcurled beard-was there already, leaving Maerlyn to take the next. Klasker Goldsword and Aldeth Dracohorn squeezed past, their own swords grating out with a sound that was startlingly loud among all the gentle breathing. It earned them a fierce glare from Cormaeril, and he was gesturing again at the catches.

Together, with slow care, they turned, freeing the dry, crumbling wood from where it had rested for perhaps a century, and the panel shifted under their fingers. At a nod from Cormaeril-and who'd named him lord of their little band, anyway? — Maerlyn pulled gently on the catch in his hand, using it as a handle, with Merendil at his side.

The panel came away easily, spilling light into their passage-light tinted crimson by the tapestry in front of them. From beyond it, as they set the panel carefully aside, they could hear female voices. Two: the princess, and the Mage Royal, discussing possible traitors at Court, and what to do about them.

Maerlyn saw Cormaeril grin savagely at the irony, and met it with a mirthless smile of his own. He freed the weighted cloak from his belt and shook it out ready in his hand. The cloak would be his own contribution to the plans of the phaerimm. It would go over the Caladnei wench's head as quickly as he could get it there, to keep her from blasting them with magic before they could get their blades into her. Risky, yes, but he'd far rather be skirmishing with a young, untried Mage Royal than crossing blades with the Steel Princess!

Halvundrar Cormaeril ducked his head, brought his blade up over his shoulder, and burst forward in furious silence-and they were all pounding forward into the light, waiting for the screaming to start.

Seeking screams that did not come.

Glarasteer's hands trembled as he set down the call-crystal he'd just shattered. "If I'm wrong," he muttered, "I'll take the blame."

"If you're wrong, good Rhauligan," the Queen of Cormyr said firmly, "I'll take the blame. Lord Vangerdahast still owes me much, and-"

There was a flash of purple and white flame from the far side of the bed. Silhouetted against it, they saw Laspeera and the four trusted Highknights writhing in agony. Writhing-and falling.

Then the light was gone, and in the searing afterglow fitful lightning crackled over the sleeping infant King. Laspeera's spell-shield was collapsing.

"Lasp!" Filfaeril snapped as she glided forward, snatching a dagger out of her bosom with a speed that made Glarasteer blink. "Lasp! Speak to те!

Only silence answered her-for the triumphant, merciless laughter that was suddenly rolling all around them sounded only in their heads.

So disgustingly easy thisbestpulinghumanscando? Notworthytorule evenenoughgroundfor theirowngraves hardly worthmytrouble die thenweakhumandross!

Fire was lashing them, inside their heads, and Filfaeril’s scream was a high, unearthly stabbing at Rhauligan's ears. Purple-white fire blossomed again, around the royal bed, and by its light he saw the queen, dagger fallen, trying to claw out her own eyes.

Then his own hands were coming up at his face, sharp steel still clutched in them-and he threw himself sideways, knocking Filfaeril onto the bed with his hip, driving on to roll away from her soft limbs and into a hard, bruising meeting with the floor. His arms were trembling as he fought against the phaerimm's dominance- gods, but it was strong! — and there was a sudden roar and flare of golden light so bright the chamber seemed filled with the sun.

The vice tightening around their minds was gone.

Glarasteer blinked. Across the chamber, something clawed and bestial was thrashing as it died, a last smoldering agony that framed the grim smile of a bearded, robed, rumple-haired man with a very familiar face.

"Vangerdahast!" half a dozen throats gasped as one.

"You summoned, and I came," the wizard growled, as he stepped over what was left of the phaerimm with spell-smoke still rising from his hands. "Bah! Why should Elminster get all the fun?"

Glarasteer Rhauligan looked back at the shards of the call-crystal, then over at the crisped and riven remains of the phaerimm. Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, he put down his Sword. He'd sworn to defend the lives of the Obarskyrs with his own, so long as he could still draw breath, and for the first time since he'd taken up vigil over the king's bed, he began to hope that he just might live to see another morning come to Cormyr.

The pride of Cormyr's exiled nobility were halfway across The Chamber of Frostfire Candles, with the Steel Regent and the Mage Royal both whirling to meet them, beautiful eyes flashing with anger and something else- eagerness? — when the tapestries on the other side of the room boiled, and a nightmare of black tentacles burst forth, snaking around the princess.

Alusair's sword was already drawn. She spun around with a speed that made Maerlyn Bleth gulp, hacked twice, and smoking ichor spattered to the ghost rothe rugs, followed by a thrashing, severed tentacle.

Maerlyn swerved and charged at the Mage Royal, shaking out the cloak as he ran, just in time to bring it up in front of his face as Caladnei snarled something, and the world exploded in a hissing roar of ice.

Cormaeril shouted in pain and fell back, sheathed in sparkling frost, Goldsword toppled without a sound, and Dracohorn staggered once and became still, stiff and white and staring. Maerlyn flinched back from the searing cold, gasping out a curse, and There was a sickening wet splintering sound from his left, and the princess sobbed. It was a sound Maerlyn had never thought to hear; he couldn't help but turn and look.

A dark, rippling figure that had a gloating human face but nothing else human about it leaned toward Alusair, its front a forest of writhing tentacles. One of them flailed in shredded uselessness, another wore the regent's sword like a high lady's hatpin as it coiled and whipped in pain-and the rest were tightening around the struggling princess herself.

Gods! This couldn't be the phaerimm, surely, so what was it?

Alusair was snarling, more anger than fear on her face, but one of her arms dangled uselessly, shattered somewhere below the elbow. The other was plying a dagger as fast as she could, keeping those deadly coils from her throat, but a dozen snakelike arms were already tightening around her, and she was being bent back like a straining bow.

In a moment, Maerlyn knew, he would hear Alusair's spine make the same sound that her arm had.

"Caladnei!" the princess cried. "Aid! Aid, unless you want to be regent, too!"

Tightening tentacles slapping around her breast, she had breath left only for a scream of rage and pain.

Gods, yes, Caladnei! He was supposed to be Maerlyn whirled back toward the Mage Royal, bringing the cloak up again-but Caladnei, her eyes two dark flames of fury, was rising from a hastily-clawed-open drawer with a wand in her hand, shouting something.

A beam of flame scorched across the room so swiftly that the air made a sound like parchment being torn- and the black, glistening shape exploded in a rain of gore and tangled tentacles, flinging the Steel Regent over a couch and away.

There would be time to make sure of her later. His task remained clear before him. Maerlyn flung the useless cloak aside with a snarl and snatched out his blade-in time to see Ilryn Merendil, a soft smile on his face, slash aside Caladnei's vainly-warding hand with a vicious sword cut, and bring his slim, bright steel around in an elegant thrust that plunged right through the Mage Royal's midriff-to emerge, glistening, from her back.

Her eyes widened in astonishment and agony, Maerlyn Bleth grew a smile of his own as he stepped forward in a perfect thrust and made his own hole in yielding flesh, crossing his blade over Merendil's to come out the witch's side and pin her arm.

Caladnei reeled, and her eyes found his-eyes awash in pain and sadness and regret. Trembling lips drooled blood, and gasped, "Throne."

The word seemed to rush away across the room, echoing as if across vast distances-and to roar back into a thunderclap that shook the Chamber of Frostfire Candles. There was someone else in the room-a man Maerlyn had never seen before. He was tall and very thin, wore robes of strange cut and dark but shimmering hue, and his skin was the color of smoke. His eyes seemed almost milky-white as he glanced at the dying woman and at Maerlyn and Merendil. Almost lazily he raised one hand. and it seemed to the astonished noble that shadows clung to it, somehow; shadows that shouldn't have been there, in all this lamplight.

The man smiled a cold, unlovely smile, and something bright blue and bubbling sprang out of his empty palm, washing over Cormaeril and Merendil and-Maerlyn himself!

The youngest son of House Bleth felt a moment of intense cold, and a burning that rose savagely to choke him-and as the world slowly went dark and he stared at the exposed bones of his own sword arm, Maerlyn felt nothing at all.

Done. The mind-voice was calm and triumphant and somehow sneering, Caladnei thought, through the red claws of agony, as the wizard of shadows watched her sag back against a couch with two swords through her. She struggled to reach out a hand to him, and he calmly watched her efforts, smiled that cruel smile, waved a hand, and was gone as if he had never been.

Despairing, Caladnei let the pain take her, shuddering around the swords whose sharp points would not let her lie back against the splendid upholstery and rest.

So this is what it feels like to die…

There was noise, fast approaching, an uneven running that ended in a skidding crash into one end of the couch. Spitting blood as the world darkened around her, the Mage Royal felt no pain from that jarring-nothing more than the raging wall of agony that was bearing down, crushing her.

Silver flashed in front of her nose, and soothing fire passed her lips.

"Caladnei!" a voice hissed.

The Mage Royal struggled to focus, to see the face of the princess. Alusair dashed a second healing potion down her throat-gods, but it felt good-and set one booted foot against Caladnei's breast and pulled.

Coming out, the blade tugged the Mage Royal half upright, and if she'd thought she'd tasted pain before, she knew better now. Steel rang and clattered far down the room-Alusair must have just flung the blade away over her shoulder-and without pause the princess bent forward and snatched out the second sword.

Someone very near was shrieking in agony, a raw and horrible sound, and as Caladnei writhed and shuddered on the couch, biting her lips and tongue uncontrollably, she very much feared that it was her.

The pain-creased face of the princess was in front of hers again.

"Hold on, Mage," Alusair was snarling, as Caladnei shrank back from the light and noise and pain, drifting down toward the dark.

"You're one of us now," the princess roared, "and Cormyr needs you! Don't you die on me! I so much wanted to gallivant around and have adventures while my father ruled over a placid realm of ever-richer farmers and nobles so adrip with gems that they tossed handfuls of them to their servants… but somehow I'm not surprised that the gods had other ideas. If there's to be a Cormyr tomorrow-without Vangerdahast-I need you. Cormyr needs you! Damn you, Caladnei!"

Strong fingers shook Caladnei like a rag doll, but it аll seemed so far away.

Alusair whirled away from the Mage Royal's body and sprinted across the room, shouting at the pains that stabbed through her legs and ribs and shattered arm with each step, until she reached a statuette crowning a mantelpiece-a sculpted likeness of a Purple Dragon.

"Blast you, Vangerdahast," she sobbed, snatching it from its perch and wincing her way back down the room, "this had better not have been one of your sly lies!"

With trembling fingers she snatched one of the enchanted rings off the hand at the end of her broken arm-on her knees and gasping with pain by the time she got it off-and thrust it into one of her open wounds, tearing at her flesh until oozing blood ran freely again.

Tucking the statuette into the crook of her good arm, the Steel Princess reached up to hold the ring in her wound, reeled to her feet, and lowered herself as gently as she could atop Caladnei's limp body. They were going to slide off this bloody couch together, if she didn't.

Grimly Alusair fumbled the purple dragon-one of three in all Faerun, if Vangy had told her truth-into her good hand, raised herself awkwardly with her broken arm grinding into her dying friend, and the ring held there in her own gore, and smashed the statuette against the back of the couch with all the strength she had left. It took two sobbing blows before the thing broke. Weeping, Alusair brought the jagged fragment still in her hand around-and stabbed herself with it, right into the ring. It had been trailing blue fire. So the old wizard hadn't lied, and this just might Blue flames burst through her, like fire and ice, cooling and soothing. The pain was gone!

Alusair shuddered as cleansing power raced through her, and-and-gods, Caladnei! Swiftly, ere it ebbed!

She fell forward again and kissed whatever bare skin she could find-Caladnei's left cheek, as it happened, just beneath one staring eye-and held herself rigid to be sure their contact did not end. With tantalizing slowness, almost lazily, the healing magic stole out of her, washed back into her, and rippled into the Mage Royal and stayed there.

The body beneath hers jumped, spasming and moaning gently and trying to rise. Alusair held her down, clawing at the carved back of the couch to hold herself in place as Caladnei sobbed, shuddered, and gasped, "Princess? Alusair?"

The Steel Regent smiled then and let go her grasp to start the slow slide toward the floor.

Tingling, all pain wondrously banished, Caladnei lifted her head to look around, through swimming eyes- as Glarasteer Rhauligan stepped smilingly into the room with his drawn sword raised and ready, and Laspeera looking over one shoulder, and Vangerdahast peering over the other.

Behind them was Queen Filfaeril with the infant king in her arms and the sage Alaphondar at her side-and there seemed to be an inadvertent contest between the infant Azoun and the patrician sage as to who could look the most dazed and just-awakened.

Rhauligan shook his head as he slid his sword back into its sheath and went to help them. He was still two steps away when the Steel Princess bumped down onto the floor.

"I know," he remarked, reaching down a hand to help her up, "there're some folk who'd look upon this touching scene and draw quite the wrong conclusions, but…"

Alusair gave him a level look, and said crisply, "It's a good thing for уоu, sir, that Vangerdahast, my father, and Elminster all carefully took the time to separately and in the utmost secrecy explain to me just who you are. It's kept you alive these past few months, when certain folk very strongly urged you be rendered dead."

As she spoke, blue flames of healing magic swirled from between her lips.

Weakly, from the couch, Caladnei muttered, "So I was mistaken. Not one of my larger mistakes, I'm afraid."

She looked up at Vangerdahast apologetically. "Are you still sure you made the right choice? I knew nothing about these nobles, and-and that tentacled thing."

Her predecessor smiled, shook his head, and said, "The Blood of Malaug are everywhere these days, it seems, and Cormyr is always entertaining noble traitors and exiles who think regicide will win them back their estates and titles with a sword stroke. You'll get used to them." — Caladnei sat up and said almost pleadingly, "I failed the Crown! I didn-"

Vangerdahast snorted. "Nay, nay, lass-don't think to get out of being Mage Royal that easily! The mistakes are all yours to make now. I'm not watching over you all, ready to appear in a puff of spellsmoke to save your various shapely behinds whenever you stumble."

He turned slowly on his heel, to favor everyone in the room with his stern gaze, and added, "Consider this a lucky chance that I was passing through. Cormyr is yours now. With the passing of Azoun, my duty was done, and I've so little time left to cram all my neglected tasks and whims and unfinished business into. Farewell!"

Amid a vain chorus of protests, he smiled again, wiggled his ringers playfully at the child king, and vanished.

Filfaeril broke the little silence that followed with a sigh, and turned to Caladnei and asked, "How do wizards do that? I've always wanted to just begone into thin air, too-usually when particularly obnoxious nobles were approaching. Twould be very handy-"

It was not considered polite to interrupt the Queen of Cormyr, but Caladnei was suddenly lost in a flood of giggles-mirth that begat laughter from others, a rising chorus of guffaws through which the Mage Royal only dimly heard Glarasteer Rhauligan remark in gloomy tones, "She has a flaw after all, our Royal Magician: she giggles."

In a room that swirled with shadows, Tarane of Shade stood watching the scene in the Chamber of Frostfire Candles through a whorl of scrying magic.

"Well, well," he said, smiling faintly. "An interesting place to rule, to be sure. Let it mature awhile, to grow strong and prosperous again first. Waiting for the right moment is one thing I know very well how to do."

He picked up a ring that had until recently adorned the hand of Maerlyn Bleth from a flaring, flute-topped pedestal table beside him.. Turning it so that its half-aroused enchantments-magic the young fool had been utterly unaware he was carrying-made it flash in the backwash of the scrying spell, the Shadovar added with a smile, "Unlike so many of the fair flowering of Cormyr's proud noble houses. Or the last Obarskyrs and their handful of loyal servants, for that matter."