“Osbur? What news?” Illance barked, before adding to the rest of the room, “This man can be trusted!”
The man bowed then announced huskily, “I am sent by Lord Elbert Oldbridle with a mess-”
“Elbert? What of your master, Lord Olgarth Oldbridle?”
“Dead, Lord Illance. Slain by… others, led by a man of Westgate. Lord Olgarth’s last orders to me were to pass on a specific warning to his son, if he fell. I did this, and his son-my master, now-bade me seek you out and give you the warning, too.”
“Do so.”
“ ‘Competing cabals from Sembia and from Westgate are seeking to subvert senior courtiers of Cormyr during this unrest, so as to either influence or outright rule the Forest Kingdom. Beware Kormoroth and Yestrel and the Lhendreths of Saerloon.’ Those were his exact words, Lord Illance.”
“Thank you, faithful Osbur. Take yourself back to Lord Elbert, and convey my sympathies for his father’s demise. Tell two of my men-the warriors in red you passed, outside the gates-that they’re to accompany you, on my orders, for a safe return to your new master. With the city in an uproar, some nobles may see messengers as targets.”
The servant bowed low, gave thanks, and departed, the steward going out with him and firmly closing the door.
Stonestable raised his flagon to Illance. “Lord Oldbridle-the unfortunately deceased elder-was of your faction, I take it?”
“Father and son both,” Illance replied calmly, guiding the still-panting Stormserpent to a chair. “Olgarth will be missed, for his fellowship and his prudence. This last news he sent, I’m afraid, surprises me not in the slightest. Lords, we stand squarely at the heart of… interesting times for us all.”
Marlin Stormserpent made a confused, almost sobbing sound, and all eyes went to him.
“The realm at war… what have I done?” he quavered, staring around at their frowning faces. “What have we all done?”
Many young nobles of Cormyr might be languid do-nothings, but there was nothing at all wrong with Arclath Delcastle’s legs or lungs. He was racing like a harbor-gale wind, dwindling into the dark and echoing distances of the haunted wing with impressive speed.
With a sigh that would have done any exasperated mother proud, the ghost of Alusair Obarskyr sped after him.
“What’s she going to do to him?” Amarune demanded, trying to see where the fleeing noble went. Her voice was that of an angry, frightened young mask dancer, not the rougher tones of the Old Mage.
“Protect him,” Storm replied. “This is the haunted wing, remember? Spells, traps, even a few walking skeletons…”
“Elminster,” Rune said fiercely, “I require the use of my body. Now.”
“So ye can pursue him, too? Catch and comfort him? Of course,” the wizard within her said-and was gone, falling from her in a thick, momentarily blinding cloud.
“Thank you!” Amarune gasped. And sprinted off into the gloom.
“By the gods,” Mirt growled, “but the lass can run! They’ll have to be swift spells, traps, and skeletons, to do aught to-”
“Thank you for that cheery thought, Lord Moneylender,” Storm told him tartly, as ashes flowed up her legs in an eerie rustling stream, into the tops of her boots.
The moment the stream had ended, she started to run, too.
Mirt sighed gustily, shrugged, and lurched after her, his ragged old boots flapping.
“Rather than tarry alone, I may as well join the parade,” he growled aloud, hurling himself along passages and across cobweb-hung chambers. “See Cormyr, dance with its skeletons, leave my mark. Or find my grave at last.”
Unseen, behind him, a spider as large as the puffing Waterdhavian’s head descended on a thread of its own making, to survey the spot all the noisy humans had just departed.
Torn remnants of its web hung everywhere; there was much work to do. As always.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
T he last of the smoke is gone,” the young mage-Caldor Raventree, a keen-to-prove-himself lad from Arabel-reported, throwing his shoulders back like a Purple Dragon on parade. “Sixteen spells it took us, to make sure.”
“Good,” Wizard of War Yarjack Blamreld replied curtly. “So, who’s been found?”
He had Dragon officers trotting up to keep him apprised of that throughout the cautious search of Stormserpent Towers, but he was interested to see if Raventree was a “do my job and pay no attention to anything else” sort, like the last eager youngling he’d been saddled with… or someone who just might turn out, after some firm training, to be halfway useful.
“Names, I know not, but I saw the Lady Stormserpent and twoscore others, all of them garbed as house servants. I’ve heard nothing of Lord Marlin Stormserpent being found, yet.”
“How many dead?”
“Six or seven, but the priests say more may die. There’s much coughing among the revived, and none can walk yet.”
Absently Blamreld caught hold of his scraggly beard, tore a fistful of loose hair out of it, and flung it away into the breeze. He always did, when thinking hard.
So, who got into a noble mansion undetected-through a cordon of Dragons and Crown mages, himself among them, yet-and caused poisoned smoke to rise from smashed vials throughout the place, before vanishing again? Sending a beholder, or perhaps the illusion of one?
“You can entrust the questioning of the pris… er, survivors, to me,” said Raventree. “Ah, overseeing it, that is. Of course, all of our fellow Crown mages will be-”
“Of course they will. And so long as they remember as well as you do that these good Stormserpent folk are blameless citizens and not prisoners, I have every confidence I can leave this in your hands. The count of the dead is now-?”
“Ah, still seven, Yar-ah, Saer Blamreld.”
“Just ‘Blamreld,’ Raventree. We’re all wizards of war here!”
“Uh, yes, sae… er, Blamreld.”
Blamreld scratched his bulbous, unlovely nose. “Search the place again. Loose floorboards, bookcases that move, any wall that looks thick enough to hold a hidden passage… seek not just young Stormserpent but every last sword and chalice, goblet, flagon, or loft-stemmed metal bowl. Oh, and any concealed coin, gems, or weapons. Bring them all here to me. Our fox has probably fled, but if he has a den here, I want it found.”
Raventree managed to hide his sigh of exasperation with a curt nod before he raced off into the mansion again.
Yarjack Blamreld strode away, passing the steady stream of underpriests arriving to help tend the still-coughing folk of Stormserpent Towers. Lady Stormserpent had been safely whisked to the palace, apparently healthy, and safely away from the clumsy interrogations of young Raventree. That was what mattered.
That, and the beholders, of course. If those terrors were real and not illusory. Glathra and all the veterans had to hear about them, at once.
Out on the Promenade, an air of worry and excitement prevailed-and everyone was talking, in a din that made Blamreld wince more than once. Many commoners with hastily loaded carts seemed to be in a hurry to leave the city, and servants in a riot of liveries seldom all seen at once under the open sky in Suzail were milling about trading gossip about the war at Council.
Interestingly, although watchful Dragons were much in evidence, there was no sign at all of nobles or their bodyguards, nor any fighting in the streets.
The talk around Blamreld as he strode purposefully back to the palace was in agreement on one matter, though: Cormyr was heading for civil war. Fast.
“I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered to himself, tearing out another generous handful of beard.
Wizard of War Welwyn Tracegar shook his head grimly. “They’re saying Foulweather was killed, and Briarbroke, too. Not that either’s much loss, but if the realm is plunged into war…”
“Barelder and Tantorn, I heard,” his fellow Crown mage Joreld Nurennanthur replied, as they strode along Battlebanners Passage paying no attention at all to its familiar and seemingly endless succession of faded trophies. They were headed for a moot with the Lady Glathra that neither was eager to attend. “Not worth anyone fighting for, wouldn’t you say?”