Even as Glathra glared after Storm, seething, the two fleeing women turned a distant corner and were gone.
Clenching her fists, Glathra tossed back her head to clear the tangled hair from her face and drew in a deep breath, fighting for calm.
Acutely aware of all the silent men watching her.
Be regal. Your authority is absolute, whatever that lying bitch says. Cloak yourself in it, and serve Cormyr. Be Cormyr.
She worked a swift and simple spell, and said into the glow that kindled in the air in front of her, “Harbrow? Two women are coming your way. One of them tall, with long silver hair that moves around her shoulders as if alive; the other one younger, a mask dancer. Storm Silverhand and Amarune Whitewave. Storm-she of the silver hair-can reflect spells back at their casters. The dancer should have no magic at all. You are to capture both, by any means necessary short of slaying them.”
She listened to Harbrow’s “hear and obey” and ended her spell, smiling grimly.
She shouldn’t have to wait long for his report, and it should recount success, now that she’d warned them about Storm.
After all, it wasn’t just Harbrow, embarrassed by his failure to stop Delcastle and eager to make up for it. He did have four other wizards of war with him.
Mirt strolled out the side door of the house behind the stables as if he hadn’t a care in the world, the sack of coins purloined from the palace treasury reassuringly heavy on his shoulder.
And why not? He was leaving the merry chaos of the ruling fortress of Cormyr behind, and its rushing guards and wand-waving mages were his chief cares in this new world of nigh on a hundred summers since he’d last lorded it in Waterdeep.
Those guardians were busy at various doors and gates trying to keep nobles out, so this noble was going to do just that-get out.
He would take rooms at one of the upscale inns along the Promenade, under a false name. “Aghairon Mizzrym” had a certain ring to it. There he’d sip wine and sit awhile and decide what sort of new life to forge for himself.
His first instinct was to flee from the land where at least two young nobles wanted him dead. Flight should be easy, considering Suzail was a port and had always had hidden magical ways that those with coin enough could readily buy the use of, linking it with Marsember, a seedier port where inquisitive Crown authorities seldom received straight answers…
Yet he liked the feel of Cormyr, turmoil and all.
Haularake, he wanted to stay!
Storm was a damned fine woman, and he liked young Delcastle and his lass, too, but their battles were not his. Save in this wise: if the thick-skulled nobles of this land did rise up, they could well shatter the Cormyr he prized-but then again, troubled times offered shrewd merchants wonderful opportunities to establish a profitable business or seize a position of power at court… or perhaps even marry into a powerful noble family…
Mirt looked down at his food-stained paunch, chuckled, and shook his head.
Well, mayhap there were a few powerful matriarchs, sitting all alone because they were uglier than goats or the hind ends of draft horses, or had tempers to match those of a pain-maddened bull, who might have grown desperate enough to entertain the blandishments of such an old wolf.
Had he patience enough left to endure the less pleasant sides, though, to gain the luxuries that might come from tethering himself to a matriach? Boredom had never been his friend. Hmmm.
Thinking on this would undoubtedly unfold better if he were in a good chair, with his feet up and a decanter of something splendid to hand.
First, find the right inn…
All that was left of the Princess Alusair glided to a reluctant stop in midair, little more than a thin wisp of shadowy air, a dozen strides outside the palace. Arclath Delcastle was gone, vanished along one of the streets on the far side of the Promenade, and she could follow him no farther.
It was time to return to Storm and Amarune and Mirt. She might as well, for she had few enough friends left in the world, and knowing Glathra and how upset all the palace-guarding mages and Dragons were, the three might well need her help, and “Hold!” a man’s voice rose excitedly, from four rooms deep inside the palace. “You, there! Halt! Lass-woman-you! I’m speaking to you! Halt!
Halt or I’ll-”
A brief scuffle followed, other men shouted various things at once, and Alusair flew into their midst in time to see a hard-running Amarune Whitewave wobble, lurch, stumble, and fall, head lolling and arms limp. Asleep on her racing feet.
The five Crown mages flanked by two bristling-with-weapons Dragons made no move to catch her. They just watched, a few smirking, as she crashed to the stone floor in a loose, heavy heap.
Alusair swirled up behind them, growing more solid. She could chill all of these cruel swaggerers by plunging through their bodies, but this time she was angry enough that she wanted to slap one of them-Harbrow, who was chuckling heartily down at his spellwork-across the face first, and spit her royal displeasure into his face.
It took a lot of effort to achieve any sort of solidity, even very briefly, and she was still straining to when Storm Silverhand came striding down the passage, long silver hair coiling and slithering about her shoulders like a nest of angry serpents.
“That was not well done, Saer Mage,” she snapped. “Since when do Cormyr’s wizards of war strike down any blameless citizen they see?”
“Since they are ordered to smite particular miscreants and espy two of them,” Baern Harbrow told her triumphantly. “This mask dancer-and you!”
The wand in his hand spat magic at Storm.
Mirt stared around the luxuriously appointed room-hah-hum, nice four-poster; pity he’d no one to share it with-and took a sip of Berduskan Dark.
Then, frowning, he took another.
Frown deepening, he held the glass up to the light.
This was the wine he’d remembered as so special? Either he’d been off his head, this inn was playing him false, or the drink that went by that name these days was poor swill compared to the vintages he’d tasted all those years ago.
He downed the whole goblet in one great gulp, to see if that improved matters. It didn’t, and the servant who’d just brought it winced visibly.
Mirt gave the man a hard and heavy look.
After the man started to back away, the Waterdhavian asked gently, “Have you a better wine to recommend to me?”
“N-no, saer. That is our best.”
“I see,” said Mirt, and sat down heavily in the great chair. It groaned under his weight but held up. Well, at least the gods granted some small mercies.
“Bring more,” he commanded, and he sat back to commence thinking.
Harbrow’s sleep wand struck at Storm Silverhand at the same moment that two of his fellow mages made the mistake of deciding to join in the fun.
Storm smiled.
Caladnei of Cormyr had become her good friend, and they’d worked together for years. She’d shown the silver-haired Harper how to use the ring Storm now wore to do more than simply turn back spells. When more than one magic struck the ring at a time, its wearer could decide where to redirect some or all of those magics.
Storm sent the sleep spells that struck her from three sides all at Harbrow.
Whose feeble defenses bought him just time enough to look surprised before he collapsed to the floor, joining Rune in slumber.
The other four wizards shouted in alarm and scattered, throwing back their sleeves and preparing to hurl real battle magics at this obviously dangerous foe. Alusair promptly plunged through the nearest one, to spoil his casting-and was just solid enough to give his heart and lungs a good bruising that sent him to his knees, gasping in pain and terror.
Storm didn’t wait for anyone to blast her with anything. She sprang at the nearest mage, punched aside his feeble grapplings, took him hard by the throat, and spun him around to serve as a shield as she throttled him.