The Crown mage was unimpressed. “Under attack, my left elbow! Bah!”
Snatching out a wand, he marched up to Mirt, planted himself dramatically to blast this noisy nuisance-and collapsed senseless to the floor, struck on the back of his neck by something plummeting from above.
Mirt peered down at the mage with interest, then recoiled. The thing that had felled him looked a little like a wraithlike wisp of something dark, and a bit like a spider. It was unwrapping its long legs-which began to look more like human fingers-from around a ceiling tile it had obviously ridden down on. Spiderlike, it scuttled toward Mirt, who resisted the urge to stamp on the thing with both boots.
Now the wraith looked more like an old man’s face, the cloud trailing away in the suggestion of a beard. Beneath that face were definitely human fingers, a hand, rather… but the face was walking across the floor on the tips of those fingers.
Aye, the floor; it had come down off the unconscious wizard and was crawling toward Mirt. Who devoted himself to backing away warily.
“Mirt of Waterdeep,” the spiderlike thing greeted him dryly. “Well met. Vangerdahast, Royal Magician of Cormyr, at your service. Keep ringing that shield.”
Mirt bowed, nodded, and resumed striking the shield, with enthusiasm.
The din was tremendous, almost deafening when the echoes got going, and it wasn’t long before someone who looked both groggy and angry lurched around a corner and came striding along the passage toward Mirt.
Watching this second arrival closely for any signs of a wand or a spell being cast, Mirt barely noticed that the spiderlike thing had crept around to stand in the lee of his boots, hidden from the oncoming courtier.
Who shouted, “Cease your noise! Who are you, anyhail, and what do you want? I am Palace Understeward Corleth Fentable!”
The man had said his name as if he expected Mirt to be impressed, so Mirt shrugged and smiled. “I’m Mirt, and I’m ringing this shield to let all the palace know there’s a beholder out in the street blasting Dragons and war wizards-oh, and a big hole in the side of the palace, too. Well met.”
“Oh?” Fentable seemed less than impressed. “Wait right here. I’ll be back with suitable minions.”
Whirling around, he marched back the way he’d come.
“He’s going to get Dragons to come back and arrest you,” Vangerdahast said quietly, from down by Mirt’s boots. “Run after him, and smite him cold.”
Mirt smiled. This seemed the best advice he’d heard in some time. Drawing in the breath he’d need for a swift lurch down a passage, he hefted his daggers in his hands, pommels up-and did as he’d been told.
When he looked back at Vangerdahast from above the understeward’s sprawled body, one spiderlike finger was crooking to beckon him back.
Mirt bent down, grabbed a good handful of palace understeward tunic-front, and gave the royal magician a questioning look.
Vangey nodded, so Mirt dragged the man back to the lamplit shield.
“This man’s a traitor to the Crown,” the royal magician explained. “Just whom he’s working for, and to what ends, I don’t know yet-and right now, we haven’t time to try to force answers out of him. And the realm needs answers, not all this shouting and chasing about after disasters have befallen. So, I need you to take him down to the royal crypt for me.”
Mirt shrugged. “As long as the guards won’t try to inter me there, that’s fine with me.”
“Good. Hold still.” The man-headed spiderthing started to climb Mirt’s leg. “I’ll ride on your shoulder and guide you. It should be unguarded, except by the sealing spells, and I can take care of those. We have some empty coffins there, and anyone put in them is held in spell-stasis. I can think of quite a few persons in this kingdom I’d prefer to entomb there until I’m ready to deal with them, but this wretch is a start.”
Mirt chuckled. “Guide me.”
“We take this passage, to the bend there. See that square stone, right down by the floor? Kick it with your boot. Another stone should move out a bit, right in front of you. Push in on it, hard, and a hidden door will open.”
“Better and better. Is there any treasure hereabouts that no one would miss, hey?”
“No,” Vangey said flatly. “Yet the royal magician of the realm has been known to reward those who serve Cormyr well.”
Mirt followed the instructions, and a door grated open with surprisingly little noise. He dragged Fentable through it and went on, the door swinging closed the moment the understeward’s dragging boots were clear of it.
A bare breath later, just as he was opening his mouth in the pitch darkness to ask the spiderthing on his shoulder for more instructions, he heard a commotion on the other side of the wall.
Many men in boots were hurrying around the corner he’d just vacated, and at least one woman was with them. The Lady Glathra’s unmistakable voice was berating them as they went, telling all within earshot that she was simply spitting mad, and someone was going to pay for it; and that she wanted to know just who’d dared to rouse this part of the palace, and she’d ring his clanging gong for him, good and hard.
Mirt and Vangerdahast were both wily old veterans, so they waited until the sounds had died away to utter silence before they chuckled. In unison.
The King’s Forest was a cold place at this time of deepest night, shrouded in streaming wisps of mist and awake with eerie calls.
One of those sounds was coming from a shallow dell not far from the Way of the Dragon. It was the deep, loud snoring of an exhausted young lord of Cormyr.
Pillowed on a bodyguard’s cloak and lying on the layered cloaks of two more, Marlin Stormserpent was deep in his dreams, wrapped in his own cloak, while his shivering bodyguards stood grim guard over him.
“He’s not paying us near enough for this sort o’ duty,” one of them whispered hoarsely, not for the first time.
“Shut it,” came the familiar reply, made more curtly than ever.
“Hear that?” the third bullyblade hissed, sword singing out. “Something’s coming-yonder!”
They caught a glimpse of distant blue flame through the trees, and fearfully roused their lord, shaking him and nudging him with their boots in hasty unison.
The master’s blueflame ghosts were coming back, and the cursed beyond-dead things obeyed only him.
He came awake as fearful as they were, sweat-drenched and cursing, and had to scramble up to have both Blade and Chalice ready in hand when the two flaming slayers stalked up to him, dragging a hairy mass larger than both of them. It was leaving a wide, wet trail of gore through the leaves and fallen logs, which made the bodyguards look even grimmer and shuffle until they stood together, swords out and watchful.
“What is it?” Stormserpent asked, unenthusiastically.
“You ordered us to get evenfeast. Behold. It’s a bear-everything else in the forest fled from us.”
The three bullyblades traded silent glances that all said, “That surprises me not,” as loudly as if they’d bellowed it.
Stormserpent merely nodded, held up the Chalice and the Blade, and bent his will upon the two ghosts. Who leaned forward as if in belligerent challenge but said nothing.
In eerie silence the noble strained, trembling and going pale… and slowly, very slowly, the men wreathed in cold blue flames faded away, their last wisps rising up into the two items the lord was clutching.
Stormserpent let out a deep sigh, let his hands fall to his sides, then turned and snapped at the three bullyblades, “Butcher yon bear, light the fire you laid, and start cooking it. You can wake me again when it’s done.”
Crossing Chalice and Blade across his breast as if he were a priest sleeping vigil on an altar, he laid himself down on the cloaks and closed his eyes.
The bodyguards grudgingly set about following the orders he’d just given. As they bent down around the bear with their daggers out and started sawing, the looks they sent their master’s way were almost as baleful as the ones the blueflame ghosts had been offering him, a dozen breaths before.