Storm didn’t even try to stir. She was so exhausted that she’d be asleep at that moment if it weren’t for the pain. The beholder’s searing ray had caught her, though three Dragons had unintentionally shielded her from its full effects with their bodies and had paid the price. The Westfront cell was clean, dry, and well lit, and she could sleep dangling from chains about as well as she could in the street, where she was liable to be walked on or have a cart driven over her.
The war wizards obeyed Glathra with alacrity, probably because she stayed to watch long enough, this time, to make sure her orders were carried out. When the two standing over Storm finished their brief chanting, she felt no more than an immediate numbness. Followed by the inevitable itches she could now not scratch, of course. When she flexed a finger, she found she could move it-though she stilled it instantly to avoid anyone noticing.
The old Harper paralyzing glove. It was still thrust through her belt and must have absorbed the magic that should have frozen her. Which might mean it would again work, paralyzing at a touch, at least once or twice.
“You have no right-” Arclath started to shout, nearby, but broke off as magic silenced him.
“Rights?” a Dragon telsword growled as he struck the sword from the paralyzed noble’s hand, to clang on the cobbles. “Don’t make me laugh. Rights are what we carve out for ourselves, with the points of our swords!”
“They’re all done,” a mage reported. It was a voice Storm knew.
“Very good,” Glathra replied crisply. “Wizard of War Welwyn Tracegar, you will supervise the conveyance of the prisoners to the cell, and their securing. Dragons, you are to obey Tracegar as you would any battlemaster. Tracegar, see it done!”
“Lady,” Tracegar-the owner of the familiar voice-replied with a bow.
Storm tried to act paralyzed as firm hands took hold of her, lifted her, and carried her away.
Tracegar extended his hand. “The keys.”
The lionar shook his head. “No, saer. The Lady Glathra said we were to obey you as we would a battlemaster. Save in time of open war’s need, no battlemaster would break that standing order-the keys are to be retained by a soldier away from the dungeons, to prevent prisoners who overcome a guard from being able to win free of manacles or cells. The prisoners have been secured now-so I go, and the keys go with me.”
Tracegar gave the man a glare.
Stone-faced, the Dragon looked back at him.
“The Lady Glathra charged me with full responsibility for the prisoners,” he snapped, “and I can’t carry that out unless I have the keys.”
“Then declare yourself regent, saer. Whereupon, you’ll have them on the spot. While all of us await the interesting reason you’d soon have to offer the king for your declaration. Saer.”
Tracegar gave the lionar a long, cold stare, then snarled and waved at the Dragon to depart and take his fellows with him.
They went, one of them daring to make the low bow extended to regents, on his way out of the cell.
As Tracegar glared at their backs, Storm slipped on her glove.
Like Amarune, she was secured to the wall by ankles and throat and her right wrist, all manacled to wall-rings by chains about a foot long. Their left arms were free.
Men were deemed more dangerous, so Arclath-despite his noble birth-had both wrists chained to the wall. He was between Storm and Rune, sharing ankle and wrist wall-rings, but secured tightly enough that they could never touch.
Storm’s hair had been gathered into a rope and then stretched down her back and clamped to a chain that led down to the ring at her right ankle. It seemed Cormyr was taking no chances.
The Dragons had left the cell door open. As per standing orders, Tracegar or his designate would have keys to all doors, so any prisoner seeking to escape would need to cooperate with-or somehow vanquish-the two captors. Courtiers in Cormyr had long ago heard enough bards’ ballads not to make the most obvious mistakes.
Except, it seemed, the ones about turning your back on prisoners and gloating.
Tracegar turned to them once again and strolled right up to Storm.
He slowly traced a line down the side of her face, from temple to jaw, with one forefinger as he explained, “I am less than comfortable with any of you suffering this treatment, but there is much peril and uncertainty in the realm right now, and the Lady Glathra needs answers, above all. These manacles are to avoid unpleasantness until the veteran wizards of war the Lady Glathra wants to, ah, meet with you can be roused from their beds. Customarily, chains are unnecessary for persons such as yourselves-but these are extraordinary times.”
His face was so close to hers that he was almost brushing her with his lips.
Storm reached out with her glove, kissing him to quell any swift and desperate incantation-and Tracegar stiffened into helpless silence.
“My sentiments exactly,” Storm purred in reply, as she wrapped her free arm around the paralyzed mage and swung him around to thump against Arclath. She held him there, against a frozen Delcastle flank, so Elminster could get to work on the war wizard.
“El?”
The Sage of Shadowdale had no way of replying, but she could see by the movements of Arclath’s eyes that he’d noticed a healing potion-a shiny steel vial marked with a sun-at Tracegar’s belt.
Then ashes were trickling out of Arclath’s nose, and Storm knew El was on his way to Tracegar’s nose and mouth, to invade and conquer the war wizard’s mind.
To work a spell by will alone was beyond Tracegar’s skill at Art, but not Elminster’s.
Tracegar stiffened, and then his eyes flickered and he was moving, as smoothly and matter-of-factly as if he were an old friend. Taking the vial from his belt, twisting the stopper to break the wax seal but not opening it, then putting a finger under Storm’s chin so gently that it was a caress.
Storm opened her mouth obediently, and El made the war wizard pour the healing potion into her slowly and carefully. The familiar warm, then minty-cool flood coursed through her, banishing all pains and aches and weariness, leaving her feeling wonderful.
She sighed out her contentment as Tracegar stepped back and worked another spell, murmuring the words El chose for him aloud as he spell-spoke Vangerdahast from afar, telling him what had befallen.
Then the enthralled war wizard murmured a reply.
“Mirt will bring a coach to the Three Dolphins Door, for the conveyance elsewhere of Wizard of War Welwyn Tracegar with three still-shackled prisoners,” Vangey informed Elminster. “Provided you have the good sense, for once, to get out of Suzail fast. All of you.”
The alley behind the shop of Sraunter the alchemist was apt to be deserted in the dark, chill hours of very early mornings, but things were different this night. Two closed and loaded wagons stood in the nightgloom, their horses hitched and dozing, and the drover and carter of each wagon sitting like statues with their reins and whips, seemingly lost in personal dazes.
The lithe figure in dark thief’s leathers was little more than a shadow until it suddenly mounted one wagon, sat down beside the drover, and kissed him very thoroughly.
Whereupon he stirred, turned his head, and told her in a coldly familiar voice, “Go home now, and enjoy what’s left of Lady Deleira Truesilver’s slumber. Go to ground until I reach out to you again. You are not much suited to my next few battles.”
Talane nodded, dared to squeeze the drover’s hand in farewell, slipped down from the wagon, and was gone, melting into the night in silence.
She was three streets away before she dared to murmur, “You might have thanked me, Lord Manshoon. I merely saved your life. Not much suited… bah.”