Lord Arclath Delcastle guided the silent and empty-eyed wizard Tracegar to a stop in front of the massive stone table that was the room’s sole furnishing, looked around again at all the mold, and rolled his eyes. “Some six hundred rooms down here, and we have to meet in this one?”
His voice was Elminster’s.
Vangerdahast might be reduced to a spiderlike thing, but he could still shrug. “No one comes near it. Making it useful. You have no idea how many lovers come creeping down into the cellars for thrill-trysts by candlelight.”
“Oh, but I do,” El replied gravely. “Believe me, I do.”
He looked down at the man lying still and silent on the stone table, with Vangey poised like a protective spider by his head.
Youngish, pleasant-looking, but not overly handsome, Chondathan stock. Clad in the sort of robes favored by war wizards. Breathing very slowly, but senseless. No visible wounds, or for that matter, scars.
“Who’s this?”
“Wizard of War Reldyk Applecrown. Young, loyal, a minor wielder of the Art. He’s been healed of the wounds he took last night in the beholder fray, but he got caught in a spell backlash and hasn’t much of a mind left.”
“Brain-burned,” El murmured, looking up at Vangerdahast with a silent question in his eyes.
“Your new body, if you want him,” the former royal magician of Cormyr said gruffly. “The realm owes you that much. Hells, a lot more. As do I.”
Elminster looked at him gravely for a moment. “Thank you.”
He inclined Arclath’s head toward Tracegar and asked, “You need him up on the table?”
“No,” Vangey replied. “Just walk him around it-slowly, mind-as we work on him.”
So Elminster did that, as the two of them, riding Vangerdahast’s spell, drifted into Welwyn Tracegar’s mind together, fogging his memories with spell after overlapping spell so he’d forget all about how he’d helped his prisoners escape. Then they lowered him to the floor and cast simple sleep on him.
“I’ll steady you, once you’re in,” Vangey offered, nodding at the man on the table. “Can’t have you getting up and stumbling over Tracegar, and him waking up thinking he’s facing two traitor mages and a spider-monster that all need blasting.”
El shrugged. “It’s what Glathra would do.”
Vangerdahast was still chuckling ruefully at that when the young wizard on the table stirred, then started to convulse and thrash.
“Don’t try to get off the table yet,” he advised. “I have to reassure Lord Delcastle here about what we’re up to, first, or he might just decide not to catch you when you start to topple.”
Spiderlike fingers rose to point down over the edge.
“Arclath, try not to step on Tracegar, there. He’ll look a bit odd with boot-prints all over his face, when they find him sleeping in a bed he shouldn’t be in, somewhere in the palace.”
“Ah… which bed?” Arclath asked carefully.
“One of the ready rooms in the guest wing, I’m thinking, so he’ll be found before he starves. My sleep spell won’t be broken-assuming the ceiling doesn’t fall or the bed collapse-until someone not of us four touches him.”
“Four?”
“I’m counting El, dolt of a lordling. And his new body. Which isn’t really his yet, until he learns to walk and talk with it.”
Arclath gave Vangey a disbelieving frown, at about the same time as the man on the table thrust one arm stiffly into the air, tried to wriggle the fingers of that upraised hand, and worked his jaw enough to say, “A bit shaaaky, thusss fahr!”
Rolling his eyes, the noble took a swift step back so he wasn’t within reach if the body should lash out suddenly.
“Wise lad,” Vangerdahast commented solemnly-a moment before a wild sweep of Applecrown’s arm dashed him off the table.
Arclath sniggered, then let his laughter roar out of him.
“That’s right, lad,” Vangey’s voice rose, from somewhere on the floor on the other side of the table. “I like pet frogs that know how to laugh.”
Busy and brightly lit palace passages hung with shields and lined with statues weren’t Glathra’s favorite sites for important policy discussions, but Highknight Starbridge and Sir Talonar Winter had come rushing up to the royal magician while he, Vainrence, and Glathra had been heading to the kitchens for something to eat. She couldn’t remember when she’d last chewed food or swigged something more than a goblet of water snatched from a passing maid’s tray.
Someone, it seemed, had burst into Staghaven House unnoticed by any neighbors or watch patrols, and had slaughtered Lord Windstag with most of his household servants. And very recently-when they’d been found, blood had still been running out of some of the bodies. The Dragons securing the house had recognized a face among the sprawled and slain servants that shouldn’t have been there: Palace Steward Rorstil Hallowdant. Worse yet, someone had cast powerful magics on the slain; three priests and a young war wizard who’d cast spells on the corpses to try to learn more about their passing had been plunged instantly into barking, howling insanity.
“There will be no more attempts to cast anything on the slain,” Ganrahast decreed grimly. “Take the oldest palace supply wagon, convey the bodies all out to the rocks beyond the Westhill, and burn them all there, wagon and all, with guards posted to keep the curious away. I want this done in secret, as much as possible, to keep word from spreading.”
Starbridge and Winter nodded, bowed, and hurried off to see to it.
“So who did this, do you think?” Vainrence murmured, watching them hasten down the passage, distant already and dwindling fast.
“Noble slays noble,” Ganrahast sighed. “It begins.”
“Royal magician,” Glathra said darkly, “with respect, it began some time ago. It’s only going to get bloodier.”
“Blood spilled among nobles I expect,” Ganrahast replied, starting off down the passage. “Betrayals and disloyalties among Crown folk are what shake me. And more importantly, shake the Dragon Throne.”
“Every one of them,” Vainrence murmured, nodding agreement.
“Has every interment in the royal crypt now been examined?” Ganrahast asked him.
“Yes. Nothing is amiss, nothing missing, and there are no more empty coffins. New wards and alarm spells have been cast.”
“Have you found Vangerdahast?” Glathra asked sharply.
“No.”
“And why not?” Ganrahast pressed him, as if he’d been a disobedient young mageling and not her superior.
The lord warder shrugged. “He doesn’t want to be found.”
Blueflames left the lodge in an eerily silent procession, with the Lady of Ghosts stalking after them and the Flying Blade and the Wyverntongue Chalice in her hands. She spared not a glance for Marlin Stormserpent, lying dead on the floor.
The room started to fill with the smell of Baert Ghalhunt’s scorching head, but it wasn’t long before the door opened again.
A lone person came in, hooded and cowled, and made straight for the dead noble.
Murmuring half-sung lines of ballads to himself, this new arrival bent to pick up the two severed hands and put them in a pouch.
“But she had eyes, those nightdark eyes, only for meee…”
The singing broke off with a brief grunt as the cowled one bent again-and in one swift, smooth heave, lifted the limp corpse up onto his shoulder.
Then he turned and went out into the forest, ignoring the drips that fell from what had been Marlin Stormserpent as he went.
“For I walk a lonely road, a hidden road, a bright road, yes I walk a…”
The soft singing faded, and birds began to whir and call again.
By the time they broke off and the lodge door swung open again, the head in the fire was a blackened thing, more skull than Baert Ghalhunt.
The two bullyblades were hot, sweaty, and very tired. Not to mention hungry. They’d been up all night, and if their mad lord of a master wasn’t asleep, they certainly wanted to be.
“Lord Stormserpent?” one of them called, finding the chair-nay, the room, there was nowhere here to hide-empty. He glanced up into the rafters but saw only pelts and trophies, no lurking slayers.