Harkuldragon could have meant nothing more than blackmail, the fact that he was good with his fists and swift to use them, or that he owned a magic sword of great age and mysterious powers that adventurers of his hiring had once brought him. Or he might have a pet monster, or be able to call in a favor from a mage or two. But then again, it might mean he could send forth his own slayer wreathed in blue flame…
So far, the converse Ironhand had overheard hadn’t suggested blueflame ghosts or anything of the sort, but they were getting to interesting words finally, as Harkuldragon’s temper started to slip.
“The man’s as greedy and malicious as a snake, Sarrak! And as conceited as- what was that?”
Ironhand had heard it, too, and leaned out so far in a neck-craning attempt to see and hear that his eavesdropping almost became literal.
Someone had caused the lock on the door of that upper room to burst outward in all directions, showering the room with tiny pattering fragments of metal that would have been deadly if they hadn’t been almost dust.
The door yawned open, evidently revealing no one at all outside the room.
“Make whoever it is visible, wizard! Banish invisibility, or whatever the spell is!” Lord Harkuldragon bellowed.
“Done,” Sarrak replied a moment later.
“Who-who are you?” the nobleman demanded, hauling out his belt dagger and glaring at someone Ironhand couldn’t see. “Wizard, don’t just stand there! Smite her! Smite her down!”
“I fear he can’t, noisy fool. He made the mistake of obeying you-and while he was making me visible, I was casting paralysis on him.”
With an easy, almost insolent stride, a tall and slender woman came into the room. She had pale white skin, a sharp-featured, cruel face dominated by large, dark eyes that snapped with simmering anger, and long, long legs. She was clad all in black except for a silver weathercloak that hung from her shoulders, and Ironhand was certain he’d never seen her before.
A woman this beautiful, he would remember.
“Who are you?” he demanded, hefting his dagger as he came around the table. “And what do you want?”
“I am the Lady of Ghosts. And fear not, Lord Harkuldragon-my business here is not with you at all. I am here for Sarrak of Westgate.”
“Sarrak? Why?”
“Your questions grow tiresome. Perhaps you should fear me, after all.”
“Oh? You wield no weapon, and I’m protected against spells. Perhaps you should fear me.”
Harkuldragon strode toward the woman, who stood watching him come closer, making no move at all. She looked bored.
Two strides from her the lord suddenly hissed out a curse, shook his dagger hand as he stepped back, then flung the dagger down. “Burned me!”
He was flapping fingers that seemed to be dripping melted flesh.
“Protected,” the woman said contemptuously. “By Sarrak’s spells, no doubt.”
Then she moved like a striking panther, charging to take him by the throat so swiftly that Harkuldragon didn’t even have time to cry out.
He managed to do so a moment later, when her hard-driven knee into his crotch lifted him off his feet, but thanks to her tightening fingers, his cry wasn’t much more than a croak.
As he went down, she got behind him, hands still gripping his throat, and flung herself hard down on his neck, knees together.
Ironhand winced as Lord Harkuldragon’s neck broke.
The woman calmly twisted the lord’s head around at a gruesome angle as she stood up. Then she walked away, leaving the man dead and forgotten on the floor behind her.
“Now, Sarrak, let us begin. I will see what is in your mind-destroying it in so doing, but that can’t be helped. You see, I’ve heard you know things about Orbakh, who once ruled your city. Things relating to who he really was. A man I seek, named Manshoon.”
Manshoon sat frozen in astonishment. What was this?
Sarrak emitted a sort of sob as her spell struck him. As she bored into his mind, the magic that was destroying his brain seemed to release him from her paralysis, but too late for him to escape; his limbs were trembling violently and thrashing wildly about from time to time, utterly out of his control.
He staggered back into Ironhand’s field of view, tripping backward over Harkuldragon’s body and crashing to the floor, where he lay twisting and panting, his eyes bulging and sweat drenching his skin… which was going bone-white.
“Please,” he blurted.
Ten or twenty of Manshoon’s breaths passed before the stricken mage spoke again. “Please… please stop.”
“I’m sorry, Sarrak, but I must know what’s in your mind, not just what you choose to tell me. Speak freely if doing so will bring you a little release. It makes my peering easier.”
“No!” Sarrak gasped, in feeble defiance. “No.”
He fell silent again, except for gasps, until his eyes started to go dark.
Manshoon had seen wizards’ eyes do that before, when farscrying Thayan torturers; Sarrak’s end would come soon.
“Manshoon,” the doomed mage quavered suddenly, through his streaming sweat, his eyes now dark pits. “You live to slay him. You burn to slay him. Is this the Manshoon of legend? Why do you hate him so?”
“You seek to buy time and a little relief from pain,” came the calm reply, “yet, I’ll tell you, Sarrak of Westgate. I hate only one man more than Manshoon-if he is a man, at all, or ever was. Elminster, the Sage of Shadowdale.”
“How… how so?”
“I was Manshoon’s lover and apprentice. So was my mother. And my two sisters. Oh, he was a magnificent beast; when he stared into your eyes, there was nothing you wouldn’t do for him.”
The Lady of Ghosts took a step closer. “He ordered them to attack and kill Elminster, and in their battle with the Old Mage-Manshoon watched from afar for his personal entertainment, rendering no aid at all-Elminster slew my kin. I was the youngest and Manshoon’s favorite. He held me back. I believe he knew he was sending them to their doom.”
She took another step forward, her voice rising a little. “I was enraged, and in my grief turned on Manshoon, incredulous that he’d done nothing. He left me with this.”
She tore open her black jerkin.
Between her pale, revealed breasts protruded the bloody point of a dagger.
A wound that should have been fatal. The blood glistened fresh and wet.
“He left me for dead, knowing nothing of the curse I bore that kept me alive. Elminster had cast it on me earlier, to keep me safe from Manshoon’s ‘murderous cruelties,’ he told me-though it was really to give him a spy the lord of the Zhentarim could not slay; so, when Manshoon finally fell he could plunder my mind at will to learn all Manshoon’s deeds and treasures and secrets.”
Her voice rose into a savage snarl. “He used me. They both used me. They will both die!”
The Lady of Ghosts made a swift, complicated gesture-and Sarrak’s head burst like a rotten fruit. She turned away.
“Much more slowly and painfully than I let you perish, wizard of Westgate. But then, your only crime was working for the wrong man. A crime I share twice over.”
As Ironhand watched, not daring to move lest he make a sound she might hear, the Lady of Ghosts went to various places in the Lord Harkuldragon’s chamber and collected as many hidden magic items from them.
“Thank you, Sarrak,” she told the headless corpse. “The entire roster, and how to safely recover them. You saved me much time.”
Ironhand heard her walk away, across the floor and out and down the stairs.
He waited a long time before he dared shift his position on the roof and take himself away.
Manshoon never noticed. He was too busy staring into the darkness around his chair, shaken.
“Cymmarra,” he whispered. “Is this fallen Mystra’s last slap at me? How much do you know of what I am now, Cymmarra? You hunt me here in Suzail, so you know something… oh, Bane blast all! Now what do I do?”