“It was a woman,” the third wizard added helpfully as Mreldrake conjured light with an angry snarl. “So if you see large breasts, you’re not looking at-”
Elminster had heard more than enough.
Storm-still breathing, thank all gods-was lying atop him, silent and heavy and bleeding copiously all over him, but he could readily reach and aim the wand he’d taken from Wizard of War Lorton Ironstone, after Alusair had obligingly won that earlier battle for him.
It was a wand that dealt short-term paralysis, the weapon Ironstone should have used back then, right away and without warning, instead of issuing his grand challenge. Yet lost chances were part of the fast-fading past, and it should ably serve a certain Sage of Shadowdale now.
He leveled the wand carefully and murmured the word that brought it to life. Ganrahast and Vainrence weren’t training these dolts well; only utter fools stand side-by-side on a battlefield, when both are mages and face a foe they know wields magic.
There was a flash, and all three wizards toppled like trees. Mreldrake, Elminster saw sourly, had been standing behind the other two, and his fall was gentler, a hand going out to shield his face. Not paralyzed, to be sure.
The other two were, and Elminster thrust the wand back into his belt to snatch out the enchanted dagger. Mreldrake or no Mreldrake, Storm must be healed before all else.
As the dagger expired in a flare of light under his murmurings and crumbled to dust in his hand, he heard the faint scuffling he’d expected from where the war wizards lay.
“Before ye quite crawl off, Rorskryn Mreldrake,” he said sharply, “suppose ye avoid my slaying ye very painfully, here and now, with a spell that will literally turn thine innards out of thy body, by answering a few questions. Truthfully, if ye know how to tell truth.”
Mreldrake drew in his breath so sharply that it was almost a faint shriek.
“The wards,” Elminster continued. “Ye called on the ancient wards of the palace, all around us, to strike at me just now, didn’t ye?”
He waited, knowing the answer already. He’d cast some spells himself as part of those wards, a long time before, and knew very well the tingling of wards he’d worked on, all around him, being altered.
Rather than words from Mreldrake, he heard the faint scufflings of a frightened war wizard trying to crawl away without making a sound. And failing.
“Answer me,” he added calmly, “or die.”
A long moment passed. Elminster drew the wand from his belt again and held it warningly.
That brought results. “Y-yes,” the war wizard blurted. “But it was Rendarth’s idea!”
“I can scarce believe he acted on such a notion without the Royal Magician’s approval,” El replied as disapprovingly as any scandalized tutor. “Let us have truth, Wizard of War Mreldrake. In the name of the king. I do still hold a court rank in this kingdom that far outstrips thine.”
“I–I-Ganrahast said we could use the wards to hide and armor us against you,” Mreldrake admitted almost miserably. By the distant sound of his voice, he was slowly crawling away down the passage.
“And clever Rendarth took it upon himself to use it to augment the bolt ye three hurled at us,” Elminster said heavily. “Did ye not know doing so would ruin and consume the wards immediately around us here? Leaving a gap in them, and weakening the entire web loyal wizards before ye spent centuries weaving?”
“I … you must be stopped. At all costs.”
Elminster exploded. “Idiots! Ye three strip away centuries of defenses-warding spells ye don’t even know how to replace-just to smite me! What price Cormyr’s future, if ye toss it aside so readily to win one day’s victory? What of the morrow, hey? Despoilers! Fools! Irresponsible children!”
The reply that came out of Rorskryn Mreldrake then was a sort of shriek-the sort of strangled eep a man-sized mouse might blurt in unthinking terror. It was followed by wild scrabblings as he clawed his way to his feet and fled headlong down the passage.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Elminster let him go. The lesson he’d take back to Ganrahast was one that had best be learned swiftly and well.
Younglings, these days. Win the day, and bother not with looking beyond the end of one’s nose …
It was a wonder there were any realms left in the world, at all.
Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake was almost sobbing from lack of breath as he panted his way around another corner, his frantic sprint falling into an awkward stumble.
He never even felt the spell that fell on him like a net, claiming his mind in mid-panic.
Before he knew it, a steel-hard grip was closing firmly on his mind.
“As it happens, wormling,” a gentle whisper rolled through his head, seeming to bring with it a floating pair of dark eyes as sharp and hard as the points of two daggers, “the Sage of Shadowdale is not the only one who has taken to hiding in this large and rather well-appointed royal palace. I, too, want all thoughts of altering its wards to be crushed and quelled, promptly and completely. I am Manshoon and am even more terrible than the legends about me suggest.”
The grip became a tightening cage.
“Rorskryn Mreldrake, you are mine now.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The darkly handsome man made his latest acquisition abruptly turn and slam himself face-first against the wall.
Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake groaned dazedly, staggered back from the wall, and reeled a little as he resumed his swift, gasping trot along the passage.
Manshoon arched a critical eyebrow. His control over this wormling was complete, but weak tools do poor work. This coward Mreldrake was a wizard of war, yes, and a pair of somewhat useful hands, too, but no great prize. Certainly not up to the task he needed done.
Mreldrake, Rendarth, and Nalander must all vanish or be silenced, soon, to send the right message to the Royal Magician and his trusted second that doing anything at all to the palace wards was a very bad idea. Then it would be time to put Ganrahast and Vainrence to sleep before they got any other clever ideas. Moreover, removing them without causing their deaths would leave the wizards of war in headless confusion for some time-time he intended to stretch for as long as possible-ere a new chain of command was settled and accepted.
First, however, the more pressing task.
The energetic young Stormserpent was about to fall afoul of the usual treachery, and must be rescued from it.
It wouldn’t do to have the items he bore that were linked to the Nine fall into the wrong hands and plunge all Suzail into a tiresome battle as the war wizards and various ambitious nobles and mages-including both shadow-commanded and independent Sembians, to say nothing of all the wolves-for-hire in Westgate-got wind of something worth seizing and tried to take it for themselves.
No, the overbold young fool of a noble needed rescuing. A swift and forceful saving that would require someone far more competent than Mreldrake. Someone who knew the palace well and served Cormyr-or at least her vision of it-with fierce loyalty. Someone undead, whom he commanded.
The death knight who was called “Lady Dark Armor” in the dark tales whispered in back palace rooms. Targrael, whose twisted mind was already his.
Smiling, Manshoon murmured a spell and bent his will down into chill, dusty darkness.
Down, down into a certain old, seldom-visited tomb deep in the palace.
Down to where someone smiled in her endless unbreathing, unthinking oblivion, and stirred …