And slid her blade past his frantically snatched-out daggers and into his throat, an unruffled moment later.
Before he was finished falling and dying, she’d strolled to the limp, gory mess that was Verrin and had cut a ring of keys from his belt. Wiping her sword clean on a dry part of his breeches, she tossed the ring of keys through its bars to Marlin, saluted him with her blade-as he and his hirelings gaped at her, aghast-and stepped back between the casks again.
Who-who was that? The Silent Shadow? Some long-dead agent controlled by another noble House?
“I’ll be long gone by the time you get that gate up,” Targrael told the young noble mockingly as she continued to retreat into the shadows. “Waste no time hunting me, for you’ll not find me. Nor is there really any need to hunt me. As you can see, I’m dead already.”
It took Marlin some time to manage to swallow, find his voice, and dare to ask, “W-who are you?”
He was answered from deep darkness far away across the cellar by coldly mocking laughter.
Manshoon chuckled despite himself. Gods, but she was evil. He should be able to resist this sort of behavior, all this mocking, prancing villainy, when his mind was riding and commanding hers, but … somehow …
She enjoyed it so and made him enjoy it. More than he had in centuries.
Centuries … too many passing years, drifting past darker and darker, too many friends and lovers and useful allies gone with them …
Enough reverie. To work again.
To this little minx Targrael …
Still smiling, he bent his mind once more upon hers, in firm command, and felt her heed and obey.
Back to your tomb, Lady Dark Armor. Until just the right moment to take care of the Lords Ganrahast and Vainrence.
It would not be long in coming.
In the meantime, there were two other minds to ride and their pairs of eyes to spy through. Being a manipulative mastermind was busy work.
Work that he loved-every sinister moment of it.
The former Night King of Westgate and incipient Emperor of Cormyr-and Sembia, and the Dales, and wherever else he could conquer, once he mustered the might of the Forest Kingdom for real battle-turned to his floating, conjured scrying-scenes.
Back to the beloved work at hand. First the stirge, and then Talane …
They were thankfully deep in Stormserpent Towers now, and Thirsty had obediently soared up into the darkness of the room’s vaulted ceiling a short while before, unseen by his two hireswords.
Just a few more deeds to do, and he could relax.
Marlin stood a good many paces back from the sellswords, lounging against a doorpost. They were both keeping wary eyes on him as they obeyed his latest orders, tossing the sacks of severed heads down into the roaring flames of the main tower’s furnace.
They expected to be shoved in after the heads, of course, but he smiled sardonically at them and displayed empty hands whenever they whirled around from the flames to give him hard and suspicious glares.
His smile broadened when one of them did something to his belt that made a ward rise with the usual faint singing sound. Its glow, before it faded into invisibility, was flat gray; a steelshield ward. Stretching like a wall right across the room between Marlin and his two hirelings, it would prevent the passage of any crossbow bolts, spears, or hurled darts or axes.
“Don’t you trust me?” he asked them in his best guise of wide-eyed innocence.
“No,” one of them replied bluntly.
“Wise of you,” Marlin commented before he gave the warbling whistle that brought Thirsty swooping down to sting them both.
The paralysis hit them before they could finish cursing, but not before they both crashed to a Stormserpent rug that had seen much better days.
Marlin strolled to a handy table, leisurely divested himself of the chalice and his sword belt, then removed a few rings from his fingers, and daggers from various sheaths up his sleeves and down one boot. Kicking off the boots, he unbuckled his waist belt and let his breeches fall.
Thus metal-free, he strolled through the ward and proceeded to kick the two helpless, paralyzed men into the furnace, one after the other.
Then he turned his back on the cloud of sparks swirling up, walked back through the ward, and took up the chalice to gaze at it admiringly.
Thirsty returned to his shoulder, rubbing affectionately against his cheek and neck, and he stroked it as he smiled at the chalice.
He must remember to let the stirge drink deep before the night was out. That fat she-dumpling of a cook he’d seen helping out in the kitchens, perhaps? Or should he hire someone and quell fears about the household for a while?
Ah, decisions, decisions …
He gazed at the Wyverntongue Chalice and let himself gloat. Yes, the night had been a triumph, to be sure.
So inside this large and elegant old metal cup was all that was left of an adventurer who’d once been among the most powerful in all the Realms. A hundred and fifty summers earlier, more or less, it had all come to a sudden end for the Nine, when Laeral Silverhand-later the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, alongside the infamous Blackstaff, Khelben Arunsun-had been possessed by the Crown of Horns. A god, or what was left of one.
And the Flying Blade held another of the Nine.
Thanks to much coin spent on various adventuring bands far less accomplished than the Nine-adventurers who were all since dead, thanks to more Stormserpent coin-Marlin knew how to command a blueflame ghost.
And knew where there was a warded spellcasting chamber in which he could test his control over said ghosts, without even Ganrahast detecting what he was up to.
Moreover, until Lothrae produced two ghosts of his own, a certain Marlin Stormserpent was free to proceed with his own, ahem, “dastardly plots.”
He chuckled, watching the ward-visible again, as it died-flicker and start to fail as the belt that it was grounded in started to melt. Hot places, furnaces.
Then he turned, hefting the chalice lovingly in his hand, and started the long walk through Stormserpent Towers to get the Flying Blade.
Through one of the many tall windows that he passed, the first glimmerings of dawn were lightening the last failing gloom of the night.
A new day was coming, and it was high time for the fun to begin.
“Ambition has felled so many, young Stormserpent,” Manshoon purred. “It has even humbled Fzoul of the Too Many Gods and the strutting, preening Chosen of Mystra, Elminster of Shadowdale not least among them. I’ve tripped over my own ambitions a time or two, myself. Have a care now, King Marlin, Secret Lord of Westgate or whatever you strive to first become, that ambition not cause your swift and premature fall. Oh, no. I need you to last until I deem you expendable.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Amarune came awake quickly, her mind singing with alarm. There it was again, and definitely not in her dreams. Another stealthy sound. Nearby.
She’d fallen asleep at her scribbling, head down on the litter of papers on her desk. No ink all over her cheek this time; that was one good thing. All was dark. Her little candle lamp-only a stub to begin with-had guttered out.
So where-?
Ah, there it was yet again. That time, despite the pitch darkness all around, she knew where it was coming from and what it was.
Someone was using the blade of a knife to try to force open her shutters.
Very quietly.