Amanthan smiled thinly. “Fugitives? Really? What sort of fugitives?”
“Lord sir,” the Purple Dragon said icily, “three women and three men, attired for battle. You can hardly have failed to see them. ’Tis some good way from your house to where you stand, here, and we were right on their heels.”
“Lionar,” the wizard replied, in a voice every whit as cold, “I suffer no uninvited guests to trample my flowers-and live.” He waved the scepter meaningfully. “Do I make myself quite clear?”
Some of the Dragons went pale. Behind them, the tops of ladders and many helmed heads appeared all along the wall, ropes were flung down, and a stouter lionar came puffing down one of them.
“Ah,” Amanthan said pleasantly, “more for my scepter. Well, it has been some time since it was fed properly…”
A few soldiers ducked away, heading for the wall or at least a place behind their fellows, but Lionar Dauntless, hastening from the bottom of his rope, doffed his gauntlets and strode forward, extending his hand to the mage.
“Pray accept my apologies, lord sir. Amanthan of Waterdeep, is it not? I tender the apologies and beseechments of Lord Thomdor, Warden of the Eastern Marches, and Myrmeen Lhal, Lady Lord of Arabel. We hound six miscreants upon their orders, and they will stand coin for any damage we’ve done. I was about to ask if we might search your grounds, here, but if you’ve seen these six…?”
Amanthan reached for the proffered hand. “I fear your time would be wasted: the six you seek are… no more. I was under attack-they thrust weapons at me-and defended myself with my scepter, blasting them utterly to dust, as you can see. Or rather, not see.”
Their hands met, and the wizard stiffened as if someone had struck him.
“Ah,” Dauntless replied, turning his head to look all around. “Well. Ah, I suppose… that’s that.”
Swordcaptain Nelvorr, standing near, noticed a wisp of something like mist drift from the lionar’s mouth to Amanthan’s.
The wizard turned his head to look at Nelvorr, and the swordcaptain quickly looked away. And shivered.
“So, my king, this is about much more than tax-cheating and slavery.”
Vangerdahast whirled around dramatically, robes swirling. “It concerns, once again, an eventual attack on your person; yet another attempt to seize the Dragon Throne.”
Six faces gazed at him. Unhappily.
Azoun sat with his queen beside him, the sage Alaphondar in a lower seat nearby. A highknight stood guard behind each of them.
There was no one else in the Soaring Dragon Room but Lord Vangerdahast-until he turned and made the gesture that caused the life-sized images of two additional men to appear in the air beside him.
“It grieves me to report this, Majesty,” the royal magician said, waving his hand at the image, “but here’s the proof: Lord Gallusk meeting with the exiled ‘Lord’ Sorn Merendil. Note the room around them.”
“The Swandolphin, in Marsember,” Queen Filfaeril murmured, causing Azoun to blink at her in surprise. “Minus its usual dancing whores.”
The king blinked again, as Alaphondar and Vangerdahast both glanced away to avoid showing their amusement. Safely behind the royals, two of the highknights grinned broadly.
“So the House of Gallusk,” Azoun said, “are providing slaves to be trained into a rebel army?”
“No, Majesty. Lord Anamander Gallusk-we don’t believe his kin know about any of this-has gangs who snatch peddlers, pilgrims, shepherds and hands from upcountry steadings, caravan-folk, and sailors they overcome with free drink in dockside taverns, and supply them as slaves to Rorth Torlgarth.”
“Who is-?”
“A Sembian shipper who owns a sizable-and fast-growing-fleet of fast caravels. Torlgarth sells the slaves elsewhere about the Inner Sea, and in return recruits mercenaries and sends them to the Gallusk lands near the Sembian border, nigh Daerlun. Torlgarth’s coins pay them for the season; in this manner, Gallusk’s building a private army. We believe Merendil, here, is giving him both gold and orders, and is the brain and war-gauntlet behind this.”
“And thus far, you’ve failed to arrange an ‘accident’ to befall Merendil-even when he leaves Sembia or Westgate to defy his exile, and slips back onto our soil?”
“Merendil has his own backers: three Red Wizards, led by one known as Klaelan, whose Art, I must confess, outstrips my own.” Vangerdahast lifted a hand to indicate the floating semblance of Lord Gallusk.
“Anamander Gallusk, however, lies within our grasp even now. He’s here in the city, and I can have him seized forthwith. I fear I must recommend his arrest and execution. Better one man’s neck than an army on the march and hundreds-perhaps thousands-slain. More, if others in Sembia and elsewhere see a chance to strike at us.”
The king sighed reluctantly. “Every killing makes the people hate me more, and robs the realm of some measure-however fell-of drive, wits, and backbone.” He turned to look at the highknights behind him. “Do it.”
“Laspeera will meet with you,” Vangerdahast added, “for you to choose which Wizards of War accompany you.”
The highknights nodded curtly. “This will be no pleasure,” the eldest one said. “Lord Gallusk trained and sponsored me.”
“I know,” Vangerdahast replied. “I have always known.”
“What of the Arcrown?” Alapahondar asked. “I’ve heard folk in Daerlun are trading rumors that Gallusk has it, has discovered how to use it to pry into any man’s thoughts and even, some say, has begun to winnow out all in the land who dislike him or bear him grudges. If he defends himself with it-”
“He’ll be wielding a fantasy.” Vangerdahast’s smile was a wry, twisted thing. “There is no Arcrown, any more. The Blackstaff, Khelben Arunsun, came to hold it, and some years ago offered it up to Divine Mystra. She Herself destroyed it, as he watched, as an affront to magecraft everywhere.”
Alaphondar’s mouth dropped open. “But-but-all the rumors, your wizards scouring the realm…”
Vangerdahast studied his fingernails. “Falsehoods. Uttered by me, to shake the Wizards of War out of the complacency they are all too wont to sink into, and make them-to say nothing of the general populace-alert for treachery and unusual doings from end to end of the realm. I’ll let them search for some time yet.”
Filfaeril was smiling, but her husband seemed less than amused.
“Folk have died over this, Vangey! Confidence in the safety of the realm and the competence of the Dragon Throne has been assailed. And won’t Holy Mystra have something pointed to say to you?”
“Words and deeds that enhance the real or apparent power of magic, and the regard all have for it, are encouraged by the Lady of Mysteries,” Vangerdahast replied smoothly. “Their accuracy is beside the point. As for matters strictly Cormyrean, dangers to the realm are increasing. Wherefore I have made its citizens more wary and so stronger in their readiness to deal with any foe.” And with those words, he bowed, turned, and departed, striding out of the Soaring Dragon Room in a swirling of robes.
“I noticed,” Filfaeril observed, “our good Royal Magician failed to precisely answer your question, but rather offered Mystran doctrine.”
“I noticed that too,” Azoun agreed. “How many other direct questions does he evade these days, I wonder?”
The Swords of Eveningstar looked around-and blinked.
They stood in the midst of a noisy, crowded city, assailed by many stinks, with a mountain rising like a great wall ahead-and a scarcely less impressive fortress right in front of them, the cobbles under their boots less than a stride away from the stone steps that ascended to its closed front doors.
The curving stone wall of the tower looming above the Swords overhung the landing at the top of the steps, forming a porch of sorts-wherein a young woman in robes was rising from a chair and frowning down at them. She wore leather bracers, from each of which wands projected past her palms, held ready to be grasped in an instant.