Before Tanalasta could reply, Alusair glided away, back around the Helmed Lady, and was gone.
Seething, she traversed the rest of the chamber like a storm wind and thtust the door open, uncaring of whether or not the doorjack might be standing in its way. The door swung open freely, rhough she barely noticed, and the younger Princess of Cormyr bent one shoulder low like a running warrior so as ro turn the corner faster, clenched her hands into claws, andSlammed right into a man who'd stepped from behind the door and must have been standing right outside it, listening!
A more-than-familiar man. The Royal Magician of Cormyr staggered back a step or two from their bruising meeting to regard her with a raised eyebrow and eyes that held… sardonic amusement?
In wordless rage Alusair launched herself at him, punching and kicking with a vicious disregard for his gender. She promptly and painfully discovered that he wore an armored codpiece under his robes-and that even Royal Magicians can be toppled by an angry youngling.
As they rolled together on the passage floor, Alusair was only barely aware that in the dimness around her there was no sign of the door guards or doorjacks who were supposed to be guarding the door.
She clawed, punched, and drove in her knees, spitting out curses in a raging stream that sounded incoherent even to her. The Royal Magician did not even try to defend himself beyond throwing his arms up to shield his face and throat. He grunted with pain, again and again, and tried to twist out from under her. When he thrust up his legs to try to spill her off, Alusair snatched out her little belt dagger.
"Too far," she heard him grunt, then murmur something so brief that she couldn't catch it. A moment later, magic burned her fingers and hurled her dagger away. She heard it sing off the wall some distance behind her.
"Not so easily done, sirrah." She brought one leg around until she could reach her boot and thrust her fingers into it to snatch out a little knife.
Her ankle-fang flashed out, she growled in triumph and found that the wrist of that hand had been caught in an iron-firm grip.
A face was looking down at her from beyond that grip-an all-too-familiat face that was icily beautiful and calm, yet whose eyes held a scowl to match Alusair's own fury.
"Royal command time," Queen Filfaeril said in a calm, level voice. "Remove yourself from the personage beneath you, and come with me."
Alusair barely had time to swing her other leg off the wizard before the Dragon Queen hauled her to het feet and started marching her back down the passage.
"Mother," Alusair said, "where are we-?"
"Yonder maid's closet. Or the one beyond. I don't share your preference for horsewhips, Daughter. The flat of my hand will serve quite well."
"You-me, a princess-a spanking? "
"Not quite the eloquence I expect in a Princess of Cormyr I had any hand in rearing," Filfaeril replied, "but you seem to have grasped the main points. In here, miss!"
A door banged.
Vangerdahast had sat up to watch and listen to the princess being dragged away. Now he slowly rolled over to his knees, wincing, used both hands to thrust himself to his feet, and staggeted off down the passage.
He did not look back and so never saw the man standing unmov-ing against the passage wall in the dark lee of a tapestry.
King Azoun IV of Cormyr was standing ready to break Vangerdahast's jaw and knock him cold, if he could. Though he'd not have tried to punch the Royal Magician at all if the wizard had not dared to tarry and watch Alusair's punishment, for his own enjoyment.
A little relieved that none of that had been necessary, he smiled at the wizard's distant, dwindling figure.
"Those who deal in pain are fated to entertain it in turn," he murmured. "It's merely a matter of when. So reap this whirlwind, Vangey. It's puny, compared to most of your others.'
"Who's there?" Aumrune of the Zhentarim asked sharply. He'd taken care that few of the Brotherhood knew where he liked to experiment with magic. It cut down on… the over-ambitious aiding "accidents."
The robed and hooded figure slowly spread empty hands in a "look, I bear nothing" gesture, and then reached up and put back his cowl to reveal a familiar face.
"Mauliykhus," the approaching wizard identified himself. "My deepest apologies for disturbing your work. There is urgent news. I thought you would want to hear it without delay."
Aumrune set his wand on the table, cast the cloak he'd brought to conceal from all eyes the array of clamps and stands and what they held, and strode to meet Mauliykhus. He awakened several of the rings he wore to glowing life.
Most Zhentarim harbored thoughts of doom befalling their superiors, and he supposed Mauliykhus was no different. "Supposed" because he'd never found the slightest whisper of a hint that the lesser mage was actually doing anything to bring such a doom down on Aumrune-and because his own deepening judgment of the character of Mauliykhus Oenren led him to believe that the man would never dare try anything beyond, perhaps, a sudden wild snatch at a bright opportunity.
And if there was one thing Aumrune Trantor was careful never to offer any potential foe-which meant everyone else in all Faerun-it was a bright opportunity.
Wherefore he came to a careful stop two paces away from Mauliykhus and held up a hand, the rings on it glowing in warning. "What news?"
"Lord Manshoon," Mauliykhus said, lowering his head and edging forward. He stopped, appearing not to see Aumrune's stern "keep back" gesture as he looked back over his shoulder. "Best whisper this," he breathed quietly, edging still closer.
Aumrune took a step back. "Is it choosing a new foremost henchwizard from among us all, again? I have an ever-decreasing appetite for idle gossip, and-"
Mauliykhus shook his head and looked nervously behind him again. "It's not that."
"If anyone's listening to us," Aumrune said, "they'll be using magic and keeping themselves safely far away from here, not tiptoeing along behind you." One of the rings blossomed from its glow into a faint singing in the air all around the two wizards.
"There," he announced. "No one can scry us now without overwhelming rhat. And if it collapses, we'll know, won't we? Now-"
He stiffened, then, as Mauliykhus put a hand on his arm.
The lesser wizard did rarher more than stiffen. He staggered back a step-and then collapsed to the floor like a falling blanket.
Aumrune looked down at the fallen wizard, watching thin threads of smoke drift up from the burnt-out holes that had held eyes a moment or two ago. Dead as last year's moths and about as useful.
Aumrune Trantor stepped around him, reeling a little as the two entities still settling into his head fumbled for precise control of their new host body's limbs, and strode away, leaving cloak, wand, and all forgotten on the table behind him.
He no longer had need of such trifles.
"Lady Ironchylde!"
The whisper was urgent-and loud almost enough to echo the entire length of this obscure, out-of-the-way, upper passage of the vast and sprawling Royal Court.
Wizard of War Tsantress Ironchylde calmly finished locking the door of her chambers ere turning to look at whoever had hailed her. She was young and capable-and much of her effectiveness thus far, she knew well, was due ro her ability to remain calm.
"I am not," she said pleasantly, "a 'Lady.' I am a war wizard, of low birth, as it happens. And you are…?"
The man who'd hailed her was the only other person in the passage. Lean and lithe, he was wearing glossy black boots, black hose of the most expensive make, a black codpiece that might have made a jester snicker, and a black cloak that entirely hid his doublet and most of his face, too. He stopped every few feet to cast exaggerated looks up and down the passage. "Are we," he whispered tersely, "alone?"