Tsantress quelled a sudden urge to giggle and assured him that they were. As she did so, she put one of her hands behind her, out of his sight, and awakened one of the rings upon ir. Jusr in case.
"I dare not speak to you," the mystetious figure whispered, scuttling nearer, "out here."
"And yer you are speaking to me," Tsantress said. "Though you have as of yet failed to answer my question."
"So I have!" the man in black agreed, ducking his head and sidling still nearer, almost turning his back on her in his eagerness to look behind him-and then whirling around and leaning over to peer past her. "Madam mage, I am a Lord of Cormyr!"
"Whose name is…?" Tsantress.
"Not out here, I pray you, madam! Not out here!"
Tsantress activated a second ring. If she was going to enter her chambers alone with an unidentified man, she was going to furnish no possibility of his successfully attacking her or snatching any of the unfinished-albeit cryptic-work she had spread out on her bed and tables.
"Very well," she said, and she unlocked her door with the deftness of long practice, keeping herself facing him all the while. "Pray enter, Unknown Lord."
The man in black winced. "I would not have you think poorly of me! I mean you no harm nor dishonor. Believe me! I desire but to aid Cormyr on a matter of utmost delicacy! Please believe me!"
"In here." Tsantress beckoned.
Her guest cast two last exaggerated looks up and down the hallway and then ducked inside, swirling his cloak away from his face with a flourish as she swung the door shut behind him.
Tsantress regarded him calmly. His face was quite handsome, and she recalled seeing it at Court a time or two. As noble as he claimed to be, but of no important family… and about the same age she was.
"Is it locked?" he asked.
"Not yet," the war wizard told him. "Its locking awaits the revelation of your name."
The man in black broke his dramatic pose long enough to spin to face her. "Lady Wizard," he said, srriking another pose, "I am Lord Rhallogant Caladanter!"
"Well met," Tsantress replied. She made her own little show of locking-and bolting-the door, then leaned back against it, folded her arms across her chest, and asked, "So you wish to speak to me regarding a matter of utmost delicacy?"
The handsome young lord looked both ways again, even in her small, dim antechamber, then sank his head low between his shoulders and murmured in a deep voice, eyes darting this way and that as if he could see watching eyes appearing in every corner, "I have overheard some disturbing things about a few Wizards of War-Vangerdahast and Laspeera, in particular-who have been meeting in secret with some Sembians and Zhentarim. I fear for rhe realm, but I know not where to turn."
Tsantress stiffened, her face going pale. She was an ambitious, capable young war wizard and had been very careful to watch and learn much, for fear of putting a foot wrong as she soughr to ascend ever higher in the Royal Magician's regard. A few of the folk she had seen Vangerdahast meeting with had troubled her deeply. So this, now…
"Come," she whispered as she crossed the antechamber into her study, taking him by the sleeve. She was pleased to see that although he trembled with excitement, he showed no triumphant grin of lechery or brightening opportunism. "Sit with me, and tell me all you have seen and heard. All."
As she'd suspected, it wasn't much. Yet it was more than enough to make her shiver. She regarded the Royal Palace in a new way: as a brooding fortress of suspicions, every shadow something that peered and listened. "Den of traitors, den of thieves," she murmured, remembering the old Suzailan song deriding the Court.
"Lord Caladanter, I thank you," she said then, putting a firm hand on his knee and staring deep into his eyes. Under her palm, he seemed as excired as a puppy, his eyes glowing as he stared into hers-but again, there was no hinr of the seducer.
"Your very life is in danger," she said, telling him what she knew he wanted to hear-and knowing it was all too true. "If you breathe one word to anyone about speaking to me and anything that even hints at what you've just told me, someone-possibly several someones-will kill you."
She paused a moment to let that sink in and watched his excitement slide slowly into fear. Not as swift-witted as he'd first seemed, this one. Madwits, yes, but a slow madwits, to boot.
"You must not be seen leaving my rooms," she said. "Will you submit to a spell, if I cast a translocation upon you?"
He started to nod eagerly then frowned. "A-oh. To whisk me in an instant from here to… somewhere else?"
Tsantress nodded. "To one of the gates where the Royal Gardens lets out onto the Promenade. Whence you can easily stroll home."
"P-please!" he stammeted.
She rose, gesturing that he should, too-and the moment he did, touched him with a ring she had already awakened. In its silent flash, he vanished without another word.
"No touching farewells, young lord," she murmured, more to hear her own voice than for any other reason. She didn't want to wallow in how deeply this news had troubled her, didn't want toHold! No one had seen him depart, yes. But had anyone seen him arrive?
Tsantress marched across the room and flung the door wide to do her own sharp look up and down the passage.
She found herself meeting the startled gaze of a doorjack in the usual livery, standing formally outside the door across the passage and a few strides down.
It was a man she'd never seen before, and it was an odd door to stand upon ceremony-because it led onto a landing of an internal staircase, not into a state room or anyone's chambers.
At her scrutiny, the doorjack's expression turned cold. He was almost glaring at her as he slowly turned, opened the door, and stepped through it.
Tsantress saw a slice of landing and stair through its frame, just as she'd expected-but she also saw something more.
The doorjack had turned his head to stare at her as he strode out of sight, and just before he passed from view, his unfamiliar face slid into the featutes of someone else.
Vangerdahast.
Chapter 9
The Lost Palace Yet though I live so long, I pray you lords thrust your blades deep into me, to make sure I breathe no more if ever I begin to become the sort of king who forgets his own name, knows not lifelong friends nor foes, and loses even palaces in the fogs of his failing mind.
The door closed behind Vangerdahast. Tsantress srared at it, her mind racing. Her entire world whirled away in an insranr… what to do? What should she do?
She looked up and down the passage out of sheer habit, seeing no one, then heard the faintest of sounds in the room behind her-or thought she did-and whirled around.
Nothing. Her antechamber was dark and srill, with no grimly smiling Royal Magician or anyone else standing there. Tsantress closed the door again, strode swiftly across the room to snatch up a wedge of cheese for later consumption and took down her dagger in its thigh-sheath from its usual place on the wall. Drawing in a deep breath, she used her teleport ring again.
It was the only way out, given the wards in place over the vast Royal Court and the Royal Palace beyond that would foil any translocation cast by someone not wearing such a ring-and she had to get out.
To find time to think, if nothing else.
Wherefore she found herself standing on a ledge high on the Thunder Peaks, lashed by rain. She stared bleakly out over fog-shrouded eastern Cormyr for a few moments, called on the ring again, and teleported to where she was really bound for. An exrra "jump" should foil any tracing magic Old Thunderspells used to follow her. She hoped.
The ledge went away in the usual instant of falling endlessly through bright blue mists, and then there was solid stone under her boots again, and familiar dank gloom surrounded her amid smells of earth and old bear dung.