Bury Elminster Deep

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M irt tossed the empty decanter onto the empty bed, glared down at both, and let out a growl.

It was no use. He was as restless as a prowling cat with the flea-itch.

As he’d always been, when it came to ponderings. He always mulled over matters better while he was striding somewhere, doing something, rather than sitting idle and alone in luxury… and ever-deepening boredom.

Night had fallen, but no matter. If he could walk Dock Ward in Waterdeep and bring his unlovely old hide home more or less intact, he could stroll the well-lit Promenade of Suzail and have a better-than-fair chance of returning to this tarted-up rental hovel in one piece, too.

The coins were hidden where only a strong and determined thief could hope to take them from, flattened behind a wardrobe it would take two strong men-or one sweating, straining, snarling, fat, old Waterdhavian lord-to shift. He had his blades; the desk would mind his key; there was enough loose coin down his boot to buy a cuddle with a dancer if his wandering feet took him past such a place…

“Moneylenders aren’t alive if they aren’t finding trouble,” Mirt muttered aloud, “and if ye wander a city, trouble generally soon finds ye. Aye.”

Down the sweeping, dark-carpeted stairs he went, under the soft light of many ornate hanging lamps, and wheezed his way out into the street.

Marlin Stormserpent strode along the shuttered shopfronts, his darkest cloak swirling around him in the wind of his own haste. His oldest, quietest boots made little sound as he hurried through the night.

He was so excited he was almost choking, and a small worm of fear was rising in his throat, blossoming swiftly now. Illance’s plan had seemed so gods-sent, so right, back at Staghaven House, but now…

Well ahead of him, two blue flames moved quickly in the deepening darkness, side by side. His ghosts were heading straight to the palace.

To imperil the king.

Either the nobles were taking their time mustering warriors and buffing their boots so as to look their best when they broke into rebellion, or the Dragons had done a very thorough job of scouring the city-well, this part of it, at least-of armed and excited folk in the streets.

The Promenade, under its usual warm and plentiful lamps, was but lightly traveled in its long sweep around the soaring, imposing bulks of the vast, many-windowed royal court and the older, more castlelike royal palace. Oh, there were people about, aye, all of them afoot-not a cart or wagon to be seen-but no one was shouting or waving a sword or anything else. Most folk were walking alone or in pairs or trios; the only larger group Mirt could see was a watch patrol-Dragons with a war wizard, talking quietly and looking far from excited.

Yet out of lifelong habit, Mirt looked back fairly often as he walked. His first glance was to fix his inn in his mind, the way it looked by night, so he could readily find it again. His second was to mark anyone who might be following him, who’d been in the street at his first glance and seemed to have moved since in a way that suggested Mirt of Waterdeep might be of interest to them.

None such rose to his notice.

Well, hardly surprising, that. He was, after all, no one at all to anyone but a handful of folk currently alive, in this time so long after he’d expected a waiting grave to find him. Living for centuries was for archwizards or god-tainted priests, not fat old moneylenders with smart mouths, who liked to provoke people who thought themselves powerful or important. Why Mirt looked back a third time and revised his thinking in an instant.

“Talandor! Caztul! Caztul caztul!” he exploded.

There was no mistaking the two men wreathed in ceaseless bright blue flames. Walking purposefully toward him, with drawn swords in their hands.

“Kelstyn, gelkor, and hrasting sabruin!” he added to surrounding Suzail, as he started to hurry, rushing along with his battered old boots-the same footwear that had made the inn’s grandly garbed seneschal visibly wince-flapping loudly.

If they were giving chase, there was only one halfway-safe place for him. The damned palace. Again.

“This city is cursed-or I am!” Mirt growled as he picked up speed, lurching from side to side in his loudly wheezing haste to be elsewhere.

“I’m too old for this,” he muttered. “Damned deadly magics! Why don’t these rats-underfoot war wizards police them, hey?”

He hoped to lead the two slayers into the midst of those same Crown mages; if he could dart through or into the detaining arms of war wizards, mayhap his flaming pursuers would come right after him-and the Dragon Throne’s tame mages would destroy them.

He cast another swift look back and pushed himself to lurch along faster.

Aye, the wizards were his best hope.

Provided, of course, he reached the palace before the ghosts caught him.

Manshoon had managed to forget how irritating the mind of Understeward Fentable could be.

The trouble lay in Fentable’s character; the man was moderately cunning, had learned the arts of deft manipulation and subtle misdirection, and derived real enjoyment from intrigue and the cut and thrust of palace diplomacy.

However, he was only about a fifth as clever as he thought himself to be, and so shallowly gleeful in his petty chasings after this chance to browbeat a lowly courtier or that opportunity to emphasize his superior rank in dealings with someone just a little below him in court standing that it left Manshoon seething.

“Tiresome” was a polite way of putting it. Wherefore, Manshoon rode Corleth Fentable’s mind with a savage, impatient edge to his control. He’d thought it imperative to learn the state of things inside the palace-but wished he hadn’t bothered.

The king was in hiding, heavily guarded, and the ever-ambitious Glathra was kinging it as ably as her tireless bullying would reach. While chaos reigned, minor courtiers traded whispered rumors behind closed doors, and higher-ranking court officers cowered in various unexpected chambers, well away from their offices and usual posts, so Glathra’s scurrying messengers couldn’t readily find them.

According to palace protocol, the-still missing-royal magician and the lord warder could both give orders to the palace understeward; whereas, all other wizards of war, except in times of declared war, could not. Yet, it seemed Glathra called on custom and protocol when they suited her, and blithely ignored them when they did not.

Just as Understeward Fentable blithely ignored the six successive sets of orders she’d had messengers deliver to him. He’d taken care to inform the palace heralds that the Lady Glathra Barcantle had been declared a traitor to the Crown, so her orders were to be ignored. He’d omitted to mention that the declaration of her status was his alone, not a royal one, but the heralds had winked expressionlessly, informing him without a word that they were well aware of that. They knew he was carrying out this empty gesture to preempt Glathra’s inevitable move to declare him a traitor, the moment she discovered him missing and her orders not carried out.

However, even the lowliest Dragon on guard at court or palace would have found it odd that the palace understeward had departed the palace, at a time when his superior, Palace Steward Hallowdant, was abed and snoring.

It was even more unusual for Fentable to slip out alone, without grand pronouncements and orders, a messenger or three in case a need for them arose, a scribe to capture the most crucial-to-the-realm of his passing thoughts, and a bodyguard or two to emphasize his importance.

Manshoon would have sent him out naked and covered in dung, if it had suited his purposes.

However, on this occasion, it-and anything else that might attract attention-did not. He was riding Fentable forth to meet with certain nobles. Ostensibly to try to arrange a noble cabal to keep the peace and protect both the royal family and all Suzailan courtiers, in the event civil war broke out. In truth, Manshoon intended to use his magic to covertly read the minds of all nobles he got close enough to, to learn who could be used, and how. Fentable’s cabal would become Manshoon’s power base of allied nobles when he took the throne.

Moreover, there was a chance-admittedly small, but a chance nonetheless-that he might get close enough to the right noble to discover who controlled the blueflame ghost that had appeared at the Council.

It was also high time to begin spreading rumors that would cause public suspicion of the priests of all popular faiths in the kingdom. Thefts, murders, deceptions, baby-devourings… the lot. Priests were a peril to vampires, and he wanted them kept busy in his new empire or at least hampered by public resistance and suspicion, not free to work mischief or try to step into the present chaos and restore order, seizing power and influence for themselves in the process.

The most private way out of the palace that didn’t involve a damp tunnel and lots of stairs up into this or that tavern or shop along the Promenade was the house behind the stables. Fentable took that route but was barely a block from the palace when he saw an unmistakable wheezing, lurching figure hurrying toward him along the Promenade, casting many swift glances back over his shoulder.

Mirt of Waterdeep, making for… the palace?

And right behind him-Fentable came to an abrupt halt, almost before Manshoon felt astonished-were Marlin Stormserpent’s pair of blueflame ghosts, rushing along vengefully after the old Lord of Waterdeep.

Manshoon backed Fentable into a doorway to watch the slaughter.

El shook himself and waved his arms-Amarune’s slender, shapely young arms-in satisfaction. Gods, but it felt good inside a body this young, strong, and Mystra-kissed supple. Why “If you’re finished enjoying Rune’s general health, I’d like to remind you that it won’t continue if we tarry here,” Storm warned, plucking at his arm.

Obediently El joined her in a sprint down the narrow passage she was heading along. He recognized it; ahead was a door that led to an alcove that was a guardpost presiding over one of the smaller, less important palace doors.

“Why can’t matters be as tavern tales have them, for once?” he asked idly as they ran. “No guards at their posts-that sort of thing?”

Storm chuckled and banged open the door to the alcove.

Several startled Purple Dragons cursed and went for their swords, but she marched straight through them with the crisp words, “At ease, loyal Dragons! I’m Lady Glathra, testing a new spell with Wizard of War Tracegar here. If we both look like rather striking women, me with silver hair and him the very image of a certain mask dancer some of you may have seen a time or two, our spells are working. We’re off to the Dragon and the Lion, to test our guises on harsh critics.”

“I-uh-fair fortune, lady!” the highest-ranking Dragon said hastily, throwing wide the door just as Storm reached for it. She thanked him with a bright smile, stepped out into the night-and stopped, so suddenly that only Amarune’s grace and balance kept Elminster from walking right into her.

Mirt the Moneylender was coming down the Promenade, hustling hard and groaning for breath, making for their door just as fast as he could lurch. Behind him, Storm could see the reason for his haste.

Two blueflame ghosts were right on his heels, swords out, with unpleasant grins on their faces.

“A rescue!” Mirt gasped. “A rescue, stlarn it!”

“Of course,” Storm said, running to him and taking the winded lord by one shoulder. “Rune!”

Elminster took the Waterdhavian’s other arm, and they hustled him back through the door.

“Change of plan!” Storm barked at the frowning guards. “Fetch all the Crown mages you can find here, at once!”

They gaped at her.

“Now!” she roared, trying to sound just like Glathra. “Go! Run as you’ve never run before! Run!”

The guards ran-three of the youngest right away, the others as Storm gave them glares and finally let go of the panting old lord and advanced on them, snarling like an angry wolf.

“They’re right behind us,” El murmured, kicking the door shut and swinging Mirt around against the passage wall.

Storm sprang to bar the door. “I’m hoping Luse-”

Two blades burst through the door and bit into the door bar in her hands.

She tugged, even as the blueflame slayers pulled, freeing and withdrawing their swords. Storm hastily barred the door.

A moment later, the wards alongside it flared into sudden visibility, bulging and glowing as the ghosts sought to walk right through the thick stone palace wall.

“There’s no time to wait for Alusair,” Elminster growled. “If I go wild-witted, Stormy One…”

“Of course,” Storm replied, readying her blade.

The ward went blinding white, flared into wild, spitting lightning in front of Elminster, spat forth an angry shower of sparks-and a glowing blue sword burst through that radiance, its wielder right behind it.

Elminster smiled, sidestepped the sword, and gently said a spell right into the ghost’s face.

All sound went away in an instant, or so it seemed-but swirling dust and racing cracks across nearby plaster wall adornments told El he’d just been deafened. The ghost’s blue light winked out, leaving behind an immobile, blackened skeleton holding a sword, and the palace ward shrank away, retreating along the passage in both directions like two racing grassfires.

Only to roil in the distance momentarily-and come rushing back.

The blue flames rekindled, the motionless skeleton was once more a solid-looking man on the move-that the wards slammed into from both sides.

Whereupon Elminster’s sight went away, too. He was briefly aware of flying helplessly through the air, then encountering something smooth, flat, and very hard.

Only to rebound back off it, to walk forward blindly on legs that suddenly seemed made of rubber or perhaps of string…

“They could build palaces, in those days,” he observed brightly, or thought he did, before lightning stabbed him in thousands of places and took all Suzail away.

The blast smote Fentable’s ears like a hard-swung kitchen skillet, its bright flare slashing the night as if the darkness were a smooth-stretched cloak that could be sliced with a knife.

Cringing in the doorway with hands clapped to his ears, Fentable blinked at the sudden brightness, but clearly saw the old and massive palace door blown high into the air and flung across the Promenade to smash hard into the stone front of a grand shop-below-and-clubs-above building, then crash to the ground in splintered ruin, raising dust.

Right behind the whirling door tumbled a figure wreathed in flickering blue flames.

It struck the shop front lower down, on a central pillar flanked by the shuttered shop windows, and slid limply down the unyielding stone to the ground.

Fentable might have been terrified, but Manshoon was merely astonished.

He stared at the felled host, then at the gaping doorway whence the door had come.

Framed in it was the mask dancer, Amarune Whitewave, reeling unsteadily as she stared out into the street, arms raised and flung wide, lightning playing angrily around her hands.

She’d just blasted down a blueflame ghost?

Just what had happened to this hitherto unskilled-at-Art young mask dancer, descendant of Elminster, to make her an archwizard in… what, days?

Manshoon’s eyes narrowed.

The very cobbles underfoot shook as the door burst out of its frame and went flying.

Pressed hard against the Promenade side of the palace wall right beside that door, a blueflame ghost watched another blueflame ghost hurtle past.

Then, not even looking to see what befell that fellow slayer, and caring less, it ducked through the gaping doorway into the palace.

Right past a reeling, drooling, empty-eyed lass in the grip of snarling lightning it raced, and a groaning, also-reeling, silver-haired woman beyond, to pursue a fat man stumbling along a narrow passage that led deeper into the palace, trailing a muttered sea of curses.

The ghost smiled gleefully as it ran and raised its sword.

Mirt saw the blue reflections of its flames looming up close behind him and turned grimly to give battle.

The ghost’s grin widened. One slash at most this might take, two for sport, and then A sword that was more ghostly shadow than steel slashed at blue flames-and sliced them into dark nothingness.

The running ghost faltered in sheer astonishment.

And found itself staring into a smile as full of grim glee as its own, adorning the floating face of a ghostly woman in leather half-armor, her helmless hair flowing free as she stood in midair like a shield, barring the way to the panting, wheezing old lord.

“Dare to come into my palace to slay a man, against my laws, in my kingdom?” the ghost of Alusair Obarskyr whispered, that terrible smile still on her lips. “Prepare to pay my price.”

Amarune staggered out of the palace and started to topple into the street-but silver tresses caught her, and a strong, shapely arm swept her upright again.

“Easy, El!” Storm murmured, embracing the dazed dancer from behind and holding her upright. “Easy!”

El?

Manshoon stared in disbelief at the two women across the street for one moment.

In the next moment, riding a soundless shriek of fear and rage, he departed Corleth Fentable in reckless haste, leaving the understeward drooling and staggering as badly as the mask dancer. With no Storm Silverhand to catch him, Fentable promptly collapsed on his face on the cobbles.

An instant after, a beholder the size of a child’s head burst out of his robes and darted off into the night.

Jaws dropped, and men shouted at that, and Manshoon had the vague recollection that some Purple Dragons hastened along the street to investigate the blast.

Bah! Right now, he cared not if all the world knew that the palace understeward carried a beholderkin in his armpit.

Elminster of Shadowdale was alive!

It took him surprisingly little time to race across streets lined with mansions, past spires, towers, and domes, to a particular open-for-breezes window of Truesilver House.

The Lady Deleira Truesilver caught sight of the hovering beholderkin before her maids did, and abruptly ordered everyone from the room. If any of them saw her pluck a particular pendant up out of the open coffer on her sidetable, or draw a dagger from a sheath affixed to the underside of that same table, they gave no sign of it.

In the space of two quick breaths, the room was empty and its door closed in their wake.

Manshoon ignored dagger and pendant and wasted no time in niceties. “Talane,” he ordered, “find the wizard Elminster, who is alive and using bodies not his own. Slay anybody he inhabits-destroy him utterly. Make very sure he is dead, then call on me to make certain. Hurry!”

“How will I know him?” she asked, tossing down both pendant and dagger.

The beholderkin darted at her like an oversized wasp, its eyestalks writhing.

She almost managed not to flinch as eyestalks slid greasily into her nostrils and ears, clinging for the fleeting moment Manshoon needed.

He thrust an image of Amarune Whitewave-reeling unsteadily in a doorway, staring at nothing with lightning playing around her upflung hands-into Talane’s mind, then stripped away the lightning from that vision.

“This is the guise he’s hiding in right now.”

The beholderkin drew back far enough to give the Lady Deleira Truesilver a menacing glare. “Find Storm Silverhand, and force her to reveal who is Elminster and who is not. Don’t slay her until you are certain. Kill her, too, but after. Foremost and above all, your task is to bury Elminster deep!”