Elminster Must Die

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Storm slowed a little, to try to catch her breath. It wouldn’t do to try to talk pleasantly to hostile guards if she was panting so hard she couldn’t even gasp out words.

Inevitably, Elminster ran into her from behind, head-butting her rump and propelling her helplessly around the last corner.

Where she was promptly greeted by far too many cold, vigilant stares.

She found herself smiling wryly, despite the looming danger. It seemed that the Room of the Watchful Sentinel was very well named.

Architecturally small and unimportant, a mere antechamber off the far larger and grander Starander’s Hall, it was guarded day and night to prevent covert departures-and unwelcome incursions-by way of the small, flickering doorway that stood in its northeast corner, bereft of surrounding walls or even a physical door or frame.

The Dalestride Portal’s usual guardians were fourteen. Two highknights, eight battle-tested Purple Dragons, and four wizards of war.

Right then, there were more guards than that just in the passage outside-and they had unfriendly faces and ready weapons. The passage ahead of Storm looked like a crowded forest, with every tree a waiting sentinel expecting battle, and with eyes fixed on her.

Still breathing hard from her brisk run through the palace and from the brief tussle that had punctuated that journey, Storm turned her walk into a stroll as she approached the row of waiting spear points.

Beyond those leveled spears, several wands were aimed her way, and she could see some dart-firing bowguns held in highknight fists, too.

“El,” she murmured, “this is going to be messy. There’s no way I can force passage through this many-”

“Keep moving. Duck aside against the wall, if they let fly at ye from inside the room once ye try to enter,” Elminster muttered from behind her, where he was lurching along bent over, an arm held up to shield his face.

Storm lacked both breath and will to point out to him that he was fooling no one; any Purple Dragon or war wizard who’d been warned to watch out for Elminster of Shadowdale or any other old, bearded, male stranger walking the palace would know at a glance exactly what was scuttling along in Storm’s wake.

“I don’t want to kill or maim scores of good and loyal folk of Cormyr,” Storm hissed over her shoulder. “These are our allies, remember; those who stand for justice and-”

“I’ve not forgotten that. Don’t believe what ye’re about to see, overhead,” Elminster warned her. “I still have a little magic to spend.”

Storm nodded, eyeing bowguns being aimed carefully at her throat-as the ceiling of the passage came down with a roar.

The passage shook, a hanging lamp starting to swing wildly. Dust billowed, swallowing many of the arrayed guardians-who shouted in fear and started sprinting wildly along the passage.

Right at Storm.

“El,” she snapped, reaching for her sword, “I-”

Darts came streaking at her, and there was a sudden snarl of crimson flame as a wand spat in her direction.

The flames rushed at her, expanding with the usual terrifying speed-only to fall silent and begin to spin in a great pinwheel right in front of her that … that …

“El, what’re you doing?”

There came an all-too-familiar chuckle from behind her. “How many times have ye asked me that, lass? Down the passing centuries?”

“Don’t remind me,” Storm replied sharply, sword up and out and seeking foes she couldn’t see. “How many times have you destroyed bits and pieces of palaces? Or castles?”

“I don’t keep track,” came the gruff reply. “Always seemed a mite childish, all this keeping score. Those who do tend to be those I dislike. Now, don’t step forward, whatever ye do. The results would be … unpleasant.”

“You’re sending what they hurl right back at them, aren’t you?”

“Wise lass; I am indeed. And I’m destroying no palaces this day-at least, that’s my present intention. Yon collapse was no collapse at all.”

“But if you try to scare them away, those who’ll flee will come running right into our laps!”

“Oh? Has thy lap greeted anyone, yet?”

“No, but-”

“More years ago than I care to remember,” the Sage of Shadowdale announced, straightening out of his crouch with a brief wince, “ye may recall I had a hand in crafting some of the wards cast here. Without the Weave, I can’t twist them much now-there are so many later castings-but in some places I can temporarily cause a room or passage to, ah, adjoin another that’s really halfway across the palace. Wherefore-heh-a lot of guardians, whether fearful or enthusiastic, are now sprinting along the torchwalk outside the Hall of the Warrior King, heading for the royal court at a pace that shouldn’t break too many necks, if the door at the end of that passage is as flimsy as I remember it being. I do hope they’ve repaired the little bridge over the silverfin pond, or more than a few loyal defenders of Cormyr are shortly going to wind up rather wet.”

Storm smirked, despite herself. “How far do your magics reach? Into the Room of the Watchful Sentinel itself-or are all the honor guard undoubtedly waiting for us in there going to be standing untouched, crowded to the very walls, and itching to fell Elminster, infamous enemy of the Dragon Crown?”

The Sage of Shadowdale favored her with one of his more sour looks. “D’ye think I started spinning spells yestermorn?”

“No,” Storm replied dryly, “I believe you only started thinking of your own neck about then. Yes?”

“Stormy one, when did ye start wanting to take all the fun out of things? Eh?”

A man in ankle-length robes came staggering out of the roiling dust just then, a wand in one shaking hand starting to spit sparks, so Storm ducked into a low lunge that gave her reach enough to shove him into the wall.

The young and startled wizard of war rebounded off it hard, head lolling and wand cartwheeling away, so Storm didn’t bother braining him with her sword hilt. She just glided out of the way and let the handy, hard flagstones feed him that fate instead.

“Yon overbold unfortunate wasn’t one of those waiting for us in the passage,” Elminster remarked, “so I’d say the portal guardians are coming out after us. Time to send my shield of return spell in to greet them-and let them harm themselves with everything they hurl at it. I am, after all, a hand that brings about the fitting justice of the gods.”

“We all were, we Chosen,” Storm reminded him sadly. “When Mystra still spoke to us and the Weave still sang.”

“Not now, lass,” Elminster grunted. “I’m busy.” The walls and ceiling ahead of them seemed to shudder, as the very air around them seemed to snarl and then whirl and rush loudly.

“Keep thy sword up and handy,” he added a little grimly a shrieking moment or two later. What sounded like the wail of a gale-force wind was rising around them, as the Sage of Shadowdale wrestled his magic sideways and through a doorway that wasn’t made to accommodate it-at the same time as a dozen or more mages inside the room beyond that door hurled their own spells at the pinwheel of intruding magic, seeking to destroy it.

Elminster’s face was suddenly drenched with sweat, so much of it that his nose dripped a stream like a village tap and his beard became a small waterfall.

“El?” Storm asked sharply, eyeing him as he went pale. “Is there anything I could-should-do?”

“No,” the Old Mage snapped. “Not unless ye-”

A section of the passage wall ahead of them screamed like an agonized child and abruptly burst into shattered shards of stone that crashed into the far wall with force enough to rock and heave some of the flagstones beneath their boots. Amid the hail of falling stone descending that far wall was at least one wet and broken crimson thing that had been a man.

Much of the wall that had separated the Room of the Watchful Sentinel from the passage was missing. The room itself seemed to be full of glowing smoke lit by frequent flashes and bursts of howling radiance-and to hold the turning pinwheel of Elminster’s shielding magic.

Abruptly, somewhere in the distant midair of the room’s interior, something blinding bright exploded, hurling off great streamers of flame and sparks.

“A wand!” Storm snapped, having seen wands destroyed by wild magical backlashes before. “Do you think the Dalestride can-?”

“Withstand all they’re trying to hurl at us?” Elminster replied, throwing an arm around her from behind and dragging her hastily back. “Drop thy blade-now!”

Storm was several centuries too old to argue with him or question such an order. She flung away her sword as if it were burning her hand, turned in a smooth shifting of her hips, and started to run with him down the passage to where it met-

Behind them, a blast erupted that snatched them both off their feet, smote their ringing ears so hard that all sound abruptly went away, and flung them headlong down the passage, well past the intersection and through a servant’s door that gave way in an instant of wild, high groaning of rent wood and whirling splinters, onto a table where a cream sauce studded with mushroom and smelling strongly of nutmeg was being ladled over thick steaks of spit-seared lion on gold plates.

Undercooks screamed or at least flung up their hands, wild-eyed, and opened their mouths wide, as the Sage of Shadowdale and the tall and curvaceous silver-haired woman at his side crashed breast-first down onto the hot sauce and slid the length of the table … straight into the ample backside of Nestur Laklantur, Royal Cook of the Low Kitchen, as he stood bent over at the end of the table, carefully applying garnishes to platters of dishes on an adjacent counter.

Struck hard, Laklantur plunged helplessly face-first into a glazed and steaming manymeats pudding he’d spent hours preparing, and rose up roaring in scalded pain and rage, ready to turn and rend whoever had dared-

He had managed only to half turn and snatch up the nearest ladle to serve as his weapon of retribution when Storm’s sword arrived.

It raced like an arrow, pommel first and surrounded by a winking cloud of sparks. The outraged cook had no time to dodge or duck nor even to draw breath to frame an appropriately scorching oath of wrath ere the ladle numbed his hand with its clanging departure. His life was saved by its deflection of the sword, and the cloud of sparks left the ricocheting steel to become a crawling fan of blue fire that transformed the stamped copper sheeting of the kitchen ceiling into a sheet of solid sapphire.

Laklantur and various maids and kitchen jacks stared up at it in astonishment and then either fainted or fled.

A good long breath before the sheet cracked into a thousand shards and fell, with a crash that sent cauldrons rolling and lids and cleavers ringing all over the kitchen.

And left a dazed wizard and former bard rolling slowly over, coated in sapphire dust and lumpy cream sauce, to stare at each other and then back the way they’d been hurled.

They were in time to see a wizard of war part the roiling dust with an impatient wand blast and glare in their direction.

In the suddenly clear air they saw that the Room of the Watchful Sentinel now extended into the passage and right up to the kitchen doors. Though it held much heaped rubble, adorned with more than a few silent and sprawled bodies, the Dalestride Portal stood glowing and unharmed-behind a grim dozen wizards of the Crown and half that many Purple Dragons.

“Those two, on yon table!” the wizard of war with the wand barked, looking at the Portal guardians and then pointing at Elminster and Storm. “They did this! They imperil the palace and us all, the king included. Slay them.”

“Now, now, impetuous Cormyrean,” Manshoon murmured, smiling into the glows of his scrying scene. “Not just yet. I shall fell Elminster of Shadowdale when the moment is right. A killing I perform at the time I choose. None other shall come between us.”

He worked a magic that sent the glows roiling more brightly and added, “After more than two centuries, I deserve that much.”

A moment later, his spell took hold, sending his awareness plunging down into the warm, dark depths of a mind more twisted than most. A mind he was becoming all too familiar with.

The mind of Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake, who was hastening along a passage to a particular door, one of the most powerful magical scepters in all the palace in his hand.

“Mystra, She Who Is Fallen, certainly enjoyed the dramatic last-moment appearance and rescue,” Manshoon purred, “and I begin to feel why.”

Storm looked around wildly. “Where’d my swor-oh.” She snatched up her weapon. It looked unharmed … but promptly crumbled into glittering dust with a curious sigh, leaving her holding only a hilt.

She dropped it in disgust, shot a glance at the warily advancing Purple Dragons and the wizards behind them-who were carefully aiming wands at her over the armored shoulders of those warriors-then ducked down again to join Elminster on the floor.

“Might I suggest running away?” she murmured in his ear. “Now?”

“Ye can,” the Sage of Shadowdale grunted, rolling over and clambering up to his knees, “but running is a deed my knees grow less and less fond of as the years pass. How many still stand against us?”

“Too many, and the Dragons are almost upon us,” Storm told him grimly. “I don’t see any highknights or bowguns, but-”

“They charged to the fore, of course,” El replied, “and so are now pelting along that passage halfway across the palace. Well, now …”

He produced a wand. “Paralyzes,” he announced. “I still have the thought-prying pendant, too, but that’s about all. The retreat ye suggest might indeed be prudent, if I can recall what lies on the other side of the Low Kitchens. Quite a warren of ramps and stairs, in that direction, and-”

“Elminster!” Storm snapped warningly as a Purple Dragon loomed up over them. Elminster calmly called up the wand’s powers, and the warrior stiffened in midlunge and toppled forward, crashing down at them.

Only to fetch up against the heavy table, his frozen, helpless body forming a shield.

“Right, lass, let’s be off,” the Sage of Shadowdale said gruffly. “We-”

Startled cries erupted beyond the paralyzed Dragon, as bright light burst into being and washed over the room. At its height the cries ended in midblurt, leaving only eerie silence as the radiance faded again.

Storm flung herself sideways into a roll that brought her out beyond the table and two toppled stools to where she could look down the former passage at the distant glow of the Dalestride.

She was in time to see Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake standing in a hitherto-closed doorway in another back corner of the Room of the Watchful Sentinel. He held a still-flickering scepter in his hand and was staring around at the guardians in front of him with an uneasy smile on his face.

Those men-every last Purple Dragon and wizard of them-had fallen on their faces and were lying still and silent.

Mreldrake took a swift and uncertain couple of steps into the room, craning and peering to make sure none of them were moving, then spun around and hastened back out the door he’d come through, closing it behind him.

“It seems we have an unexpected ally,” Storm whispered. “Or the wizards of war are harboring a traitor who just decided the time was right for a little treason.”

Elminster shoved the paralyzed Dragon aside with a grunt of effort and crawled quickly to the next nearest warrior. “Senseless-not dead,” he muttered. “They’ll be gone for most of a day, unless someone casts spells to revive them.”

He shot Storm a look. “I’ll take care of our traitor, if I can catch up to him. Ye get to Alassra before the inevitable horde of guards arrives to see who’s been blasting down walls in the palace.”

Storm nodded, raced to Elminster, and swept an arm around him to give him a brief, fierce kiss, then snatched up the fallen Dragon’s sword and sprinted for the glowing portal.

Halfway there she bent over a fallen wizard and tugged hard, rolling the body over. She came up with his cloak, and two strides farther on scooped up a fallen wand. It was a short run from there to where she could pluck a second wand from another outstretched hand.

Casting a brief look back over her shoulder at Elminster-he was on his feet and gave her a cheery wave-she raced for the glowing portal and plunged through its silent white fires without hesitation.

The palace was suddenly gone, and she was running on soft, sinking nothing, in the heart of a bright blue void that stretched endlessly and silently away in all directions, a void that just as abruptly vanished in a flash of bright light that became the low, bright sunlight of late afternoon lancing through trees.

A certain freshness in the air and a cool breeze coming down from the north told her she was east of the Thunder Peaks. Mistledale should be just ahead, with the broad straight wagonway of the Moonsea Ride just out of sight behind and below yon trees, and there’d undoubtedly be a sentinel of some sort keeping watch over this side of the Dalestride, being as it connected with the heart of the royal palace of Suzail, and-

Storm looked around wildly and swerved toward the nearest trees as she did so. Guards of realms with wild borders often have bows or spells to hurl, and lone women running with drawn swords in their hands could hardly fail to evoke a certain apprehension in even the laziest of sleepy sentinels …

“Hold!” an annoyed male voice snapped from somewhere behind her, right on cue. Storm ran even faster, turning sharply to meet the trees even sooner, and tore open her jerkin with her free hand as she went, ducking low.

“Halt, I said!” the guardian shouted, sounding angrier. “Are you deaf, woman?”

Storm found a tree and caught hold of it, spending all the haste of her run in a swing around it that brought her back facing the glade she’d just fled.

A young, stern-looking wizard of war flanked by two Purple Dragons with longbows in their hands was striding toward her, and he was frowning. Behind them, this side of the portal cast no glows at all; instead, it looked like endlessly rippling empty air.

“No,” she panted, giving all three men a good look at her bared and bobbing front. “I’m just-a certain none-too-noble lord seeks my virtue! Lord Wizard, I dare not tarry!”

“But-but this way is guarded at the palace end! How did you get through?”

“Please, Lord, the guardians of the Dalestride let me through! Lord Warder Vainrence ordered them to and said he’d take care of-of the one chasing me! Please, Lord, I must be away from here!”

The Dragons were staring only at what she was displaying, but the wizard was reddening and looking away. “How do I know you speak truth?” he asked, sounding exasperated.

“Vainrence’ll sure tell you, I’m thinking,” one of the Dragons muttered, “when he takes your report.”

At that, the wizard went very red and waved wildly at Storm. “Get you gone!” he commanded. “Just get-go!”

“T-thank you, kind lords!” Storm babbled, swinging around the tree again and sprinting headlong into the woods. There was a stream nearby, she remembered, and a little wade up it would cover her tracks, if anyone changed his mind about permitting her departure.

As she went, she rolled her eyes. As the centuries passed, her acting seemed to be getting more than a little rusty, but men weren’t changing much.