Elminster Must Die

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Mirt followed his second coinlass of the evening up a none-too-clean flight of stairs, a bottle and two metal flagons in one hand and a somewhat-gnawed leg of steaming mutton clutched in his other.

“Been a long time, lass,” he told her shapely backside happily. “A long time …”

Manshoon frowned in his scrying as he watched Mirt eagerly ascending the stairs, still pondering what use to make of the infamous lord of Waterdeep.

“Well,” he murmured, “he’ll keep for now, at least. I have more important targets to savage.”

Marlin Stormserpent was in a foul temper. He and a similarly terse Broryn Windstag were nursing headaches and huddling in bandages; they both snarlingly turned aside queries about how they’d acquired their wounds.

Marlin leaned forward to glare down his meeting table and tell his conspirators, “This is all that’s left of us. Delasko and Kathkote are abed, healing, and will be for days. We must be very careful during the council; someone is on to us.”

Before the excited talk could get going, he added sourly, “And not the war wizards, either. Someone able to hire wizards as powerful as Larak Dardulkyn.”

“Windstag lives,” Sacrast Handragon pointed out. “So the hunt for the hand axe succeeded?”

“It was found,” Marlin replied flatly, “but proved an utter failure. We gained no slayer who’ll obey us, but let loose some fat old thief of a lord of Waterdeep who obeys only himself and fled from us!”

He lurched up out of his seat and told the table grimly, “So the scheme of harming the king or the crown prince in an ‘accident’ when plenty of nobles are gathered for the council to take the blame will have to be abandoned.”

No one looked surprised. Handragon and Ormblade confirmed for him again that they would be attending the council to represent their families, and Stormserpent asked them to watch and listen for any talk of himself or any of them or their activities-such as the hunt for the hand axe-or any denunciation of younger nobles. If the Crownsilvers or Illances or any of the other oldblood families tried to wrest even more power for themselves, they must be vigorously denounced.

“The rest of us,” Marlin advised, “would do best to stay away from council. We can move swiftly, ere everyone departs the city when all the formal clack and chatter is done, to reach disaffected nobles if need arises.”

Handragon smiled. “And it will.”

“This will be dangerous, you know,” Arclath told Amarune severely. “You shouldn’t …”

His voice trailed away under the heat of her fierce glare, and he managed to add only, “Sorry.”

“Accepted,” she told him, putting a hand out from under his mother’s cloak to touch his arm.

Then close around it like a claw and drag him back, pointing with her other hand even before he could start to curse.

An old man in flapping sea boots and leathers was lurching and wheezing along the street ahead in purposeful haste, bared sword in hand.

Stalking along in his wake and closing in on him fast were two figures wreathed and cloaked in crawling blue flames.

The old man cast a swift glance back over his shoulder at his pursuers, but kept going.

“Arclath Delcastle,” Amarune hissed fiercely, holding onto the young lord’s sword arm for all she was worth, “don’t you throw your life away trying to fight those-”

A patrol horn sounded, and the street was suddenly full of Purple Dragons-and the bright burst of a spell that blossomed all around the two flaming men and sang a weird cacophony as it sought to harden and the men fought to get free of it.

The old man kept running, if that lurching shuffle could be termed a run.

“Come,” Arclath said sharply, ducking down an alleyway that led in the direction the old man was going. “I-we-need answers.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Amarune replied as they started to sprint.

His conspirators had departed, leaving Marlin Stormserpent pacing his rooms too excited-and in too much pain-to seek slumber. He contemplated forcing one of the maids to rut with him, but fancied none of them; the few he’d taken were familiar goods and hadn’t been all that entrancing the first time around. No, it was time to hire a playpretty instead …

He rang for one of his trusties, and Whelandrin answered the summons. Marlin sent the impassive older man out into the streets to hire “a tall, dark, buxom lass-with most of her teeth, mind, and not sporting a face like an old boot or my backside-from the House of the Lynx, or the Lady Murmurs Yes, or the Blackflame Curtain. Give her ten lions and the promise of twenty more for my choice of deeds until dawn; no disfiguring, no floggings.”

Still carefully expressionless, Whelandrin bowed and took his leave.

The old man whirled around with a snarl, blade flashing up at Arclath’s throat-but the heir of House Delcastle had already backed out of reach.

“Keep clear!” the old man growled warningly, ere turning to lurch another few steps-only to stumble as Amarune rolled right in front of his shins, her dagger up warningly.

“We don’t want bloodshed,” Arclath said firmly, “just to talk. I’m Lord Delcastle, and this is … the Lady Amarune.”

“I’m still Mirt,” the old man rumbled, “lord of Waterdeep. So speak.” His sword point moved from one of them to the other with the sure, deft speed of a longtime bladesman.

“Where are you headed?”

“Stormserpent Towers,” the old man snapped. “To kill the young bull-behind who set those two flaming killers on me, so I can command them myself-or to force him to call them off.”

“Would that bull-behind be Lord Marlin Stormserpent?”

“ ‘Marlin’ I know not, but aye, the young lord in Stormserpent towers.”

“Let us take care of him,” Arclath said grimly. “If you go straight to the palace and tell any wizard of war-”

“Hah. They wanted us well gone, remember?”

“Their spells are still your best chance at safety. If you stand arguing with them and those two come to take you, the wizards’ll blast them out of fear for their own hides.”

Mirt gave Arclath a thoughtful frown then backed away. “It rubs me wrong to let someone else fight for me, but aye, ye speak wisdom. I’ll do that. May ye taste victory!”

As more patrol horns roared from where the flaming ghosts were confined, he lurched off in the direction of the palace, looking back warily several times.

Amarune and Arclath exchanged glances.

“I begin to admire you, Lord Delcastle,” the mask dancer told him quietly. “Don’t spoil it by daring to suggest I remain behind.”

Arclath grinned and spread his hands. “I’d not dream of it!”

Alusair heard the scuff of swiftly moving boots behind her, and turned.

Elminster was looking grim. “Young Delcastle-ye know him?”

“Yes. You cast a tracer on him?”

“I used one of your Obarskyr baubles to let me spy on him. He’s just passed through the wards of Stormserpent Towers. Young Rune is with him.”

“You want to be there,” the ghost said softly. “Right now. Why not cast a teleport?”

“Because I go raving mad when I work magic, that’s why,” El snarled.

Alusair made a sound that might have been a giggle. “And the rest of us would notice the difference in you how, exactly?”

Elminster gave her a baleful glare.

“Tarry a moment,” she whispered, sliding past him like a chill wind.

A few moments later she returned, leading a bewildered, half-dressed Raereene-with a scared-looking Kreane right behind them.

“Teleport this man into the forehall of Stormserpent Towers,” the Ghost Regent commanded crisply. “Just as carefully as you know how.”

Raereene frowned. “Wh-”

“Wizards of war no longer obey royal commands?” Alusair hissed, her eyes suddenly two cold flames.

“Or mine?” quavered a thin voice from the floor below.

Raereene looked down-and recoiled.

“What ails you?” the dark spiderlike thing in front of her feet demanded. “Haven’t you ever seen a Royal Magician before?”

Silently Whelandrin showed a tall, dark, and buxom woman into Marlin Stormserpent’s private chambers. She wore a nightcloak over high boots and a silken gown, and-

Marlin frowned. There was a taller, darker, cloaked and cowled figure right behind her, who’d just slipped something to Whelandrin; Marlin caught a glimpse of gleaming gold before his trusty was gone.

“Who are you?” he demanded, waving the girl aside with one hand while drawing his sword with the other and sweeping it up to menace his mysterious visitor.

Who threw back the cowl to reveal a sardonically smiling face. It belonged to Lord Arclath Delcastle, who was suddenly taking a swift sidestep to put a solid stone wall at his back.

“Well met,” he greeted Marlin pleasantly. “You look much more handsome here, in proper light, than skulking around in shadows by night in the royal palace.”

Stormserpent stiffened. “What’re you talking about?”

“I speak of a certain chalice,” Arclath murmured. “Sadly missing from its longtime hiding place. Sadly missed by some.”

“War wizards?”

“Ah, I knew Marlin Stormserpent wasn’t slow-witted. I was certain he’d grasp at once what I was speaking of, even at such an hour.”

“What’re you doing here?” Marlin snapped, hefting his sword meaningfully as he took a step forward.

Arclath waved an airily dismissive hand. “Merely seeking an answer or two, not a duel. Which is why I came protected by magic that will end any duel before it begins. So, no swordplay, just a few words between us, and I’ll leave you to your pleasure.”

He glanced at the playpretty, who was standing to one side listening to them rather fearfully.

“A few carefully chosen words, on my part,” Arclath hinted.

“Well?” Marlin asked curtly.

“Why? Why all the secret meetings, the hunts for hand axes, the men in flames?”

“I … I seek a better Cormyr. I deserve a better Cormyr.”

Arclath nodded. “As do I. Unfortunately for friendly accord between us now, that does not mean we agree on what ‘better’ is. You desire a Cormyr that is better for you. Yet you lack the vision-and honesty-to even admit this.”

Marlin Stormserpent flourished his sword, snarling an insult.

Arclath sighed. “Ah, the besetting fault of the nobility-having temper tantrums whenever someone disagrees with them. Such shining leadership for the realm.”

“And you think House Delcastle is better than House Stormserpent, I suppose?” Marlin sneered.

“I think nothing of the sort. I know I’m a wastrel, and freely admit it. Would such candor cost you so much? Oh, wait, I was forgetting. Candor is your greatest foe, given the laws of the realm and the presence of war wizards in it.”

“How did you learn so much?” Marlin hissed.

Arclath regarded his fingertips idly and told them, “In conspiracies, someone always talks.”

“Do you mind,” Marlin asked coldly, “leaving my home, so I can enjoy my hired company?”

“Not at all,” Arclath replied with a smile. “I have the answers I came for. You need not fear the dawn on my account.”

“Good,” Marlin snapped, ringing the bell for Whelandrin.

Arclath did not wait to be escorted. When the trusty appeared, Marlin snarled, “Make very sure the man you brought in is gone from our house and grounds, and the gates locked against him and all others. Be swift.”

Whelandrin bowed and hastened away, and Marlin shot a look at the chalice and blade, wondering if he should send his slayers after Arclath.

No. Not with the lass there; no one must see him calling them forth.

With a shrug he turned to her charms, pouring his anger into being brutal to her. “Strip!” he ordered harshly.

She promptly doffed cloak and gown and started on her boots, but he grabbed her elbow in an iron-hard grip and snapped, “Leave them on, and get you to yon bed!”

She gasped in pain but managed to murmur, “My lord, be gentler!”

By way of reply he backhanded her across her chest with all his strength and snarled, “Get on that bed! Think of twenty golden lions, and keep your mouth shut.”

“Yes, Lord,” she whimpered, hurrying to obey.

“A moment, lad,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said sharply from the far end of the room.

Marlin spun around. “Who-”

“Call back thy slayers,” his gaunt old visitor snapped. “Half the Dragons and war wizards in Suzail are fighting them right now-and being led here as they do.”

By way of reply, Marlin Stormserpent sneered and strode to snatch up the Flying Blade from a sidetable. “Get out! Whoever you are, get-”

“Elminster’s the name,” the old man told him cheerfully as he tossed a handful of metal vials under the noble’s boots.

Marlin slipped, smooth metal rolling under his feet. He made a wild grab for his sword, got it-and went down helplessly, dragging the table down atop himself.

A moment later, the Wyverntongue Chalice came down on his head, and Cormyr went away very suddenly.

“Satisfyingly solid,” Elminster remarked approvingly to the woman on the bed. “Ye might want to leave now, before-”

“It’stoo late?” a coldly malicious voice said in his ear out of a sudden roiling glow, just before it claimed him in a savage roar of unleashed magic.

“I’ve business inside, look ye,” the old man in battered leathers with the sword in his hand said truculently. “Stand aside.”

The Purple Dragons stopped smiling tolerantly and lowered their spears to point at his chest.

“Saer wizard?” one of them called to alert the duty wizard of war behind them.

The response was a grunt and several swift thuds, as if something heavy had fallen. One Dragon started to turn.

Only to grunt in his turn and topple forward. His fellow soldier had just time to stare at him, before joining him.

“Mirt,” Storm Silverhand said delightedly from behind the men she’d felled. “Come in, and be welcome! It’s been years!”

Elminster opened his eyes, feeling weak and scorched.

He was in the royal palace, in a small stone room he’d seen a time or two before. A chamber with stone benches built along two walls, closed doors in the other two, and a table in the center of the room.

Storm Silverhand was lying on it, faceup, dead or senseless.

Elminster staggered to her to see which.

Her eyes opened, her gaze seeming different from Storm’s, somehow, as he bent over to murmur, “Lass?”

Needlelike pincers erupted out of her to impale him.

Spewing blood, eyes wide in disbelief and pain, Elminster staggered back-and up through the body of the woman that wasn’t Storm, bursting it apart like so much wet custard and rending the table and floor from beneath, came a gigantic beholder.

Large and dark it loomed, surrounded not just by its long, writhing forest of eyestalks, but by tentacles that ended in grasping pincers.

“No more meddling, Elminster,” it purred in a wet, gloating voice. “No more guiding your precious Forest Kingdom this way and that, sneering as you move men about like pieces on a chessboard. All your schemes and strivings end here and now.”

Two pincers snared Elminster’s hands-and snipped them off at the wrists.

Blood spurted, and the old man reeled.

“Yes, the moment of my revenge has come at last, Elminster of Shadowdale. As you die your final death-your oh-so-overdue passing. All your mantles and wards and contingencies stripped away, drained, and used, down long and patient years of watching and sending you foes, and ‘accidents,’ and unfortunate concidences. Outwitting you, arrogant Aumar. There were more of me than you thought there were-so this last one of me will outlast you. Now embrace oblivion in fitting agony, knowing it is I, Manshoon, who has slain you!”

Magic lashed out from eyestalks to blast Elminster, driving him to his knees. He fought gaspingly to find breath enough to scream, his arms seared off at the shoulder, his body aflame. And failed.

“I kill you now in the name of Symgharyl, and so many of my selves, and much of the best blood of the Brotherhood. Die, old fool!”

More eyestalks let fly, and the kneeling man was reduced to ashes-

— that slumped down into swirling ruin, even as the eye tyrant bellowed out mighty laughter and teleported away, leaving only the rolling echoes of its mirth behind.

“Stormserpent’s behind it all,” Arclath panted as they sprinted for the palace together. “The flaming men-all of it. We’ll just have to hope Glathra’s there-or someone who’ll listen to me!”

“I wonder where Elminster is,” Amarune gasped. “He’s crazed enough to step in, where our precious wizards of war won’t!”

Alusair raced like a furious whirlwind. Storm rushed after her, Mirt pounding along at her heels, into a little stone room where … human blood and innards were spattered everywhere.

And a heap of faintly glowing enchanted trinkets she recognized, amid ashes … Elminster.

Or all that was left of him.

Silver fire was winking and glowing like fireflies among a swirl of ashes on the floor, and her own body winked and glowed in response; she had no doubt she was gazing at his remains.

“No,” Storm whispered, lips trembling. “No. Damn you, El, not like this! Not without giving me a chance to bid you farewell! I loved you, Elminster Aumar! Mystra damn me, but I loved you!”

Elminster’s ashes rippled over the floor and rose into a spike that became a faltering pillar … and took on a vaguely manlike shape.

“And I love ye, too,” he whispered hollowly. “Though perhaps I should say ‘What is left of me’ loves ye.”

He’d survived! In undeath or something like it, but-Storm burst into tears and rushed to embrace him.

Causing him to be reduced to swirling ashes-which promptly streamed down her bodice and the rest of her, making her gasp in startled pleasure ere they raced down one of her legs to the floor. There they rose again into a little hump, from which lifted a headlike shape.

“Always wanted to do that,” Elminster said in satisfaction.

Behind them arose a strange chorus of mirth. Mirt the Moneylender and the ghost of Alusair were both chuckling.