Elminster Must Die

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Someone felled those guards,” Arclath snarled. “Treason! Slayers seeking the king! I-”

“Save your breath for running,” Amarune puffed, “or we’ll-”

“Run right into the new ruler of Cormyr before you have any clever plan ready?” A triumphant, liquid voice bubbled from a dark open door ahead.

Out of it drifted something round and many-tentacled, some of those tentacles ending in pincers. There were eyestalks among them, too, and a huge single eye in the flying central body, above a wide, crookedly smiling fanged maw.

“Name of the Dragon!” Arclath gasped, skidding to a halt and throwing out an arm to stop Amarune. “It’s a … a beholder!”

The passage exploded.

Flung headlong, Amarune was vaguely aware of Arclath being hurled past her and a woman’s voice snapping furiously, “Not anymore, it isn’t!”

Then she slammed into something very hard, and Cormyr went away in a hurry.

“Well done, Raereene,” the manlike shape of ashes whispered as they watched a dark, wraithlike thing of tatters flee wailing from the spattered ruin of the eye tyrant’s body, with the ghost of Alusair flying in hot pursuit, teeth bared.

The beautiful young wizard of war managed not to recoil, this time. She aimed the great scepter in her hands at the new menace-before the firm hands of a silver-haired woman and an old man in floppy boots and battered leathers took it away from her.

“Yon’s a friend and defender of Cormyr,” Mirt told her. “Don’t be blasting him, now.”

Storm turned. “El, your lass! Is she-?”

“Just dazed. Her young gallant’s out cold, though.”

Cormyr came back, confusingly. Amarune blinked up into a smiling face framed in long, flowing, silver hair. Gentle hands were cradling her.

“Y-you’re Storm, aren’t you? Storm Silverhand?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re thousands of years old.”

“Not yet, Amarune. I just feel thousands of years old, most days.”

“Whereas I am thousands of years old,” said an eerie whisper in Amarune’s ear. She turned her head and found herself nose to nose with a vague man-shape of ashes that was staring right back at her.

She fainted again.

“You’re sure she’s ready?” Storm asked wryly.

“I’m sure,” Elminster snapped back. “Cast the spell.”

“What spe-oh, no. El, no. You can’t do this to her.”

“No, I can’t, not when I’m reduced to this. So ye’ll have to do it.”

“No, El. No, I … no.”

“Do ye know of anyone else who can-and will-try to save the Realms? And if ye do, do ye trust them? Hey?”

Storm shook her head helplessly, looked down at Amarune-and burst into tears.

“We can’t, El. We must not.”

“There is no ‘must not,’ lass,” El told Storm. “We must do whatever we must, or this young maid ye’re trying to defend from me-and everyone else we care for-will be smashed down and slain and swept away, sooner or later-”

“Must not what?” came a soft mumble from the floor. Amarune was gazing blearily up at them. “Is … is that you, Great-Grandsire Elminster? Something made you … undead?”

“Yes, ’tis me. Though call me ‘El’; we’re family, lass, family! And I’m busy trying to convince thy great-grand-aunt-or whatever she is; I could never keep all those terms straight-to cast a spell that I can’t, now that I’m ashes.”

“What spell?”

“A spell that will let me ride thy body. Sit in thy mind and move thy limbs and voice to my bidding.”

Amarune stared up at them-the eerie mask of ash and the pain-racked, silver-haired woman. As their eyes met, Storm nodded sadly, in confirmation.

Amarune went pale. “Will it hurt?” she asked hesitantly.

“Only if I make thee fall over,” El replied.

“Will it … drive me mad?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I do not use the clumsy mindpryings of war wizards, which drive the caster mad as often as the owner of the mind they’re ruining. I promise ye, lass, that I’ll treat thee like the greatest treasure, the most exalted princess, the most precious infant in all the Realms, if ye let me ride thy mind.”

“And …” Amarune stared steadily up into the face of ash floating above her and swallowed. “And what if I have thoughts I’d rather not share with anyone? What then?”

“Those thoughts will be thine own. I’ll not listen to them,” Elminster assured her solemnly.

Beside him, Storm turned away so Amarune would not see the roll of her wise and weary eyes, but Rune’s dark stare never strayed from the shape of ash arching over her.

“How I do I know I can trust you?” she whispered.

“Ye can’t, lass. All ye can do is decide: Will ye have me-or will ye have the pryings of war wizards and madness?”

“If I choose you, what life will be left to me?”

“Just as much as I can aid thee in having,” Elminster replied. “I’ve had centuries, but ye may not want that long. I promise thee, by the grave of thy mother, that I will not hasten thy time of dying.”

“And how do you know where my mother’s grave is?”

“I came too late to save her,” Elminster replied, “but not too late to cast a spell on it that keeps grave robbers from despoiling her bones.”

“Do it,” Amarune said suddenly. “I want-I want not to have to fear war wizards or those who want Arclath dead or-or anyone else. Do it!”

“Thank ye, Amarune Aumar. Thank ye,” Elminster replied and surged at Storm.

Who reluctantly cast a swift and simple spell, murmuring an incantation, kissing her own fingers, then putting them to Amarune’s lips, breast, and loins.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she did so. “Oh, Amarune, I’m so sorry.”

The spell washed over Amarune with a faint singing sound and the briefest of flickering white glows, and was gone.

“Finally,” Elminster growled, moving forward.

Storm grabbed at his arm, but her fingers passed through his ashes, stopping him not at all.

“El, no!” she hissed fiercely. “How much more can you stoop to embrace evil? This is nothing less, and daring what we must not! Yes, we’re in desperate straits, but-”

“I’ll ride her only briefly, to do what is needful, and then come out of her,” Elminster hissed back. “Ye have my body as hostage to compel my obedience.”

“Two handfuls of ashes? How can I hold that hostage?”

“Lass, lass, trust me. How often, down the centuries, have I failed ye?”

“I have lost count of the times,” Storm replied bitterly, but the eerie shape of ashes slumped-and Amarune stirred, limbs flopping, jerked to her feet, and began a shambling, dragging walk around the room, arms flailing clumsily when they weren’t dangling … a walk that smoothed out into more natural movements as Elminster slowly gained control.

The next circuit of the room looked like Amarune the dancer moving normally; she turned her head and carried herself as she usually did, and moved her hands as Amarune, not as an old archwizard trying to decide how a graceful young woman used her hands.

Storm Silverhand said fiercely, “You must ride her only when needful, and tell no one-and repay her for the use you make of her body … no matter how much she comes to hate us.”

“Agreed,” El replied solemnly in Amarune’s voice but with Elminster’s manner. “Now gather up my ashes in something, and we’ll be out of here. So much magic has been hurled around that even wizards of war can’t help but notice.”

Ruthgul often thought he might not be the only grizzled old swindler in Suzail, but by the gods, he was one of the most successful.

Recently, he had even had some legitimate business errands. Which is what he was out and about seeing to at the moment, scuttling along various alleys.

He was growing increasingly astonished at what he was seeing in the streets of Suzail. Purple Dragon patrols were everywhere, and he was challenged repeatedly. Thankfully, his wagon held nothing but wine casks for various taverns, and he was searched and allowed to continue. Many times.

Returning to his wagon when it finally held nothing but empties, Ruthgul found himself astonished anew.

Amarune Whitewave was waiting for him, with a young and slightly bedraggled noble he knew by sight: Lord Arclath Delcastle. With them was a tall and strikingly beautiful silver-haired woman, who held a small coffer in her hands.

“We want to hire your wagon-and your discretion-to hide us and our friend, here, among your casks, until you’ve rumbled well out of the city,” Amarune said crisply.

Ruthgul grimaced. “I–I’d like nothing better than to accommodate you, lass, but truth be told, I’m not going out of the city!”

Lord Delcastle stepped forward with a broad smile. “Ruthgul, perhaps the lady didn’t make your choices clear enough.”

He hefted a small cloth bag. “These gems can be yours, if you make the trip-or you can refuse and take this instead. Every finger of its bright and very sharp length.” He hefted the point of his drawn sword meaningfully, smile never wavering.

Ruthgul swallowed then brightly observed that he’d just remembered he did have to leave the city on urgent business, with his wagon.

He leaned closer and added in a low growl, “But I fear for my life-or the custody of my wagon-the moment we’re out of sight of the walls. What’s to stop you just killing me?”

“This,” Amarune told him, handing him the daintiest hand crossbow he’d ever seen, and three darts. “Ready it, aim it at one of us, and we can hopefully trust each other. So long as it doesn’t go off by accident. That would be bad, see?”

Arclath and Amarune stood in the dappled sunlight of deep, mossy greenery and dark and massive leaning trees on the edge of the King’s Forest with a weary Storm between them, her arms about their shoulders, watching Ruthgul’s wagon rumble away.

“As promised,” Storm murmured to Amarune. “Welcome back.”

Amarune nodded a little shakily. “That was … it’s going to take a lot of getting used to. When will-?”

“El be in your mind again? Only when it’s needful.”

“I should be on that wagon,” Arclath growled. “The council …”

“Will unfold just fine without you. Mirt will speak for House Delcastle, and Raereene is watchful, with the Princess Alusair to spy for her.”

Arclath sighed. “I very much want to know what the two of you are doing in Cormyr at all.”

Storm nodded. “Trying to accomplish three things: One, save Cormyr from its present troubles-Stormserpent’s treason, but also those behind him-plus other villainy that’s gathering around this council and awaiting a good time to strike.”

She looked meaningfully at Amarune. “Two, find a successor to take over the task of saving Cormyr and the rest of the Realms.”

Amarune went pale. “I … I’m not sure I’m ready … or worthy.”

“Good,” Storm said with a sudden smile. “That reassures me greatly; you’ll do fine. Three, gather up all magic items we can, to use them to do a good and necessary thing.”

“Which is-?”

“Later, Arclath. I need a few answers, first. Where does Arclath Delcastle stand? What is Amarune to you, really? And whom do you serve first: yourself, the Delcastles, the Crown of Cormyr, or-?”

Arclath stared at Storm Silverhand for a moment then said slowly, “I regard Amarune as a friend. One I am honored to have, not a playpretty or someone to, ah, exploit. My lady, if she’ll have me. And yes, after standing for her, I stand for Cormyr.”

Storm smiled again. “And Rune, what matters most to you, right now?”

Amarune blushed, looked down, and told the toes of her boots, “Arclath’s regard. After that, the loss of the life I had. If the war wizards know I’m the Silent Shadow …”

“And becoming mistress to a lord whose name may or may not be Delcastle seems less than attractive?”

“Lady Storm,” Arclath said sharply, “those words try both my honor and that of this lady!”

“No doubt,” Storm replied calmly. “Yet being as you leap to her defense, Lord Delcastle, I ask you: if the authorities know her past, what will Amarune do?”

A noble hand waved dismissively. “In half a day I could see her well placed in service to a dozen noble families, if she wishes.”

Amarune’s face told all the King’s Forest around them how little this suggestion pleased her, and Arclath added hastily, “Or I have influence enough-with some very highly placed persons-to get her into the palace.”

Amarune gave him a sidelong glance. “Oh? War wizards and palace guards like to watch barepelt lasses dance?”

Arclath nodded then reddened. “Yes, and … ah, other things.”

Amarune’s stare sharpened. “So what is a woman who does those ‘other things’ around the palace called? Bedwarmer? Bedmaid? Or something lower and ruder?”

Arclath winced, then said carefully, “Lady, I did not mean to give offense. I-oh, gods blast, I’m less than good at this …”

“Oh, I’d not say that,” Amarune replied calmly. “So, would you expect to be a frequent patron of mine? Or will I be nightly facing a long line of snooty old courtiers?”

Some hours of walking later, Storm turned to Arclath a little wearily. “Are you leading us to the old royal hunting lodge?”

Arclath shook his head. “I know a better place. We want to be properly cozy, if war’s coming to Cormyr in the next month or so.”

Amarune whirled to face him, almost knocking Storm headlong into a bog. “Is war coming to Cormyr in the next month or so?”

Arclath smiled crookedly. “We’ll just have to see, lass. We’ll just have to see.” He reached out to caress her hair. “In the meantime, this strong and noble body of mine-”

“Is getting hungry and will want to eat well before dark,” Storm said firmly. “Even lust-smitten young nobles have to eat. So while I’m certain this ‘better place’ of yours has a bed the two of you will waste no time in bouncing on, I trust it also boasts hearth, and firewood, and a good cooking cauldron or two. Oh, and a ladle; I’ve grown tired of scalding my stirring finger.”

“Gods,” Arclath murmured, “this bids fair to echo traveling with my old nursemaid.”

Amarune glanced at Storm, then gave him a rueful smile. “You have no idea.”

“Do you regret what you agreed to?” Storm whispered. “Shall I try to have someone undo what I did, and free you from his riding?” She pulled the coffer from her bodice and held it up meaningfully.

“Yes,” Arclath said forcefully.

Amarune wagged a finger at him and said fiercely, “My decision and my business, Lord Delcastle. Not yours.”

She looked at Storm. “No. I … I saw something of his mind, during the … the eternity we spent sharing. I … gods, there’s a lot to be done! Let’s be getting on with it!”

Storm smiled at her-and started to weep silently, her eyes shining through her tears.

“Well done, Amarune,” she whispered. “Oh, well done!”

They embraced.

Over Storm’s shoulder, Amarune caught sight of Arclath’s face. He looked so anxious that she snorted and added dryly, “Arclath, I do believe we’ll manage to find a little time together first. Just find us that bed.”