Realms of War

TOO MANY PRINCES

The Year of the Striking Falcon (1333 DR)

Mirt gave them both the tight smile that told them he'd really rather be frowning. "Our friend the vizier? He knows of this moot?"

With his severe black brows, rugged face, and walk-an alert, muscular gait, like a wild cat on the prowl-the burly sellsword Mirt the Merciless caught the eye. The angry blaze in his eyes did rather more than that.

Yet neither of the two Amnian merchants seemed unsettled as they slipped into the turret room to face him. Behind them, Turlos, his war-leathers bristling with the usual array of blades, softly closed the door and put his back to it, folding his arms across his chest and giving Mirt the "no one lurking nearby" nod.

"Not from our telling," the Lady Helora Roselarr said smoothly, her enormous gem-dangle earrings swaying.

Tall, large-eyed, and inscrutable, the young Amnian merchant heiress had been styled "Lady" from her cradle because her adrip-with-gold family sought to be regarded as the equal of any nobility, anywhere. Knowing what he did of nobles, that wouldn't have been something Mirt would have striven for, but then he had rather less of a burdensome weight of coins under which to stagger through life. Wealth … did things to people.

"He's, ah, enjoying the young prince," Gorus Narbridle added delicately. "We heard Elashar's screams on our way up.

The bald, heavyset man in expensive silk robes was the cruel and unscrupulous head of a merchant family that had risen very swiftly to its wealth. Which meant that Narbridle was as ruthless with himself, in controlling his drug-taking, as he was in selling various Calishite drugs and poisons to others. He looked like a grave and weary elder priest… but then, Mirt already knew just how clever an actor he was.

Both Amnians reached inside the breasts of their over-robes and drew forth little carved figurines that they kissed, murmured inaudible words over, and set on the table in front of Mirt.

The statuettes glowed briefly. Scrying shields of the most expensive sort, they would keep anyone outside the room from watching or overhearing what was said there.

"We shall be brief," Roselarr said crisply. "We dislike what we see unfolding here at Ombreir, and wish to depart. As swiftly as is discreetly possible. We want to get well away, out of Ongalor's reach, before our departure is discovered. We sense your uneasiness and believe we need your personal assistance to accomplish this."

"We appreciate the difficult position this will place you in," Narbridle added smoothly, "and are prepared to compensate you accordingly. Gems up front, four trade-rubies each. Plus a bond redeemable for forty thousand Waterdhavian dragons of recent minting, which we'll give to you now but sign only when we're safely out of the Dauntir."

The amount made Mirt blink and Turlos gape in astonishment. Forty thousand gold, and the same again when the escape was done!

If, of course, a certain Mirt the Merciless was still alive to accept it. Which might well not be the Amnians' intention.

"Well, now," the mercenary captain said, "the tapestries here at Ombreir aren't that bad, are they?"

Neither of the Amnians bothered to smile at his feeble jest. Mirt sighed and wondered what to say.

As the Year of the Striking Falcon warmed into full summer, war was raging anew, not merely in the Dauntir-the gently rolling, heavily farmed hills between the Trade Way, the River Esmel, and the mountains prosaically known as the Small Teeth-but all across Amn. Every ambitious merchant cabal that dared to enter the struggle was riding around with copious sellswords, trumpeting "royal heirs" who had seemingly been found in closets, dropped from the clouds by the gods, or stitched together in graveyards.

This throne-strife had been raging for more than half a century, and Mirt held the same opinion as most war-weary folk of Amn: that any true heirs had been slain or died of old age years ago, and the fighting still going on was but the most grimly determined merchant families of the land trying once more to openly seize the throne. Mirt wondered why anyone would want to put on a crown to so splendidly mark himself a target for all, but then… power did strange things to many folk.

It had done strange things to the Araunvol family, formerly a capable and haughty force to be reckoned with in gilded Athkatla, but in the end reduced to a handful of embittered nobles who walled themselves away in Ombreir, their fortified country citadel halfway between Imnescar and the Esmel-for a rider galloping arrow-straight northeast-to await their doom.

Mirt's sword had delivered that doom, for many of them, and the army he rode with had readied the others for their graves. Wherefore the Araunvols were extinct, and the Rightful Hands of Prince Elashar held the walled mansion of Ombreir. They'd buried the last bodies that very morning, in the gardens.

Across the table, the Amnians waited in silence for his response.

They had to. There was no one else they could turn to.

One of the younger sellsword captains offering his battle skills in Waterdeep, Mirt had been hired by the Durinbolds and the Hawkwinters to ride sword with the Amnian army they sponsored: the Rightful Hands. For Waterdhavian nobles, the seemingly endless war in Amn was all about coin. Rival claimants were sponsored by the Gauntyls and Gralhunds, who had also come looking to buy the services of the mercenary newly risen in reputation for his sword work in the South.

What had decided things for Mirt between the two entreaties had been the Hawkwinters. In matters of war and guardianship, they were held in the highest regard in the City of Splendors. If he served them well, any blades Mirt the Merciless commanded would entertain many offers in the years ahead.

If, that is, he survived this first hiring in the lawless cauldron Amn had become.

No noble of Waterdeep personally risked his neck in those bloody fields, for Amnians did not take kindly to outlanders meddling in their affairs. Mirt's commander these few fleeting months had been no clear-eyed Hawkwinter veteran, but a man of Amn. A tall, emerald-eyed, neatly bearded, and gently smiling ruthless murderer of a vizier, Harlo Ongalor. Mirt hated his very shadow, and strongly suspected the vizier loved him about as much.

Ongalor ruled Prince Elashar just as he did Mirt, which surprised Mirt not at all. Prince Elashar Torlath was purportedly the descendant of Prince Esmar, a son of King Imnel IV of Amn who'd long been believed to have died soon after birth.

That much, Mirt believed. What he did not believe was the rest of the tale the vizier spun so glibly whenever it seemed necessary: that all those years ago, Esmar had been spirited away to provide a royal line in hiding for Amn, "awaiting its dire hour of need."

For one thing, there was more than one Prince Elashar. Or rather, more than one man of the Rightful Hands riding with a closed helm whose seldom-seen face was identical to that of the prince. Coincidence, perhaps, but Mirt himself had bull-broad shoulders that were unusual, and doubly so in a man of his height. Such builds were more often seen in men a head taller than he-yet another man riding with the Rightful Hands looked just like Mirt. Just like Mirt.

Moreover, the Hands had captured several members of rival merchant families-including the Lady Helora Roselarr and Gorus Narbridle-and as he'd been alert enough to watch for all briefly-bared faces, Mirt was certain "doubles" of most of them were riding under the vizier's command.

Nor was Ongalor working alone. Magic aided him out of nowhere when he needed it. Which meant that his mutterings from time to time with various riders were conferences with disguised hurlers-of-magic.

Mirt's eyes might miss nothing, but he knew how to keep his mouth shut. He was, after all, being paid to do so.

So he nodded respectfully to the pretender riding with them, and held high the princely banner: an emerald-hued human right hand clutching a horizontal dagger, point to the sinister, erupting vertically out of the top of a large, faceted emerald. Tasteless, and bad blazonry to boot, but then, Mirt wasn't being paid to be a herald, either.

There were armies riding all over Amn, some backed by wealthy traders from Tethyr or from Calimshan, and every one concealing their true natures behind this or that false heir from the various fallen royal families of Amn; ambitious-or trapped-pretenders, all.

One of those rival armies, the Just Blades, was on its way even then. A strong band of well-armed and armored butchers, sponsored by the Gauntyls and Gralhunds, and backing Prince Uldrako, a true pretender. Which was to say an ambitious young Amnian who knew full well he had no royal nor noble blood, and was passing himself off as the scion of an entirely fictitious elder branch of the royal family. His skills consisted of good looks, a complete lack of scruples, staggering indebtedness to his sponsors, and the good sense to accord them the utter loyalty of a fawning slave. Mirt happened to know that his banner (a stylized side-on crown, depicted as a black arc with five spires erupting from it, on a gold field) had been designed by the Gauntyl house limner, and Gauntyl tutors had coached "Uldrako" in his invented lineage and life story.

He had no doubt that Harlo Ongalor had done likewise with the doubles of Prince Elashar, the Amnian noble captives, and a certain Mirt the Merciless. All part of preparing for the right moment to eliminate the troublesome originals-who stubbornly persisted in having opinions and aims of their own-for replacement with their loyal-to-Ongalor duplicates.

And that right moment, Mirt suspected, had almost arrived. Why else would the vizier have ordered Mirt and only "this dozen" of his warriors to remain in Ombreir and guard "the valuable ones," with the Just Blades sweeping across the Dauntir to storm the Araunvol mansion while the main might of the Rightful Hands rode elsewhere with the doubles? The Merciless hadn't failed to notice that the vizier's chosen dozen consisted of the veterans who were most personally loyal to Mirt-and Torandral, the most inexperienced, trouble-prone youngling in the Hands.

The vizier and his wizard friends would vanish at the last possible moment, of course, once the Just Blades were at the mansion's very gates and escape was impossible. Leaving Mirt and his warriors to a bloody doom and any surviving hostages to be later spell-switched with their doubles, or magically blown apart from afar, to shatter any chances of Gauntyl and Gralhund success.

Mirt had long since become disgusted with various atrocities ordered by the vizier, as the Rightful Hands butchered their way across Amn-to say nothing of the general ruin of the fair country around the Hands-and had begun looking for a way out. Only to discover Ongalor's hidden wizards, and how closely they were watching to thwart just such desertions.

"We're trapped here," Lady Roselarr said quietly. "Are you trapped, too? Is that why you're keeping silent?"

"Or have you been enthralled by the vizier's pet wizards? Or hatching your own betrayals?" Narbridle asked, even more softly. Mirt did not have to look to know that the bald noble had drawn a little poisoned needle-dagger, under the table.

Instead, he looked to Roselarr. "To your queries: yes." Then he turned to Narbridle. "To yours: no. So put your tainted steel away."

Sighing heavily, Mirt told them truthfully, "I have no intention of betraying either of you, yet I see no road by which I can aid you in any way that has even the slightest chance of achieving your freedom. Your offer tempts me even more than its amount, which is certainly what merchants in Waterdeep's poorer wards would term 'staggering.' Yet I know not how to escape Ombreir. The Just Blades-"

"Are camped the other side of yonder hill," Narbridle agreed. "While that sneering sadist Ongalor smiles, watching us all with those lazy-lidded eyes, and waits for them to close his little trap."

"We hate and fear him," Roselarr whispered. "Warrior, admit it: So do you."

"Admitting things is seldom wise for anyone in my profession," Mirt replied, "let alone someone in my current situation. That is the only reply I can give you, other than to say I understand you fully, I deeply appreciate your truly generous offer, and I shall be in touch with both of you-with utmost discretion, for all our sakes-as soon as I can. Whenever that 'soon' may be. You have my word on this."

The two Amnians sat as if frozen for a moment. Then they sighed and took up their figurines, not looking at each other. Both little carvings still glowed as they vanished once more beneath concealing clothing, signifying that their shieldings remained active.

Turlos wordlessly held open the door, and Mirt nodded the two Amnians out of the turret room, keeping his face carefully expressionless.

After the Amnians had descended the stairs out of sight, the two sellswords stood listening for a long time ere closing the door again to wall out the rest of Ombreir.

Then, leaning against it, nose to nose, Mirt and Turlos regarded each other.

"Well, now," Turlos murmured. "Well, now.. "

Mirt shook his head grimly. "By Tempus and Tymora both, I know not what I'm going to do. This trap is intended to end in all our deaths. Things are going to get far nastier before they get better."

"Oh, yes," his trusted bodyguard replied softly, as his body shivered and shifted shape, the grim face of Turlos melting back into the sneering visage of the vizier. Ongalor was smiling a crooked smile as he warningly held up fingers that bore magic rings glowing with sudden power. "I've no doubt of that."

"Another moonlit night," Deln said grimly, checking the hilts of his many blades.

"Another feast to which we're not invited," Marimbrar added, drawing on his gauntlets.

"Aye," Loraun put in sarcastically, "it seems the vizier doesn't need us to stand guard over the food this time."

"That means either he doesn't want us there to see what happens," Tauniira murmured, "and it'll probably be something fatal, to someone who's displeased Lord Most Highnosed Ongalor-or he believes his loyal wizards and bullyboys hidden among the Amnian captives can handle any trouble the rest of the Amnians might give him."

Mirt nodded. Of those hired into the Rightful Hands with him, Tauniira and Loraun were the two he most trusted, longtime veterans of his various mercenary pursuits. Not that they were much to look at. Under Tauniira's ever-present mask was a face melted into grotesquerie by the biting edge of a spell that had slain many and only just spared her, and the tall, laconic, cold-eyed Loraun was a wereserpent. Yet they missed nothing that was going on around them, and Tauniira wore literally dozens of throwing knives all over herself, many of them hidden, that had a way of swiftly sprouting in darn near everything nearby that offered her trouble. Sinister viziers, for instance.

"Before anyone asks," Mirt told his fellows, "Targrath isn't missing because he's snoring alongside our off-duty fellows. He's standing guard inside their door, on my orders. Turlos is dead."

That got their attention, instant and absolute.

"Our mutual friend the vizier," Mirt explained, "killed Turlos somewhere, and recently, and hid the body without any of us noticing. When he revealed himself to me up in South Tower earlier today, he flashed his fist, and there were rings on every last finger that glowed with magic. He did that to keep me from trying to slaughter him on the spot, but what he slew was the last vestige of any obligation I felt to him. So be not slow to blow your belt-horns, sword-comrades; Ongalor is as much our foe as the Just Blades or any friend of the Araunvols who might come calling with drawn sword and fire in their eyes. If Tymora smiles on us all, it'll be another boring night of standing sentinel, staring vigilantly at nothing. If she does not… well, be warned; we're at war right now."

With nods and sour grunts of acknowledgment, everyone stalked off down the darkened passages, seeking their posts. Tauniira lingered at Mirt's shoulder, watching them go.

She knew he wouldn't move until those they'd relieved-Brarn, Landyl, Elgan, Brindar, Hargra, and Torandral-came trudging back to seek their beds in the chamber Targrath was guarding. Commanders who didn't take care to mark the comings and goings of their warriors tended to lose respect instantly, warriors soon, and their own lives sooner than they'd hoped.

Some of those trudges would be long. Ombreir was a sprawling place, a massive, towering stone house rising three stately floors from the ground, with the general shape of a rider's spur connecting three towers, one to the south and a northwest-northeast pair. At the junction of the spur were a splendid sweeping stair-ornate luxury compared to the narrow, bare spirals inside the towers-and a central block of grand chambers surrounding a glass-roofed courtyard. The easternmost of those lofty rooms was a grand entry hall, for the entrance to Ombreir lay in the east. A foregate ramp approached the mansion between two ponds to reach a spired gatehouse in Ombreir's surrounding fortress wall. All around that wall was a dry ditch moat large and deep enough to swallow a man on a horse, and all around the moat were tilled fields, slopes stretching away with not a tree in sight.

Ombreir was pleasant to the eye, from its soaring stone shy;work to the fruit-tree shade-bower out back-enspelled to keep birds away-to the southwest, the stables to the west with their gabled servants' quarters above the stalls, and the gardens to the northwest.

Not that Mirt could gaze on those amenities just then. All he could see was the quiet luxury of the paneled, bedchamber-lined upper passage in which he and Tauniira stood. At that spot in its long, curving run, it briefly became a balcony over shy;looking the central courtyard. Though the sun was quite gone, its light shining through stained glass skylights had earlier dappled the yard with spectacular patterns. The courtyard held a well surrounded by three soaring darm-fruit trees-and Mirt loved darm. They looked like rose red oranges but had soft, sweet red flesh like the watermelons of the Tashalar. Five darm had vanished from those trees already. Mirt had tossed the peels down among the knee-deep mint that grew thickly along the outer wall.

Mirt looked grim. Tauniira tried to cheer him by leaning in to kiss his neck, just under his jawline. He stood as unresponsive as a statue, so she lightly patted his codpiece.

"Not now," he growled promptly.

"No?" she pouted teasingly. "Well, before morning?" Mirt's sudden grin seemed to crack his face. "Of course."

"Yet the wheel will turn," Harlo Ongalor said smoothly, emerald eyes flashing in the candlelight as he leaned forward to smile down the glittering feast table. Nothing seemed to keep the vizier from smiling his habitual tight little smile.

"When orc hordes come, yes, war rages until one side or the other is exterminated. Yet in lands held by men, there's a time for the sword and a time when every belly wants to be full, and coins are to be made. Amn knows war well, but will not be consumed in war. Soon, now, this strife will all be over."

"This strife," Imril Morund drawled meaningfully. The sly, sophisticated dealer in perfumes-and, so rumor insisted firmly, poisons-wasn't quite the most sleek or handsome of the wealthy Amnians dining more or less as captives of the Rightful Hands. Yet he was undoubtedly the most urbane, glib, and confident. "It remains to be seen if any of us here will live to see another."

"Oh, but surely-" Lady Roselarr started to purr.

"Oh, but surely nothing," Ralaerond Galespear interrupted, lounging in his chair to strike a pose, long fingers raising his full tallglass to catch the light. He was the most handsome man in the room, and his every movement proclaimed as boldly as any herald that he knew it. A notorious womanizer, Galespear was the young and spoiled heir of a horse breeding family who owned many buildings in every city of Amn and grew ever fatter on the ceaseless flow of rents. "War claims lives," he pointed out bitterly, as if personally insulted by what he was imparting, "and we sit here in the heart of bloody war, with armies on the march all around us. If one turns this way, we can muster barely enough blades to offer them a few breaths of entertainment ere we die."

"As men of Amn," Larl Ambror snapped, "I have no doubt that we will die valiantly." The thin, dark wine merchant's face betrayed nothing, which surprised no one. Day after day it seemed carved of unchanging stone.

"Oh?" Morund asked. "Tell me now: How exactly does a valiant dying scream of agony outshine any other dying scream of agony?"

"Enough," Darmon Halandrath rumbled, his voice as deep and as oily as ever. "This is hardly fitting feast-talk." The fat, indolent, and decadent heir of a very successful family of moneylenders and city builders nodded at the three diners seated beyond him; splendidly garbed Amnians who had turned pale and leaned back from their platters, wincing or shuddering. "Amn has a bright future and is awash in rightful wealth. Talk less gloom and more of the opportunities and good things that await us all."

"Indeed," Gorus Narbridle agreed smoothly, his freshly waxed bald head gleaming in the candlelight. "I recall from my own youth the dire talk of bloodshed and doom that younglings then reveled in-and where are they now? All grown fat and rich and older, given to talking fondly-wistfully-of their youthful darings. Some doom!"

"Yet I do have a concern, Saer Ongalor," Lady Helora Roselarr said, "about remaining here in Ombreir-we few, with so many armed foes abroad in the Dauntir-after the rest of the Rightful Hands have galloped off on some mysterious mission. Why do we tarry? Are you hoping to hide here unnoticed? Or are we waiting for some meeting or other you have not yet seen fit to inform us of?"

The three Amman heirs seated beyond Halandrath's grossly fat bulk suddenly stopped looking fearful and glared at her in unison.

Harlo Ongalor, however, spread his hands and smiled broadly, for all the world as though Roselarr was a daughter he was deeply fond of. "I harbor no such sinister secrets, Lady Roselarr. It was in fact your safety I thought most of-though I was mindful of the importance to Amn of these other fair scions of the land around this table, too-when I sent most of the Hands a few days' ride from us, into sword-strife and bloody danger, so Prince Elashar could make himself personally known to the elder nobles of Amn who are rightfully suspicious of all so-called 'heirs' of the royal line, and so win their support. It is peril he must face, but I thought it cruel folly to hazard all the rest of you. Moreover, it will look best if I am not with him, so no one can deem me his captor or mind-master. So here we are, enjoying this excellent repast."

Narbridle quietly rose from his seat, nodding silently to the vizier.

"Fleeing from doom?" Morund asked lightly.

The bald man gave the perfumer a sour look. "The doom of an overly full bladder, yes. Not that I saw need to proclaim this. Polite folk do not speak of such things."

"Oh?" Imril Morund asked. "Are there 'polite folk' at this table? I thought we were all of Amn."

Surprisingly, it was Narbridle who chuckled. A moment later, the deep rumble of Darmon Halandrath's mirth began.

"Nothing," Hargra said wearily, caressing the hilt of her wicked-looking cleaver. "Yet I've got that bad feeling I get-got it strong. I'll wager none of us'll score much sleep this night."

"Then get started," Mirt said fondly, patting her shoulder. He was one of very few males-and the only human one-who could do that without the half-orc whirling to sever their offending hands. Scarred and toad faced, Hargra was both surly and very swift with her weapons.

Tonight, she merely grunted and ducked away, her large lower tusks gleaming as much as brown and broken fangs can. Her slap startled Tauniira almost as much as the growled words that followed it.

"He's as much on edge as I am," the half-orc told her, jerking a thumb in Mirt's direction before striding on. "Service him."

Larl Ambror's shout of horror plunged the table into startled silence. The wine merchant reeled back out of the archway that led to the garderobes, his face white-and spewed his meal violently all over the floor before fainting.

Imril Morund sprang to his feet, dagger drawn, but Ralaerond Galespear was faster, darting through the archway and reappearing again just as Morund and-surprisingly-the Lady Roselarr reached it.

"Narbridle is dead," the horse breeder told them. "Magic."

The vizier lifted a disbelieving eyebrow. "Magic? Are you an expert in the Art, Saer Galespear?"

The handsome young heir gave him a stony stare. "I don't have to be. How else but with a spell can you blast a man's head to bloody pulp, in utter silence?"

The utter silence that descended on the feast hall then was chill with foreboding.

Mirt lifted his gaze from what was left of Gorus Narbridle, his face carefully expressionless. "This would seem to be a matter best investigated by a wizard."

There was glee in the vizier's smile.

Mirt looked past Ongalor's shoulder at the three Amnians behind him. They would be the wizards, ready to blast him as they'd served Narbridle.

"I have every confidence in your abilities, Mirt of Waterdeep," the vizier said smoothly, his crooked smile broadening and making it as clear as if he'd shouted it that he knew very well the why of the murder, as well as the who and the how-and wasn't going to say.

The wave of magic was like a creeping in the air, an invisible tingling tension that rolled silently up to Mirt, washed over him in a moment of utter chill. . and rolled on down the passage, as swiftly as it had come.

Mirt stood still for a long breath or two, listening hard for crashes, screams, or… anything.

When he heard nothing, moment after long moment, he relaxed, shrugged, and stalked on.

Seven strides later he heard an abrupt, angry whisper out of the empty air, and froze again, listening intently.

Nothing.

Slowly and warily he started walking again, frowning at what he'd heard. A woman's voice, out of the empty air, distant and yet near at hand, calm yet furious, asking: "Who dares to kill the Weave here?"

Mirt looked sourly around the room. "So the vizier is readying my neck for the noose now. I am charged to uncover Narbridle's murderer-and he and I both know he ordered the killing."

"So it's starting," Hargra growled.

At about the same time Elgan snarled, "What by the Nine Hells are we going to do?"

"Aye," Brindar spoke up. "Why don't we just sword the vizier and get out?"

Tauniira sighed. "At least three-likely more-of the Amnian family 'captives' are really Ongalor's wizard friends, in magical disguise. Swording the vizier, or just trying to flee, would be hurling ourselves straight into our graves."

Elgan exploded. "Then what, by the untasted charms of-"

The door boomed, driving Targrath into a sword-ready crouch beside it, as he glared at the door bar as if expecting it to spring treacherously up out of its cradle and yield passage to whoever beat his fists on the door.

"Mirt!" a young voice called, high with fear and excitement. "Mirt, open up! You're summoned! Another killing!"

Mirt sighed. "Unbar the door," he ordered Targrath with disgust. "Can't we even plot our own dooms in peace?" Striding forward, he asked calmly, "Who's dead now, Torandral?"

"Another heir! The vizier would not let me see but said the man was lying in his bed, called by the gods but without a mark on him."

"Everyone stay here," Mirt ordered. "Awake, boots back on, armed and ready. No need to go creeping anywhere. Any violence will probably soon come calling at this door."

Sword drawn, he flung the door wide. Torandral stood alone in the passage, fairly hopping in excitement.

"Just along here! In the-"

"Bedchambers, yes," Mirt said. "Get back to your post. Strangely enough, I can find my way along this passage without a guide." Then he added gruffly, "My thanks, Torandral. Diligently done."

The crestfallen young armsman smiled uncertainly, then rushed back down the passage to his post.

Watching him stumbling along, Mirt shook his head and wondered how few breaths Torandral had left in life.

Or would the jesting gods leave the young fool alive, in a day or two, when all the rest of them were dead?

Imril Morund was lying on his back, sprawled naked across the grand bed. The vizier had cast the dead man's tunic across his face, but the rest of him did indeed lack signs of violent struggle. There was a faint, sharp tang in the air, like the aftermath of a lightning storm.

Harlo Ongalor stood beside the bed, looking agitated. "Another slaying! Mirt, you must find this murderer quickly, before…" He waved both hands expressively.

Mirt frowned. The vizier wasn't feigning; the man was truly upset. He plucked away the tunic to lay bare the man's face.

As he'd expected, it wasn't Morund.

Mirt looked at the vizier. "A clue you wanted me to discover for myself?'' he asked calmly.

Ongalor glared at him murderously for a moment, then recovered his usual smooth near smile. "But of course. This must be Morund-or at least the man we thought was Morund-but I don't recognize the face. Do you?"

"Yes," Mirt said, watching the vizier closely." 'Tis the mage Klellyn. One of your longtime trading partners, I believe."

The vizier blinked, then stared at Mirt just an instant too long. Accustomed to lording it over everyone within reach, Ongalor wasn't quite the smooth actor he believed himself to be. Looking down again at the dead face, he frowned. "Is it? No, surely… but yes… yes, it is!"

He looked up again at Mirt as sharply as any snake. "So how do you know of Klellyn and my dealings with him?"

Mirt shrugged. "I was one of Klellyn's longtime trading partners, too."

The vizier's look of astonishment required no acting. "But-but he never discussed one of his, ah, associates with another."

"Didn't he?" Mirt kept his face as expressionless as the dead man's. "Well, I suppose there were those he trusted enough to talk freely with, and… others."

The vizier went red, then white. "You will uncover the killer of Klellyn, sellsword," he snapped, "if you want to remain ali-in my employ!"

Mirt turned away, heading for the door. "But of course," he said over his shoulder, in perfect mimicry of the vizier's own habitual, softly mocking voice.

Mirt had barely dozed off when the scream awakened him.

Tauniira tensed, bare and warm against him but awake in an instant. Mirt rolled away, growling, "You stay here, and keep the bed warm. I won't be long."

"Said the man stepping off the cliff," Tauniira hissed at him in the darkness as he buckled on his breeches and stamped his feet into his boots.

Mirt gave her a friendly growl by way of reply as he shrugged on his mail shirt and made for the door, sword in hand.

Deln and another two sentinels were waiting in the passage as he came trotting up to the row of closed bedchamber doors.

One opened momentarily, farther along, but closed again just as swiftly. It was Larl Ambror's door, though Mirt could have sworn the momentary slice of face peering out into the passage had belonged to the Lady Roselarr.

Well, such doings were none of his concern. Deln and the others stood guard over another door.

The door of Harlo Ongalor's bedchamber.

Mirt put his hand on the door ring. Locked. He leaned against the door. Barred, too.

"Begone," the vizier said curtly, from the other side of the door. "Get hence."

"You screamed," Mirt said.

"It was nothing. A nightmare."

"You've charged me to investigate two murders," Mirt replied, "and I'm doing that. Operating under Hawkwinter orders, not just yours. I insist on entering your room now, to see matters for myself. Open your door or I'll break it down-with great satisfaction."

There was a long moment of silence, then the gentle thumping of the bar being lifted could be heard, followed by the scrape of the bolt and the rattle of the lock. The door swung inward.

Deln stepped forward in perfect unison With Mirt, the points of their two swords entering the dimly lit room first. The vizier gave way before them, drenched with sweat and staring-eyed, as white as his own bed silks. . but there was no body to be seen, nor anything disarranged in the room. Ongalor was fully dressed, and his bed had been turned open for slumber, but not slept in.

"Satisfied?" the vizier snapped, his voice thin and high with fear.

"What happened?"

Ongalor shrugged.

"You screamed," Mirt said. "What happened?"

"A nightmare," the vizier replied. "You've seen-and beheld nothing. Now go. Please."

Mirt walked slowly around the man, peering intently at him from all sides, then turned away without a word and strode out, Deln standing as rearguard as if they were on a battlefield.

"Back to posts," Mirt ordered wearily, and the sentinels trudged away.

The moment no one else was within earshot, Deln muttered, "I saw what befell."

"You fail to surprise me," Mirt murmured. "Speak."

"Ongalor was out in the passage, creeping along like a sneak thief, listening at every door. He went past Marimbrar, then me, ignoring us like we were furniture, so we tailed him. 'Twasn't hard; he never once looked back-until he got his fright, and turned to flee. What scared him was just seeing two men, standing calmly talking to each other, away down the end of the passage."

"And these two men were…?"

"Prince Elashar's double, and a second double. So alike you couldn't tell one from the other, but neither of them the so-called 'real' Elashar. Neither had that little scab on his cheek from where he cut himself on that hanging lamp."

Mirt nodded slowly. "They'll both have fled long since, of course. So our vizier is worried that someone else is playing little games in this house. Or that wizards he thought he had under control are doing what wizards always do: getting up to mischief of their own."

The strong morning sun did not seem to shine on the dust churned up by the horses trotting hastily out through the gates. Vizier Harlo Ongalor and the three Amnian heirs who did everything in unison seemed in a great hurry to be elsewhere-and Mirt suspected the sun was avoiding their dust for the same reason it couldn't reach into the stables on so bright a morning: magical barriers conjured by Ongalor's wizard allies. This one would be to keep arrows and crossbow quarrels from Ombreir striking them down from behind as they rode away, and the stables' barrier to keep anyone else from taking a horse to flee the mansion before the Just Blades came slaying.

"Good riddance," grunted Elgan, standing on the wall-walk with Mirt and everyone else, as they all watched the four horsemen dwindle over the flank of the nearest hill. "Now at least the killings will end, and we can try to decide what to do about yonder approaching army, before they butcher us all."

As he spat thoughtfully down over the wall into the moat below, a shrill scream split the air behind them-a scream that ended in a wet splattering-in the courtyard of the darm-fruit trees.

It seemed Elgan had been mistaken.

Mirt looked down at the shattered body sprawled in a puddle of blood that was still spreading. Larl Ambror, or had been. Amn now held one fewer wine merchant-or, perhaps, one fewer wine merchant's double.

Lady Roselarr had taken one look at the corpse, shrieked, and fled up the grand staircase like a whirlwind.

"Seems someone wanted her newfound love to fly," Deln muttered.

Mirt smiled sourly. "Think Ongalor's wizards did it, from afar? Some compulsion spell or other?"

Deln shrugged. "Why him? Taking you down would be his best strike against us."

"Oh? Wouldn't that be the best way to scare everyone into fleeing Ombreir?"

"If we can. I'm thinking they threw up barrier spells we haven't even guessed at yet, to make this place a pris-"

Deln stopped speaking in astonishment. Darmon Halandrath had mounted the stair. Gaping, everyone watched him ascend, a great rolling mound of struggling flesh surging upward.

"Tymora and Tempus preserve us," Tauniira muttered.

"Or Yurtrus gnaw our bones," Hargra added.

Panting and sweating, Halandrath reached the upper level and lurched in the direction of his bedchamber. Before he was out of view, Helora Roselarr reappeared, coming back down the stairs with her arms full of gleaming, gilded-and obviously heavy-coffers. Her face was white as bone and set hard with determination, her eyes red from the tears still streaming down her cheeks.

"Whatever," Ralaerond Galespear drawled, "are you doing?"

"What you should be doing," she snapped back. "Fleeing this deathtrap just as swiftly as I can!" She tried to push past him, toward the open front gates, and found herself surrounded by frowning Amnians and Mirt's warriors.

"We're going to die here, every one of us!" she cried, voice rising. "I doubt these Just Blades-if they're truly anywhere near here at all! — will find anyone left alive here in Ombreir, when they do come riding in! Someone hiding among us is butchering all the rest of us, and smiling up his sleeve all the while! I-"

Words failing her, she launched into a shriek of frustration, rammed a blinking Torandral out of her way with one of the coffers she was cradling, and shouldered her way through the rest of the warriors-who looked to Mirt for instructions. He waved a hand to indicate they should let her pass.

In her wake, Darmon Halandrath came thundering back down the stairs, clutching a leather satchel to his gigantic belly and howling for breath, sweat streaming down his nigh-purple face like a river. "M-make way!" he tried to bawl, but lacked the breath to make it more than a hoarse wheeze. "Make-"

Mirt gestured curtly, and his warriors cleared a path for the gigantic Amnian.

One or two of the other Amnians started to follow Roselarr and Halandrath in their march to the gates-only to halt in horror, and stare.

As she passed through the gatehouse, Helora Roselarr seemed to catch fire.

She shrieked, took two blazing steps, then seemed rooted to the spot, held up from falling by the sudden roaring fury of flames streaming up from her to the sky.

Blinded by sweat and trotting hard, Halandrath almost blundered into her, lurching to one side at the last moment-and bursting into flames of his own. "No!" he cried wetly, flinging his fat arms wide. "Nooooo!"

Mirt and the others watched in grim silence as the flames rose higher, two bright columns licking black smudges of smoke into the sky.

In mere moments Roselarr and Halandrath became ashes on bones, then bones straining to run on, then collapsing bones. One of Roselarr's coffers sagged open, spewing out a wet flood of melted gold, but the other burst with a little pop, sending forth an assortment of gem-adorned rings, bracelets, hairpins, and other small items that winked and glowed with magical radiances. . that seemed to get ensnared in the air by an unseen hand or current, that sent them flying away in a common direction, along the front of the mansion wall. Faster and faster they streamed, curving to hug the wall at its every bend, and before the watchers had found time to draw more than a few breaths, they came into view again, racing along, having circumnavigated Ombreir. They sped past once more, a glittering stream, and in their wake something small and golden amid the blackened and guttering ruin that had been Darmon Halandrath rose to join them… followed by other… somethings.

"Those are magic items, aren't they?" Torandral asked.

Mirt nodded.

"Why… why are they circling the walls like that?"

"They're caught in the barrier Ongalor's wizards left behind," Mirt replied, "cast all around Ombreir, to trap us all inside."

As if his words had been a cue, a plume of smoke rose into the sky from the far side of a nearby hill. Up over the brow of that hill, with the swiftly thickening smoke behind them, came riding an armed and glittering host, with a banner flapping at their fore.

It was a black, five-spired crown on gold, the Crown of Prince Uldrako. The Just Blades had come at last.

"They must have finished looting the Narthaen mansion, and set fire to it," Mirt mused aloud. "Which means they have every intention of sleeping here tonight."

As his warriors muttered and readied their weapons around him, Gralhund and Gauntyl banners unfurled alongside the pretender's banner, to fly openly.

Tauniira shook her head at the sight of them. "They mean to make you rue your choice of employers, Mirt."

"Won't the magical barrier protect us?" Torandral asked, fear and excitement making his voice shrill.

Mirt and his veterans shook their heads.

"It'll go down the moment they reach it," Mirt growled, "and they'll have us surrounded by then. Even if they lack a wizard with any wits about him, Ongalor and his spell hurlers are scrying us from afar. They'll take it down, and soon, now."

"The barrier," Harlo Ongalor said, staring into the moving scene he could see in the sphere of glowing radiance that floated in the air in the middle of the glade. "Get ready to take it down."

The three wizards who'd conjured that sphere no longer looked like a trio of wealthy Amnians. They had been staring intently at the spell-spun scene back at Ombreir, and continued to do so, saying not a word in reply.

The vizier was not accustomed to being ignored. "Jaelryn!" he snapped, choosing the weakest mage, the one he knew was more afraid of him than the others. "Did you hear me?"

Jaelryn kept silent, and the vizier glared at him, suddenly aware that all three wizards were standing motionless, staring fixedly into the sphere as if enthralled.

"Jaelryn?" Ongalor shouted, alarmed. "Orauth? Maundark?"

"They can't hear you," a calm feminine voice announced from right behind the vizier.

He whirled, jumping back as he did so, the rings on his fingers winking into life.

A barefoot woman in the tattered, filthy remnants of a rotten but once-grand black gown stood facing him, her long, wavy silver hair coiling and lashing around her shoulders like a nest of restless snakes.

"Who are you?" Ongalor snarled, feeling the tingling that meant the greatest smiting magic of his rings was almost ready. "And what have you done to my wizards?"

The woman stared at him with open contempt in her eyes. Those eyes flared silver-and the vizier's rings exploded, taking Ongalor's fingers with them.

Gods, the pain!

He found himself on his knees, screaming, waving his hands violently to try to dash the pain away-and failing.

"You should tend 'your' wizards better, Vizier," the silver-haired woman sneered. "Just now, they're entranced by the Weave, and their fates depend on what I find in their thoughts. As for me. . most folk know me as the Simbul. I serve Mystra, and the land of Aglarond. I've been watching you for a long time, Harlo Ongalor, and am quite happy to be your doom."

"My-? What did I ever do to you?" the vizier sobbed, trying to struggle to his feet and reach the wand at his belt with the bleeding ruin of his right hand.

"When I wore the guise of Alathe, you had me flogged to the bone for disputing your trade dishonesties with you in Athkatla."

The Simbul took a step closer and added calmly, "When the prettiest of the bedchamber-lasses you rented out in Murann died of her treatment at your hands-glass shards thrust into someone will do that, Ongalor-I took her place, and you promptly had me fed to your dogs."

The wand at the vizier's belt slid itself up, past his desperately grabbing hand, and turned in the air, just out of his reach, to menace him.

"And in Crimmor," the silver-haired woman continued, "when I posed as that trade envoy from Sembia and refused to be threatened into signing the deal you wanted, you had me felled in the street with a slung stone to the back of my head, and drove your wagon over me-three times, Ongalor, just to make sure you'd broken as many bones as you could. Then you laughed in my face and snatched my purse."

The Simbul bent closer and added, "Your life is so full of such cruelties that you may not recall just three slain women out of so many, yet I'm sure if I bother to give you time enough, you'll remember at least one of those slayings. Even if, just now, you can't put a.. finger on it."

And she smiled at Harlo Ongalor as the wand began to glow.

It was a soft smile that held all the mercy of the grin on the face of a hungry wolf.

As the Just Blades rode down the hill, those standing ready inside the gates of Ombreir were shocked to see a dead herald hanging limply in the air at their fore, head lolling, spitted on a trio of lances.

"A herald! There'll be trouble over that," Mirt muttered.

"There will, indeed," Ralaerond Galespear said softly at his shoulder. Something in the heir's drawl made Mirt look at him-in time to see the horse breeder's handsome good looks melt away into taller, broader-shouldered, feminine beauty.

A silver-haired woman who looked somehow familiar snatched Mirt's sword out of his hand, handing him Galespear's rapier with the words, "Here. Sorry it's such a toy."

A moment later, he was missing his best dagger, too, and she was striding away through the gates.

"No one should follow me past the gatehouse," she snapped, silver hair swirling. "The barrier stands."

It shimmered around her as she spoke, but she walked through it unharmed to meet the advancing army.

"We come to parley!" one of the younger Gauntyl knights shouted. "See you not the herald?"

"There will be no parley with you, who dared to treat a herald so," the lone woman told him. "I'll grant you only one gift: swift death."

The knight sneered. "How generous! Just you, against us all?"

She shrugged. "If some of you would like to be gallant and retire while I butcher the rest, be assured I'll get to you all eventually."

"You're mad!" barked a Gralhund warrior, stalking to meet her.

"That's true enough," the woman agreed. "So, shall we?"

Reluctantly, shaking his head, the Gralhund warrior swung his axe at her-and she danced aside, sprang behind his swing to thrust steel into his armpit, and spun to slice open the throat of another warrior with her dagger.

"Doomed," Loraun murmured-but stared, jaw dropping, as the stranger with the silver hair slashed, thrust, leaped, and slew, a tireless butchery that took her into the heart of the Just Blades.

Everyone in Ombreir watched in deepening awe, waiting for her inevitable fall… a fall that did not come.

"Twenty or more, already," Mirt mumbled, shaking his head. He could see some sort of warding magic was turning aside hurled lances and fired arrows from the woman, but still. .

Sheer weariness should drag her arms down soon, and they'd overwhelm her.

"I weary of this," they heard her say, through some trick of her magic-in the instant before beams of silver fire lashed out from her eyes, to blast to ashes Prince Uldrako and the senior Gauntyl and Gralhund knights riding with him. "Now begone, or I'll slay you all!"

She buried her steel in another two warriors-and the rest of the Just Blades shouted, turned, and fled, leaving more than sixty fallen on the hill.

The woman watched them go, then turned and walked back to the gates, drenched in blood not her own and leaking silver flames here and there where she'd been wounded.

"The barrier still stands," she warned those gaping at her.

"I'd not seek to depart, were I you."

She handed back Mirt's bloody sword and dagger, and told him, "I need a bath, and trust your cooking best. Make me some of that shieldfry of yours. There's still enough of Ambror left for a good meal, I think."

Mirt gave her a hard look, as men gagged or winced around him, and decided she was jesting. He hoped.

"Cook for me up in South Tower," she ordered. Then she commanded everyone else, "Where not one of you will go, until Mirt and I come down out of there."

The fire quickened. Mirt set two pans to warming over it. No need to weaken a shield when he had cookware. He laid Ombreir's best leg of lamb on the cutting board, hefted the cleaver, and set to work.

Silver hair swirled in the doorway, shedding a fine mist of water. Her bath was done already. "You know who I am, don't you?"

He nodded. That night, years ago, had just come back to him. "Dove, of the Seven," he growled. "Saw you once, dancing at the Bright Bared Battlelass, in Waterdeep."

Dove grinned. "Couldn't resist the name of that place. Pity 'tis gone. So you've seen all of me."

Mirt nodded. "Thews and thighs to out-muscle mine," he said. "So what brings a Chosen of Mystra into the endless war that is Amn?"

"Serving the goddess. In this case, hunting down Red Wizards who repeatedly offend against her wishes."

"Tell me," Mirt said, cutting up garlic. "Please."

"Klellyn, a Thayan agent. Silver fire-put my tongue in his mouth, left no mark. He cast a wildfire spell you were close enough to feel."

Mirt nodded. "Wildfire's bad?"

"He was trying to forever make magic 'go dead' in one tower here, as a trap for other mages. Lured there, a simple dagger thrust could end them. That sort of deliberate damaging of the Weave is something we Chosen are sworn to try to prevent."

Mirt set the lamb to sizzling, turned to face Dove, and asked simply, "Are you going to let me live?"

"Of course. You, I like and trust. You're no misuser of the Art."

"Was the vizier?"

"Small, puny. . Ongalor is a vindictive fool, about half the astute schemer he thinks he is. The five wizards who work with him, though… Orauth is formidable, and Maundark's deadly enough."

"Why the doubles, for all of us? Why didn't he just blast us?"

"He wanted the Just Blades to slaughter all of you. The doubles obey him and can be used in many swindles. Later, he'll let others capture those doubles. When those others put forward the doubles or their remains, the five wizards will end the magical disguises on the doubles, and Ongalor's rivals will be discredited, not to be trusted by anyone in Amn."

Mirt nodded, then frowned. "Five. . three gone with Ongalor, Klellyn dead-did you kill Ambror, too?"

"Yes. Another Thayan I was after. He'd just cast a life-draining magic that would have withered away two folk here and used their life force to allow him to mind control others at will. You're penned in with more serpents than Loraun. The fifth wizard is still here in Ombreir."

"Who?"

Dove drew Mirt's sword out of his scabbard, turned to the door and flung it wide-and drove the sword deep into Tauniira, who'd been leaning against the door listening.

Spitting blood, Tauniira staggered forward into the room.

"Behold the wizard Varessa," the Chosen said. "Ongalor's lover-and commander."

Mirt gaped at his dying comrade.

"She killed the real Tauniira months ago," Dove added. "Just as I've now killed her. After all, in war, people die."