Part 1 (2/2)
”Come ahead,” an old man's voice quavered in reply. ”Peaceful fellows are always welcome.” Then it turned stern or rather pettish. ”See that ye stay that way.”
The Bloods.h.i.+elds traded smirks and came ahead.
The cave was a long, narrow hovel of damp dirt, stones, and sagging old rough-tree furniture, more a hermit's cellar than a druid den. Two small, flickering lamps hung from a crossbranch over a rude table, and somewhere behind their glows sat a stout, broad-shouldered old man, blinking at them past a fearsome beak of a nose. He had a long, s.h.a.ggy white beard.
The floor was an uneven, greasy, hard-trodden litter of old bones and empty nutsh.e.l.ls, and around the dirt walls roots thrust out here, there, and everywhere; on many of them had been hung a pathetic collection of rotting old sc.r.a.ps of tapestry and paintings.
”So ye've found Elminster, ye adventurers, and to earn thy hire would speak with me? Well, speak, then; I've naught to share, I fear, and if ye were expecting great magics or heaped gems, I'm afraid ye've come a century or so too late.”
”Huh,” Gaerond replied. ”That's ”That's a shame. We quite like great magics and heaps of gems, we do. Can you still manage little magics?” a shame. We quite like great magics and heaps of gems, we do. Can you still manage little magics?”
The old man snorted sourly and fumbled for a clay pipe with age-gnarled, shaking fingers. ”If I could, d'ye think I'd be sitting here in this mud-hole, slowly starving? That'll be my price for answers, mind ye: a finger of cheese or a bite of meat, if thy pouches run to such luxuries!”
Gaerond smiled, not kindly, and shook his head. ”Our shame steadily deepens, doesn't it, lads?”
The Bloods.h.i.+elds chuckled unpleasantly by way of reply. They had already spread themselves out and had drawn various favorite weapons-that they waved menacingly.
”You may have noticed,” Gaerond told the burly old man, ”that Lylar here has brought a spear. We think it'd look better adorned with your head, as a sort of wave-about trophy, when we return to Sembia. Sembians pay well for their bodyguards-and it's not every band of blades that can claim to have bested the legendary archwizard Elminster in battle!”
The burly oldbeard seemed to shrink a little in his seat. ”Ye...ye're joking, surely...,” he quavered.
Gaerond smiled his best, soft wolf smile. ”No. I'm afraid not.”
The air promptly erupted in a briefly deafening storm of hissing and tw.a.n.ging, while the old man sat as still as a stone.
As abruptly as it had come, the storm was done, all the tapestries and paintings fluttering in the wake of too many snarling quarrels to count.
Most of the Bloods.h.i.+elds had been driven back against the walls, so studded with those quarrels as to resemble pincus.h.i.+ons. Gaerond hadn't been near a wall, so he was the last to fall, toppling in slow silence, disbelief plain on his dead face.
As if the thump and clatter of his landing were a cue, figures all clambered out from behind the tapestries in brisk haste, their pearl-white limbs reaching to reload crossbows or to s.n.a.t.c.h away weapons in case any of the Bloods.h.i.+elds might have had magical protection enough to somehow still live.
It appeared that none of them had.
The doppelganger sitting behind the table dwindled down into something long and lean that easily slid out of the wizard's robes and the suit of padded armor beneath them that had lent ”Elminster” such broad shoulders, and stretched across the table to join in the work of taking up the adventurers' bodies and gear-the latter for salvage and sale, and the former to eat.
”Any trouble?” hissed a new arrival, coming into the cave still wearing Thal's face, but with a body pearl white and featureless as the others.
”None,” replied one of the doppelgangers, who was busily breaking the necks of the Bloods.h.i.+elds, just to be sure, sounding almost bored.
”Where is is the infamous Elminster, anyhail?” the youngest doppelganger asked. ”He's still alive, yes? They say he is, you know.” the infamous Elminster, anyhail?” the youngest doppelganger asked. ”He's still alive, yes? They say he is, you know.”
Doppelgangers rarely shrug, but most of those crowded into the cave tried various versions of it, in wriggling unison.
The one who'd played Elminster answered, ”He is, but he's long gone from here. No shortage of talking meat coming looking for him, though. Still some Harpers, even.”
One old doppelganger grew a large mouth so he could leer, exclaiming, ”I likes likes Harpers. Good eating.” Harpers. Good eating.”
CHAPTER ONE.
DARK D DECISIONS.
The wardrobe was a cursedly tight fit.
Even for one of the handsomest, suavest, most lithely athletic, and most debonair n.o.bles currently inhaling the sweet air of the Forest Kingdom of Cormyr.
Even a sneering rival would have had to grant that Lord Arclath Argustagus Delcastle was all of those things in the judgment of many a la.s.s, not just his own.
Yet, despite all of those splendid qualities, the heir of House Delcastle could just just squeeze himself inside the ma.s.sive oak wardrobe. To keep company with old mildew and older dust. Whose familiar reek rea.s.sured him that this was the palace, all right. squeeze himself inside the ma.s.sive oak wardrobe. To keep company with old mildew and older dust. Whose familiar reek rea.s.sured him that this was the palace, all right.
Left knee above his left ear and fingers braced like claws to keep his cramped body from slipping and making the slightest sound, Arclath stared into the darkness wrought by the closed door right in front of his nose and prayed fervently that Ganrahast and Vainrence would be in a hurry and keep their secret meeting brief.
So it would end, for instance, before he happened to need to sneeze.
No one ever came to this dusty, long-disused bedchamber high in the north turret-or so Arclath had once thought. He'd found the place after a feast some years ago, while wandering the palace to walk off the effects of far too much firewine before he braved the dark night streets homeward, and had employed it thereafter to enjoy the charms of a certain palace maid in private-a sleek delight since sadly gone off to Neverwinter in the employ of a wealthy merchant-and then as a retreat to sit alone and think, when that need came upon him.
It had come as a less-than-pleasant surprise, moments before, to learn that the Royal Magician of Cormyr, the widely feared Ganrahast, and his calmly ruthless second-in-command, ”Foedoom” Vainrence, favored this same north turret bedchamber for private parleys.
Arclath hadn't had time to try to dodge into the little s.p.a.ce behind the wardrobe, which stood straight and square where the bedchamber wall behind curved. He'd only just had time enough to scramble into the closet, drag its door closed, and compose himself into cramped but silent immobility before the two powerful wizards had come striding into the room, muttering grimly.
They more than muttered after they entered the room.
Arclath felt an itch starting and set his teeth in exasperation. He should have known someone someone went there to discuss confidential and sensitive matters, given the warding spells that always made his skin tingle and p.r.i.c.kle on the stair ascending to the uppermost room. went there to discuss confidential and sensitive matters, given the warding spells that always made his skin tingle and p.r.i.c.kle on the stair ascending to the uppermost room.
A moment later, a glow kindled in the darkness right beside Arclath's head, startling him almost into gasping aloud.
He managed-just-not to do that.
Instead, he froze, chilled and helpless, as an old spell flared into life right beside him.
A radiance that slowly became a silent, floating scene of a nearby spot he recognized. That same stretch of stair where the wards tingled, looking down from the turret room.
A scene where someone stood silently, hands raised to claw at the wards that were keeping her at bay, eyes blazing in frustrated fury. It was someone who'd been dead for years, a ghost Arclath had seen once from afar.
The Princess Alusair, the ruling Steel Regent of the realm almost a century earlier; familiar and unmistakable from all the portraits and tapestries in nigh every high house of Cormyr, her long hair flowing free and face set in anger-and her eyes seemingly fixed on him.
Arclath swallowed. He could see right through her, armor and long sword at her hip and all, and by the way she peered and turned her head from time to time, it was apparent she could hear but not quite see the two wizards as they stood talking, just outside his wardrobe.
”Grave enough,” the Royal Magician was saying, ”but hardly a surprise. You didn't call me here just to tell me that that. What else?”
”The Royal Gorget of Battle is missing from its case,” Vainrence replied flatly, ”which stands otherwise undisturbed, all its spells intact. And it was there an hour ago; I happened to walk past and saw it myself.”
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