Part 27 (1/2)

Those thoughts took Storm back out through the torments of the field-she really noticed, then, how much feebler they had become-into the forest where full night had fallen, bringing a darkness that would be deep indeed until the clouds thinned and let the moon s.h.i.+ne down.

Which made the tiny, leaping orange glows over to her right all the more noticeable. She couldn't see the fire, only the light it was throwing up onto the leaves of overhanging trees; a campfire in one of the hollows on the edge of Shadowdale, where travelers who lacked coin for inns or wanted not to be seen down in the dale often spent nights.

They might be merely pa.s.sing through, or they could be trouble. Which meant she could not ignore them.

As silently as she knew how-which was very very slowly, in this poor light-Storm crept closer to the flames. slowly, in this poor light-Storm crept closer to the flames.

There were eight well-armed, fierce-looking adventurers in the hollow. Three were huddled asleep in their cloaks; two stood watch with their backs to trees, facing out into the night; and a trio were muttering together as they banked their fire with clods of earth. Their talk told Storm they were trouble, all right.

”Harper's Hill,” one was saying. ”Three different men down in the dale said he'll be thereabouts, if he's to be found at all.”

”I heard he lurks around Storm Silverhand's farm-with her and a lot o' ghosts and the like,” another put in.

”Nay,” said the last of the three. ”Ulth and I searched there a day back. No crops sown this year, and a garden run wild. The house stands open and empty. They say in the dale the Lady Storm walks out of the woods when she pleases-mayhap twice a year, now, no more-and no one knows when she'll appear or why. Never stays more than a night, seems to avoid her farm, then is gone into the trees again.”

”Crazed, all of them,” the first man offered, spitting thoughtfully into the fire. ”Been thus a long time, now.”

”So what do we do if we can't find Elminster?” the second man asked, sounding younger and less a.s.sured than the other two. ”Search the backside of every tree between here and Sembia? That's a lot lot of forest!” of forest!”

”Yes,” the first man told him firmly. ”Search we will-not trees, idiot, but every last cave in all the forest. Yet I doubt it'll come to that. Once we find a hint of magic, we'll have found Elminster.”

Storm sighed soundlessly and backed away. Right past the sentinel she'd pa.s.sed on her way in-just as unnoticed as during her arrival.

She would have to deal with them before she headed back to Suzail...or Ala.s.sra would be dead with half-a-dozen arrows in her before this lot were done looking for El.

Who would just have to deal with the council on his own, Cormyr fall or Cormyr stand.

Oh, Mother Mystra, come back to us.

That fierce prayer was answered by the utter silence she'd been expecting.

The empty silence she'd heard for a hundred years.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

WELL E EARNED.

Marlin poured himself another gla.s.s from his favorite decanter and nodded approvingly.

This Jharakphred was was the best artist for hire in Suzail, it seemed. the best artist for hire in Suzail, it seemed.

A nervous, simpering little runt of a man, to be sure, as he stood there holding the protective cloth covers he'd just stripped from the two portraits he'd painted-but the best.

There was no arguing with the two boards lying flat on Marlin's table. They weren't just good likenesses of Lord Draskos Crownsilver and Lord Gariskar Dauntinghorn-they were were old Draskos and Daunter. old Draskos and Daunter.

”You like them?” the artist asked nervously, misinterpreting Marlin's silence. ”I followed both lords for days, until they told their bodyguards to run me off. With cudgels.” He rubbed at some bruises, reflectively, then left off to add proudly, ”I think I got them right, though. Very true to life.”

”Very,” Marlin agreed with a smile, stepping forward to hand the man the promised fee. ”Well earned.”

Jharakphred beamed, bowed deeply to his n.o.ble patron with the heavy pouch of gold clutched in both hands, turned away-and never saw Marlin's smile widen into a beam to match his own as two men blazing with silent blue flames from head to toe stepped out from behind tapestries both before and behind the artist and ran him through.

”Take him to the furnace,” Marlin ordered, plucking the gold back out of convulsing claws that would never hold a brush again, as the impaled man gurgled and shuddered on two swords at once. ”You know the way. Mop up every last spot of blood 'twixt here and there, then return to me.”

His will more than his words compelled the two silent slayers, but Marlin enjoyed giving orders. Besides, he needed the practice. It wouldn't do to sound less than regal when the time came.

Soon.

What seemed a very short while later, silent blue flames erupted out of the nearest wall. Marlin smiled and, as both Langral and Halonter emerged, beckoned them over to the pair of portraits.

”These men...would you know them, across a room or down a dark street? Look well, until you will.”

He pointed at the painting on the left, so vivid and lifelike that it might have been the living man it depicted, somehow rolled out flat on Marlin's table.

A burly, fierce-looking lord, going white at the temples but possessed of a warrior's confidence and rugged good looks, staring hard out of the painted board at anyone viewing it, with a frowning challenge in his ice blue eyes. ”Lord Draskos Crownsilver, patriarch of the Crownsilvers.”

Then Marlin waved at the other picture. A faintly smiling, smoothly handsome, dark-haired man with steel gray eyes, this one. A sleek, dangerous old sea lion. ”Lord Gariskar Dauntinghorn. Like the other, head of his family.”

The two flaming men-or ghosts or whatever they were-stood in silence looking down at the two portraits for a long time, ere they both finally nodded.

Marlin smiled again. ”When I compel you to,” he told them, ”you'll enter whatever club or inn or wing of the royal court I direct you to and kill them. Bearing their bodies away with you to a place I'll tell you of, so they cannot be found and brought back to life.”

And as they nodded once more, eyes on his, he bent his will on them, forcing them back into the chalice and the Flying Blade again.

It was still a struggle but an easier one this time; when he was done, a single swipe of his fingers sufficed to wipe the sweat from his brow.

Then he reached for the handy decanter of his favorite wine, seeing with approval that his steward had freshly filled it since the morning, and pondered his plan.

If his coerced slayers slew these two key senior n.o.bles during the council, he'd at one stroke remove the most capable and stubborn resistance to any change in rulers.h.i.+p, plunge the realm into uncertainty and turmoil, and lure any investigating highknights and war wizards within reach of the deadly blades of Langral and Halonter.

The flower of House Stormserpent sipped thoughtfully. And smiled again.

It was high time to take himself back to the Old King's Favorite to survey the fresh crop of n.o.bles arriving early for the council.

There might well be some other n.o.bles fair Cormyr would profit from the removal of. To say nothing of the fortunes of one Marlin Stormserpent.

Once settled at his usual table, Marlin made haste to hide his face behind a full goblet of something refres.h.i.+ng, so as to not to be so obviously listening to the talk rising excitedly all around him.

Word spread as swiftly as ever in Suzail. The Purple Dragons on watch were all in an uproar; that young and sneering braggart Seszgar Huntcrown had been murdered in a club, along with all his blades-servants, bodyguards, and hangers-on, every jack of them-by two mysterious slayers who did their deadly and unlawful work wreathed in constant blue flames!