'You make me sound like a rat,' Starmara hissed and started tugging with her teeth.
Wisely, Durexter did not reply.
* * * * *
The tireless wind whistled past Tharbost, whipping the Simbul's robe up nearly over her head.
THERE'S A SIMPLE CANTRIP . . .
'Highest,' the Queen of Aglarond replied with a smile, tossing her hair unconcernedly, 'I try never to waste magic on unimportant things. 'Tis so easy to fall into the habit of trying to steer every last little detail of Faerun, from where shadows fall to the color of turning leaves . . . and every use of the Weave has its consequences. I care little for garments, am comfortable in this torn old thing, and what matters it if you or El see my rump? We all have one, after all.'
I STAND CHASTENED, Mystra's thunder came more quietly. YOUR VIEW IS THE RIGHT ONE. NEVER HESITATE TO SAY SUCH THINGS, EITHER OF YOU, FOR I HAVE A GREAT MOUNTAIN OF MUCHNESS STILL TO LEARN.
Elminster groaned. 'Don't let thy priests hear that phrase, or they'll be falling off mountainsides all over Faerun.'
Mystra's startled laughter sang around them with force enough to shatter small shards of rock from old Tharbost.
THANK YOU, OLD MAGE. I FEAR I CAN ONLY OFFER YOU POOR REPAYMENT: MORE ORDERS.
Elminster went to one knee. 'Command me, Lady of Mysteries.'
GET UP, OLD FRAUD [confusion] . . . AND ACCEPT, I ASK, MY APOLOGIES: YOU MEANT THAT, IN TRUTH.
'I did indeed.'
Any deity has the power to bear down and open out any mortal mind like a book, to lay bare and read every last thought, feeling, and memory-but to do so in any manner but the slowest and most subtle way ruins the mind being examined.
Moreover, the Chosen of Mystra held a measure of her own power. It flared whenever She thrust into their minds, until to proceed was like staring into the sun, searing and being seared, harming both and learning nothing. So Mystra-the new Mystra-had swiftly learned not to pry beyond what thoughts and memories her Chosen willingly shared.
FORGIVE ME, EL. I'M STILL LEARNING. HEAR THEN MY WILL: YOU ARE TO ACQUAINT CALADNEI WITH VANGERDAHAST'S SCHEME AND WATCH OVER HER AS WELL AS HIM, STEERING HER IF NEED BE. I DON'T WANT TO LOSE THE WAR WIZARDS OR SEE INFIGHTING AMONGST THEM-OR THEY'LL BE JUST ONE MORE FRACTURED, HOSTILE FELLOWSHIP OF SELF-INTERESTED MAGES, LIKE THE RED WIZARDS.
ALASSRA, THOSE SAME RED WIZARDS ARE UP TO FRESH MISCHIEF IN AGLAROND. BEWARE MINDWORM MAGIC WORKING ON THOSE YOU TRUST.
The Simbul's smile was as wry as her voice as she replied, 'Most Mighty, beyond present company, I trust no one. And sometimes, I'm not too sure about either of you.'
Divine laughter rolled around the mountaintop again, but whereas Mystra clearly took the Queen of Aglarond's words as a jest, Elminster's fondly knowing and forgiving smile told Alassra he knew she was quite serious-and as wise as ever.
* * * * *
Malakar Surth's head rang like a bell, and hurt as much as if he was being beaten ceaselessly with one, too-a large and rusty specimen. Snarling at the pain and shaking his head in a vain bid for relief that did not come, he opened his eyes, let the slowly whirling room parade past him in all its wavering glory for an unknown time, and recalled something: he was in the Dagohnlar bedchamber.
The Dagohnlars were his sworn foes, whom he and Bezrar had just bound and threatened-and who were quite possibly still sharing the room with him . . . knowing where any number of weapons lay ready to hand, while he did not, his own knife lost somewhere in the crash that had felled him.
Even if they were not here, or armed and seeking his death even now, this was still their house, with all the guards, servants, and trained hungry dogs they could muster-while he was helpless here at the heart of it, trapped under this cursed wreck of an excuse for fine furniture-swathed in all manner of slithery silks, mind you, but still trapped-and by the light creeping through yon window, it was nearing dawn.
Nearing dawn?
Shar kiss and slap! Darkspells had ordered him to have the closed coach ready before dawn to take him to Lady Ambrur's mansion! Haelithtorntowers wasn't but three streets away from here, and the Thayan's inn another eight streets off, but. . . but. . .
With a scream of rising fear and frustration Malakar Surth kicked and beat his fists and pulled at splintered wood like a madman. Somehow he got the leg that was doubled under him and pinned by what was left of a wardrobe doorframe . . .free!
With a roar of fleeting, frantic triumph the hooded merchant erupted from the wreckage, trailing some splinters and wearing others, and staggered to the door he'd come in by, sparing only the briefest of glances for the cowering Dagohnlars.
Surth wrenched the door open and sprinted through it, flattening a timid maid who was standing uncertainly outside with the Lord and Lady Master's morning jug of hot spiced wine ready with two goblets on a tray.
Jug, wine, tray, and all flew high into the air on the wings of a startled shriek, ricocheting musically among the gaudy forest of cut glass orbs and brilliantstars that Starmara's prized and grotesquely gigantic 'crown of candles' chandelier presented to the world beneath the vaulted ceiling overhead. As Surth ran, fell, and stumbled down the stairs at breakneck speed, these tumbling missiles descended again to favor him with various bruising greetings.
One goblet rolled underfoot and sent him crashing headfirst down a flight of stairs, into a huge, ring-handle- festooned (and thankfully copper rather than more breakable earthenware) pot of ferns. It toppled, spitting earth and fronds, and clanked along in his wake as Surth slithered down the next flight, found his feet at the bottom, and plunged helplessly into an embrace with a dazzlingly gleaming suit of Dagohnlar ancestral armor, full coat-of-plate and a head taller than he was.
It came down like a-well, like a toppling suit of armor that had been badly wired together and home to nests of mice for some seasons and therefore free to come apart and messily spew its contents in a bouncing, clanging chaos that carried the frantically cursing merchant down the last flight of stairs, windmilling his arms for balance and frightening the sleepy door-steward (who'd snatched down a vicious battleaxe to defend himself and found it so heavy that he'd almost fallen over) hastily aside.
Surth hit the inside panels of the ornate double entrance doors of Dagohnlar House still running at about thrice the speed and weight necessary to send them flying open. He tumbled helplessly down the broad, wet marble steps beyond, into Calathanter Street, and fetched up groaning on the cobbles by sliding rather greasily to a stop in something that smelled all too familiar: horse dung.
At least, Surth thought grimly, hoping his hurts were just aches and not bones helpfully shattered before the Red Wizard Dark-spells could break all the rest of him with some angry spell or other, he was face up in the horse dung.
'S-surth? B'gads, you're alive! Did they throw yuh out?'
That voice was all too familiar. Bezrar, who must have run and abandoned him to certain death, alone in that bedchamber with two hired slayers! Bezrar, the utter dolt and complete simpleton who'd-
Strong hands (accompanied by much wheezing and breath that smelled like mint-sugar-mint-sugar?-rather than the usual old garlic and reekingly older fish) plucked Malakar Surth up from the cobbles and set him on his feet.
Malakar Surth drew breath for the rudest words his mind could find to blisteringly deliver to a certain fat merchant, in the few breaths it would take Surth to find and pluck forth Bezrar's own dagger and bury it hilt-deep and repeatedly in Bezrar's fat and stupid face . . . then blinked, gaping his mouth wide in astonishment with not a
