Elminster Enraged

had since been reduced to selling daring scanty garments to men too embarrassed to purchase them in shops women might enter.

Wherefore business wasn’t, to be blunt, too good, and a new sign was tacked to the Splendors door at the back of the upstairs passage, informing interested Suzail that a sideroom of the Splendors now housed a new establishment. That new sign told the world crisply: “Danger For Hire.”

Judging by the looks of the two down-at-heel men lounging with their boots up on their desks, in lopsided chairs that threatened to collapse utterly and deposit them on their worn, sagging rented floor, the sign told the truth.

The more handsome of the two surviving partners in this crisp new business firm rejoiced in the name of Drounan “Doombringer” Harbrand. He was a tall man who always wore black from head to toe, and sported an eye patch that might have seemed more menacing if he hadn’t long ago fallen into the habit of switching it from one eye to the other. Harband had just returned from an interview with a new client that had-at her insistence, discretion be damned-been conducted in more savory surroundings. Upon his return, in some triumph, he had tossed her payment for the deal they’d struck onto the vacant table between the desks, where it landed with a satisfyingly weighty crash.

That feeling of exultation had ebbed as he’d begun to tell his business partner the particulars of the arrangement, and they now stared rather grimly at the heavy sack of gold coins.

That partner was shorter and uglier than Harbrand, and far less elegant in appearance. Even if his nose hadn’t been broken many times into a wreck of vaguely vertical shapelessness, the many crisscrossing scars that adorned his arms, head, torso, and knuckles told the world all too clearly that he was a brawler. A less than successful one, at that. But Andarphisk “Fists” Hawkspike did not appreciate such judgments, and most folk didn’t dare to dispense them in his presence, given the more than a dozen daggers sheathed all over his rotting, greasy, much-patched leathers.

“Hrast it!” he snarled, spitting at the floor with enough accuracy to hit it, “I knew there’d be a tail-sting in this! There always is, with nobles!”

Harbrand sighed gloomily. “At least it’s work. I’ve grown more than a bit tired of eating rats and table scraps thrown out kitchen doors.”

Their client was Lady Dawningdown, the vicious matriarch of a minor, disgraced noble family of Suzail. She had offered them far too much gold to refuse, to do a “certain task” for her-plus the tail-sting Hawkspike had been expecting: the threat that they’d be hunted down and slain if they turned down her offer, now that she’d confided in them.

“Remember that,” Harbrand added grimly. “Old Skullgrin sat there, flanked by four men who had loaded and ready crossbows trained on me. That fired poisoned bolts, she just happened to mention. If she’s so determined no one learn of our hiring-well, if we succeed in our task, her bullyblades’ll hunt us down and slay us, for that very same reason.”

“Huh. Why don’t she just send them to do it, and save her gold and our necks?”

“Because she has foes she fears, too, and doesn’t want to risk being left unguarded while they make the trip,” Harbrand explained patiently. “S’what I’d do.”

His partner gave him a dark look, and spat on the floor again.

Their task seemed simple enough. They were to journey to the remote prison stronghold of Castle Irlingstar in the Thunder Peaks on the eastern border of Cormyr. Not the prison every Cormyrean knew about, the walled Sharren-cauldron of Wheloon, but a small castle few had heard of, where King Foril Obarskyr sent his special prisoners-such as traitor nobles too dangerous to put with murderers and thugs they could buy the loyalties of, and agents of Sembia and Westgate and other hostile near neighbors who’d use more public imprisonings as a pretext for war or royal assassinations or the like.

They were to free Lady Dawningdown’s son and heir from Irlingstar, and get him safely over the border into Sembia. Officially, fire-tempered young Jeresson Dawningdown had been cast into Irlingstar for murdering a man, and ordering a hiresword to slay two more he’d quarreled with over cards, slayings that had been swiftly accomplished. However, all Cormyr knew Jeresson “the Rager” had really been confined in Irlingstar because he’d joined a cabal of young nobles plotting with Sembian sponsors to murder the entire royal family and put a Sembian on the throne of the Forest Kingdom.

Jeresson was to be delivered safely to Bowshotgard, a hunting lodge in forested northern Sembia, where Danger For Hire would receive the rest of their gold.

“And a handy waiting grave, I’ll warrant,” Hawkspike grunted gloomily.

He watched Harbrand get up and thrust the sack of coins into their usual hidey-hole in the side of the privy chute, and he spat on the floor again.

“Nobles,” he growled. “I hate working for nobles. Trouble, always trouble.”

Harbrand flashed a mirthless smile. “Goes with the gold. Coin, always coin. That’s what makes them noble.”

“Oh? Not birth? Not good breeding?”

Harbrand snorted. “Have you ever noticed any hint or shred of good breeding on the part of the nobles of this land?”

He let silence fall, then snorted again. “Thought not.”

“What puzzles us most,” Ganrahast said slowly, “is this ‘Lady of Ghosts’ who pursued all of you through the Dalestride Portal. Just who-hrast it, what-was she?”

Storm grimaced. “A mistake shared by Elminster and Manshoon. Her name is, or was, Cymmarra. Long ago, she was Manshoon’s lover and apprentice-as were her mother and two older sisters. Eventually, tiring of those three and wanting to be rid of them, the Lord of the Zhentarim sent them to kill Elminster. They failed, of course. Cymmarra alone he held back from that mission, but forced her to watch the deaths of her kin. Wild with grief and rage, she attacked Manshoon. He bested her easily with his spells, manacling her with magic, and forced himself upon her one last time-as he sought to slay her with a dagger thrust. You saw that blade, thrusting out of her, as she strode through the palace.”

“Elminster’s mistake was protecting her but not defending her,” Ganrahast guessed.

Storm nodded soberly. “Manshoon couldn’t kill her, and didn’t-then-know why. She escaped, and for centuries hid from him in various guises, building her skills in the Art, awaiting the right time to take revenge on both El and Manshoon. She thought it had arrived.” Storm shrugged. “She was almost correct.”

“Almost,” Glathra echoed bitterly, shaking her head. “Is Elminster’s life one long succession of such cruelties and misjudgments?”

Storm gave her a calm look that was somehow more a challenge than any glare could have been. “Yes. As are the lives of Manshoon, and Vangerdahast, and any wizard who seeks to rule, or dominate, or defend a throne. As you may yet live long enough to have to admit, Glathra Barcantle.”

Glathra flashed a glare. “I need no lessons-”

Catching the stern eyes of her king, she stopped in mid-snap, and asked more gently, “So are we rid of your meddlings at court and among our nobles, now? Or have you still unfinished work here in Cormyr?”

Storm’s smile was friendly. “We do, so you’re not rid of us yet. Forgive me, Foril, but Mystra commands us in this. She sees the wizards of war as vital to a bright future for all the Realms. Wherefore the corrupt among them- and in the ranks of your courtiers, too-must be uncovered and scoured out. Without causing too much of an uproar amid all the nobles seeking power, who will of course sense weakness and division, and rush to exploit it.”

Instead of uproar and anger among the three guests, there was a silent exchange of meaningful glances.

“Good,” the king said heavily, lifting a hand to forestall anything Ganrahast or Glathra might have said. “Not a moment too soon. Let that scouring begin.”

He looked at Arclath. “With Lord Elminster and Lady Storm serving a higher authority than the Dragon Throne, I find myself still in need of a champion whose loyalty is to me. A personal agent, an untitled hand of my royal will who’s no highknight, and who stands alone. Arclath Delcastle, will you-”

“I will,” Arclath said flatly. “I’ll be your agent, Majesty.”