Elminster Enraged

“The work will be dangerous,” the king warned.

“That is my expectation,” Arclath replied, in identically grave tones. That earned him a genuine royal smile.

Amarune caught the king’s eye. “You are not keeping me out of this,” she announced firmly. “Where Arclath goes, I go.”

King Foril smiled again. “Of course. I was, as it happens, intending to hire you into my service, to be Lord Delcastle’s Crown liaison. At, ah, four hundred lions a month?”

Amarune blinked in astonishment. Across the table, Lady Marantine hid a smile rather unsuccessfully, but beside the king, Glathra frowned, stirred as if to say something, caught another swift royal look-and kept silent.

Rune found herself swallowing, her mouth suddenly dry. She bowed her head. “Majesty, I accept. I hope you’re not-we’re both not-making a mistake, but I will take your service.

Gladly.”

“Good,” the king replied firmly, parting his nightcloak. Unclasping a massive money belt from around his waist, he set it on the table, and gave the Royal Magician a glance.

Wordlessly Ganrahast divested himself of no less than seven such belts, one after another. As they clanked down in front of Amarune, the king told her, “Fifty lions per belt; your first month’s pay. Can you start work immediately?”

“Y-yes, Your Majesty,” the overwhelmed tavern dancer managed to reply.

“Good. Go straight to bed and get a proper sleep. By highsun tomorrow, I need you both well on the way to Castle Irlingstar, on our eastern border. Our worst problem just now, it seems, is there. Sembia-or someone reaching out of Sembia-has decided to take advantage of the current tumult among the nobility to take over that fortress and free the worst malcontents imprisoned there to work treason against Cormyr. I need that attempt stopped. I’m reinforcing the wizards of war there, too, but find myself in need of loyal, capable hands inside that keep that aren’t attached to a Crown mage all nobles mistrust and are guarded against on sight.”

Arclath frowned. “Hmm. I know some of the nobles you’ve-ahem, that have decided to dwell there. There may be deaths.”

“Yes,” the king agreed, meeting his gaze directly. “Unfortunate, but these things happen when a young noble newly sent to Irlingstar due to the displeasure of the Crown rubs up against old rivals and other hotheads, in a confined and remote keep.”

“Ah,” Arclath replied gravely. “I see.”

The Dragon of Cormyr reached within his nightcloak again, and set two tiny metal flasks on the table in front of Arclath and Amarune. “Sovereign remedy. Effective against most known poisons. Given what some nobles are said to dip their daggers in, you may, I fear, have need of it.”

“Foril,” Lady Delcastle spoke up, sounding less than pleased, “it seems to me you intend to stain House Delcastle’s good name. We’ll suffer the disgrace of a public accusation of treason against my son and heir. No, more than accusation-confinement. And as a traitor to the Crown. This annoys me.”

King Foril bowed to her. “Lady, I’m afraid this will be so. Pray accept my apologies. I might point out that given the current mood in Cormyr, the esteem of the Delcastles in the eyes of the populace-the nobility and those who aspire to nobility, at least-will undoubtedly rise. Moreover, I promise to apologize publicly and profusely, later, for the mistaken injustice I enacted upon your son, when I was led astray by the lying testimony of false nobles. I’ll make amends by giving him a Crown office, too-title, salary, a coach and riding horses; the usual.”

“Spoken royal promises,” Lady Marantine said crisply, “are worth the proclamations they’re not written on.”

The king grinned like a young lad enjoying himself hugely, and turned to Ganrahast. The stone-faced Royal Magician reached under his nightcloak and produced a scroll, which he unrolled with a flourish to display to those at the table.

It was an already-written, signed, and sealed royal proclamation, outlining all that the king had just promised.

Amarune looked at the large, uncrumpled parchment, and then at Ganrahast’s chest, and shook her head. “How did you carry all that?”

“Magic,” he assured her solemnly. “It’s all done by magic.”

The drow who was now Elminster stopped thinking of how she might train young Rune-and the difficulties that would undoubtedly attend her appearing to Amarune Whitewave in the body of a dark elf, albeit a beautiful female drow-and stepped to one side, sinking down among the stalagmites and rubble nigh the tunnel wall.

I heard it, too, Symrustar said. A weapon being readied.

El nodded silently. Thanks to El’s very recent work with silver fire and the spellbooks in the ruined drow citadel, ironguard was one of the spells she could now call on at will, without incantation, gesture, or components. She now did so. But it afforded no protection at all against enchanted darts or other weapons, or against poison. If need be she could use the silver fire-of which she still had a leaking overabundance, thanks to what the drow of the citadel had done to Symrustar, but she did not want to spend it in such a manner if she could avoid it.

She heard another tiny sound, the most fleeting of clinks. Metal, touching stone or other metal as it was moved; probably a blade being stealthily drawn, in another spot from the first noise that had alerted her. So more than one steel-armed foe awaited, just ahead. Drow, most likely, given the largely successful stealth, but they could be dwarves or gnomes or even humans. Now, which of those foes would show the most patience?

El had been making good time along a tunnel deserted in the wake of the glaragh, and had walked far from the riven citadel, moving faster than any wary pursuer not using wings or scuttling along the passage ceiling. She’d kept close watch on the ceiling, both before and behind, and seen nothing more than occasional small bats, beetles, and spiders. The glaragh had evidently devoured or frightened away anything larger and more intelligent.

Yet she’d passed through several caverns where the great worm could have taken a different route. She’d kept following the breeze, because the tunnel, though far from straight, was tending onward in the general direction she desired to head. The glaragh might not have taken this particular tunnel, this far. Fair fortune, even for the most favored of Tymora, only lasted so long … and the luck of Elminster of Shadowdale, it seemed, had now turned.

Her ears caught the faintest of hisses, sibilants of words she couldn’t quite make out. Someone whispering in Undercommon into the ear of someone else; someone with a high-pitched, light, soft speaking voice. Drow, or she was a real arachnomancer.

Not that this new body would protect her in the slightest. Priestesses of Lolth were not loved at the best of times, and if caught alone were likely to be …

You have been caught alone, El, Symrustar reminded her tartly. So, now?

Now, of course, it was spell hurling time.

For an archmage with mustered spells ready, this would have been a mere moment’s concern. For a prepared and unharmed Chosen of Mystra, with Mystra and the Weave to call upon at will, even less of a challenge. But for what was left of this particular Chosen, right now …

El backed away around a buttress of joined stone pillars-fused stalactites and stalagmites-surrounded by a small forest of lesser stone fangs, and sank down again.

Was that movement, across the tunnel?

Aye, someone seeking to steal forward and flank her. Over there, too, a flash of movement-not forward or back, but a raised hand flicking fingers in intricate patterns. The silent sign language used by drow. Letting a tight smile cross her face, El cast a long, careful spell that would shape stone, on the fissured roof of the tunnel ahead, directly above where most of those waiting to pounce on her were probably waiting. If a worker-of-Art forced stone into a shape that was anchored insufficiently-a large inverted mushroom, say-then sought to rapidly flatten it out …

With a sharp crack and roar, a lot of stone ceiling plummeted down, to crash amid