Elminster Enraged

root of one of its nether legs. “I crafted them, after all.”

Glathra frowned. “I thought you said-”

“I don’t work much magic at all, these days,” Storm told her calmly. “However, I witnessed a lot of Elminster’s spellcraftings, down the years, and remember them all, very clearly.”

“So-”

Storm interrupted Glathra smoothly, “So while you take the time to decide if you dare put your ring on, dear, suppose we get to discussing the reason why everyone else at this table is so eager to start using this light, communications-only, non-coercive mindlink.”

“I’ve only your word for that,” Glathra snarled. “For all I-”

“Enough,” Royal Magician Ganrahast told her, his voice just short of a roar. “Lady Storm has the right of it. What matters is not our new magic, but the reasons we need it: far too many nobles plotting treason, and our growing need to respond swiftly to foil attacks on any Obarskyr-and on our fellow courtiers, several of who have been killed or wounded since the council.”

“Not just courtiers, but our fellow wizards of war,” Vainrence said heavily.

“What?” Glathra was too astonished to keep her voice low.

“In the last few days, war wizards across the kingdom, outside Suzail, have fallen silent-presumably slain. More than a score already.”

Glathra fell back in her seat aghast.

“You’re being told now,” Ganrahast said sternly, before she could voice the protest he knew would be forthcoming. “Though we lack a revealed and declared enemy, it seems Cormyr is at war. With itself, perhaps-yet I very much fear that longtime foes and neighbors are part of this, or soon will be. We cannot afford traitors within. We must smite treason where we see it, not waiting for investigations and trials.”

Storm shook her head. “No, Royal Magician,” she said quietly. “Once you ride that horse, tyranny has begun, and you are no longer defending anything worth fighting for.”

“Too late, Lady Storm,” Vangerdahast grunted, his spider legs taking him a little way down the table to face her. “I took to riding like that long ago, just to keep something called ‘Cormyr’ standing. As the one who tutored us both said: ‘the time comes when all airs and graces are torn away or must be cast aside, and ye must do what ye must do.’ That time has come.”

Storm locked gazes with him. “That time came, and has gone. The time for trust and holding to laws and principles has returned. For those who can.”

Glathra swallowed her instinctive retort, drew in a deep breath, then asked Storm gently, almost humbly, “Forgive me, lady, but who are you to tell us, the law keepers of Cormyr, to keep to laws?”

“I am your gentle reminder,” Storm replied, “before the commoners outside these walls tell you the same thing far more fiercely. If they rise, their telling will spill blood in this palace, and the Dragon Throne may well not survive.”

Glathra went pale, but hissed, “Is that a threat?”

Storm shook her head in sad denial. “A prediction, from one who’s seen such risings too often before. As Elminster once told me … if you cannot be a shining example,” she murmured, “be a dire warning.”

One of the line of team rings on the table suddenly burst, its fragments pinging and singing around the room. One shard sliced open Glathra’s cheek as it hurtled past. She managed to stifle a shriek and settled for clutching at where the blood welled forth.

“Another good man gone,” Ganrahast said grimly, looking down at the scorch mark on the table where the ring had been.

Vainrence shook his head. “Good woman. That was Laeylra, in Waymoot.”

Glathra stared at him. “Lael? She and I served together at-at-” She burst into tears.

Storm reached out a long arm and gathered the wizard of war to her breast, to cradle her while she wept. Vainrence muttered a curse and looked at Ganrahast.

“No,” Vangerdahast snarled, before the Royal Magician could say anything, “You bide here, to muster and give orders, and refrain from rushing off and playing the dead hero. Right now, you are of far more worth to the realm as a live coward.”

The spiderlike remnant of one of Cormyr’s most powerful mages turned again to give Storm a look, over Glathra’s shaking head and shoulders, and added, “Kindly don’t remind me of the circumstances in which Elminster told us those helpful words. I’ve remembered them, all by myself.”

Storm gave him the merest ghost of a smile.

The lord constable’s office, Amarune thought sourly, was beginning to feel all too familiar.

She and Arclath and a grim Farland and the two war wizards were crowded into it, neglected stomachs growling, to confer. At last. They had spent some tense moments locking people behind various doors, after checking that those doors-and the walls around them-were in a fit enough state to confine anyone. The two rogues hight Hawkspike and Harbrand had been hustled into the castle and locked into a suite of rooms meant for visiting priests or Crown healers, the nobles who’d dared to wander the halls had been firmly locked into various cells, and it was time to start deciding what had caused the explosion. Or how to go about uncovering that cause.

Was it “the” murderer, slaying other intended victims in a great explosion? No less than seventeen minor nobles were now missing, and at least some of them had to be dead given the blood and severed hands, feet, and other chunks of blood-drenched bodies strewn in the great heap of rubble due south of where the castle now ended.

Or was it the murderer getting killed himself-or herself, or themselves, hrast it- when something exploded before it was supposed to?

Or did the blast have nothing at all to do with the murders?

These two suspicious new arrivals, now, Hawkspike and Harbrand-thorough rogues if ever any of the five Crown-loyals had seen one-did they have anything to do with either of the two slayings, or the explosion? Or did the dragon they said they’d seen? Both of them insisted it flew away into the mountains right after the blast, a tale that was altogether too convenient-yet was echoed by a few of Irlingstar’s imprisoned nobles, who’d been given no chance to confer with Hawkspike and Harbrand.

“A black dragon is rumored to lair somewhere nearby in the Thunder Peaks,” Farland said glumly, as if admitting a personal crime, “and has been sighted many times over the years. Not by me, but by many I’d trust. It’s never been known to approach Irlingstar or raid out past the Hullack into settled Cormyr proper-so far as I know, at least.”

Gulkanun nodded. “We’ll tackle the dragon later-if it attacks us, or after we hunt it down, if that becomes necessary. Right now, we have a shattered prison and a lot of deaths, two of which couldn’t be the dragon unless it can shrink down greatly in size and breach the wards, or send spells through the wards … and I personally doubt any dragon can do either without leaving the wards destroyed in its wake.”

Everyone but Amarune nodded. She followed the Crown mage’s reasoning, but knew too little about warding magics to agree with anything.

“Exactly how many nobles are incarcerated here?” Gulkanun asked the lord constable, “and who are they?”

Farland looked doubtfully at Arclath and Amarune, and the taller war wizard snapped, “Aside from these two, whom I judge you can speak freely in the presence of.”

The lord constable regarded Gulkanun stonily. “I rather think that is my judgment to make.”

“Sworn officer of the Crown,” came the mildly voiced reply, “I feel moved to remind you that all of us have sworn oaths of service, and are here because we’re serving the Dragon Throne right now. Setting aside rank, I ask you to consider which of us commands spells that can turn others of us into frogs, or garden statues … or chamber pots.”

Arclath grinned. “Spoken almost like Vangerdahast,” he said approvingly.

Farland ignored him. “Is that a threat?” he snapped at Gulkanun.

“And if it is?”

After a moment of tense silence, Farland turned his head to favor each person in the room with his coldest