Elminster Enraged

CHAPTER NINETEEN

BLOODSHED INEVITABLY ERUPTS

The prisoners of Irlingstar, nobles all, had been gleeful about the first two deaths, but the explosions and the killing of Lord Quensyn Rhangobrar had, it seemed, abruptly changed their collective mood.

“Do something, constable!”

“Aye! Our hides are at risk, now! ’Tis your duty, no less!”

The shouts were loud, angry, and fearful, the demands that Farland do something many and shrill.

“Kill this drow here, for a start!”

That indicated dark elf gave the furious and tentatively advancing noblemen a wry smile, and murmured the last words of a spell.

And the very air around them flickered, flowed, and … every last noble facing the lord constable and the five standing with him staggered, sagged-and crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

In the silence that followed, Wizard of War Imbrult Longclaws spun around to fix the she-drow with a suspicious glare, his wand ready in his hand. “The wards are … gone, in this room at least,” he challenged her. “How did you do that?”

“Magic,” the dark elf told him serenely.

Gulkanun moved to face her, his wands in hands and taking care to keep well away from Longclaws. The drow had slipped aside when they’d come out into the room, to keep her back to a wall so she couldn’t be attacked from two sides. She was watching him realize this, and smiling. Gulkanun’s frown of suspicion grew darker.

“Duth Gulkanun,” she said to him, “I don’t like being in this body any more than you like having a drow telling you she-he-is a wizard of war. Yet if I’m going to have to constantly guard against you and Longclaws waiting for a good chance to blast me, I’ll not be able to obey my orders-the commands that come from Lord Lothan Durncaskyn, but that my oath to the Crown tells me I must regard as if they came from King Foril himself-with any speed or effectiveness. So what can I do to convince you I’m Brannon Lucksar? Do you want to hear watchwords? Some of the little secrets only we wizards of war know? Royal Magician Ganrahast’s favorite color?”

Longclaws snorted. “As if we’d know that.”

Gulkanun shot him a quelling glare, then turned and asked the drow challengingly, “What does Lord Durncaskyn most mourn the loss of?”

“Publicly? Knees that serve him well. Privately? Esmra Winterwood, who kept a gowns and lace shop in Immerford, and died of heartstop two winters back. He hoped they’d be wed, and was busily wooing her when she fell ill.”

Gulkanun and Longclaws looked at each other and shrugged. The drow was right about the knees, and probably about the woman, too. There’d been rumors …

Longclaws lifted his chin and fired his own query. “Just how did you come to meet Manshoon?”

“The first time? On a still-secret Crown task that took me to Westgate, years back. He ruled it as Orbakh, you know.”

“We do know,” Gulkanun said coldly.

The drow merely smiled. “My second time was in the Stonelands, after a spell duel I saw from afar while investigating something else, that brought a dragon down dead out of the sky. I was fortunate to escape with my life, that time.”

“Investigating what, exactly?”

“Let’s just say it had to do with shades seen trading in a … locale strategic to Cormyr. You’ll appreciate that certain orders prevent me from being more specific. I saw Manshoon again last winter, in an alley in Suzail, when he let his guard slip for a moment. He’s acquired a habit of talking aloud to himself. By now we’ve learned to watch for him, and heed reports of his being seen. After he visits a place, bloodshed inevitably erupts.”

“You’re not telling us all of your dealings with Manshoon,” Gulkanun said accusingly.

“No,” the drow said calmly, “I’m not.”

“How long are these nobles going to sleep?” Farland broke in. “I’m more than a little suspicious of this dark elf, myself, but it seems to me that a little reluctant trust is in order about now.”

“Well said, lord constable,” Arclath agreed quickly. “Crown mages, I’m no wizard of war nor palace insider, but I’ve sat around tables recently with Ganrahast and Vainrence and Glathra-more recently than any of you, I’ll wager-and it seems to me this, ah, lady is either Lucksar or knows enough of things only he would know that you’ll not catch him-her-out as a false Lucksar. I say trust her for now, and let her get investigating.”

“Investigating is our task,” Gulkanun said flatly.

“Mine, too,” the drow told him. “If you’d prefer we walk shoulder to shoulder in this, never parting, I’ve no objection-so long as you don’t use that agreement to restrict where I go and with whom I speak.”

Gulkanun and Longclaws traded glances again, then slowly nodded to each other, and sheathed their wands.

“Investigate,” Gulkanun told the drow. “We’ll stay with you, much of the time, and hear what you hear, see what you see, and heed what you do.”

The dark elf sketched a bow with liquid grace, then turned to the lord constable and said briskly, “In the interests of uncovering who’s blowing towers up and murdering folk in Irlingstar, I’m going to ask you many questions. Please take no offense; I seek information, not to insinuate anything.” She spun to regard the two war wizards and Arclath and Amarune and added, “By all means interrupt with queries of your own, as they occur to you. I am by no means ‘in charge’ here.” She turned smoothly back to Farland. “What do the wards of Irlingstar normally allow in the way of magic?”

The lord constable winced. “Beyond that they block translocation, sendings, and mind-to-mind contact in and out of the castle, I don’t know all that much about them. They hurl back most destructive magics cast from outside, and prevent quite a few from working at all inside Irlingstar, but as to the details … those were known to the Crown mages stationed here.”

He cleared his throat. “You may have heard that some of my predecessors betrayed their office-took bribes from prisoners, and the like. That may have had much to do with how little I was told about the wards. I’ve heard that both seneschals and lord constables in the past have known much more than I do, and I’ve seen-briefly, not to peruse and learn details-some written records of what the wards do. Avathnar had them sent back to Suzail soon after taking office. He told me they were just weapons against us if they ever fell into the wrong hands.”

The drow nodded. “So before any of these recent killings and explosions, just how many folk were in Irlingstar? Everyone, not just incarcerated noble guests.”

Farland frowned. “Two and twenty guards, who report to me. Me. Sixteen castle staff-masons, smiths, hostlers, and the like-who reported to Seneschal Avathnar. Avathnar. Eight who worked in the kitchens-all women from Immerford, some old, some young. And two message riders-Crown messengers in training-stationed here. Not counting the lord and lass, here”-he nodded at Arclath and Amarune-“we had twoscore-and-six prisoners. The castle can hold four times that, with every guest in his own cell. Er, could, that is, before the … south tower went down, and all.”

“Name me the most dangerous of those prisoners. Not the most annoying-I’m sure they all compete for that ranking-but those you judge truly perilous.”

Farland frowned. “Now that Rhangobrar’s dead-he was a real instigator and manipulator, who could stir many of them into any mischief he wanted, and usually avoid direct involvement himself-I’d say Cygland Morauntar, Bleys Indimber, and Raldrick Ammaeth. Young lords, all. The first two are heirs of their houses, and Ammaeth’s a second son who twice tried to arrange the killing of his older brother before he was brought here. Convicted murderers, all three; no morals whatsoever, no inhibitions. We’ve others who can be ruthless, cruel, and even savage in their bloodletting … but those three …”

“No compunctions at all?”

“None. They understand rules and customs and etiquette well enough, as constraints on others they can make use of-but not as anything that should bind them. Most of my efforts have been to keep their holds over others as weak as possible, and prevent any of them from getting together.”

“So those three we chain to the walls of separate locked cells, far from each other and the rest,” the dark elf suggested, “and the others we round up and temporarily confine in one place, disarmed of anything sharp or