Elminster Enraged

mage Vangerdahast, the self-styled guardian of Cormyr. He had been the kingdom’s Royal Magician and its court wizard and its true ruler, all at once-and when he deemed the time right, he retired from it all to take dragon shape. I was suspicious of him then, and I am suspicious of him now.”

“Oh?” Harbrand asked, starting to become genuinely interested. He’d begun talking just to try to buy a few more breaths of life, but …

“Oh, indeed. Despite being lesser in Art, he’d quietly become the most dangerous tyrant mage of us all, his reach even greater than Manshoon’s thanks to the wizards of war he commanded. I believed curbing his schemes was the most important life work any mage could concern himself with. I still believe that.”

“And so?”

“And so, along came the Spellplague and changed everything. The gods laugh at us all.”

“So how did it change you? Are you trapped in dragon shape?”

“No, but the blue fire did me ill. It afflicted me with long periods of being Alorglauvenemaus-by which I mean, long periods of not remembering I was Hesperdan at all.”

Harbrand and Hawkspike looked at each other. Neither of them had to say a word to tell each other what they’d both realized instantly. If the dragon-or Hesperdan, or whoever he really was-had told them this, it meant he had no intention of their surviving long enough to pass this information on to anyone.

Some days, Immerkeep felt like a prison stuffed with mad inmates, all intent on making him join their ranks.

Yes, King’s Lord Lothan Durncaskyn was in a bad temper, he admitted to himself- and it was getting worse.

Immerfolk were a testy lot at the best of times, given their ever-lengthening list of just grievances, and now he wasn’t merely saddled with Harklur and Mrauksoun and Faerrad-he had Lord Tornkresk to deal with.

King Foril was a worthy monarch, kinder and wiser than most and less cruel than many, but the trouble with men like that was that they admired the decisive and capable. Which meant they sometimes ennobled the wrong capable men. Tornkresk had been a lord for what, nine years? Ten? And already, in the guise of “being loyal to what Cormyr should be,” he and his band of well-armed hireswords were busy here, there, and everywhere around Immerford, goading folk into angry attacks on Crown servants, inspectors, and even Purple Dragon patrols.

So here the king’s lord was, with no war wizards left to contact Suzail or Arabel for him, and a desperate need for swift help. He needed reinforcements to blunt Tornkresk’s goad, but not just Purple Dragons ready to swing their swords and become Tornkresk’s handy targets. He needed enough war wizards to enspell everyone into the ground, and some smooth-tongued courtiers with placating coins to toss-and he needed all of them right now!

A door banged in the outer office, and there were voices. Raised voices. One was his duty bodyguard, denying passage. The other was gruff, wheezing, and accepting no such refusal.

Durncaskyn slapped a hand to his dagger, murmured the word that awakened its ironguard enchantment to protect him from hurled knives and crossbow bolts and the like, and went to his office door. Who wanted to harangue the ever-helpful king’s lord now?

He opened the door a crack, his foot behind it to keep it that way, and peered out. He was in time to see a fat old man whose seaboots flapped and flopped at every step hurling the duty bodyguard bodily out the office door, then turning to steady an exhausted looking, disheveled woman. And lead her right to Durncaskyn’s door.

Well, time to be decisive and capable. Durncaskyn flung the door wide and stood in it. “Yes?”

“Yer Foril’s local lord, here?” the old man growled, looking Durncaskyn up and down, but not slowing his determined lurch forward.

“I am.” Durncaskyn stood his ground. “Who are you?”

“Mirt, Lord of Waterdeep. This is Rensharra Ironstave, Lady Clerk of the Rolls. Yes, the highest-ranking tax collector in the realm. She needs the most secure guarded shelter you can provide. Right now.”

Durncaskyn blinked. “What?”

He gave the woman a look, but she was out on her feet, reeling, her gaze directed at the floor. Mirt swung her to one side so she’d not be caught between them as he advanced-and kept on tramping straight forward. “You’d be Durncaskyn?”

“I-” They collided, chest to chest, and Mirt kept right on striding.

Exasperated, Durncaskyn shoved him. “Get back! And get out of here! I’m-”

“Terribly busy just now, saving the realm? That I can well believe, but right now I need you to see that protecting this fair lady is the most important-”

“No. Did you not hear me? No.”

Durncaskyn thought of himself as a solid man, still strong despite far too many hours spent sitting behind desks or standing around talking and listening. So he was a little astonished to be taken by a fistful of doublet, hoisted off his feet, and rushed backward into his own office.

The lurching and shuffling old man even dragged the woman in with them, as he snarled into Durncaskyn’s face, “I’ve been getting the distinct impression since my arrival in this fair kingdom that its local lords are a pompous, lazy, useless lot. Prove me wrong. Please prove me wrong.”

“I don’t take kindly to being bullied in my own office,” Durncaskyn snarled back, “and I decide what constitutes-”

“Being an utter slubberdegullion? Well, decide faster!”

“Why? Why the great rush?”

“If I have to lock you in yer own dungeon and start emptying yer coffers to hire bullyblades enough to keep this fair lady-the king’s head tax collector, let me remind you-safe, it’s going to take me some time to let everyone hereabouts know I’m the new king’s lord. That’s why the rush, loyal Lothan.”

“And if I agree to protect her?”

“Then where are yer guards? She stands in peril right now-and in need of a bed and a garderobe, not to mention a light hot meal and a little good wine. And see if you can resist the temptation to lock her in any sort of cell, too-it might keep me from removing yer head and locking it away, instead! I ask again: where are yer guards? The likes of that bumbling idiot I tossed aside out there couldn’t keep away a lad with a slingshot!”

“As to that,” Durncaskyn replied dryly, bringing up both hands to try to wrench himself free of Mirt’s hairy fist, “they’re right behind you.”

Purple Dragons crowded into the outer office, their swords drawn. The angry bodyguard Mirt had thrown out of that room was with them, pointing at the fat old intruder and spitting a stream of curses and commands.

Mirt looked profoundly unimpressed. “Them? They look like a mob of untrained dolts, to me. Where’re their scouts? The man with the ready crossbow and some sleep syrup on his loaded quarrel? The backup bowman, for when the first one misses? Hey?”

“Hey,” Durncaskyn agreed wearily. “At ease!” he barked over Mirt’s shoulder at the Dragons. “Wait out in the passage, all of you!”

They eyed him doubtfully.

“All of you!” Durncaskyn roared with sudden fire. “And close the door after you go out!”

He added a glare, and kept it on them until they’d all reluctantly retreated and shut the door. By then, he was unsurprised to find the lady slumped in his own desk chair, and Mirt rummaging in his cabinets for decent wine to give her.

“Bottom drawer,” Durncaskyn told him. “The swill on display is for visiting complainants-such as yourself.”

That earned him a grin from Mirt. Durncaskyn fetched one of the chairs kept for visitors, drew it up to the wrong side of his own desk, sat down, and said, “You seem a forceful man, but decisive enough, possibly even capable. Perhaps we can make a deal.”