“The High Imperceptor. You. Lord Chess.”
“Until you can slay us, of course. Yet you act against the Zhentarim, repeatedly, in matters both large and small. Why?”
“For the reasons I have always done: to thwart and ultimately eliminate Manshoon, who has so perverted our Brotherhood into a fellowship at war with itself, and his personal tool of influence and domination.”
Hesperdan crooked an eyebrow. “And to confound him, you destroy other members and plans of the Zhentarim?”
“I do. Those who obey him more than our founding causes are part of his stain and shadow upon us. His self-serving schemes are not ours, and the more he achieves them the more his power grows. The Zhentarim are torn aside from what they should be.”
“To specifics: Why did you act as you did in the matter of the Red Wizard Hilmryn?”
“The Thayan dared to use his spells to influence the minds of a few of our magelings-a weakness no one must be allowed to conclude exists. So I rode him into turning on his fellow Red Wizards with reckless slaying spells, and exacted a toll high enough, before they blasted him to wet dust, that all Red Wizards will think twice about daring to meddle with any Zhentarim again.”
Hesperdan nodded. “How will you deal with Horaundoon, now that you’ve… become as you are?”
“He is my rival and a blundering fool, still wildly seeking to escape his new nature even as he learns it, but when he calms-if he strays not into tactics too dangerous-I will aid him in working against the Brotherhood, to weaken Manshoon’s rule.”
“And your intentions for the Knights of Myth Drannor?”
“Are my own.”
Hesperdan raised a hand, and there was suddenly a shining web-work of force all around Old Ghost, thrusting sharp lance-points of crackling energy at him. “Fully and honestly,” the wizard reminded.
“They are capable steeds that both Horaundoon and I know now how to ride comfortably and exactingly. And they are headed closer to where we want them.”
“Away from the Hidden House, that neither of you dare approach,” Hesperdan replied silkily, “and closer to the decaying mythal of Myth Drannor, whose energies you can call upon.”
Old Ghost paused. “So,” he hissed, after a time of tense silence. “You know.”
“Of course,” Hesperdan replied. “I helped raise that mythal; I can feel your attempts to draw on it.”
“You…?”
“Awed disbelief becomes you not, Arlonder Darmeth. Let us see if you wear obedience better. Do as you please to Manshoon and the Zhentarim-but neither drain nor harm any Knight of Myth Drannor. They are my unwitting tools. So ride or hamper them not. In the slightest. ‘Or else,’ as they say.”
The wizard smiled then. It was a cold smile, like that of a prowling wolf-and for the first time in longer than he could remember, Old Ghost found himself shivering.
He hadn’t known, until then, that he could still shiver.
This shuffling old Zhent had been part of creating the mythal of Myth Drannor?
And just how, by all the Watching Gods, was it that he knew Old Ghost’s name?
Who was he?
As if he’d shouted those thoughts aloud, Hesperdan said quietly, “By all means entertain yourself seeking to find out. Yet go. Now. We both have more important things to do than tarry here trading menacing words.”
Old Ghost went, trying not to hurry.
But failing.
Chapter 1
Doom comes reaching for a Knight or two
And the taverns fall suddenly empty,
Fires crackling in silence where boasting
And swaggering held sway but moments ago.
Leaving a little quiet for true heroes
To hear themselves think, for once.
Deep in the undercellars of the massive stone building known as the Royal Court of Cormyr were chambers that no one but certain senior Crown-sworn wizards of the realm ever willingly entered. The doors were as thick as stylish horse-carriages stretched wide, and barred with great beams that required several sweating men to shift. The brightest lights those large, nigh-empty chambers ever saw were spell-glows.
The chambers were one of the places that the war wizards of Cormyr cast dangerous and unpleasant spells that-hopefully-weren’t too explosive. Spells that were necessary, but better kept hidden.
The silently raging, vivid blue fires of mighty spells flared and flickered busily in one of those rooms, making eerie masks of the grim faces of the two war wizards who stood watching a third at work.
Laspeera Naerinth and Beldos Margaster made not a sound. The dragontail rings on their fingers spat tiny lightnings in response to each of Vangerdahast’s powerful spells, but otherwise they were still.
Those magics raged and swirled, and finally each died down in turn, and faded away. After a long, silent time, the Royal Magician of Cormyr turned wearily away from the unconscious man on the cot.
“I’ve done all I can,” Vangerdahast growled. “Margaster?”
The elderly man who’d once been the trusted confidant and messenger of King Azoun’s father, the second ruling Rhigaerd, shook his head grimly. “As well cast as I’ve ever seen,” he said grimly. “If they work not, then the gods meant this one’s life not to stretch longer. If we confine him, the worms will eat his head hollow from within.”
Laspeera nodded-and then three wizard’s heads turned as one, as they all watched something black and slimy gush from Florin Falconhand’s nose, lift from the cot like a wet and unwilling bat, and sail through the air to land with a splat in the brazier in front of Laspeera. She lifted both of her hands in command. The brazier’s flames roared up obediently, and the black thing sizzled.
Suddenly it popped, sending Laspeera reeling back-but Margaster was ready. Something streaked from his pointing finger, consuming the black fragments in a tiny, raging sphere of flames that drew the fire of the brazier up into it, extinguishing the blaze, but reducing the blackness to nothing at all.
“That’s the last of his mindworms,” Vangerdahast said. “We’re almost done.”
All three of them turned rather reluctantly to look across the room at another cot. It held all that was left of Narantha Crownsilver, a bloody heap surrounded by more spell-glows. From the waist up, she was nothing but wet, amorphous gore.
“So ends that fair flower of the Crownsilvers,” Vangey muttered. “She’s riddled with them, and must be burned, I’m afraid. Lasp?”
Laspeera nodded grimly, and cast a careful spell that enshrouded the cot with magic that ignited-and, spiraling slowly, drank-all within it. Narantha’s funeral pyre rose into softly reaching flames and smoke that became part of the rising shroud, twisted into it, and then dwindled.
The three wizards watched until nothing was left but ashes on the stone floor. Vangerdahast cast a spell of his own on them, sighed, and announced, “This threat to the realm is ended.”
He strode briskly to the door. “Now for the next one!”
Master Understeward-of-Chambers Halighon Amranthur strode grandly to the double doors and flung them
