Lathalance peered around the room and then nodded.
Maelrin bowed. “We customarily serve newly arrived guests with a light repast, at no charge. Shall I have something sent up to you?”
“What sort of something?”
“Ale, zzar, or clarry, and soup, stew, or venison or fowl pie?”
“Mulled ale and a pie. Venison.”
Maelrin bowed again and withdrew, leaving the Zhentarim standing alone in the room staring at the window.
The moment the innkeeper was gone, Lathalance went to the window, took down its bar and threw open its shutters, and discovered an outer set of shutters rather than any glass. He opened them, looked out over the three-man-height drop into the stableyard, and replaced everything as before.
Then he went slowly around the room, peering at walls, floor, and ceiling before half-smiling, and taking up the lone chair in the room. He moved it to the empty center of the room, turned it to face the closed but unlocked door, sat down in it-and was asleep in moments, a sleep that lasted until a floorboard creaked ever-so-slightly in the passage outside his door.
By the time the two serving-jacks knocked politely at that door, Lathalance was wide awake, on his feet, and striding confidently forward to greet them.
“Is it him?”
Maelrin smiled thinly. “He’s a ‘he,’ yes. If you mean ‘is he the Zhentarim?’ the answer is-undoubtedly. I saw their sigil on his dagger hilt. He’s a wizard and a warrior; he could probably fight us all at once, just with blades, and prevail. So it’s the nauthus and the nutmeg.”
The cook nodded and uncovered a platter that had been pushed to the back of his bench; the undercook took it up on a paddle and thrust it deep into the massive stone oven.
The cook unstoppered the nutmeg vial and stirred a generous handful into the mulled ale warming on the iron rack above the oven vent. Separately, they were harmless, the nutmeg a spice and the nauthus a fatty thickener for gravies and cooked sauces. Together, they acted as a deadly-and swiftly virulent-poison.
The Lords Yellander and Eldroon loved poisons. And as everyone on staff at the Oldcoats Inn now worked for them, the loves and desires of Yellander and Eldroon reigned, as Lathalance of the Zhentarim was about to unfortunately discover.
Lathalance sipped appreciatively. The mulled ale was very good. He sipped some more, and turned to the venison pie only reluctantly. It was steaming hot, and smelled-ahh, yes…
It tasted even better than it smelled, and he had to stop himself in mid-forkful to avoid burning his gullet.
And then a different sort of fire bloomed inside him, racing up and out his nose, and Lathalance convulsed, slowly went purple-like a bright over-ripening fruit-and slumped over in the chair, staring wide-eyed at nothing.
After a time, the fly that had come into the room with the food got tired of walking all over the half-eaten pie and the rim of the tankard, and buzzed over to Lathalance, where it walked daintily to and fro over his staring eyes.
“Has it worked, yet?”
“Long since, if he ate any at all. Unless he has some sort of magical protection.”
“Huh. If he had that, he’d be down here trying to hack us all apart already! Torence, Orban-trot up there and see if our Zhent guest’s deep silence means what I think it means.”
“And if he’s as right and bright as a spring day, and tries to kill us?”
“Wear the rings. His spells will be hurled back from you and his blades will pass through you harmlessly, and you’ll have a wonderful story to tell in taverns.”
The two serving-jacks gave Ondal Maelrin sour, disbelieving looks, but they’d been bullyblades in the service of Lords Yellander and Eldroon for long enough to know what would happen if they disobeyed Maelrin. Like every lass and jack in the Oldcoats Inn, they served Yellander and Eldroon in matters shady and sinister. At least at this inn, playacting meant regular meals and a roof over their heads and ale and wine whenever they felt thirst.
Wherefore they donned the rings, nodded curtly to Maelrin, and went up the back stairs with their swords drawn.
It had been more than a tenday since the secret panel in the back of the wardrobe had been used, and its hinges squealed.
“Bane’s brazen boll-” Orban snarled, ere a glaring Torance slapped him fiercely across the throat to silence him.
Like two black shadows the serving-jacks came out of the wardrobe and crossed the room to the man slumped in the chair. Torance leaned forward to peer into the Zhentarim’s staring eyes from less than a finger- length away, and then nodded.
“Dead, right enough,” he told Orban. “Glorn hasn’t dug the grave yet-Old Ondal wants it big enough for five or more, not just this one-so for now we’ll have to put him under the hay in the end sta-”
The dead man’s hands shot up to sink fingers deep into Torance’s throat, and squeeze, hard.
The startled serving-jack fought to raise his sword and draw breath, kicking and flailing-but the dead man in the chair ignored his frantic hacking and throttled him all the harder, standing up suddenly to haul Torance off his feet and swing him.
The dying man’s boots caught the fleeing Orban across the back of the head. The dead Zhentarim let go of Torance to let him sail across the room and crash into a wall. Lathalance sprang forward to pounce on the fallen Orban, pinning him to the floor with both knees, and brutally twisted his head.
The moment that thick neck broke, Lathalance was up and across the room again, to serve Torance the same way.
Bleeding copiously from the deep cuts Torance’s sword had inflicted, the dead Zhentarim then picked up the two men he’d just killed, stumped to the wardrobe with them, and shouldered through it into the servants’ passage beyond.
As he dragged the two dead serving-jacks down the back stairs, Old Ghost made the body he was animating grin hugely. Ah, but he was enjoying this.
Frightened faces gaped at him as he passed the open door of the staff ready-room with his limp burdens. He gave them Lathalance’s best grin-or as good a grin as a purple body streaming gore from where one side of its head was largely sliced away can manage-and went on down the cellar stairs, to dump them.
In his wake, staff bolted in all directions, some seeking weapons, others a place to hide, and a few the portal, to report to their masters and plead for much armed aid-and swiftly.
Lord Yellander and Lord Eldroon strongly favored teamwork and plentiful reinforcements.
On her hurried trip through the Palace to Ghoruld Applethorn’s chambers, Laspeera ordered the two Purple Dragons back to their duties and collected a trio of on-duty war wizards. Her words brought stern excitement to their faces and the wands at their belts into their hands. She set a brisk pace, and let them scramble to keep up with her.
Applethorn’s office door was closed, and she smiled wryly at the words on the card in its placard-slide: “All inquiries to Laspeera of the Wizards of War.”
It was written in Ghoruld’s hand, right enough. She raised her left hand, calling up the powers of the ring on her middle finger-and then stopped and frowned, throwing up her other hand in a quelling warning to the younger mages behind her.
The door bore the usual spell-lock, and the trap magic that would hold immobile anyone passing through the doorway without the lock spell being properly ended. Both usual war wizard practice. Yet there was something more…
The ring winked in warning as she attuned it to ignore the lock and the hold, and seek that additional magic. Behind her, the other three war wizards waited patiently.
It was… something hostile, of course, but why the emptiness? Laspeera wondered The… oh, Mystra! It must be a feeblemind trap! Very dangerous to all mages, and so very much non-usual war wizard practice.
“By all Nine of the Hells,” she murmured. “That it should come to this…”
And then she shook back her sleeves and began to cast counter-spells with her usual unhurried, cautious care.
