“In town to watch an old foe die?” Tessara asked boldly, but Rhauligan saw the sudden flush of crimson cross the face of his newfound companion, from ear to ear to fingertips, and made a swift interjection.
“Now, now. How can the lad be doing that when he’s but newly arrived in Suzail and doesn’t even know what’s going on? I’d like to hear the latest myself, O most masterful of gossips and spies!”
The room erupted in chatter as all four of Rhauligan’s acquaintances spoke at once. Dauneth thankfully covered his face with his tankard and thought about how good the Black Bottom ale was beginning to taste. The cacophony went on for some time, as none of the four, once started, had any intention of yielding to silence, but in the end it was the grim, stolid sword dealer who by dint of ponderous patience went on speaking after the others ran out of breath.
“… and the Royal Wizard continues to meet with every noble that he can pry out of the backwoods,” Turlstars concluded, his eyes rising suddenly to transfix Dauneth as if on a sword blade. The young noble almost choked on his ale.
As soon as he could safely speak, Dauneth filled the lengthening, expectant silence with the words, “Ah-no summons came to us from court that I know of, but several of my elders had been telling me for a season or more that it was high time I presented myself to the king, and I was told rather firmly about a month back that now was the time.”
“About a month back,” Darvae, the cloth merchant, echoed meaningfully, gesturing at Dauneth with his tankard.
Tessara snorted. “You see conspiracies and cabals under your trencher every evening, Athalon, and under your bed every morning, too!”
“You can get under his bed?” Rhauligan murmured. “This I must see!” The look Tessara gave him in return, amid the rising chuckles, had edges to it.
The caravan master Onszibar cleared his throat and said, “Athalon’s inference is, however, an interesting idea. Is this affliction of the Obarskyrs the result of a plan so wide-ranging that someone’s thought to drag all the young nobles of the realm here to Suzail to provide possible suspects for the attack on the royals?”
“Or to gather together nobles who are in on the plot,” Rhauligan put in eagerly, “without rivals, such as the other noble houses, noticing amid all the arrivals?”
“Or,” Tessara said softly, “to bring the nobles together so that rivals are within easy reach, so whoever’s behind this can more easily cut down foes and folk of families not in their favor?”
Caught in the center of a web of thoughtful glances, Dauneth felt suddenly that he was all too alone in a city of watching, waiting eyes where many blades were seeking his innards, rather than the exciting, bustling heart of the realm where one young Marliir in dusty boots was unknown and ignored. An unsettling view. He sighed and took another quaff from his tankard, hoping no one would see that his hands had started, ever so slightly, to tremble.
“But who has the wits to plan so deftly and bring Azoun to the edge of death and hold him there for so long?” Turlstars asked, bringing on a tense moment of silence that was ended-reluctantly-by the cloth merchant.
“Vangerdahast,” Darvae said, waving one of his sour-sweet fish tarts for emphasis, “and his war wizards.”
Rhauligan snorted. “If they wanted the throne,” he said flatly, “they could’ve had it years ago, without all this drama. A few quick spells and a mind link or a crowned puppet wearing the face of a tracelessly-disposed-of Obarskyr, and none of us the wiser. This feels like the work of someone who’s had to be very clever to avoid the war wizards.”
There were nods at this, but the caravan master said, “I can’t think our High Wizard’s behind this either, but he is the busiest man in the kingdom right now, flitting from one back room to another with scarce a stop for the chamberpot in between.”
More nods. “With most of the important nobles of the realm,” Tessara murmured.
Turlstars chuckled and waved at Dauneth with his tankard. “He’ll be getting to you soon, lad, just see if he doesn’t.”
“I’ll be pleased to assure him of my loyalty to the crown,” Dauneth said rather stiffly.
“Ah,” Tessara said, leaning forward in her chair to waggle a warning finger at him, her elbow on one knee, “but what if he comes to ask you to join in a task or two that leads to a new order in Cormyr?”
“A kingdom ruled by wizards?” Rhauligan said in disbelief. “The Sembians’d never stand for it. They’d hire every ambitious mageling they could find to smash such a realm!”
“Only to find their hirelings wiping out Vangerdahast’s lot and then taking their places! Wizards with power never wish to give up that power, be it magical or political.” The cloth merchant Darvae set down his own drink with a solid thunk to underscore his point.
“I’d not want to be a mage that tried any such thing,” Ithkur Onszibar said dryly, “in a world that holds the Red Wizards of Thay, the Zhentarim, and the mage kings of Halruaa. Once the mage realm is built, what’s to stop anyone with greater spells from taking it over from within?”
Turlstars waved a dismissive hand. “All this is hard-flying fancy, people. All we know is that Duke Bhereu has died, the king and Baron Thomdor linger near death despite wagonloads of priests and winged carpetfuls of war wizards laboring night and day, and our Royal Magician is trotting around meeting privately with various nobles, while all the younger sons of those same noble families, and all their elders who like to play at politics, converge on Suzail as if free dukedoms are being handed out at street corners.”
“As indeed they soon may be,” Athalon Darvae murmured.
Turlstars ignored the comment and continued. “Some folk think the wizard is just binding loyalties to the crown with threats and promises and making all the up-noses feel personally important. Others think he’s adding heads to his own little organization.”
“Or handing out orders to a cabal that’s long since established, and using the other little talks to hide that, or even to lay little tracing or thought-probing spells on the nobles who aren’t in his camp,” Tessara put in, with a meaningful nod of her head in Dauneth’s direction.
“But why all of this?” Rhauligan protested, waving his hands. One of them held a tankard, but as far as Dauneth could tell, the merchant had emptied it already. “We’ve all heard about the suit of armor that can heal and purify the man who sleeps in it and the spells that can grow new kings from a few pieces of the flesh of old ones.”
“New kings for old!” Tessara called softly, grinning. “New kings for old!”
“Stow it,” Rhauligan told her, not unkindly, and continued. “There are said to be thick-piled webs of safeguard spells on all senior Obarskyrs and heirs, as well as on the palace and the court and the royal hunting lodges and houses… and outback privies, for all I know! Have they all failed at once?”
“If a traitor among the wizards worked carefully to avoid detection,” Tessara said gently, “I’d be surprised if magic that is done could not also be undone.” Turlstars nodded grimly.
“I’ve heard,” put in Darvae, “that Lady Laspeera and some of the other war wizards started searching the vaults under the palace for a cure, but Princess Tanalasta had them turned out and ordered the under-cellars sealed.”
“Seems as though she wants dear daddy to die,” Tessara muttered.
Darvae spread his hands in a what-do-I-know gesture. “She said what struck down the king may have come from there, and it was best that such perils stay shut away until ‘the realm is out of danger.’ She must know what the vaults hold better than any of us.”
“The Doom of the Obarskyrs,” the caravan master intoned somberly. “The armories of the war wizards, full of stolen spells and locked lich tomes and strange things that flash and whir about but haven’t yet been probed for their secrets. Iron statues that walk. The Cursed Crowns. The meeting room of the Sword Heralds. The-“
“Lost Wyvern of Menacha. Yes, yes, and the stuffed remains of the Obarskyrs’ adversaries,” Turlstars said dismissively. “We’ve all heard the legends, and they’re just more flying fancy. I suspect that a lot of the talk I’m hearing around Suzail is the stuff of dreams, too… but we may as well wade through it…”
“Especially as some of it is really rich,” Darvae agreed with a grin. “Would you believe that Gondegal the Lost King has been seen in Marsember?”
“High Horn, I heard,” Tessara said quickly. “And he’s behind all this!”
“He and a hitherto unknown descendant of evil Prince Regent Salember!” Onszibar put in.
“What?” Turlstars asked sarcastically. “Not Salember himself?”
