'Please bear in mind that the dowager lady we met in the courtyard is precisely the type to go running to the king with complaints no matter what happens. Let's not be stupid enough, or allow ourselves to be goaded far enough, to give her anything reasonable to complain about. Let her make herself ridiculous. Don't give her any chance to make us look the fools.'
He tossed his belt to the floor and undid the sash to let his overrobe fall open. 'Now, the baths await. See to your rooms and baggage-and gentlesirs all, let us be very clear: this situation could hold peril, so I'll tolerate no pranks. Save your nasty magics for other folk, not your fellow mages.'
Without another word, Broglan strode to the bath chamber. Insprin followed, and they heard the metal lids clatter up as the two older mages uncovered the heated baths.
With one accord the four younger war wizards turned to the heap of baggage and started pulling and tossing satchels and crates aside.
'So, laddies-pleased to be here?' Lhansig cooed in mimicry of a gushing matron, batting his eyebrows.
'Thanks to Mother Laspeera,' Corathar said savagely, 'I'll have to miss the Six Harpists concert, just to cool my heels in this backwater. Thank you, Mother Inthre!'
Murndal smiled. 'I remember when she still called herself Laspeera Naerinth, before she married her mysterious man.'
'Oh, yes. Do we still know nothing about him?'
'Well, he keeps to her quarters all the time-and I do mean all the time-cloaked and masked. The mask, they say, changes his features constantly, so that none know what he truly looks like. He can cast spells, but wears a blade. Some say he's a Harper, some-'
'I know, I know,' Hundarr broke in sarcastically. 'Some say he's a Red Wizard, some a Zhentarim, some a Halruaan outcast, and a few are even proposing he's a lich from long-lost Netheril. They say such things about every recluse in this land who knows a few light spells!'
Murndal sighed. 'Yes, but this one does spend time scrying and working on spells. I've seen glimpses of the first and smelled and heard the less successful forays of the second. He's a powerful mage, all right, but he can't be a lich! Can you see Laspeera going to bed with a dead man? Or some sort of well-spoken, magically adept monster? I don't think so!'
'We're not here to think,' Corathar said sharply. 'That's the problem. We're always sent to places to look impressive and scare the chitlins out of folk, so they'll think-think twice, that is, about doing naughty things ever again.'
'Well, I think we look very impressive,' Lhansig joked, turning a cartwheel. 'By the gods-you were all upside down, for just an instant there! How do you mages do that?'
Hundarr rolled his eyes. 'Must you?' He turned to one of the doors. 'If you must play such tricks, turn a few of those cartwheels in your bath-and call us in to watch, first!'
'One of these days Lhansig'll trip over his own tongue,' Murndal murmured. 'I wonder if we'll all be there to watch then?'
The wine and the roast boar had both been good, very good. They almost made up for having to listen to the barbs of the old Dowager Lady Daggertongue.
Lhansig chuckled and shook his head as he strode to the jakes-they probably called it a garderobe here, just to seem more sophisticated. It was the same brittle, empty way that Hundarr strove to be sophisticated. Lhansig rolled his eyes and hummed 'I've Always Been A Lady Fair' as he shouldered his way through the door.
A single lamp was guttering, and the place wasn't any too well lit. The sea-serpent-mawed bowl he was seeking ought to be around here. . yes. He contentedly fumbled with the laces of his codpiece-and so never saw the hand that drove his head forward against the wall, hard.
Lhansig Dlaerlin reeled back, dazed. Deft hands plucked his tunic up and over his head, blinding him.
He was struggling to draw breath when two very sharp things burst through the cloth and into his eyes … and there was no longer any need to scream.
White fire surged through the brain of the man who was always smiling and joking, and he opened his mouth in a last, soundless laugh as all he had ever been was sucked away. It did not take long.
Quick hands laid a silver harp pin on the wizard's breast-and then whimsically plucked up his unlaced codpiece and perched it on Lhansig's nose. It was a gesture worthy of the man, after all.
'Great gods above!' Broglan gasped, rising from the body, looking old and sick as well as worried. 'The effrontery of this!'
The somber circle of shocked faces around him remained silent. Insprin, on his knees by Lhansig's motionless form, looked up and said quietly, 'Nothing my Art can find.'
'Then put his codpiece back and cover him,' Broglan said in sudden, savage anger, face going red, 'before one of the guards comes in here, and the jest spreads all over the keep!'
'S-Some jest,' Corathar said, white to the lips.
'Death is never far away, lad,' Insprin said almost absently. Corathar turned a glare of mingled hatred and fear down at the older wizard. Not seeing it, the veteran mage added, 'This was a clear warning to us.'
Broglan looked down again at Lhansig's eyeless, staring skull. The flesh had been burned away, leaving the death-grin of the bones beneath. He shivered. 'Even the Harper badge told us nothing?'
Insprin shook his head, and plucked the pin from Lhansig's breast. One of the younger mages drew in his breath, as if expecting deadly magic to be unleashed-but nothing happened. Insprin shot a reassuring look in that direction, and mutely held up the badge.
It gleamed in front of Broglan's nose in the flickering candlelight, and he took hold of it. 'Why a Harper badge?'
'One who was slain here-Hornblade-' Murndal said, 'his was found on him, the seneschal said.'
Broglan Sarmyn frowned, looking worried again. 'This must be the work of Storm Silverhand. We were warned about her for good reason. She must be here already, lurking in the keep!'
He strode to the door, and then turned and snapped grimly, 'Insprin, inform the seneschal and the boldshield about Lhansig's. . demise. Have the Purple Dragons search the Haunted Tower. I'll go to farspeak the royal magician.'
THREE
The wards flickered one last time before settling down to a steady glow. Satisfied, Broglan Sarmyn seated himself at the table, sighed, and unwrapped the bundle he'd laid there. Black velvet unfolded into a circle with a diamond-shaped cushion at its center. On its puffed softness lay a flat-bottomed but spherical chunk of glossy black obsidian as large as Broglan's fist.
He took a deep breath, glanced around the room warily, and tapped the stone with a finger, murmuring a certain word under his breath.
The stone quivered and slowly lifted away from its cushion, wavering up into the air to hang above the table at about the level of Broglan's nose.
Broglan stared at it less than happily, the worry lines on his forehead deep again, and said, 'Broglan Sarmyn, speaking from Firefall Keep. Lord High Wizard?'
'I hear you,' the royal magician's voice rasped from the stone. It sounded sharp-but then, through speaking stones, it always did. 'What news?'
'One of my team has been slain, presumably by the same creature or magical attack that killed the Lord Summerstar and the Harper agent,' Broglan said heavily. 'Lhansig Dlaerlin is no more-and we're no wiser as to how it was done. A Harper pin was left on his chest for us to find, and the body was arranged in such a way to mock us.'
'Burned out, and barred to all magic, as before?'
