The moment she unshuttered the lantern and sat down in the little cavern facing him, Elminster frowned at her. “Ye look thin,” he said reprovingly. “Scrawny. Have ye been eating properly?”
Storm gave him a dark look. “Just how do you think I heal your mind?” she hissed, angrier than she’d thought she’d be. “I draw from
The Old Mage sighed. “Sorry, lass. I’ll steal ye some healing potions when I’m back inside, for when we meet again.”
He nodded in the direction of the damp old smuggling tunnel that led away from the cavern, curving into unseen distances and descending to pass under the walls of Suzail, but they both knew he meant inside the royal palace, where for some seasons they’d been posing as old Elgorn Rhauligan and his aging sister, Stornara, minor palace servants.
Storm waved a hand, dismissing healing potion thefts until some future time when they were together inside the palace. “El, are you well enough to cast those guises on us, without …?”
“Turning into a drooling, yapping thing again? ’Tis to be hoped.”
It was Storm’s turn to sigh. “I need a little
Elminster chuckled. “Ye
Storm crooked one eyebrow. “Not against me?”
“Tease not, but tell: what word was brought back to the Crown of the fray at Tethgard?”
Storm shrugged. “I don’t look like the fetchingly spotted and wrinkled old Stornara without your magic, so I haven’t been able to get into the palace. The more talkative courtiers who drink at two of the taverns I’ve visited, however, tell lurid tales of a great spell battle against mysterious, unspecified fell wizards who slew all but a handful of the many brave, loyal, and vastly outnumbered wizards of war and loyal highknights who went up against these foes of the realm.”
“Of course. And those survivors were?”
“I know Starbridge survived, because I sent him into slumber before the battle, and I’ve heard he’s now been made commander of the highknights. And I’ve seen Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake from afar, strolling along the promenade-as pompous and strutting as ever-so I know
“No doubt. What of Alassra?”
“Mad again; turned herself into a monster and flew off. Right now, she could be anywhere.”
“She gave her sanity right back to me, didn’t she?”
Storm nodded glumly. “She always returns to the same few places. My farm, for one. Not that getting her to talk to us is going to be easy. It’s going to take a lot of enchanted items to bring her mind back again.”
“I’m done with dragging her back to herself for a few days or a few hours,” Elminster said quietly. “It’s time to cure her for good.”
“That will take some
“I care not if I have to strip Cormyr bare of its every last item, crowns and regalia included,” the Old Mage replied calmly. “If they treat me as a thief and murderer, then a thief and a murderer I shall be. I’ll take what I need to make her sane again, once and for all-and send anyone who stands in my way to greet the gods. I’m done with being kind and gentle to cruel fools.”
Storm frowned at him for a moment, hearing more bitter steel in his voice than she’d heard in a long time. “Be careful whom you slay, El. Cormyr may soon run out of cruel fools, if we fight many more Tethgards,” she told him.
Elminster shook his head. “New ones will arise to fill the boots of those we blast down,” he replied. “Every realm seems to have an endless supply of them.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The room was small and round. It was also dark, stale, and very dusty. Hardly surprising, being as it hadn’t been used for years. Until now.
Marlin Stormserpent edged into it with shuffling care, trying hard not to bump his hot shuttered lantern into the untidy mounds of broken furniture crowding the chamber.
It had taken him some trouble to slip away from the family servants unseen, curse their diligence-but that was nothing to what trouble he’d find if just one of them followed him and overheard any of what was about to be said.
The stout old door still had a bolt, massive and old-fashioned, and he shot it firmly across before daring to open the lantern enough to see his way through the maze of yesteryear’s marred elegance.
Dust lay like a thick fur cloak over much of this uppermost room in the most disused turret of Stormserpent Towers. Marlin’s lip curled. Of course.
His home was one of the older and grander noble family mansions in Suzail. Once there had been far more Stormserpents clattering and prancing and sneering around the place, but, well … a lot of things had been grander once.
And perhaps-just perhaps-might be again.
From atop what looked like a cloak stand, Marlin took up an ordinary-looking glass orb, a milky sphere a little smaller than his head, the sort of idle ornament that had been fashionable fifty or sixty Mirtuls earlier. He went to a small round table and sat in a lopsided chair drawn up to it, setting the orb atop an empty and garishly heavy metal goblet that stood on the table.
Marlin squared his shoulders then touched the smooth, curved glass, murmured a certain word, and … a glowing cloud slowly appeared in the air above the orb and thickened into silvery smoke.
Smoke that twisted, swirled, and became the glowing image of a person.
Lothrae.
He had no idea who Lothrae really was, behind the mask the man always wore.
As always, Lothrae sat in front of his own orb in a chair with an upswept back like falcons’ wings, in a room somewhere with walls of once-grand but now cracked and mold-stained gilt stucco adorned with a pattern of little blue griffons.
“You are late.” Lothrae said those three words like cold stones leisurely dropped into an abyss.
“I-had some trouble getting free of my mother and the servants, Master,” Marlin stammered, rattled in an instant and hating it. “You warned me to avoid suspicion above all else, so …”
“Understood. It is time.”
Marlin swallowed. “Time? To begin at last?”
“To begin at last. Indubitably. I know where six of the Nine are, beyond doubt, and have strong suspicions as to the whereabouts of the seventh. Any two of them should be able to win past the paltry wards left to the Crown of Cormyr these days-and destroy any war wizard they can catch alone.”
“The Nine?”
“Marlin,” Lothrae said softly, “don’t pretend you know nothing of this. You are certain the Flying Blade holds one of the Nine, and have long suspected the Wyverntongue Chalice holds another. You just don’t know how to call forth or compel the Nine-wherefore all your stealing of old texts and drowning sages in drink seeking to pry secrets out of them. You’ve been so clumsy about it that some war wizards figured out what you were up to long ago.”
“They-they-?” Marlin knew he was going white; he could feel the coldness rushing across his face.
“No, they’ll not come bursting in on you. I took care of them as they discussed you, before they could spread word of your fumblings among all the wizards of war. Right now, among those who’re left, you’re suspected of
