become home.
Just when had that happened? And how?
Elminster came to a halt. Here, at the lowest spot in the passage, where the walls glistened with seepage, there was always a puddle of water. Sounds from the palace end of the tunnel always echoed here, clearly audible far from their source, and unless a foe was hard on one’s heels with a blade drawn or a spell on his lips, ’twas always worth halting for a breath or two to listen for what might be waiting in one’s near future.
Aye-there! The scrape of a boot, again. Someone was waiting up ahead where the passage opened out into the wider undercellar. Someone who’d already grown bored.
“My foot’s asleep again, stlarn it,” came a thin, waspish male voice, startlingly loud and sudden. “Taking his godsfire-damned own time about it, isn’t he?”
“Huh,” another, deeper male voice muttered in reply. “Probably wounded and wary-and so, slow. Thal didn’t see him, remember; just Storm Silverhand heading away from the city wall right quick. Meaning the Old Mage’s wits are his own again, or she’d not leave him-so back here he’ll come. Back to where the magic is.”
“Where he’ll find us ready for him.”
“I hope.”
“You doubt the Royal Magician’s wisdom in this?” That was a snapped, swift challenge.
The reply was wearily calm. “How many went up against him out at Tethgard-and how many came back alive?”
There was a short silence before the other man snarled, “I don’t want to talk about it. I … Things did not go well.”
“So much half the palace knows-as all of Suzail will, tomorrow. How’s Tethlor?”
There was a loud sigh. “Still in a bad way, to tell true. Almost as bad as Elminster.”
The Sage of Shadowdale smiled wryly in the darkness and started walking forward again. Reception foreguard or not, he wasn’t getting any younger.
As he went, he felt in the breast of his jerkin beneath the scorched smith’s apron and among the pouches at his belt for the things he’d probably need when he reached the far end of the passage. Handy things, Storm’s Harper caches, if one didn’t mind wearing gowns at the flashier end of the wardrobe …
Yet all gods blast this creeping madness and the magic he dared not hurl. He was going to have to waste
Like yon two, standing with thumbs hooked through their belts, barring his way with confidence that was probably more outward seeming than truth. One was in faintly glowing black leathers: a highknight of Cormyr. The other wore the robes of a wizard-and any wizard walking around the royal palace of Suzail, even its dingiest, deepest undercellar, must be a wizard of war.
They stared back at him. The old, bearded man striding unconcernedly up the passage in the darkness, alone and swordless, didn’t look like a great wizard. His clothes looked as old as he was, worn and none too clean and befitting a laborer who saw few coins and even fewer baths. Old, down-at-heel boots, stained and patched breeches, and a burn-scarred apron over a jerkin. The belt at his waist sagged onto his slim hips, loaded down with bulging pouches. He was hefting something in each hand; both somethings were small, dark, and round. And he was smiling.
Elminster gave them both a polite nod as he came to a halt and let silence fall.
It didn’t last long.
“We’ve been waiting for you, old man,” the one in robes said, his waspish voice now all smug menace.
“I had in fact figured that out, youngling,” Elminster replied pleasantly. “Once, I’d’ve been flattered, but down my long years so many have lain in wait for me that the thrill is quite gone.” He peered at them both, one after the other, tendering the same gentle smile. “I do hope ye’re not disappointed.”
Two faces glowered at him. One belonged to a highknight he knew, one Belsarth Hawkblade, a grim, oft- unshaven man of brutal ruthlessness but iron-hard loyalty to the Crown. The other was the man in robes and had a face unfamiliar to him-but kin to one he’d seen briefly in the fray at Tethgard; that of a war wizard busy mastering the art of the headlong, panic-ridden retreat. Scared down to his boots, he was.
“Hawkblade,” he asked, nodding toward the pale, tight-faced mage, “who’s thy friend? Wizard of War-?”
“Lorton Ironstone,” the wizard answered curtly, not waiting for Hawkblade to speak. “And I am charged to ask you, Elminster of Shadowdale, if you will now surrender yourself peacefully into our custody to face the king’s justice.”
“Charged by whom?”
“Ganrahast, Royal Magician of the Realm,” Ironstone snapped. “At the request of the king himself, Lord Vainrence gave us to believe.”
Elminster nodded. There would be a third member of this welcoming foreguard, probably busy creeping up behind him right then …
“Well?” Ironstone snapped. “We require a reply, Old Sage of Shadowdale! In case it’s escaped your notice, we’re in Cormyr here-where
“Murder? I was abed with my lady at night, out under the stars in the depths of the forest, when a dozen men set upon us, hurling spells despite my warnings that doing so would mean their deaths. We were attacked by a force that well outnumbered us, and we fought to defend ourselves. Some of our attackers fled by magic, and the rest perished in battle. Ye-who were not there-now deem their deaths ‘murder’? A murderer is one who goes seeking the deaths of others and achieves them. They tried to be murderers, aye. They were also warned, all of them-and learned too late that foolish aggression has consequences.”
Elminster paused then to give Ironstone a smile as thin as a ghost’s. “A lesson ye, too, might well ponder at this time.”
The war wizard’s reply was an unlovely sneer. “Hoary old advice from a lone graybeard with a large mouth? I quake. Between, that is, gasps of disbelief at what some have the effrontery to say to try to justify their misdeeds. You admit you slew loyal Cormyreans who were on Crown business, while defying them. So you’re a murderer. Don’t seek to evade your fate through clever words. Nor by claiming you’ve led a long and high-minded life protecting and defending everyone.”
The old man cast a swift look back over his shoulder, as if he could see clearly in the darkness, then faced the two Cormyreans again, still hefting the small items in his hands, and shrugged. “Yet I
Ironstone was unimpressed. “You? Protector of what? Your own interests, most likely, that you trumpeted as those of Mystra when you were challenged. You were a meddler, a defier of authority, and a foe of kings. You never stood for any law, order, or rightful government-not like our mighty Vangerdahast.”
“Thy last two sentences, I’ll grant. I was not like him, though he grew to increasingly see matters as I did, as the years did to him what they did to me. He began as my apprentice-and in those days, when folk spoke of Vangey and used the word ‘mighty,’ the next word they always uttered was ‘annoying.’ ”
Hawkblade hastily quelled something that sounded suspiciously like a snort of mirth.
War Wizard Ironstone shot him a look then turned his head to thrust that same glare at Elminster, who added, “Peace, fairness, and order I’ve sought, aye, but I’m still seeking a ruler who consistently seeks to achieve those, as opposed to finding them by accident from time to time. I may yet find one, mind; I’ve only been looking for twelve centuries or so.”
“So you presume to sit in judgment of the Dragon Throne? To decide for yourself if you’ll obey us?”
El faced him squarely. “I do. Most folk, even if they see a looming danger, do nothing. A problem for someone else to deal with, they tell themselves. They make excuses or shut it out of their minds or keep busy with the everyday things in their lives. So they do nothing.
“Making you, in my eyes, a rebel or at the very least an outlaw.”
“Ah, another of those lawkeepers who decides on guilt without bothering with the little inconvenience of a trial or looking beyond first impressions or any of that.
