Elminster Must Die

hastened to open up for the trio.

The revealed maw of revelry made Belnar and Halance both hesitate, so Arclath smilingly strode forward and led the way out of the night and into warm, welcoming hedonism. As he’d expected, they followed readily enough.

Lanterns of leaping flame were reflected from scores of polished copper wall adornments and artfully placed mirrors; a constant murmur of chatterings and chucklings washed over everything; and a thudding, piping tune was undulating and swirling sinuously from somewhere close behind the red-lit raised stage at the heart of the dimly lit sea of small-and crowded-round tables.

The Dragonriders’ had been open for only two summers but had established itself firmly at the social height of the “daring” private clubs that catered to the young and rebellious, rather than oldblood money, centuries-old heritage weighing in membership, and stiff courtesies. Anyone who had coin enough could roll into the Dragonriders’ to drink and talk, but no one would if they didn’t also want to watch mask dancers. Or even do more than watch them by paying steep extra fees and seeking out back rooms with doors decorated by painted masks to match those worn by the dancers they’d seen on the raised stages out front-wearing only masks.

Arclath was much of an age with his two palace friends and knew they might be stiffly mortified-or trying to seem so-for the first few drinks, but would be hungrily watching thereafter. By the Dragon, the dancers were beautiful and skilled enough that he loved to watch them, and he could hire his pick of lasses anywhere in the city or enjoy the company of many an ambitious beauty for free, purely on the strength of being Lord Delcastle. Yet he loved to watch here as hungrily as the next man.

Mask dancers had been the rage in Suzail for less than three summers, but it was a fury that, as far as Arclath was concerned, could last forever. Some began their dances clothed, and others didn’t bother, but always their faces were hidden behind grotesque, long-beaked, birdlike masks. These lasses danced on raised stages, almost-but never quite-touching the front-row patrons.

Tress was already smilingly showing the men to Arclath’s usual table, right in front of the club’s lone half-oval stage. She was the owner of the Dragonriders’ and more properly known as “Mistress,” but it had been two years since Arclath had heard even a Watch patrol address her thus. Just “Tress” she was, to everyone. She was tall, urbane, and always clad in leathers that made her resemble some bard’s fancy of what a sexy, wingless, humanoid dragon might look like. But she never danced on the stage, and there was no backroom door with any mark of a dragon on it. He’d looked.

She patted Arclath’s shoulder like an old friend, murmuring, “Your guests, Lord?”

“Of course,” he smilingly assured her. “And I do believe they’re as thirsty as you are strikingly beautiful, high lady!”

“Flatterer,” she purred fondly, gliding away to fetch some decanters herself, rather than signaling her maids.

The two uneasy, blushing young men sitting beside Arclath might have bolted from their seats right back out into the street if they’d had the slightest idea how much Tress knew about them at a glance, though they’d never darkened her doors before. She caught Arclath’s eye as she came back with the wine, interpreted his grin and slight shake of his head correctly, and did not address either of his companions by name.

Even as she smilingly called them “saers,” and bent over them to give them their choice of wine and a pleasant view of the dragon she’d painted sinuously arising from her cleavage, the owner of the Dragonriders’ knew the paler, thinner one in plain street tunic and breeches with the black curly hair was the young but dedicated Wizard of War Belnar Buckmantle. While the slightly larger, agile, and darkly handsome man in palace chamberjack’s livery was Halance Dustrin Tarandar, an amiable courtier of low rank but longtime, trusted service. It was the business of many club owners to know faces and names. For one thing, it prevented husbands and wives from encountering each other unexpectedly and unpleasantly when they were availing themselves of a club’s services to temporarily forget each other. For another, it kept inferiors and superiors in common service from seeing each other to the embarrassment-or worse-of both. It was also always handy to know when a senior courtier or a noble was in the house and not wanting to be recognized. It was even more useful to know when a wizard of war was visiting. Or several war wizards, especially if their faces warned that they might be ready for trouble and expecting it.

The style of Tarandar’s uniform sleeve told any Suzailan who cared about such things that he was a senior chamberjack, head of a duty of eight chamberjacks, the fetch-and-carry men who ran errands, delivered messages and small items about the palace, moved furniture as required, announced guests entering a chamber, and guided visitors through the chambers of state. The crook of the smile on Tress’s face told Arclath she regarded Tarandar as a fellow underappreciated and underpaid toiler in personal service to the too often ungrateful. If that smile had been a comment, it would have been “Poor lad.”

Seated beside Arclath Argustagus Delcastle-in his beribboned clothing, gilded wig, curl-toed boots, and all-his two court friends looked like two of his drab, timid servants. Who suddenly, despite their wide-eyed stares at the stage, were yawning. Tired little servants of the Crown, the both of them.

“So,” Arclath began, when Tress had poured each man his mumbled choice from the decanters and smilingly had withdrawn, “tell me about this Council of Dragons from the inside, as it were. Will there be wine? Dancing? And are we all going to have to put on fetching little dragon suits like the one Tress pours herself into?”

“Where’s he heading now?” Storm murmured, as the last of Stormserpent’s men vanished around that distant corner. “Not the Dragonskull, after all.”

The ghostly princess lifted shapely shoulders in a shrug. “He certainly knows where he’s going. Which is more than I do. Elminster?”

“Why do folk always think I know everything? Hey?”

“Perhaps because you’ve spent more centuries than I’d care to count very loudly pretending that you do,” Storm said sharply, before Alusair could say something worse.

The grin Elminster gave them both then was one Storm Silverhand had been seeing all her life. It had probably looked very much the same riding his possibly then-beardless face when he’d been about six summers old, back in long-vanished Athalantar.

“Well,” the Sage of Shadowdale said mildly, “he’s obviously going to wherever the treasure he’s seeking is really hidden. Somewhere nearby; near enough that he could use the Dragonskull Chamber as a navigational landmark to reach it.”

“A pirate, sailing my palace in search of buried treasure.” Alusair’s smile was bitter.

Elminster’s impish grin brightened. “That’s a very good way to think of Cormyr’s nobility. Rapacious pirates, all of them.”

“A wizard would know,” Alusair said over her shoulder as she departed the balcony through the nearest wall.

Storm and Elminster hastened to follow her. After all, they had to use the door.

Amarune danced at the very edge of the stage, tossing her head to let her unbound hair swirl as she crawled along the polished rim like a panther, growling and purring playfully at the men-and a few women, too-gazing longingly at her from the nearby tables.

Though not a hint of it showed on her face or in her manner-she was good at that-she was slightly irritated and almightily interested in what was going on at just one of the tables.

The one right in front of her.

Whereas the Lord Delcastle and his two companions seemed not to think she had ears at all, the way they freely discussed the council so close to her.

Oh, they knew she was there, all right.

The other two couldn’t keep their eyes off her, and Lord Fancybritches Delcastle, wearing his usual easy smile, was idly tossing coins to her in a steady stream, to keep her posing right in front of them.

His aim was as unerringly teasing as ever, too.

Yes, by the Dragon, the three genuinely seemed unaware she could hear all they were saying-and she was listening to them intently.

Such a gathering of nobles, after all, would mean the richest business of this season coming right into her