The Princess in the Mask, she could be, hungering after the right dragon to warm
She bent to her littered desk in sudden urgency, snatched a bit of reed-weave paper out of her heap of salvaged scraps, plucked up her quill, and started scribbling. Sometimes ideas came pelting down harder than harbor rain …
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elminster gave the undead Steel Regent of Cormyr a long, hard look. “I thought I knew these halls. Evidently not.”
Not surprisingly, Alusair’s answering smile was thin and ghostly. “Evidently not.”
That was all she said, so after waiting vainly for more, El sighed and asked, “So just how many whirlbone traps don’t I know about?”
Alusair shrugged. “Six, perhaps seven. I could be more precise if I knew just how many secrets of my family you know about.” She held up a hand to forestall his reply and added, “I speak now of palace architecture only, not long-hidden heirs, bastards, scandals, and proverbial skeletons in wardrobes. We’d be here a tenday or more, I’m sure, if you started in on those.”
Elminster nodded. “At least. Well, then-”
Alusair flung up both her hand and her sword in urgent unison, whirled, and was gone, leaving behind the whisper: “He’s done something. The skeletons are down and done. Our Stormserpent continues to surprise. I must see.”
“Go, then,” Elminster murmured. “My time for flying and hurrying isn’t upon us yet.”
Not for the first time, he spoke to empty air. Much to Alusair’s displeasure, Elminster trudged along no more swiftly than before Storm had been at his side.
The two former Chosen walked patiently, trusting in the young noble’s men needing some time to plunder once they found what they were seeking. That did not suit the ghost’s patience-or lack of it-at all.
The passage they were traversing ran on into unseen gloomy distances, but Elminster suddenly stopped at a stretch that looked the same as the rest of it and flung out one hand to halt Storm. Then he touched a certain stone in the wall beside him with the other.
With the briefest of stony grating sounds, a section of wall slid inward, revealing the edges of a door-sized opening. El shoved on that moving door of stones-and they pivoted aside in unison, to reveal a dark passage beyond.
Storm rolled her eyes. “Are you
“Now, now, lass; they probably told Baerauble to see to the making of some secret passages, and he did his usual thoroughly overefficient job of it: thrice as many passages as needed, plus a
Storm regarded him with some amusement. “So he was as devious as you? I can scarce believe it! Fancy a wizard being sly!”
“Behave, stormy one,” he told her fondly.
Startled, Storm fell silent. He hadn’t addressed her by that term for centuries.
They padded along the new passage in companionable silence for some time ere once more starting to murmur to each other-low-voiced and often, as was their wont. They rarely mentioned Alassra. Instead, El spoke of items that held blueflame ghosts, items of
When he was done recounting snatches of blueflame ghost lore, El looked to Storm, seeking her willing agreement for such hunts.
She shrugged. “Why not? We’re losing her.”
“Hardly words of ringing eagerness,” he murmured.
Storm sighed. “We’ve run out of easily snatched magic items, and those who guard what’s left are watching and waiting for us. Our luck can’t hold forever, and our skills are failing us.”
“Well, there’s always the possibility of recruiting someone suitable to do the snatching for us.”
Storm regarded him soberly, knowing what was coming. “A blood descendant,” she said flatly. “And you have at least one young, vigorous, nearby, and quite likely suitable candidate in mind: Amarune Whitewave.”
At his nod, she frowned. “Just how much does she know of her heritage?”
Elminster spread his hands. “She’s heard that her father’s father’s mother, Narnra, was said to be the daughter of the notorious Elminster, but she considers such talk mere wild legend. One claim among so many others, in the small army of women reputed to have been fathered by everyone’s favorite Old Mage.”
Storm smiled thinly. “You
El sighed. “So rumor has it. Now, if rumor could just turn its mighty power to making me again a worlds- striding, peerless-in-Art Chosen of Mystra, once more young, hearty-strong, and a dallier with, say, a slim hundredth of the women I’m
“You’d have that army and several more besides.”
El gave her a wry grin, sighed heavily … and said no more.
In companionable silence, they walked on along lightless passages for what seemed a very long time.
Until it was Storm’s turn to sigh. “This Amarune is going to be a temptation for you.”
“Aye,” Elminster muttered. “Try not to remind me.”
“For one who knows how and has the spell, taking over bodies is so stlarning
El nodded. “And finding more magic around these halls that Alassra can subsume is getting harder. Pretending to inspect every crumbling inch of this palace only yields so many forgotten, free-for-the-taking baubles. The Crown of Cormyr quite reasonably wants to keep its crowns and such.”
“So right now …”
“Right now,” Elminster almost snarled, “our most pressing need is to stop young Stormserpent from getting any of these ghosts of the Nine. Our second need is to get those items ourselves. Our third is to recruit Amarune-
“The ever-vigilant wizards of war?”
“No, not those particular everpresent annoyances, this time. Someone else. Someone who hides behind Cormyr’s spying mages, looking our way only fleetingly. Someone whose magic is much more powerful than theirs.”
Storm stopped abruptly to stare at him.
“Someone whose magic is likely stronger than mine, too,” Elminster added grimly.
She blinked. “Do-do you have any idea who it is?”
Elminster made a rude sound. “If I did, d’ye think I’d be chasing around this palace after silly young nobles?”
Whatever reply Storm Silverhand might have made was lost then, as the spell-glow those voices were coming out of flared into wildness.
And fell silent, to hang in midair in the heart of a huge room’s chill darkness, flickering fitfully.
“Back into a ward that resists my spells yet, the pair of them,” a cold voice sighed. “Yet those wards grow steadily fewer. Soon, old foe, there will be none left to you-and the time of my triumph will come at last.”
As if in reply, the glow spat sparks. Then it faded, dwindling swiftly to … nothing.
Hmmph. Strong wards indeed.
“For centuries before I did,” the cold voice added, “others said Elminster must die. They were right, and more
