He waited, knowing the answer already. He’d cast some spells himself as part of those wards, a long time before, and knew very well the tingling of wards he’d worked on, all around him, being altered.
Rather than words from Mreldrake, he heard the faint scufflings of a frightened war wizard trying to crawl away without making a sound. And failing.
“Answer me,” he added calmly, “or die.”
A long moment passed. Elminster drew the wand from his belt again and held it warningly.
That brought results. “Y-yes,” the war wizard blurted. “But it was Rendarth’s idea!”
“I can scarce believe he acted on such a notion without the Royal Magician’s approval,” El replied as disapprovingly as any scandalized tutor. “Let us have truth, Wizard of War Mreldrake. In the name of the king. I
“I–I-Ganrahast said we could use the wards to hide and armor us against you,” Mreldrake admitted almost miserably. By the distant sound of his voice, he was slowly crawling away down the passage.
“And clever Rendarth took it upon himself to use it to augment the bolt ye three hurled at us,” Elminster said heavily. “Did ye not know doing so would ruin and consume the wards immediately around us here? Leaving a gap in them, and weakening the entire web loyal wizards before ye spent centuries weaving?”
“I … you must be stopped. At all costs.”
Elminster exploded. “Idiots! Ye three strip away centuries of defenses-warding spells ye don’t even know how to replace-just to smite me! What price Cormyr’s future, if ye toss it aside so readily to win one day’s victory? What of the morrow, hey? Despoilers! Fools! Irresponsible children!”
The reply that came out of Rorskryn Mreldrake then
Shaking his head in exasperation, Elminster let him go. The lesson he’d take back to Ganrahast was one that had best be learned swiftly and well.
Younglings, these days. Win the day, and bother not with looking beyond the end of one’s nose …
It was a wonder there were any realms left in the world, at all.
Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake was almost sobbing from lack of breath as he panted his way around another corner, his frantic sprint falling into an awkward stumble.
He never even felt the spell that fell on him like a net, claiming his mind in mid-panic.
Before he knew it, a steel-hard grip was closing firmly on his mind.
“As it happens, wormling,” a gentle whisper rolled through his head, seeming to bring with it a floating pair of dark eyes as sharp and hard as the points of two daggers, “the Sage of Shadowdale is not the only one who has taken to hiding in this large and rather well-appointed royal palace. I, too, want all thoughts of altering its wards to be crushed and quelled, promptly and completely. I am Manshoon and am even more terrible than the legends about me suggest.”
The grip became a tightening cage.
“Rorskryn Mreldrake, you are mine now.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The darkly handsome man made his latest acquisition abruptly turn and slam himself face-first against the wall.
Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake groaned dazedly, staggered back from the wall, and reeled a little as he resumed his swift, gasping trot along the passage.
Manshoon arched a critical eyebrow. His control over this wormling was complete, but weak tools do poor work. This coward Mreldrake was a wizard of war, yes, and a pair of somewhat useful hands, too, but no great prize. Certainly not up to the task he needed done.
Mreldrake, Rendarth, and Nalander must all vanish or be silenced, soon, to send the right message to the Royal Magician and his trusted second that doing anything at all to the palace wards was a
First, however, the more pressing task.
The energetic young Stormserpent was about to fall afoul of the usual treachery, and must be rescued from it.
It wouldn’t do to have the items he bore that were linked to the Nine fall into the wrong hands and plunge all Suzail into a tiresome battle as the war wizards and various ambitious nobles and mages-including both shadow- commanded and independent Sembians, to say nothing of all the wolves-for-hire in Westgate-got wind of something worth seizing and tried to take it for themselves.
No, the overbold young fool of a noble needed rescuing. A swift and forceful saving that would require someone far more competent than Mreldrake. Someone who knew the palace well and served Cormyr-or at least her vision of it-with fierce loyalty. Someone undead, whom he commanded.
The death knight who was called “Lady Dark Armor” in the dark tales whispered in back palace rooms. Targrael, whose twisted mind was already his.
Smiling, Manshoon murmured a spell and bent his will down into chill, dusty darkness.
Down, down into a certain old, seldom-visited tomb deep in the palace.
Down to where someone smiled in her endless unbreathing, unthinking oblivion, and stirred …
Targrael smiled in the darkness.
Awake again, after too long asleep. She was aware of another mind, folded around her own and watching her. Strong and dark and terrible, a mind that had mastered her before …
Abruptly her attention was forced away from that lurking presence to the point of her own nose. To the slab of smooth, unbroken stone just beyond it.
“I am the last lady highknight, and the best,” she whispered fiercely to the lid of the closed coffin above her.
There had been a time when, yes, she’d been as insane as your average gibbering wizard, but that was past; Targrael knew quite well she was beyond death, and what she’d become.
And she’d found it quite suited her coldly ruthless self.
Death was a curious thing. Neither precious Caladnei nor shiningly heroic Alusair had perished in the ways everyone thought they had-not that she’d found any trace of Caladnei, yet, around the palace. Alusair was a different matter …
Targrael found herself quivering with rage at the mere memory and forced herself once more down into cold calm.
Patience. Stately patience.
I am, after all, Cormyr. Its sole true guardian; the Forest Kingdom and everyone in it depends on me, though they know it not.
Wherefore I tirelessly-her lips curled in scornful amusement at that, for she was either lost in oblivion or awake and unsleeping-lurk in and around Suzail, slaying all who displease me.
