Elminster Must Die

Back to your tomb, Lady Dark Armor. Until just the right moment to take care of the Lords Ganrahast and Vainrence.

It would not be long in coming.

In the meantime, there were two other minds to ride and their pairs of eyes to spy through. Being a manipulative mastermind was busy work.

Work that he loved-every sinister moment of it.

The former Night King of Westgate and incipient Emperor of Cormyr-and Sembia, and the Dales, and wherever else he could conquer, once he mustered the might of the Forest Kingdom for real battle-turned to his floating, conjured scrying-scenes.

Back to the beloved work at hand. First the stirge, and then Talane …

They were thankfully deep in Stormserpent Towers now, and Thirsty had obediently soared up into the darkness of the room’s vaulted ceiling a short while before, unseen by his two hireswords.

Just a few more deeds to do, and he could relax.

Marlin stood a good many paces back from the sellswords, lounging against a doorpost. They were both keeping wary eyes on him as they obeyed his latest orders, tossing the sacks of severed heads down into the roaring flames of the main tower’s furnace.

They expected to be shoved in after the heads, of course, but he smiled sardonically at them and displayed empty hands whenever they whirled around from the flames to give him hard and suspicious glares.

His smile broadened when one of them did something to his belt that made a ward rise with the usual faint singing sound. Its glow, before it faded into invisibility, was flat gray; a steelshield ward. Stretching like a wall right across the room between Marlin and his two hirelings, it would prevent the passage of any crossbow bolts, spears, or hurled darts or axes.

“Don’t you trust me?” he asked them in his best guise of wide-eyed innocence.

“No,” one of them replied bluntly.

“Wise of you,” Marlin commented before he gave the warbling whistle that brought Thirsty swooping down to sting them both.

The paralysis hit them before they could finish cursing, but not before they both crashed to a Stormserpent rug that had seen much better days.

Marlin strolled to a handy table, leisurely divested himself of the chalice and his sword belt, then removed a few rings from his fingers, and daggers from various sheaths up his sleeves and down one boot. Kicking off the boots, he unbuckled his waist belt and let his breeches fall.

Thus metal-free, he strolled through the ward and proceeded to kick the two helpless, paralyzed men into the furnace, one after the other.

Then he turned his back on the cloud of sparks swirling up, walked back through the ward, and took up the chalice to gaze at it admiringly.

Thirsty returned to his shoulder, rubbing affectionately against his cheek and neck, and he stroked it as he smiled at the chalice.

He must remember to let the stirge drink deep before the night was out. That fat she-dumpling of a cook he’d seen helping out in the kitchens, perhaps? Or should he hire someone and quell fears about the household for a while?

Ah, decisions, decisions …

He gazed at the Wyverntongue Chalice and let himself gloat. Yes, the night had been a triumph, to be sure.

So inside this large and elegant old metal cup was all that was left of an adventurer who’d once been among the most powerful in all the Realms. A hundred and fifty summers earlier, more or less, it had all come to a sudden end for the Nine, when Laeral Silverhand-later the Lady Mage of Waterdeep, alongside the infamous Blackstaff, Khelben Arunsun-had been possessed by the Crown of Horns. A god, or what was left of one.

And the Flying Blade held another of the Nine.

Thanks to much coin spent on various adventuring bands far less accomplished than the Nine-adventurers who were all since dead, thanks to more Stormserpent coin-Marlin knew how to command a blueflame ghost.

And knew where there was a warded spellcasting chamber in which he could test his control over said ghosts, without even Ganrahast detecting what he was up to.

Moreover, until Lothrae produced two ghosts of his own, a certain Marlin Stormserpent was free to proceed with his own, ahem, “dastardly plots.”

He chuckled, watching the ward-visible again, as it died-flicker and start to fail as the belt that it was grounded in started to melt. Hot places, furnaces.

Then he turned, hefting the chalice lovingly in his hand, and started the long walk through Stormserpent Towers to get the Flying Blade.

Through one of the many tall windows that he passed, the first glimmerings of dawn were lightening the last failing gloom of the night.

A new day was coming, and it was high time for the fun to begin.

“Ambition has felled so many, young Stormserpent,” Manshoon purred. “It has even humbled Fzoul of the Too Many Gods and the strutting, preening Chosen of Mystra, Elminster of Shadowdale not least among them. I’ve tripped over my own ambitions a time or two, myself. Have a care now, King Marlin, Secret Lord of Westgate or whatever you strive to first become, that ambition not cause your swift and premature fall. Oh, no. I need you to last until I deem you expendable.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NOTHING TO LAUGH AT, AT ALL

Amarune came awake quickly, her mind singing with alarm. There it was again, and definitely not in her dreams. Another stealthy sound. Nearby.

She’d fallen asleep at her scribbling, head down on the litter of papers on her desk. No ink all over her cheek this time; that was one good thing. All was dark. Her little candle lamp-only a stub to begin with-had guttered out.

So where-?

Ah, there it was yet again. That time, despite the pitch darkness all around, she knew where it was coming from and what it was.

Someone was using the blade of a knife to try to force open her shutters.

Very quietly.

“That won’t work,” she announced calmly, moving as soundlessly as she could from where she’d spoken to stand at one side of the closed shutters, the spear from under her bed ready in her hand.

“Got you awake, didn’t it?” a rough and familiar voice replied calmly from the night outside the window. “I’ve work for you, Rune. It’s Ruthgul, if you haven’t marked my dulcet tones yet. I’m alone.”

“What sort of work?”

Thieves in the city who weren’t careful didn’t live long enough to accumulate hard-bitten pasts.

Not that thievery didn’t run in her blood, if skill at thievery could run in the blood. Most tales insisted she’d been the daughter of the legendary Old Mage of Shadowdale, Elminster.

“Need a false contract signed,” Ruthgul growled, breaking into her thoughts-and just why had she been thinking about that, anyway? Ye gods, what nex-

“Copy a signing I’ve brought, onto it,” he added. “Match the ink close, if you can.”

Amarune made a sound that was half a sigh and half a chuckle, undid the catches on her shutters, and