Elminster Must Die

Its bearer was every bit as agile as Amarune and probably far deadlier in any fight. If she happened to want the Dragonriders’ best mask dancer dead, Amarune was doomed.

“I’ve offered you fair coin,” Talane purred, “and really don’t believe you’re in any position to bargain with me, Silent Shadow. Or do you prefer to be called Amarune Lyone Amalra Whitewave? Only daughter of Beltar, last of your blood, whom the Helhondreths and the Ilmbrights would dearly love to find. They want their gems back, little Rune.”

Amarune stared at her visitor, not knowing what to say, fighting to keep her face as calm as stone.

She knows. She knows all about me. But how?

“Oh, I know you don’t have that chest of waterstars,” Talane added. “I do. Pity they blamed Beltar for that little theft; he was more useful to me alive. Almost as useful as you’re now going to be, little Rune.”

Her voice became softer, yet somehow more vicious. “One word from me and Cormyr’s proud wizards of war will be turning your mind inside out, learning all your little secrets and leaving you a drooling idiot as the price of their schooling. Which means you accept that fate-or you’ll be doing my bidding at prices I set henceforth, doing little tasks all over fair Suzail. I’ve amassed quite a list of little tasks, some of them too dirty for my hands to be seen anywhere near them. Quite a list; I hope you can flourish on mere scraps of sleep.”

She backed away. “I’ll come with the first of such tasks four nights from now. Feel honored, little Rune; you are my new ‘dirtyhands,’ and I don’t choose such agents lightly.”

“Honored,” Amarune repeated flatly.

Talane’s mouth twisted in something that was more sneer than smile. “Four nights,” she murmured, and she backed right out the window-and was gone, falling from view in eerie silence.

Something made Amarune hang back from rushing to where her shutters were swinging gently in the first gray hints of coming dawn.

She knew, somehow, that her unwanted new client would be nowhere to be seen. Certainly not as a sprawled, crumpled corpse on the cobbles below.

If Talane was flying, wriggling, or sheer-wall-climbing away right now in her real shape, and was in truth some sort of horrid monster, Amarune knew she should learn that as swiftly as possible … but in truth, didn’t want to know anything about it at all.

So she stood where she was, panting as if she’d run miles. Panting in fear that wouldn’t go away.

Why did life have to get darker and darker and more and more complicated? Why couldn’t it be like all heartsong chapbooks, where every last mask dancer had a dashingly handsome noble lord fall in love with her, whisk her away to his castle to lavish countless riches on her, marry her, and dwell with her there happily ever after?

“Farruk,” she whispered into the familiar darkness around her. It made, as usual, no reply.

No matter how much she tossed and turned, her bedclothes drenched and twisted around her as she fought with them and conjured up scene after scene of discovery and doom in her mind, sleep was nowhere to be found.

Which meant she’d be wan-eyed and weary indeed when next she took to the Dragonriders’ stage. Which in turn meant she’d be earning disapproving frowns from Tress, and far fewer coins than usual.

“Farruk farruk farruk farruk farruk,” Amarune hissed at her ceiling, more despairing than angry, rolling onto her back and flinging her damp linens aside. “What am I going to do?”

Something swam promptly back into her mind. The grinning face of Arclath Delcastle, that airy, idle, free- from-all-troubles nobleman. Heir of his House, which meant he hadn’t a care in the world and would never have to work a moment in his life or spend an instant thinking about where any coins he’d need might come from.

She should hate him for that-did hate his ruder moments of jesting and smirking coin-flicking at her most intimate spots, and his everpresent carefree jauntiness-but somehow …

Angrily she thrust him aside, tried to think of this Talane and who she might be, how to discover who she was and somehow use that to get free of her-only to have young Lord Delcastle pop right back up to grin at her, nose to nose, winking and smirking as he always did. As if he could be of any use in …

She stiffened and then whistled in astonishment, long and low. Perhaps he could be of use, at that. Clearly he fancied her, if only as a night’s conquest; that should give her some sort of reins to lead him by.

As the old nobles’ saying went, “Dancers are meant to be used.” Well, so are young noblemen who can be led around by their manhoods.

But how, precisely?

Well …

Wouldn’t Lord Arclath Argustagus Delcastle himself know that best?

She’d have to interest him, have to become one of his enthusiastic little whims … a whim he clung to for long enough to deal with Talane.

Which meant she must not seduce him-at least, not right away-but lead him in a merry little dance. A rather long merry little dance …

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

JUSTICE, ORDER, AND REFINEMENT

Elminster stared down at all the sprawled and headless bodies for a long and silent time. The only movement he made was to fling out one arm as a barrier when Storm joined him, an arm that then pointed at the floor. It was awash in a dark, sticky carpet of drying blood.

“Should I-?” she asked, pointing past the bodies.

He shook his head. “Whatever Stormserpent came for-the long-lost Wyverntongue Chalice, most likely-is gone, and him with it. We’ve come too late.”

He turned back a few paces, moved purposefully to the wall, did something that revealed another hidden door, and waved Storm toward it.

Obediently she ducked through it. “We’re departing before the war wizards-and whatever Purple Dragons still survive in the palace-get here to blame us for this?”

“Exactly,” Elminster said shortly. “We’ve failed. Standing and staring won’t mend that.”

He set a brisk pace down the old and narrow secret passage he’d ushered Storm into; the strong smell of ancient and flourishing mildew grew stronger as they advanced.

“Just the two of us can’t do this anymore, lass,” he added grimly, as the passage split and he headed to the left without slowing, leaving the mildew reek behind. “And it’s time to stop fooling ourselves that we can.”

“Do ‘this’?”

“Save the Realms.”

“So we go now to find some comfy chairs and sit back to watch the world fall apart?” Storm asked softly, arching an eyebrow in devastating mimicry of his longtime mannerism.

El sighed, came to an abrupt stop, and spun to face her. “It’s time to recruit successors to take over the task of saving the Realms. We need new hands and sharp eyes and vigor.”

Storm studied his face. “You mean it.”

He nodded mutely, and they stared into each other’s eyes for a time. During which both silently found astonishment at how shaken this late arrival-this one theft not prevented-had left them.

Devastated and close to tears.

Storm nodded slowly, her gaze never leaving his. “Defending Cormyr from behind the scenes-even in the days when Vangerdahast prowled these halls like a sly old lion, meddling and manipulating and thinking he was protecting Cormyr-was what we did,” she whispered.