Elminster Must Die

attention to hand axes, remember.”

“Or things that look like something else, but that their spell sees as a hand axe,” Handragon pointed out.

“Yes!” Stormserpent agreed excitedly, whirling to point at Handragon. “Well thought! Well thought!”

There were nods around the table, ranging from Sornstern’s gleeful one to Broryn Windstag’s grimmer agreement.

Every lordling in the room knew Huntcrown’s flaming slayers must be two of the three Nine survivors who were bound into items, and it followed that the sword and the chalice must already be in the hands of someone in Suzail who knew how to use them. Stormserpent’s outburst had just left them all with the strong suspicion that he was that “someone.”

The someone who commanded two flaming men or ghosts who’d slay anyone he chose. Any young noble lord he took a dislike to, for instance.

“Just the hand axe?” Stonestable asked confusedly. “You already know who has the sword and the chalice?”

“The palace does,” Marlin snapped, after a hesitation that was just a whisker too long. “The war wizards keep them both hidden, or I’d have had them already, and we’d be using them to make inconveniently nosy wizards and courtiers-and, the Felldragon forfend, nobles, too-disappear for good. Our good gain, that is.”

He was almost babbling. “But enough talk for now! This news overrides all! Get up and get out there, everyone! There’s a hand axe to be found!”

Chairs scraped back and lordlings clapped hands to the hilts of their blades out of long habit as his words rang around their ears. Then there was a general rush down the stairs as everyone hastened to do his bidding.

Or go back to bed.

At the moment, he cared not which.

Behind their departing backs, Marlin was busy wincing at the slip he’d made. He turned to seek his favorite decanter again.

If some of them said too much, and wizards of war came around poking long noses into the affairs of House Stormserpent, could they tell that the sword at his hip or an innocent chalice held a blueflame ghost inside it?

They’d not noticed the one or the other-even under their very noses, in their own palace-all these years, but then, they hadn’t really been looking, had they?

What did they spend most of their time really watching instead?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DRIVING WIZARDS TO DRINK

There were more guards than usual stationed about the palace-and no wonder, with the council almost upon Suzail, a flamboyant riot of nobles freshly arrived in the city, and more lords on the way.

Nevertheless, Lady Highknight Targrael made her way up two floors and across the vast building with casual, almost contemptuous ease. With Ganrahast and Vainrence missing, their wizards lacked both orders and attention for much else but finding their commanders-and as they’d long since scoured the palace several times over, most were seeking elsewhere.

Which meant borrowing long-dead Queen Gantharla’s double-ended dagger from where it hung in the Blackrood Chamber was largely a matter of strolling there, plucking up the nearest chair to stand on, and tugging the weapon free of some old and brittle leather thongs that bound it on display, high on the wall.

Those bindings collapsed into swirling dust, and the deed was done. Chair back where it should be, and strolling away, with the young, yawning guard in the passage outside the door none the wiser.

The dagger was a beautiful, slender thing-elven; all flowing lines, deceptively delicate shape, and razor- sharpness, even after all this time-and rode in Targrael’s hand well.

She hefted it, smiling to herself, and murmured, “Elminster must die.”

The black-armored death knight was still triumphantly uttering that last word when the secret door she was reaching for swung wide-and she and the armored Purple Dragon who’d opened it from the other side found themselves staring at each other.

“Hold!” he snapped, striding through the doorway and bringing the spear in his hand up to point at her breast. Its tip glowed with a hue that told Targrael its magic could destroy her. His shield came up, too. “Drop that steel and hands to the ceiling, you! Your name?”

A lionar, by his badge. Whatever next? What was a lionar doing stalking about the palace with a spear and shield?

“Having the temerity to challenge me, that’s what,” she murmured aloud as she ignored his order … and their locked stares both grew colder.

“Your name!” he snapped loudly and insistently.

Targrael sighed. This was becoming tiresome, and he was getting a very good look at her.

“Lady Highknight, to you,” she told him coldly, “and I’ll give the orders here, Lionar. Point that spear elsewhere or pay the price.”

The spear was suddenly almost up her nose. “You’re no highkni-”

“Enough,” Targrael snarled disgustedly, calling forth what sages liked to call “unholy flames,” right into his face-and sidestepping as she did so, to avoid any desperate spearcast. She held Gantharla’s dagger behind herself and didn’t bother to draw her sword. Not when his despairing howl would be over in another moment, and by then she’d be through the secret door and have it closed behind her.

Leaving the luckless lionar down for days, or worse. If he awakened at all, he’d be raving about his unfortunate encounter with one of the palace ghosts.

Pesky things, ghosts.

A lone chuckle bubbled forth in the great cavern deep in the heart of the palace undercellars. Ah, Targrael …

Once, the cave had been Baerauble’s most secret spellhurling chamber, where the founding archwizard of the human realm of Cormyr had conducted his boldest magical experiments.

Some of those castings had gone very awry, and it had become a place of crawling wild magic. Best abandoned, behind heavy wards to keep the unwary from blundering into deadly peril or venturing spells of their own that might bring most of the palace down on their heads in shattered ruin.

Wild magic had lurked there for centuries until the Spellplague had boiled it away and had left the great cave yawning empty, awaiting anyone’s arrival.

That arrival had befallen, and the anyone who stood there chuckling was a man who intended to soon rule Cormyr and more.

A man whose archwizardry would have given Baerauble himself pause, who stood alone yet rode the minds of many others.

Both in the cavern and in the depths of Targrael’s mind, Manshoon chuckled again.

Ah, but his Lady Dark Armor was a treat. He’d almost been seduced by his enjoyment of her coldly malicious mind into keeping her active too long. At an ever-increasing risk of losing her to the spells of frightened wizards of war as they finally awakened to the growing perils all around, as nobles poured into Suzail, the day of the council rushed nearer, conspirators plotted busily on all sides, blueflame ghosts stalked the streets slaying at will, and Elminster strolled the passages of their own palace uncaptured.

They were still an utter chaos of incompetent, overly officious fools, but they were starting to face life without Ganrahast and his faithful hound of a Lord Warder and-at last-trying to make some decisions themselves.

The wrong ones, thus far, and all of them too late, but even idiot magelings can’t help but notice a beautiful, elegant, and very dead woman striding around their palace in black armor of archaic style, defying all orders … and