Elminster Must Die

seen before. The Lords Dawntard and Sornstern promptly fainted.

Marlin gave them a grim look then snapped at Windstag, “Catch your breath, then tell me your tale.”

Nodding, head down, and panting too hard to speak, Windstag fumbled in the breast of his disarranged jerkin and brought out-a glowing hand axe!

“Ha ha!” Marlin burst out, snatching it from him. “Well done! Oh, well done!”

And he rushed from the room, chortling in triumph.

Broryn Windstag fought to get in two gasping breaths more of air, then forced himself into a run, up and after Stormserpent.

Who was luckily still visible, racing up a narrow servants’ stair in the dimly lit distance. Windstag struggled after him, lungs burning, lurching like a drunken man in his pain and weariness, but clawing his way up the stairs and keeping Marlin-or at least the glowing axe-in sight.

Stormserpent ended up in the room where he always met with them. Axe in hand, he spun around, pointed at Windstag, and commanded, “Be still. Don’t move or speak until I’m done with the ritual.”

He turned away without waiting for a reply, so Windstag lurched to his usual chair and collapsed in it. Where he leaned on the table, still gasping loudly, able to do little more than stare at Marlin Stormserpent.

Who turned away for a moment, his elbow moving as if his fingers were busy getting something out of his own clothing, then turned back to face the table and Windstag.

Holding the axe up as if saluting with it, Marlin read from a scrap of parchment that he hadn’t been holding moments earlier. “Arruthro.”

That word seemed to roll away across a greater distance than the room could contain-and the air darkened. At first Windstag thought it was his own labored breathing that was making things seem that way, but then he felt a tension, almost a singing, in the air, too.

That definitely hadn’t been there, before.

“Tar lammitruh arondur halamoata,” Stormserpent announced, speaking loudly and slowly.

The room seemed to grow colder. Windstag swallowed a curse.

“Tan thom tanlartar,” Marlin added-and the hand axe silently erupted in weird blue fire. Raging flames raced down his arm to the elbow and then wreathed it and the axe in an ongoing inferno that- Windstag stared-seemed to cause Stormserpent no pain at all, nor even scorch his clothing. No heat was coming from it, only a deepening chill.

“Larasse larasse thulea,” Marlin declaimed, and the room went icy.

An instant later, the blue flames sprang from the blade of the axe, a flood of fire that arced to the floor and then rebounded up again in an upright column, a surging, rising thing that grew and grew. With a darkness at the heart of those rushing flames that slowly … became a man.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

MY HOUNDS TO HUNT YOU DOWN

At the sight of a man in the heart of the blue flames, Marlin Stormserpent laughed in triumph-but his mirth faltered when the flames fell to the floor with a crash, like the contents of an upended bucket of water, and were suddenly gone.

Leaving behind someone who was not wreathed in endless blue flames like Langral and Halonter had been.

Stormserpent joined Windstag in gape-mouthed, astonished staring.

Standing in his meeting room was an unlovely man in rumpled leathers who was stout-no, fat-and wrinkled with age and hard living. And who was staring back at him with a shrewd, measuring look.

“W-who are you? One of the Nine?” Marlin managed to ask when he found his voice again.

“Do I look like a bare-behind dancing girl? The Naughty Nine are all taller than me, lad, and far more shapely, too-though I’ll agree they don’t make cozy lasses like they used to! Nay, lad, I’m no dancer, whate’er yer preferences. I’m a bit of a trader and not much more, these days, though I guess ’tis no secret I’m a lord of Waterdeep.”

“Whaaat?”

“Nay, nay, no need for awe and astonishment. I,” the old man said sardonically, drawing himself up in mimicry of a grand ruler and striking a heroic pose, “am Mirt. Sometimes called the Moneylender, and more often- hem-called much worse things.”

Marlin stared in disbelief, growing a frown, then swiftly tried to force the old man back into the hand axe, as he could control Langral and Halonter.

Nothing happened.

“Sit down!” he snapped. “And-and cover your eyes with your hands!”

Mirt the Moneylender lifted one bristling eyebrow. “Children’s games, is it? I always wondered what wealthy younglings got up to when-”

“This one, a lord of Waterdeep?” Windstag sneered scornfully. “He sounds like a merchant from the docks!”

Mirt dispensed a dour look. “I am a merchant from the docks, loud buck! And who might ye be, with yer scorn and yer fancy clothes? Ye look like nobles, both of ye, but I know every last born noble of the city, lass and jack, an’-”

“We are nobles of Cormyr,” Marlin Stormserpent snapped. “And you stand in Stormserpent Towers in the fair city of Suzail, right now. ‘Now’ being the Year of the Ageless One, as it happens. I doubt Waterdeep would suffer the likes of you to be among its lords these days!”

Mirt gaped at the young Lord Stormserpent and went a little pale. “Ageless One? Is-gods, is that how long it’s been?”

“So,” Windstag asked Stormserpent, “when do the flames surround him? And when can you start ordering him around like a slave? Or is he going to crumble to dust?”

“Lad,” Mirt replied, before Marlin could say anything, “dust is what we’re all going to end up as.” He winced. “Dust is probably what my Asper is, right now. And Durnan, and all the others I cared for, or-”

“Oh, shut your wind,” Marlin Stormserpent told the old man disgustedly. “As if we care about your doxies or friends or anyone from Waterdeep! On your knees!”

Mirt gave the young lord a glare and stood right where he was. “Huh. If the Realms in this year is full of the likes of ye, I don’t think much of it. Or of thy sneering friend, here.” He turned his disapproval on Windstag-who responded by rising and drawing his sword.

Marlin did the same, adding a menacing smile.

Mirt rolled his eyes. “And is this how converse is carried on in the Realms these days? Swords, is it? Not even a glass of something for guests? And ye call yourselves nobles!”

“We do indeed,” Marlin Stormserpent told him in silken tones, stalking forward with blade in hand.

Along the other side of the table, Broryn Windstag began the same slow, armed advance.

“Ahem,” Mirt said tentatively, taking a step backward. “I believe I did warn ye that I’m a lord of Waterdeep.”

“And we quake at the news,” Marlin Stormserpent sneered, hefting his blade. “This is what we think of lords of Waterdeep.”

He spat at Mirt, though the range was considerable and he merely wetted the floor in front of the old man’s worn and flopping sea boots.