Elminster Must Die

The receiving room had been made for a large Delcastle family to greet as large a family of guests; under the glare of Arclath’s mother, Amarune felt as if she was in some sort of hall of trial, standing alone at the center of its gleaming marble floor. Arclath whirled away to a sideboard-gods, did nobles have ready rows of decanters in every room of their vast houses? — and poured her a drink, unbidden, while Amarune stood blushing and silent.

“Before you blurt out whatever’s most urgent,” he told her, obviously trying to set her at ease while his mother stared right through her with eyes like the points of two drawn daggers, “have a sip, and tell me what else is riding your mind.”

Somewhat hesitantly, Amarune said, “Ah-uh-much news from city taverns and eateries of elder members of the nobility, newly arrived in Suzail for the council.” She sipped, winced at the strength and fire of the strong wine, choked it down, and added, “Brawls, the chasing and slaughtering of a live pig with swords, servants being flung from upper windows, a cart set on fire …”

Her voice trailed away under Lady Delcastle’s darkening scowl, but Arclath chuckled and waved a dismissive hand. “The usual. The elder lords indulging all of their longtime feuds and vices, many of which must seem odd or even suspicious to the rest of the realm. Right, then, out with it: the reason you came rushing here to see me.”

“The coin you offered her to satisfy your animal lusts here in our house, of course,” Lady Delcastle told the ceiling. “Probably on the scullery floor or over the arm of a handy lounge in my foreparlor.” Her expressionless bodyguards seemed to lean toward Amarune, as if they were impatient to topple onto her and crush her.

Amarune kept her eyes on Arclath, swallowed unhappily, and sighed, knowing she was going to blurt and babble like a youngling, but not knowing how to say it better. “Three lords you know, of about your age,” she began. “Windstag, Dawntard, and Sornstern. The news is all over the city; they spent last night through hunting everywhere for a particular axe-a hand axe! Drawing steel on folk, turning rooms out, offering coin, threatening-”

“What?” Arclath and his mother roared in unison.

Arclath strode toward Amarune, waving furiously at a sputtering Lady Delcastle-who was launching into a tirade about “selfish, ill-behaved young nobles”-for silence. Surprisingly, he got it.

And promptly filled it again by starting to think aloud. “Windstag, of course. Always up for a little mayhem, and Sornstern’s his lickspittle, but Dawntard has wits to set the other two to his bidding. And those three run with four rather more formidable lordlings too: Marlin Stormserpent, Mellast Ormblade, Irlin Stonestable, and Sacrast Handragon.”

“Just as I said!” Lady Delcastle snapped. “The young rakes, the reckless, care-nothing idiots who’ll have all Cormyr at swords drawn-”

“Exactly!” Arclath roared, whirling right beside Amarune-who flinched away from him involuntarily-to stride back across the room, waving his arms angrily.

“What are they doing?” he snarled. “The war wizard’s’ll have their guts for soup, if the king doesn’t, first! Setting the city into uproar on the very eve of the council!”

“Exactly,” Amarune agreed, daring to interrupt because the moment seemed right. “What are they thinking?”

Arclath whirled to face her, his eyes afire. “Well, we’ll have to find out, before things get any worse.”

“How?” Amarune asked.

“We’ll go and ask them!” he replied fiercely.

His mother laughed merrily. “And you think they’ll just tell you? Because you’re a fellow noble?”

Arclath whirled to face her. “No,” he snarled, “because I’ll be holding the point of my sword at the throat of whomever I’m asking. I’ve found a man generally prefers to talk and live, rather than keep silent and die!”

He rushed out a door, reappeared almost immediately with sword and cloak in hand, and dashed across the receiving room and out the door Amarune had been brought in through.

Leaving Amarune and the Lady Marantine Delcastle to exchange startled glances and follow him.

Where they found the front doors of Delcastle Manor already open, and Arclath gone.

“Aye, the Lord has departed,” one of the door guards offered in answer to Amarune’s wild look around. Without a word Amarune hurried to the door, remembering only at the last moment to turn and bow in farewell to Lady Delcastle.

Where she saw a doorjack scurrying off, obviously to retrieve her cloak-and Arclath’s mother looking after him, then back at Amarune. After a bare moment of hesitation, Lady Delcastle snatched her own cloak from the other doorjack and tossed it to Amarune-who caught it out of long habit of being on the stage and stared back at the noblewoman in astonishment.

There was a strange look on Lady Delcastle’s face. “Keep it,” she blurted. “And-and look after him!”

“Lady,” Amarune replied gravely in thanks and salute, bowing low again. Then she sprang up and sprinted out into the night, the cloak swirling around her as she went.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A GREAT MAGIC UNLEASHED

Mirt followed his second coinlass of the evening up a none-too-clean flight of stairs, a bottle and two metal flagons in one hand and a somewhat-gnawed leg of steaming mutton clutched in his other.

“Been a long time, lass,” he told her shapely backside happily. “A long time …”

Manshoon frowned in his scrying as he watched Mirt eagerly ascending the stairs, still pondering what use to make of the infamous lord of Waterdeep.

“Well,” he murmured, “he’ll keep for now, at least. I have more important targets to savage.”

Marlin Stormserpent was in a foul temper. He and a similarly terse Broryn Windstag were nursing headaches and huddling in bandages; they both snarlingly turned aside queries about how they’d acquired their wounds.

Marlin leaned forward to glare down his meeting table and tell his conspirators, “This is all that’s left of us. Delasko and Kathkote are abed, healing, and will be for days. We must be very careful during the council; someone is on to us.”

Before the excited talk could get going, he added sourly, “And not the war wizards, either. Someone able to hire wizards as powerful as Larak Dardulkyn.”

“Windstag lives,” Sacrast Handragon pointed out. “So the hunt for the hand axe succeeded?”

“It was found,” Marlin replied flatly, “but proved an utter failure. We gained no slayer who’ll obey us, but let loose some fat old thief of a lord of Waterdeep who obeys only himself and fled from us!”

He lurched up out of his seat and told the table grimly, “So the scheme of harming the king or the crown prince in an ‘accident’ when plenty of nobles are gathered for the council to take the blame will have to be abandoned.”

No one looked surprised. Handragon and Ormblade confirmed for him again that they would be attending the council to represent their families, and Stormserpent asked them to watch and listen for any talk of himself or any of them or their activities-such as the hunt for the hand axe-or any denunciation of younger nobles. If the Crownsilvers or Illances or any of the other oldblood families tried to wrest even more power for themselves, they must be vigorously denounced.

“The rest of us,” Marlin advised, “would do best to stay away from council. We can move swiftly, ere everyone departs the city when all the formal clack and chatter is done, to reach disaffected nobles if need arises.”

Handragon smiled. “And it will.”