He found honest bewilderment and blossoming apprehension- not for Torst himself, because the timid mage truly knew of nothing wrong, evil, or disloyal on his own part, but for some unknown calamity facing the realm. Vangerdahast also found a turmoil of facts and mental 'must check this, then that' notes about a certain lost, centuries-old, Crown-to-commoner-family property agreement.
Mindspeaking to Khalaeto with an apology for the intrusion, and even adding warm thanks for the assistance, Vangerdahast ended his magic and stood shaking his head.
That visitor to the nobles had not been Khalaeto but someone wearing his shape. Which meant it could be every last damned shapeshifter or spellhurler in Faerun. That left Deltalon as his only lead in trying ro find out what was going on.
'Suspicions aroused,' Vangerdahast muttered, then gave the nearest doorjack a baleful 'You listening to someone?' glare and strode away, heading he knew not where.
He had to find Lorbryn Deltalon and get a good long look into his mind. Was this something small and pranksome or another conspiracy within the ranks of his war wizards?
'Lady,' Telsword Bareskar of the Palace Guard asked unhappily, as he peered cautiously into the gloom of the ruined mansion, 'what is-er, was this place?'
'Once it was part of the country mansion of the Staghearts, who were stripped of their nobility and exiled long ago,' Highknight Lady Ismra Targrael replied. 'This was their hunting lodge. The mansion proper stood yonder, where all those trees are now. Duar had it razed. They knew the right way to handle things in those days. Mercy is the besetting weakness of kings.'
'Uh, yes, Lady Tar-'
'My name,' the Highknight reminded him icily, the point of her sword at his throat, 'is not to be used.'
'S-s-sorry, Lady, uh, Sir, uh…' Telsword Bareskar was a long way from the Royal Palace of Suzail and less than happy about being so. He liked shifts of mundane boredom, filled with simple, clear-cut rules and a lack of any need to think. To say nothing of being relatively free of danger, not' Yes, take the stair down,' Targrael said in his ear, 'and as a special favor to me, try not to sound as if you're a charger in full barding, stumbling down steps in the dark.'
'Y-yes,' Bareskar replied, starting down the stair with his sword held out in front of him, feeling his way along an unseen railing and fervently wishing he had a lantern.
He'd gone down six steps into what smelled and felt like a' damp stone cellar when Targrael said from behind him, 'Stop. There's no one here. They've gone. So back up and out around the back. We'll have to do what I was hoping to avoid. Look behind every stlarned rree in the forest.'
When Bareskar got to the top of the stairs again, Targrael was standing and staring thoughtfully down at the great hole in the floor that presumably opened into the cellar from which he'd just come up. Without looking at him, she pointed with her sword at the square of light where there had once been a pair of back doors, and Bareskar obediently went where he was directed, peering cautiously out into the forest and seeing nothing but trees, trees, gloom, and more trees.
He stepped outside, looking right and left, and on an impulse chose the left and stalked along the back wall so as to peer around' Now!' someone commanded from the forest to his right, and that was the last thing Telsword Bareskar ever heard.
The circling hawk didn't even have time to blink, let alone squawk or shriek in alarm.
The sword, faster than any arrow, was simply there one moment- and gone the next, streaking through the air, point-first and glittering. South and west, from Zhentil Keep to a spot in the forest just north off the Moonsea Ride, where of old the Stagheart banner had flapped.
Just as the hawk was flapping now, dazed in the wake of that streaking blade.
Lord Crownsilver rolled his eyes. 'Yes, I ordered you to blast him! No, I did not order you to destroy that corner of the building!'
'What does it matter?' The three Sembian mages-for-hire were conscious again bur none too happy. Their healing potions had done their work, but such quaffs were expensive and not easily replaced out here in this wilderland. 'It's a ruin.'
'It matters because this land swarms with nosy war wizards, and they can hardly help but notice a spellblasted building! Nor can any other Knights who might be lurking all around us!'
The Sembian who'd hurled the spell shrugged. 'You think they'll dare do anything aftep-'
The knife that spun through the air to sprout in his throat forever prevented him from finishing his question.
It was the shocked noble who muttered, 'That?'
The other two wizards turned in the direction the blade had come from and hurled their best spells. 'Time to fell some firewood,' one of them snarled, watching full-sized trees hurtle and tumble.
'Never liked forests,' the other agreed, watching a racing wave of crackling flame die away into the blackened distance.
Lord Crownsilver blinked in awe and then winced. All that good, coin-worthy timbet…
Manshoon was certain his spellwork was perfect. It wouldn't be his looks that might betray him.
His acting would have to be perfect, too. Not that he was worried.
By Bane and by Symgharyl's waiting, willing body, this was going to be fun.
Targrael's lip curled. Idiot wizards. They'd not last long at home in Sembia if they blasted buildings like that. Even if that fool Crownsilver had mistaken Bareskar for one of the Knights, the thing to do would have been to enthrall him and so lure the rest of rhe adventurers within reach, not blast and burn everything in sight.
As it was, she was safely behind the Stagheart ruin, short one knife-for now-and itching to exact a higher price for Bareskar's death. Surely he was worth at least three foolheaded Sembian wizards.
Woodsmoke drifted past her face. She would have to set about stalking them with a little care, given that these madwits could fell generous stands of trees in an instant, but if Beshaba didn't best Tymora in the next few breaths, she had no doubt she could slay the two surviving wizards. Leaving her with one noble lord ro cow into doing whatever she wanted him to do. For the good of Cormyr, of course.
'Back inside,' Lord Crownsilver said. 'Being as your fellow left a little of the place standing!'
The two surviving Sembians exchanged glances. Crownsilver's irritation was overwhelming his usual caution, it seemed.
The lord srrode back into the ruined hunting lodge. 'They obviously got out somehow. Or one of them did. We must look properly down their end of the cellar, this time, to see how many of them are lying dead there. Then come back up, when all the fire's died, and see how many you cooked yonder. I like to know how many enemies are after me.'
The Sembians traded glances again. They needed no words to make it clear to each other that they both thought their employer was mad, gone well beyond reason in his hunger to slay Knights of Myth Drannor-all Knights of Myth Dtannor, everywhere! — but…
The mages traded elaborate shrugs. He was paying…
They followed the seething nobleman, not even bothering to look back.
So they never saw the black leather-clad Highknight retrieve her knife from the throat of the wizard she'd slain, wipe it clean on his robes, and close in behind them.
They tramped down the stairs, preceded by complaints about the lack of a mage to cast any magical light where it was neededOnly to come to an abrupt halt, in common astonishment, to gaze upon Crownsilver's complaints suddenly answered.
An upright oval of glowing air, a portal if they'd ever seen one, appeared in the dark cellar of the ruin. Right at the spot where, in rhe wake of their wandfire, when that end of the cellar ceiling had come down, the Knights of Myth Drannor had been standing.
'Vangerdahast!' Jhessail spat. All of the Knights stared.
The bearded, paunchy old mage in robes stood alone where the passages met. Facing them, he wore an expression they were used to seeing, too-grimly haughty distaste or displeasure as he regarded them. He shook his head and said, 'I might have known.'
