Hesperdan smiled. 'And so, Arlonder 'Old Ghost' Darmeth,' he murmured, 'you begin to know how it feels to have reckless, know-better-rhan-thou underlings disobey your every order, intimation, warning, and suggestion. Get used to it, in the time you have left. It shall not be nearly as long as you think it will be.'
The archwizard strolled about the ruined room, the glowing scene moving with him to stay right in front of his gaze.
'Winnowing the Zhentarim of the unworthy is going to take even longer than I expected,' he said to himself. He often talked to himself, for he had discovered long ago that a certain Hesperdan was by far his most patient audience. 'Moreover, shifting Fzoul to the fore so I can use Manshoon for my own purposes is going to take some seasons on top of that. 'Tis a very good rhing I'm a patient man.'
He stood thinking for a moment and almost absently corrected himself in a voice so soft even he could barely hear it. 'Well, 'patient,' at least.'
Princess Alusair gave the two men her best glare. 'I thought I gave you strict orders…,' she began menacingly, nettled by their almost-grins and well aware that she looked ridiculous in a full suit of very ill-fitting armor that had been her father's when he was young.
Yet she stood her ground, her gauntleted hands clutching her drawn sword's quillons. She kept it grounded point-first on the floor, her feet planted wide behind it, grimly defending the doors to het parents' bedchambet.
'The definition of an idiot,' Tathanter Doarmund replied tartly, 'is someone who obeys your orders. Your Highness.'
'Truly, Cormyr is full of idiots,' the sage Alaphondar added, his voice all I'm-merely-making-an-observation innocence.
'Hrast you, take me seriously! 'Alusair snapped at them both. 'If you wake my parents-!'
'Oh, we're awake,' growled the King of Cormyr from just behind her.
Alusair whirled, astonished she'd never heard the door open. 'So, little lioness,' Azoun asked his younger daughter, crooking one Harklv snlendid evebrow. 'have vou a clever explanation for rhis?
Can't your mother and I enjoy a little time together to bounce on the royal pillows without-'
His jaw dropped open in astonishment, and he stared over Alusair's shoulder down the passage.
Everyone turned.
Vangerdahast was limping slowly up the passage toward them. His face was gray, one of his arms looked like it had been melted away just below the elbow, and bare ribs showed through seared flesh on the other side of his burnt-bare torso.
'The mad liches are bound again,' he rasped, 'but there are far fewer of them, I fear.'
'The… the mad liches?' Alusair asked, hefting her sword-and feeling herself blush hotly as she saw that the blade was trembling.
'Crown secret,' Vangey said. 'That you're too young to know yet.'
'Oh?' she flared. 'And when will I be old enough?' 'Around highsun tomorrow,' he mumbled-and collapsed on his face at her feet.
Chapter 17
Another Crown Secret, or Seven So I let them take my horses tall My chest of coins, wagons eleven My best boots, sword, and all For no thief can find or measure My greatest carried treasure In my head, crown secrets seven.
He had done the right thing, cutting his losses and getting out. The right thing, he reminded himself, seeking the cool, calculating calm he prized so much.
Hotheads doom themselves. Hot rage burns the rager. Be as the patient ice and stone, biding in silence until the right moment of thunderous fall.
The trite sayings brought just about as much comfort as he'd expected them to, and Manshoon kept right on striding along the dark passages of Zhentil Keep, knowing he should feel relief if he let himself feel anything at all. Still he burned with fury.
'Black, black temper,' he murmured the words of a currently popular ditty, seeking to divert himself. And failing.
He was in a black temper. He'd done a mastetful job of impersonating Vangerdahast. He'd brought the Unbinding to the proverbial brink of being complete. He'd brought about the destruction of many of the liches he'd had to work so hard to escape or pacify on his earlier visits to the Lost Palace. And he'd caused many potential foes-those adventurers, a few Harpers, some war wizards, perhaps even Vangerdahast himself-to be wounded, weakened, or even slain.
Yet he could find no pleasure or satisfaction or even just some scrap of comfort in any of that.
He was furious at those who'd brought him so close to death and more furious at himself for being afraid to return to the Lost Palace to destroy them all.
'Blackfire,' he snarled. 'Talar and blackfire!'
Mild oaths, but he seldom cursed at all-and almost never aloud. Commanders had no need to curse, and that was the image he'd chosen to armor himself in-especially among all of these sly, murderously ambitious Brothers in his Zhentarim.
Murderous, yes. That's what it was time to be, now. For the greater glory of Bane and the greater exaltation of a certain Manshoon, too. He knew now what he had to do.
Accordingly, he took the side way out of the next grand chamber, turning in the echoing darkness to head for a certain vault.
It was not a short journey. Keeping his face impassive, he strode past guardpost after guardpost, crisply answering challenge after challenge.
Ahead, beyond yet more guarded doors, was a table. It stood alone in a dark room, four straight legs and a smooth top upon which rested an open-ended wooden cradle. On that cradle lay the greatest magical treasure he'd managed to craft thus far: a Staff of Doom.
Not quite a match for the doomstaves of old yet. In fact, something of a one-joke jester's act. Aside from allowing a wielder to fall slowly from a cliff or high place, and altering light in a small area about itself, it could do just one thing: emit death tyrants. That is, its globular ends, upon command, became portals that spat out an undead beholder each from a stasis-space he'd filled with four-and-ten undead beholders thus far.
He'd been saving this secret for a pressing need, in hopes that such a need would come after he had mastered ways of augmenting the staff with other battle powers.
Yet death comes for those who wait too long for rheir needs to seem pressing.
He could-should-use it now.
He'd whisk himself back to the Lost Palace, plant the staff in a suitable spot, trigger it to unleash two death tyrants to destroy all life and unlife in the place, and depart. A few tendays later, upon his return, the death tyrants should be the only sentiences left. He'd command them back into the staff for later use and plunder the place at leisure. Or leave them drifting around to do battle with Vangerdahast or any war wizards who came blundering along while he was stripping the Lost Palace of all the magic he wanted.
He had passed the last human guards long ago, and the monsters held in stasis-except for the venomous spider that waited in the vault itself. He had passed the last pair of sword-wielding automatons, too, and he was just stepping through the opening his mutmurings had made in the spell-confined curtain of crawling, flesh-eating ooze. Which left only his own wards: shimmering curtains of interlaced magical spells that could be destroyed by a sufficiently powerful onslaught of magic but couldn't be restored exactly as he'd left them by anyone except him.
In front of him, they glimmered untouched. Of course.
He walked on, parting each one as he reached ir and letting it seal again behind him. Carelessness kills more mages than anything else, and being careless among the Brotherhood was like dancing blindfolded and naked in a
