'You have not mentioned this to me.'
'You've never asked nor intimated a desire to know about my past.'
'Your past? Are you now intimating that you are no longer a Zhent? And will not work with them again?'
Boarblade nodded. 'Yes. When you snatched me out of my imprisonment and offered me service with you, I accepted, and that ended all previous allegiances. If you should ever order me to feign loyal membership in the Brotherhood, I will do so-but even before being taken by the war wizards, I had decided that the Zhentarim were fast becoming a den of vipers who all hunted for themselves, exhibiting only enough obedience to avoid being counted among the hunted. A Cormyr stripped of cohesive war wizards would be a benefit to all, so I continued with my assigned task, but I had already begun to work on a means of faking my own death and disappearing. My judgment of the Brotherhood has not changed.'
'You still seek a Cormyr where bickering factions of nobles rise to dominance, and the Obarskyrs lose the iron control their Wizards of War grant them?'
'I believe that would be better for all than the Cormyr we stand in now. I now seek nothing but what you want me to seek.'
'Well said. Spells laid upon your mind prevent me from prying into it or affecting yout feelings and views. Banish them.'
Boarblade sighed. 'I cannot. They were laid upon me by Zhentarim far more powerful than either of us. I cannot even begin to touch them. If you or another broke them, doing so would not only drive me mad, it would instantly alert senior Zhents as to what had happened and precisely where I was. It would also make me their tool to work through. I hardly think it likely you would want to face the spells of Lord Manshoon coming out of a body he doesn't mind risking in the slightest.'
Ruldroun's eyes flicketed. 'That would not be my preferred choice of situations, no. So I must trust you-yet I cannot trust you.'
Boarblade shrugged. 'Consider. Every man in all Faerun who is not a priest or wizard of power has to trust others without seeing into their minds-and many of them manage to do so. Sometimes that trust is justified and even rewarded. I intend to justify and reward your trust. Blood oath, if you prefer?'
Ruldroun could not hide his surprise. 'That's the very spell I was going to insist upon. Better and better. Telgarth Boarblade, I could get to like you.'
'And I, you, my lord. Even after the killings and betrayals start.'***** 'I confess myself delighted with your candor, Vangey,' Princess Tanalasta said. 'I would go so far as to say I doubt very much if anyone in Cormyr right now is having as blunt and candid a converse about matters of the realm and loyalty and other weighty concerns.'
'See me as pleased, too,' Alusair agreed, 'yer annoyed that you've never seen fit to tteat us as this close to equals before.'
Vangerdahast sighed. 'Forgive me, Highnesses, bur before now, you frankly weren't ready for this. Oh, I've no doubt you thought yourselves ready. Your royal father did, too, quite a bit younger than either of you are now. Yet he wasn't ready until he was almost a decade older than you, Tana. He was still putting his desires of the moment before his love for the realm.'
'His desires of the moment?' Alusair said. 'I'd say he does that still. A chambermaid here, a passing merchant's wife there, a-'
'Loos!' Tana snapped. 'That'll do!'
'Hoy! I thought we were being blunt and candid,' the younger princess replied. 'Or are you still trying to set limits, the way Vangey here is?'
'Highness,' the wizard said reprovingly, holding up a hand to signal Tanalasta not to make angry reply, 'as I've told you, I am not-'
'Oh, but you are,' Alusair retorted. 'You control every conversation you ever have, Vangey. Even when answering direct orders or queries from the king and queen. By what you say and don't say-and what you refuse or oh-so-gravely warn musr not be discussed-you set limits. You set limits for nigh everyrhing in the realm. 'Tis one of the things you do. Someone has to do it, I suppose, though why you, I've never found a good answer for. My mother the queen would be far better at it, and even Alaphondar. I-'
'Loos, please, enough,' Tanalasta interrupted. 'I agree with all you're saying, but I find it beside the point, unless we're somehow going to murder this man sitting facing us. Decrying what he does and is simply wastes all our time. I want to hear rather more blunr truth from him, in case we never have such a chance as this again.' She leaned forward in her chair and said to Vangerdahast, 'So tell us a story, wizard. About why the Knights of Myth Drannor were sent away and what's been happening with them, and as much as you see fit to reveal about the conspiracy within the Wizards of War-and what you were just up to in the Lost Palace.'
'Very well,' Vangerdahast agreed. 'Where to begin?'
'We can begin with my expressing, as politely as I can,' Alusair said, 'what my elder sister is too well-bred and polite to say: how damned angry we both are, wizard, that we didn't even know the Lost Palace was anything more than a legend! You call this preparing us to guide-or in her case, rule-the realm?'
The Royal Magician sighed. 'I suppose you'll explode if I say you weren't yet ready to be told such things?'
'Yes,' Alusair told him sweetly. 'And all over you, too.'
Vangerdahast didn't-quite-smile. 'Then, being by far the wisest man in all Cormyr, I'll not say that.'
Despite het best attempts not to, Princess Tanalasta snorted.
Chapter 19
Drawn Daggers Haunting Me In dark corners of the room I see you Eyes like drawn daggers haunting me Cold so cold my breast you pass through Hunting me, hunting me endlessly Why did you kill yourself and leave me? Dark self-slaying can never be right Hear me my love, I do so want thee Come a-haunting, come chill me this night.
The rapture that had made Onsler Ruldroun babble so excitedly was lessening. He was becoming more and more a watchful, close-mouthed, careful man. His true self, presumably.
'There is one thing I would like to know, Lord,' Boarblade said before Ruldroun became even more taciturn. 'You impersonated the wizard Gheldaert Howndroe as fire investigator and wrote about that-or did not write about that, rather-in a war wizard duty book. Why? It has set war wizards to being suspicious of each other, and the royal family and certain high-ranking courtiers to watching closely the Wizards of War. Wouldn't it have been wiser to let matters stand as casually as they have always done, with no one's suspicions aroused about anything? Easier for you to work and with less risk of being noticed?'
'Easier is not a goal I strive for,' Ruldroun replied, 'and never has been. Inside the war wizards, I wanted Howndroe under suspicion so as to hampet his work. Outside their ranks, I wanted the wider realm to foster renewed suspicion that the Wizards of War are corrupt, and deadly conspiracies actively flourish within it, to this day. Wizards suspicious of their fellows are far more likely to hesitate in battle or not risk their own necks as much or even refuse to obey orders they disagree with. I need them that way for my little scheme to work. And as the Lords Yellander and Eldroon discovered, I will do almost anything to aid and further my scheme.'
'I thought you were working for them.'
'I was-skillfully enough that they thought so, when in ttuth they were doing my bidding, never realizing it. Time and again they ordered me to advance my own aims, thinking the plotting was theirs. Their deaths robbed me of many resources and of the convenience of having them to take the blame for whatever I did but hampered me no more than that. I am merely going to order you to do what they would have sent Brorn Hallomond and Eerikarr Steldurth to do. Get after these Knights, slaughter them without being seen by anyone, get their bodies hidden-or better, devoured or burned to ashes-and gain possession of the Pendant of Ashaba.'
