himself out of Sraunter’s mind, not wanting to distract him at a crucial moment, or frighten him any further.
Instead, the future emperor of Cormyr had kept back in the shadows, idly examining the alchemist’s shelves for substances that might prove useful in the future, and thinking.
The moment he had effective control over Cormyr-open and absolute command or several steps short of that-he’d set the Dragons of the realm to hunting down Storm Silverhand.
She must be taken alive, with her wits undamaged.
Interrogating her at leisure should yield to him much he desired to know. Secrets of the Chosen, where magic was hidden, and the whereabouts of The Simbul-the onetime Queen of Aglarond, whose Art had been mightier than Elminster’s own. Mad and far too magically powerful for anyone’s safety, that one must be destroyed.
Sraunter turned and nodded eagerly, sweat dripping from his chin. “Ready. All three, ready.”
Manshoon let his smile widen. “Good man. You have saved Cormyr from itself.”
Horns blew a fanfare that the cool morning breeze carried far across Suzail, summoning the invited-the nobility-to the Council of Dragons.
Mreldrake hardly needed the arrival of the hurrying palace doorjack, and Manshoon’s surge from that man’s dark and knowing eyes into his own mind, to know it was time to begin his castings.
Manshoon’s mind was already sharing a crisply clear vision of the soaked and ready hay bales that Sraunter was igniting.
Few mages could translocate fiery materials without troubles, but Mreldrake’s mind was filled, overwhelmed, and steadied by Manshoon’s own, and the hay bales were only just beginning to burn.
Mreldrake caught a glimpse-briefly, before Manshoon firmly sealed that sight away and forced him back to full concentration on the complex spells he was working-of someone else Manshoon was scrying.
It was a noblewoman, unfamiliar to Mreldrake, who had long since risen and checked her appearance in her mirrors more than once already. The fanfare had brought her out onto a balcony to peer excitedly between towers and over grand roofs and the leafy tops of trees at the soaring royal palace of Suzail.
Coaches were already rumbling along the streets, and from her highest window the lady could see some nobles on foot, too, walking in their finery.
Dressed in her best, she hurried down into the streets to join them.
Then she was gone, and Manshoon’s dark amusement was all Mreldrake could see… that and flames rising and crackling from hay bales as Sraunter carefully set each one alight with the burning brand in his hand.
Then Mreldrake could discern something else through the heavy dark weight of Manshoon’s mind. Shouting and the pounding of feet. A bobbing view of a grand palace passage-through the eyes of the same servant who’d brought Manshoon to him-and thick, acrid smoke, its coils a deep, menacing blue warring with a greasy, baleful green, billowing out around the closed doors of the Council chamber.
Hay bale after hay bale his spells plucked from the dim crowding of Sraunter’s back room to the smooth oval of hitherto-empty flagstones at the heart of the Hall of Justice, with its rising tiers of empty, glossy, dark wooden benches all around, until… the work was done. All the little fires had been sent.
The alchemist’s shop went away, and Mreldrake was plunged into a strange, multiple-eyes view of hurrying Purple Dragons, various guards and war wizards being overcome as they arrived to try to investigate… a confused chaos of falling, staggering, then more shouting and barked orders and booted guards scrambling. Name of the Dragon, but Manshoon must have command over the minds of a dozen courtiers or more!
One scene swam nearer, of a palace passage with an angry woman storming along it, a wizard of war he knew all too well…
“No more fanfares!” Glathra called furiously down the passage.
“Lady Glathra?”
“You heard me!”
On the heels of that furious bellow, Wizard of War Glathra Barcantle spun around to part a curtain and say in a far gentler voice, “Your Majesty, I fear the Council cannot proceed. This day, at least. Not unless you want to die-and all the senior nobility of the realm with you.”
“Understood,” came the calm reply from the alcove behind the curtain. “There are some who would welcome that particular extermination, but I can’t count myself among them. I take it you’d prefer I withdraw, bodyguards and all, to the royal wing? Right now?”
“Your wisdom is as swift and keen as ever, Majesty.”
“Would that your flattery were shining truth,” came the affectionate, rather sad murmur. “We go.”
“Good,” Glathra breathed, letting the curtain fall and spinning around again to glare at a Purple Dragon lionar who was stumbling up to her, coughing hard, his face gray. He waved a hand, fighting to speak but failing.
A swordcaptain behind the lionar tried to speak in his stead, only to be plunged into helpless coughing and retching. “I–I-”
“Fools!” Glathra snapped. “Keep clear of the smoke! Close the doors across the passages by the Hall of Victories and by Queen Alvandira’s bower-open all windows and doors hard by us, here! We must get rid of the smoke!”
Catching sight of a wizard hurrying up from the other direction, she pointed at him and ordered, “Tracegar, strip all wizards of war from their assigned guardposts and get into the Hall of Justice and get rid of whatever’s causing this!”
“B-but-”
“There’ll be no Council this day! Do it!”
She turned back the other way, saw a young mage she recognized peering anxiously out of one of the rooms along the passage, and snapped, “Tarmuth, go after the king’s bodyguard, and make sure all of them put on night helms to keep them from being traced or influenced by spells! Hurry!”
Tarmuth nodded hastily and ran, but someone else was shouting at Glathra, and his voice was not friendly.
“Glathra,” an older mage called, appearing through a door with a handful of fellow senior war wizards behind him, “I don’t recall you being named lord warder! Surely-”
“Surely someone must guard the king before all else, Raeldar! Seeking to do anything less courts treason, does it not?”
“But why call off the Council?” another of the mages growled as they hastened up to her. Courtiers were appearing now, too, fleeing the smoke or appearing out of various chambers, drawn by the shouting. “The king will be less than pleased!”
“I have spoken with the king,” Glathra roared, her voice as deep and clear as many a burly Dragon swordcaptain’s, “and he saw in a moment what you have not: that the fires are not normal-hence magic is involved-and there must therefore be a traitor among the wizards of war, unless someone read our minds and so knew how to defeat our wards without alerting us or breaking them. Now, where does that compel your thinking, Brandaeril?”
The older wizard regarded her soberly, nodding as he considered and then announced, “Glathra is right. We have no choice but to delay the Council while we investigate. To do aught else could well be to doom King Foril and imperil the peace of the realm.”
“Aye,” Raeldar agreed reluctantly. “Ganrahast and Vainrence, if they were here, could hardly act differently. We must quell the smoke, learn all we can, cleanse the room, and cast new wards around it, then cry a new time for the Council across the city.”
Manshoon tightened his grip on Mreldrake’s mind, thrusting like iron-hard talons, and the suddenly mute, helpless wizard of war felt himself torn away from the scrying that had been showing him Glathra. In bewildering haste, his limbs not his own, he threw open his chamber door and hurried to the passage where everyone was gathering around her, to offer his obedient services.
It was too much to hope she’d be careless enough to let anyone who had a hand in crafting the first set of wards also work on the second, but a loyal war wizard would eagerly make the offer, so…
As he flung open the door and stepped into the crowded passage, Manshoon abruptly left Mreldrake’s mind. Entirely.
Which could only mean Mreldrake wasn’t expected to succeed in trying to be a part of the new wards.
