purpose.”
“Well said,” Ironhorn and Alusair murmured in unintentional unison-and the king astonished everyone in the room by flashing, just for a moment, a boyish grin by way of reply.
Then he turned to Glathra and said politely, “Lady Glathra, I command that Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake be taken into custody and questioned with spells, priestly assistance, and everything else short of mind- reaming. Search his rooms here in the palace. And set tax-scribes to turn up any properties he may own in or near Suzail, that they may be searched without delay. If we wrong him, I’ll tender my apologies.”
Foril looked back at Alusair grimly and added, “Yet, I very much doubt that we will.”
Fentable, face flushed and downcast in the wake of his rebuke, was behind Foril Obarskyr, hidden from the others in the room by the king’s body. That was a good thing for Foril, because it kept the other members of the court from seeing him stiffen, his face change, and his eyes flash with momentary fire-highly unusual behavior for Fentable or, for that matter, any prudent understeward of any high House.
A moment later, Fentable was his usual urbane, almost expressionless self again, but the mind behind those thoughtful eyes was once more crowded, as Fentable’s own sentience quailed and cringed beneath the cold weight of Manshoon’s mind. He had returned to the understeward’s mind in haste and in none-too-good a temper, after conquering the mind of Lord Jassur Dragonwood just in time to hear Mreldrake denounced as a traitor.
Manshoon made Fentable turn away and pass his hand over his eyes to conceal any grimace or eye-flash his swift departure might cause. He had to get to Mreldrake without delay.
“Traitors, traitors everywhere,” he said sardonically, so those were the words the understeward mumbled, in his wake.
The words that made everyone else in the room-save for Lady of Graces Jalessa Windstone, who was still blearily drifting her way back to full awareness-nod grimly.
It was a sentiment every one of them had heard before.
Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake had just risen from the seat of his favorite garderobe in the palace, adjusted his garments, inspected the inside of his nose with a practiced finger, and reached for the door when Manshoon burst into his mind like a dark thunderbolt.
Mreldrake stiffened, swayed in midair with his fingers not quite close enough to the door bellpull to close on it, then lunged for the door in pounding haste.
He had to get across the upper floor of the palace, down the far stair to the easternmost of the tunnels that linked the palace with the sprawling pile of the royal court, traverse that underway, ascend from the court’s uppermost cellar to a certain nondescript linen-cupboard in the southeasternmost corner of the court’s ground floor, and pass through the portal that was hidden there. Without being seen, if possible-as himself, at least-and without raising any sort of cry.
The portal would take him to the fortress of the king’s tower in Marsember, and hopefully buy him time enough to get aboard a ship bound for somewhere more distant than Westgate, before he was traced.
Mind-reaming is not a pleasant death.
He was sprinting along a passage when Manshoon again gripped his mind, flooding him with his master’s growing disgust at his frightened flight, and Mreldrake was forced to slow to a normal walk, open the next door he came to, calmly step into the vacant guestroom beyond that door, and work a magic that would alter his appearance.
A few long, calming breaths later, a rather stocky, plain, middle-aged female wizard of war stepped out of the guestroom, carefully closed its door, and trudged along the passage as if bored and tired, rather than in a hurry to go anywhere at all.
She felt a bit dazed but remembered she had to get to Marsember and take a ship for Turmish or some other distant place, without anyone in the palace knowing. She was on a mission so secret that it would be revealed to her only when she was safely on the waves. Her name was… was Mythandra, but she had to fight to remember that-and it was a fight that brought to her a confused, whirling half-memory of a very powerful and coldly malicious mind departing hers in haste, searing many memories as it went.
Mythandra’s head hurt. She growled wordless displeasure and plodded toward the door that opened into the far stair.
“Traitors, traitors everywhere,” she mumbled-then paused, lifting her head with a frown. Now where had that come from?
CHAPTER SIX
Wizard of War Ellard Gauntur was young, callow, full of self-importance, and zealous. At the moment, he was decidedly not full of sufficient breath.
He was gasping with excitement and exertion, having just sprinted the length of the royal court with five Purple Dragons in full armor puffing and clanging along in his wake. He skidded to a stop in front of a door that needed his hand and a whispered password to open, exulting as he flung it wide.
He finally had a chance to do something important, to get noticed-to be a hero!
Oh, and do true service for Cormyr, too…
“There’s one portal that usually gets forgotten!” he’d shouted. “He probably won’t go that way-but if he does, we can be there to prevent him!”
His heart had leaped up like lit torchwood when he’d seen the Dragons nod. There’d been approval on the veterans’ faces! Clear in Narbrace’s expression, and Hethel’s!
Now they were through the door and pounding along the dim and narrow passage behind him, around this last corner and Someone was standing at the closet door. Someone in wizards’ robes!
“Mreldrake!” Gauntur shouted. “Hold!”
The wizard at the open closet turned to look at him-then rushed into it, leaving behind only the soundless flash of light that meant the portal had taken her.
Yes, her. It had been a woman, not Mreldrake!
A woman he’d never seen before.
In robes that “It’s him! ’Twas a trick! Those were Mreldrake’s robes!” Gauntur snarled over his shoulder at Narbrace. “With that food stain down the front by the-”
He reached the open closet door, caught hold of the frame, and swung himself in and right at the dancing glow of the portal, then skidded to a stop and caught his breath in sudden apprehension Whereupon Narbrace shoved him hard in the back and growled jovially, “Lead us, gallant Gauntur!”
And the portal’s glow claimed him.
“As per orders, saer,” the Dragon puffed, “after Narbrace, Hethel, and the rest all followed him through, I came back to you to report. Mreldrake’s gone to Marsember, if the lad’s to be believed, and-and I knew you needed to know this, without delay!”
“Very proper, Swordcaptain Troon, and well done,” Fentable agreed, nodding. “Go now-catch your wind first, there’s not that much need for frantic haste-and catch up to Narbrace and your fellows. I’ll inform the wizards of war.” He clapped the breathless soldier on one armor-plated shoulder and hurried away.
Troon nodded, gasping for breath, and staggered to a garderobe door. His bladder was bursting…
Not long after a distant door had shut behind the hastening understeward, and Troon had found relief behind a much closer door, a streaking shadow came racing down the corridor.
It halted for a moment to rise up and glare around, and then it plunged through a wall and was gone again.
Once a Steel Regent, always a Steel Regent. That Fentable was every whit as rotten as Mreldrake-but when had he got that way? Who had gotten to him?
Sometimes, Alusair thought, she still existed only because of her abiding rage.
The court weren’t such a sorry, corrupt lot in my day!
Were they?
