from that same saddle, “What’re you doing? This is the royal gardens! They’re guarded at night, and-”
“No harm done, lord, if your lasses come no farther in,” the calm growl of a veteran Purple Dragon came out of the darkness on the far side of the gate. “Unless-ahem-ye’re in need of some trifling assistance in, ah, handling them-”
“That won’t be necessary,” Arclath snapped, tugging a little tentatively at the two embracing women. He had hold, he discovered, of Storm’s elbow. In response to his pulling she made an ardent moaning sound, setting Rune to helpless giggling.
He let his hand fall, knowing without looking that ashes would be streaming from the tall Harper to his beloved. His Amarune was surrendering to Elminster.
Again.
“Damn you, wizard,” he said under his breath, catching himself just in time to avoid announcing to the guard-and all the Dragon’s unseen fellows; they never stood guard alone-that a mage was involved in this.
“The palace is still open to those announcing their belated arrival for the Council, I suppose?” he asked more loudly.
“No, lord,” came the firm reply, out of the night. “There’s been… trouble. The Council’s put off until morning, and palace and court both locked up tight now, under full guard. Were I you, I’d take yourselves well away from here until you hear the three horncalls on the morrow. If you or anyone tries to get in before then, we’ve orders to resist. Forcibly.”
“Ah. I quite see. My thanks, loyal sword.”
“Fair even to you, lord,” came the friendly reply.
Arclath sighed and tugged at Storm’s elbow again. This time she and Amarune came willingly back into the street with him.
“You have warm bathwater at Delcastle Manor, I presume?” the silver-haired Harper asked sweetly.
“We do,” Arclath replied curtly, setting a brisk pace down the Promenade toward the brightly lit stretch where it swept around the imposing front of the royal court. “And while you splash, Lady Immerdusk, I have some words I’d like to exchange with a certain Elminster.”
“Ye’re saving them, lad?” Rune muttered in Elminster’s voice. “Are ye now short of words, for some reason? I hadn’t noticed any lack of them!”
By highsun the next day, the bodyguard of a murdered noble might be a hunted man in Suzail-or might be far beneath the notice of local lawkeepers, if the Council went the way he expected it to. Manshoon took no chances. Burrath scaled the taller shop next to the alchemist’s and made the dangerous leap down onto Sraunter’s roof, landing with a teeth-rattling, roof-shaking thud that roused the reelingly exhausted Sraunter from his bed. Saving Burrath the trouble of shaking him awake.
Manshoon had the alchemist give Burrath something to drink that would send him right down into slumber and keep him there for a good long time, then forced the long-suffering Sraunter to yield up his own bed to the man.
Sraunter was too falling-down weary to argue. He fell asleep in the next room after scrabbling up the blanket he wanted from a seldom-opened chest.
Manshoon left him that way and rode one of the five beholderkin out into the night. There were dozens of little touches that still needed seeing to, if the Council was to be the splendid success-or, to those who liked Cormyr’s present ways and stability, the utter disaster-he intended it to be.
“These realms,” he murmured, causing the beholderkin to emit a hissing hum, “belong to those who care to shape them to their will. Until I eliminate all others who dare such shapings, of course.”
Arclath had firmly shut the door on the carefully expressionless faces of the servants who’d pumped the hot water up from the kitchen kettles, leaving them to think whatever thoughts they wanted to about the younger Lord Delcastle sharing the manor’s best bathing chamber with a mask dancer and an unfamiliar silver-haired woman.
Storm plunged into the large, pink, marble bath his mother liked to soak in, even before Arclath got himself turned around to offer her a robe. He suddenly faced a swiftly disrobing Rune, who promptly perched on the edge of the bath and told him, in Elminster’s growl, “Ye know this Council is going to fall into bloodshed and civil strife, don’t ye? With Foril slain right then and there, if Tymora smiles not and we don’t fight hard and well?”
“What?” Arclath snapped back at him. “Even with the mighty Elminster standing guard over it?”
Elminster shrugged. “How so?” He waved one of Rune’s arms down at her bare and shapely self-even as Storm rose like a striding sea devil from the bath, gesturing to Rune that the waters were all hers-and told the young noble sourly, “This body won’t even get me through the doors.”
Arclath’s mouth clamped down into a thin, hard line, and his stare became a murderous glare.
“Oh, no,” he spat. “No. I am not letting you into my head. I’m sure you can use some spell or other to force your way in and burn away my hold over my own body in mere moments-but I’ll fight you. I will never surrender my body, nor let House Delcastle’s vote and voice be stolen by… by a wizard I can’t trust, who could in truth be anyone, who… who…”
He ran out of words and clawed the air furiously, in an exasperated “away with you!” gesture.
Storm ducked under his flailing arm and plucked up a robe, leaving Rune to reply, as she in turn sank down in the warm, scented water, “I won’t be forcing my way into thy mind, lad. ’Tis not necessary. Yet. I’m merely warning ye to expect the worst. I can see it ahead, and I’m nigh powerless to stand against it.”
“So you’re not the legendary, all-powerful Elminster?”
“I was never all-powerful. Not even close. I was at best a scurrying, none-too-organized, overworked castle errand-boy. Aye, that’s the best way for ye to view what I did and was. I’m a lot less than that now. And, yes, there’s precious little I can do to stave off disaster at the Council.”
“ ‘Precious little’?” Arclath flung back at him bitterly. “So why do you always act as if you can take care of everything?”
El wagged a wise old finger in a way Amarune would never have done, and said mildly, “That master-of- all-things act accomplishes much, lad. All by itself. Try it; ye’ll see.”
“Gah!” Arclath burst out, words failing him again.
Storm tapped him on the shoulder. “After all that tramping through the forest, you need a bath,” she said gently. “And while you’re in there, sluice off a little of that seething anger and give us back the jaunty, debonair Fair Flower of House Delcastle that all Suzail is so used to seeing sporting airily about the streets.”
Arclath glared at her, trying-and succeeding-to keep his eyes above her chin and not straying down to the rest of her, which she was casually using the panels of the open robe to rub dry.
“And with Cormyr about to plunge into blood-drenched disaster, what good will that do?” he snapped.
“Entertain us all far more than your seething anger,” she replied gently.
“Gah!” Elminster supplied helpfully, before Arclath could find the breath he needed to make that very same comment again.
Arclath stared at him-or rather, at Amarune’s bare, wet body, as she stepped out of the bath to take the robe Storm was offering her-then turned and hurled himself into the bath in a great angry dive that sent its waters crashing against walls and ceilings.
Somehow, as bubbles roared past his ears and the half-dissolved scented soaps in the water made his eyes start to sting, he felt a little better.
He might be heading into the worst noble-slaughtering bloodbath Cormyr had ever seen, but at least he’d be clean and smell sweet.
CHAPTER NINE
H orns blew a fanfare that the cool morning air carried far across Suzail, summoning the invited heads of noble Houses to the Council of Dragons. Arclath’s rising had awakened Amarune, though he’d dressed and dashed from Delcastle Manor without a word to either of his guests.
