commands one, and a Stormserpent family treasure, the Flying Blade, that controls the other. You should be accosting him, not this Lord of Waterdeep!”
Glathra stiffened. “Other loyal Crown agents are doing so, right now. As His Majesty knows full well. Why are you four getting involved?”
“We’re here to help,” Arclath spoke up.
“Help with what? Driving me madwits?”
“No, that’s been done already,” Alusair told the lady mage, flying around her in a tight spiral. “We six loyal Cormyreans are here to help you and your fellow mages and Highknights and Dragons to defend the palace and try to keep order in Suzail.”
“Are you, now?” Glathra asked cuttingly. “Six? I mark four-who else?”
“The Royal Magician Vangerdahast,” Alusair replied, “who’s not with us now, and the man you were just about to scorch.”
Glathra stared at her incredulously then swung around to favor Mirt with the same look.
He unfolded himself from the window seat with a wheeze, stamped his boots, and struck a swordsman’s pose with the greasy lamb bone.
“Well,” he grunted, with a friendly leer, “if ye’ll have me.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I t took Glathra a moment or two to gather her breath and her temper.
When she gained mastery over both, she let fly.
“Have you? Have you? I’ll have you chained to the wall in our deepest, dampest dungeon, I will!”
Mirt gave her a wide-eyed, innocent grin. “Is that a yes?”
Glathra shrieked out wordless rage, then dashed her hands down to her sides, drew in a deep breath, and said icily, “I have no time for this. The realm stands in peril.”
She took three swift strides away, then whirled and marched back again. “I hope all of you are loyal to the Dragon Throne, and I value your assistance. However, I really cannot welcome four or five or six self-styled heroes wandering around this palace or Suzail outside these walls doing just as they please, without any obedience to royal commands or lawfully delegated authority-such as the orders I give.”
“Loyal wizard,” Alusair asked gently, “may we speak to you in private?”
Glathra looked at her, then around the room. “You want me to dismiss these good Dragons and my fellow Crown mages? Sorry, but no. You might very well try to overwhelm me. You may even succeed.”
“A poor reason,” the ghostly princess replied, “being as we could easily do that right now.”
“Is that a threat?” Glathra flared.
“It’s a statement of fact,” Alusair replied flatly. “If you’d like, I could make it a promise.”
“Heh,” Mirt chuckled, “I’d’ve thought ye’d have started to learn some lessons by now, Lady Glathra. Thick- skulled courtiers seldom rise to high office, or last long if given it.”
“You,” the war wizard snarled, rounding on him, “be silent! You are my prisoner, and-”
“Ah, no, lass, that I’m not. I’m King Foril Obarskyr’s honored guest-and, as it happens, the senior lord of a city that can buy and sell all Cormyr with ease in a day, if ever for any madwits reason we decided to do so. I admire yer force of character but not yer judgment. Ye’re being offered aid that embattled courtiers should leap to embrace, and yer spurning it. Idiot.”
Glathra sputtered wordlessly, then clamped her lips into a thin, hard line.
“You may be right in all you say,” she said curtly, “but I am in charge here.”
Alusair sighed, but Glathra raised her voice and went on. “Wherefore hear my orders, all of you! You, who when alive I would have obeyed”-she faced the ghost of Alusair unflinchingly-“are to go out and play sheephound, rounding up all the nobles and bringing them back here. Without their bodyguards.”
The princess stared at her, something close to grief on her ghostly face. So the talk might well be true, Glathra realized; these were orders Alusair couldn’t fulfill if she wanted to… probably she did fade away to no more than a whispering wind if she moved farther from the palace than halfway across the Promenade. Well, if so, she could swallow her royal pride and stlarned well admit that.
Glathra turned and pointed at Amarune. “You shall surrender yourself into the custody of the Dragons here with me, to keep out of trouble.”
“And be a hostage to ensure Arclath’s loyalty,” Rune hissed under her breath, glaring at the war wizard-who pretended not to hear, having already turned to Arclath.
“Lord Delcastle, you are to report to Sir Winter, to receive assignment to the ranks of the Purple Dragons, who are in pressing need of battlefront officers-especially if we face open rebellion.”
Arclath cocked an incredulous eyebrow. His expression put his thoughts clearly enough. Nobles took no orders from courtiers in matters of military service to the Crown. Did this mage think herself regent of the realm?
“Get over it, lordling,” Glathra muttered at him. “I’ve no time for arguments. None at all.”
She turned to Mirt. “Your opinion of me is baseless, and I repudiate it. I repeat: you are my prisoner. Resist or try to escape, and you’ll face deadly force.”
She looked to Storm.
“You,” she told the silver-haired woman crisply, “stay with me. I need you to tell me everything you and other Harpers are up to in Cormyr right now-along with all you know about what nobles we can trust, which are eager traitors, and who’s just following the strongest passing lion.”
Storm met Glathra’s stare expressionlessly, then turned and looked at Rune, Arclath, Alusair, and then Mirt.
Silent agreement was reached.
Glathra glared. Were they giving in? Or deciding that whatever their loyalties to the Crown of Cormyr, they could not accept her conditions?
Storm calmly stepped around Glathra and headed for the door she’d come in by. Mirt fell into step behind her.
Glathra grabbed for the wands at her belt and sidestepped to block the fat Waterdhavian’s path.
Storm whirled. Glathra started to turn, but iron-strong fingers caught her shoulder and flung her off balance into a helpless stumble across the room.
“Stop them!” Glathra snapped at the Dragons and mages, but Amarune and Arclath darted for the door as Alusair swooped through one man after another, chilling their hearts and leaving them gasping.
Glathra caught her balance just shy of ramming a wall, set herself facing the backs of her fleeing prisoners and their allies, and reached for her wands.
Her fingers closed on nothing. They had all been plucked away and strewn across the room! Stumbling boots were trampling them underfoot.
Yes, stumbling. The ghost of Alusair was racing repeatedly through them like a savage wind, leaving a weak, momentarily frozen and clumsy crowd of Dragons and fellow war wizards to carry out her orders.
Glathra fought for calm and began to cast a spell. Whereupon Storm Silverhand turned at the door in a swirl of silver tresses, plucked the nearest war wizard bodily off his feet, and flung him through the air.
Straight at Glathra.
A looming, helplessly shouting weight, all clawing arms and legs.
Who proved heavy, impossible to avoid, and very solid.
Glathra was slammed to the floor, bruised and winded. The mage who’d just felled her had thankfully rolled on past. Though not before ruining her spell, helplessly driving sharp knees and elbows into her… and giving the fleeing five time to get out the door.
As she fought to get her breath back, Glathra saw her fellow wizards on their knees clutching chests and throats, with Alusair curling up from them in ghostly triumph to dart out the door, calling, “To me, friends! I’ll take
