place of coins and willing wenches, swords and threats, and can never know the glories of the Art.”
“I see.” Arclath backed away. “And just whom do you work for? Yourself, I know, but what faction counts you as a member?”
“None of them. I stand apart from all this tiresome thronestrife. If representatives of other cabals visit in the days ahead, I may well capture them, too, and assemble a collection.”
“To what end? Do you think you can bargain with every noble House in the land? All of whom have House wizards and can hire more mages, so you’ll end up battling many spellhurlers at once?”
“Ah, spoken like a true noble. Power is something to be fought for and used to fight with, is it not?”
Arclath frowned. “Power is the art of getting what you want without the use of brute force.”
Dardulkyn smiled again. It looked no healthier than the first time he’d tried it. “You surprise me. That’s quite correct. I intend to fight for no one and against no one-unless someone is foolish enough to assault my home.”
He strolled forward until his shield forced Arclath to retreat again. “I’ve decided to take no sides in the increasing chaos and strife, until the time comes when all surviving factions are eager to bid huge sums and concessions for my services.” He spread his hands.
“I’ll then accept the best deal, settling for no less than a peerage and court rank, and ideally, a position of real power behind the throne comparable to that enjoyed of old by Vangerdahast. Yet, without any of the responsibilities or need to obey royalty that accompanies the title of royal magician or court wizard.”
He looked Arclath up and down and sneered. “I’ll be a lord then, Delcastle-and, I suppose, on my way to being as low and brutish as you.”
“I suppose I’m meant to feel insulted,” Arclath replied, “but I find, rather, that I feel ill, Saer Dardulkyn. I came to find aid against Elminster and was prepared to pay well for it, but it now seems Elminster is a lesser evil than I’d thought him to be.”
“Well, we all have to start learning about the world sometime.” The archwizard sneered, taking another step forward.
Arclath gave ground then suddenly turned, vaulted over the table, and rushed along the wall toward the door he’d come in by.
The wizard sprinted across the room with astonishing speed to thrust Arclath back from that exit-when Arclath was a mere stride away.
“That,” Dardulkyn said severely, breathing heavily, “was not wise. I will summon some of my guards to take you elsewhere.”
“They’re helmed horrors, aren’t they?”
“Indeed. Of my own crafting. It would be very unwise to dispute with them.”
Arclath nodded. So the door was unreachable-until the helmed horrors came through it, whereupon the wizard would step back, taking his shield with him, and leave the realm’s favorite Delcastle sharing a wedge of the room with them. The panel Dardulkyn had come in by was likewise unreachable.
But what of the other panels? He turned and dashed across the room again, vaulting the table and slamming hard into one of the panels on what he’d thought might be an outside wall.
It gave a little, so he sprang at it again, putting his shoulder into it. The panel thundered, yielding more than a little this time.
Dardulkyn was raising his hands to cast something, an angry frown on his face, by the third time Arclath struck the panel.
It gave a groan and rebounded open like a sprung door-revealing a window beyond!
A large, clear window of bubble-free glass, of the most expensive sort that it took too many golden lions to buy. Framed by frilly, feminine draperies and a matching valence!
Arclath crossed his arms in front of his face and throat, clutching the pommel of his drawn sword foremost, and launched himself at the window, hoping it bore no strange spell or other that would hurl him back.
It didn’t.
The crash was tremendous.
Arclath was vaguely aware of shards hurtling out in all directions, a strip of garden about as wide as the shoulders of a large man, a dark Suzailan street beyond it-and between garden and street, an ornate, many- curlicued, wrought-iron fence that looked quite sturdy.
It was.
He crashed into it and slid down it, trapped between stone mansion and fence. A fence that could no doubt spit lightning or extend iron claws if Dardulkyn had time enough to make it do so.
Snarling in frantic effort, Arclath leaped up, caught hold of the upper curlicues, and launched himself up and over, landing with a crash and the ringing clang of his dropped and bouncing sword.
A noise that should bring a watch patrol down on him in a trice, in a good neighborhood like this.
He rolled, snatched up his sword but didn’t waste time trying to snatch his breath, found his feet, and started to run.
No patrol, of course- why were there never any blasted Dragons when you needed them?
“A rather frosty converse,” he heard Dardulkyn announce calmly. “Late night bargainings seldom go well. However, I can’t allow an energetic and talkative young noble to escape me, knowing what he now does. So, a simple spell will hold you, Arclath Delcastle, until my horrors collect you.”
Arclath dashed to one side of the street, trying to hide himself from where the archwizard could see and aim. Did paralysis magic work like that? He couldn’t remember; he had only heard it talked about twice, and “Oh, hrast,” he cursed, feeling a sudden creeping lassitude, his limbs slowing. “Oh, no! No…” It was like trying to stride through a neck-deep pool of placid water.
He tried to fight his way onward but slowly became aware that, although his heart was pounding and his limbs were straining, his surroundings just weren’t changing any longer.
He was standing still.
Oh, naed.
“Hold!” Mirt grunted. “A man was running our way, up ahead there-and he’s just stopped.”
“Awed at the sight of the famous Mirt the Moneylender, Lord of Waterdeep, no doubt,” Storm replied from just behind him, as she towed the lolling and loose-limbed Amarune along. Rune could walk by herself, all weakness gone, but had to be led to keep her from falling.
“Nay, lass, not ‘stopped’ normal-like. Paralyzed by magic. I’ve seen it done often enough. Someone froze him midstride. An’ damn me if he doesn’t look familiar.”
“What sort of familiar?” Storm asked warily, trying to see past the fat man’s bulk.
“Arclath Delcastle sort of familiar,” Mirt replied, a few lurching strides later. “By the looks of things, he just burst out yon window. The one with the dolt in evil wizard robes standing glaring out of it.”
Storm clamped a hand on Mirt’s shoulder to bring him to a stop, then peered around him as if he were a large, concealing boulder. “Oh, he didn’t.”
“Obviously he did,” Mirt rumbled. “Didn’t what?”
“Went to see the calmly ruthless Dardulkyn, wizard-for-hire most puissant of all Suzail, to hire himself some magic,” Storm replied. “Means to ward away Elminster from certain minds, no doubt.”
“And negotiations went poorly?”
“It seems so. Rumor declares Dardulkyn has a personal army of helmed horrors, so he’s probably watching over Arclath until they can collect him.”
“So, we collect him first,” Mirt growled, lurching forward again and dragging Storm along with him, “and use Arclath as our shield against his spells, being as the lad’s already frozen, hey?”
“Hey,” Storm agreed ruefully, expecting something terrible to smite them at every step.
Mirt didn’t look toward the window or walk warily. He simply tucked Storm under one arm to keep her on his far side from the wizard’s mansion, lurched up to Arclath, thrust his free arm between two noble legs and up to catch hold of the back of Arclath’s belt, boosted the frozen lord up onto his hip, and kept on walking.
The first spell struck them about six paces later, as Mirt was busily turning Arclath to keep him between them and the window.
It dashed them all down in hard-bouncing pain and sent lightning sizzling away across the cobbles.
As those snarling little bolts faded, Storm-who was chin-down on the cobbles, tingling everywhere she
