CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Ahem, ah, dauntless guardian? Saer Dragon?”
Mirt put what he fondly hoped would be taken for a friendly smile on his face, and lurched up to the palace guard with his hands empty and spread out before him, to show that he was unarmed. The man did not look friendly.
“I’m looking for the Lady Glathra. Wizard of war, usually in a hurry, loud and forceful? Ye know her, aye?”
The Purple Dragon turned his head to give the stout Waterdhavian a long, measuring look, from his untidy hair down to his flapping boots and back up again, before settling in one spot. Mirt saw that.
“Heh-heh. Pay no heed to this that rides on my shoulder. ’Tis a pet, no more. Harmless, I assure ye. Harmless.”
Close beside Mirt’s ear, Vangerdahast gave a low, warning growl.
Mirt hastened on. “So, saer, can ye take me to the Lady Glathra? Or tell me the way to where she might be found?”
“Why?” the Dragon made reply, shifting his spear from “ceremonial upright rest” to a menacing, ready position. “Who are you, and what’s your business with her? What are you doing down here, anyway?”
“Looking,” Mirt explained patiently, “for Glathra. I’m Lord Mirt of Waterdeep, visiting my good friend King Foril Obarskyr. As for my business with Glathra…”
He leaned forward to give a wink and a friendly leer, but the horrific result made the guard recoil-then flush with irritation at having abandoned his urbane, neutral manner, and snarl, “I don’t believe you. Show me your pass!”
Mirt sighed and strode past the man. “I pass,” he explained, “like this. See?”
“A jester, eh?” the Dragon snarled, lowering his spear to point at Mirt’s ample belly.
“Hey,” Mirt said agreeably, steering the spearpoint aside with one hand. “I take it ye’re unaware of Glathra’s whereabouts? Aye? Well, then, I’ll just be-”
“Halt! Stand and surrender, you! Lord of Waterdeep, indeed!”
The Dragon made a jabbing movement with his spear, threatening to use it if Mirt tried to flee. Then he stood it against the wall with one hand and drew his sword with the other.
“Consider yourself,” he said sternly, “under arrest. As my prisoner, you will accompany me without challenge or violence, seeking neither to deceive me nor to flee from custody. And we won’t be going anywhere near the Lady Glathra, believe me-”
Without warning, Vangerdahast launched himself like a striking spider, right into the Dragon’s face. The Dragon fell to the floor.
“So, what did ye do to him?” Mirt rumbled, stepping over the fallen guard and hastening at full lurch farther down the passage.
“Enspelled him to sleep, at my touch,” Vangey replied. “Dragons didn’t dare to be that officious in my day. With a visiting head of state, too!”
Mirt chuckled as he rounded a corner and caught sight of another guard, standing to attention against the wall under another lantern.
“So, care to place a little wager on the conduct of this next one?”
“No,” Vangerdahast replied flatly. “You provoke them-and I’m just a pet, remember?”
Mirt had the grace to wince.
Glathra’s reappearance at the greatly enlarged hole in the palace wall caused an immediate clamor, as war wizards hastened from all sides to try to push through the Dragons and speak to her.
“Silence!” she barked-and the Crown mages obeyed, in midword. All around them soldiers blinked, raised eyebrows, or grinned openly.
Despite the way she felt, still lying on the ground in pain and feeling utterly drained, Storm joined in the latter reaction.
Glathra had it, all right. Dominance, with a single word.
Yet the wizard of war wasn’t done. “You can report to me later. The engagement here is obviously over, yet I observe my orders have still not been carried out, despite an assembly of more loyal soldiers and oathsworn wizards in one place than I’ve seen for a good long time. So let this disobedience be remedied, forthwith. Use spells to paralyze these three-this mask dancer, Amarune Whitewave; this Harper outlander, Storm Silverhand; and this noble lord of Cormyr, Arclath Delcastle. They are to be taken into custody and chained to the wall in the main Westfront holding cell to await interrogation. Do this now.”
Storm didn’t even try to stir. She was so exhausted that she’d be asleep at that moment if it weren’t for the pain. The beholder’s searing ray had caught her, though three Dragons had unintentionally shielded her from its full effects with their bodies and had paid the price. The Westfront cell was clean, dry, and well lit, and she could sleep dangling from chains about as well as she could in the street, where she was liable to be walked on or have a cart driven over her.
The war wizards obeyed Glathra with alacrity, probably because she stayed to watch long enough, this time, to make sure her orders were carried out. When the two standing over Storm finished their brief chanting, she felt no more than an immediate numbness. Followed by the inevitable itches she could now not scratch, of course. When she flexed a finger, she found she could move it-though she stilled it instantly to avoid anyone noticing.
The old Harper paralyzing glove. It was still thrust through her belt and must have absorbed the magic that should have frozen her. Which might mean it would again work, paralyzing at a touch, at least once or twice.
“You have no right-” Arclath started to shout, nearby, but broke off as magic silenced him.
“Rights?” a Dragon telsword growled as he struck the sword from the paralyzed noble’s hand, to clang on the cobbles. “Don’t make me laugh. Rights are what we carve out for ourselves, with the points of our swords!”
“They’re all done,” a mage reported. It was a voice Storm knew.
“Very good,” Glathra replied crisply. “Wizard of War Welwyn Tracegar, you will supervise the conveyance of the prisoners to the cell, and their securing. Dragons, you are to obey Tracegar as you would any battlemaster. Tracegar, see it done!”
“Lady,” Tracegar-the owner of the familiar voice-replied with a bow.
Storm tried to act paralyzed as firm hands took hold of her, lifted her, and carried her away.
Tracegar extended his hand. “The keys.”
The lionar shook his head. “No, saer. The Lady Glathra said we were to obey you as we would a battlemaster. Save in time of open war’s need, no battlemaster would break that standing order-the keys are to be retained by a soldier away from the dungeons, to prevent prisoners who overcome a guard from being able to win free of manacles or cells. The prisoners have been secured now-so I go, and the keys go with me.”
Tracegar gave the man a glare.
Stone-faced, the Dragon looked back at him.
“The Lady Glathra charged me with full responsibility for the prisoners,” he snapped, “and I can’t carry that out unless I have the keys.”
“Then declare yourself regent, saer. Whereupon, you’ll have them on the spot. While all of us await the interesting reason you’d soon have to offer the king for your declaration. Saer.”
Tracegar gave the lionar a long, cold stare, then snarled and waved at the Dragon to depart and take his fellows with him.
They went, one of them daring to make the low bow extended to regents, on his way out of the cell.
As Tracegar glared at their backs, Storm slipped on her glove.
Like Amarune, she was secured to the wall by ankles and throat and her right wrist, all manacled to wall- rings by chains about a foot long. Their left arms were free.
Men were deemed more dangerous, so Arclath-despite his noble birth-had both wrists chained to the wall.
