those orders came from the highest-ranking wizard of war ye’re likely to find, I’m not inclined to disobey them. Why are ye of a mood to, I wonder?”
“Because I’ve never seen you in my life before,” the senior hostler said bluntly, “because you talk like an outlander, and because it’s the middle of the stlarning night and what you’re telling me you want to do would be unusual at highsun! Why don’t we just wait for this highnosed wizard to show up himself and demand his coach, eh? After all, it’s you he’s going to be angry with, not me. I’m just the man responsible for all the coaches and horses and tack here, who’s not letting any of them out of my sight without clear orders from my superiors.”
Mirt sighed. “I was afraid ye were going to be like this, an’ I want ye to know that I regret what I’m now going to have to do.” He rubbed his knuckles, made a fist, and started forward threateningly.
The hostler sneered, stepping back and reaching for a long-tined hayfork-as a massively muscled telsword of the Purple Dragons stepped out of a stall to confront Mirt. “Any trouble, Neld?”
“Yes,” the hostler said triumphantly, glaring at Mirt. “This fat outlander is trying to steal a coach-and wants me to harness up the horses for him, first.”
“Nay, I’m not trying anything of the sort,” Mirt growled, still advancing with his hairy hands balled into fists- and ignoring the looming telsword. “I’m trying to get ye to obey orders that came from the royal magician himself.”
“Are you, now?” the telsword asked softly. “Being as the royal magician’s been missing for days, I’d like to hear those orders directly from him myself. In the meantime, what’s your name, outlander, and what’s your trade?”
“Mirt, an’ I’m a Lord of Waterdeep. It pays well.”
“I’ll bet it does, if you acquire coaches this way everywhere you go,” the telsword snapped, stepping forward to confront Mirt.
The Waterdhavian was a big man, but the telsword was head and shoulders taller and just as wide, his bulk being muscle and bone where Mirt’s was fat and bone. “Well?” he asked silkily. “Still going to try to bully Neld into helping you clout a coach, Lord Mirt?”
“I was asking nicely, but I suppose if local custom demands I bully him, then bully him I must,” Mirt growled. “Stand out of the way, Nameless Dragon.”
“Heh. My name is Voruld, and I don’t take orders from outlander thieves.”
“Stand out of the way, Voruld,” Mirt growled.
“Or you’ll what?”
Mirt shrugged, snatched one of his handy bags of pepper from his belt with the twist that undid its binding, and flung it in Voruld’s face. Sidestepping the inevitable blind charge, as the telsword bellowed in pain, he deftly slit the man’s codpiece straps with his dagger-and from behind the roaring Dragon, delivered a good hearty kick where it would cause impressive results.
Then he ran up the Dragon’s shuddering body, temporarily out of reach of Neld’s jabbing fork, stamped on the back of Voruld’s neck with both boot heels, and, as the Dragon fell heavily to the floor, snatched some filled and ready feedbags from their pegs and fed them into Neld’s face.
Avoiding the fork, he followed the blinding doses of oats with his fists, taking solid satisfaction in hammering Neld to the floor twice. When the hostler seemed disinclined to rise on his own the third time, Mirt took him by one ear and hauled him to his feet.
“I’m in a hurry,” he growled with a jovial smile, wiping away spattered oats until Neld could see him out of swelling eyes that were going to be impressively purple-black by highsun, “so I’ll refrain from breaking your nose or jaw. If, that is, you get the proper horses harnessed to that coach there, right away without any delays at all. And in case you’re thinking of giving me lame horses or the wrong harness and reins or some such trickery, I suppose I should warn you that I’ve readied coaches in my time. Cut a strap or leave anything important loose or undone or just missing, and I’ll break your fingers. Backwards.”
Neld swallowed.
Mirt gave him a tender smile. “Yes, I mean it,” he added lightly. “And I do believe time is sliding past us, Neld, my new friend. Just like the royal magician’s patience. And where I’m a simple man who just knows how to break things, he’s a mage who knows how to really exact lasting revenges.”
Neld ran to the nearest tack table. Fast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Got you here, didn’t it?”
Glathra Barcantle stiffened as if she’d been slapped, then turned slowly, trembling hands clenched and a wordless, rising-pitch snarl escaping her lips.
Her towering rage at discovering no danger at all in the royal wing, that she’d been duped, and that she’d awakened Obarskyrs for no good reason had not been improved by angry royal aspersions upon her competence.
She was facing a sleepy King Foril right now, and he continued to be none too amused.
So an unwelcome voice from behind her was a last slapping insult, by the throne!
“Give me one good reason,” she hissed as she addressed a spiderlike intruder that had somehow gotten past several posts of guards and into the outermost anteroom of the king’s own bedchambers, “why I should not blast you to your grave, right now.”
“You’ll be dooming the realm, entirely for your own selfish ambition and shortsighted stupidity,” the black, wraithlike head atop spiderlike human fingers replied calmly, lifting one finger to wag it at her disapprovingly. “To put it diplomatically.”
The king had caught up a scepter that could do all the blasting that might be necessary to dispose of all of his guests and most of the wall beyond them, too, but was staring past Glathra at the walking head atop the high back of his best guest chair with interest rather than fear.
“Are you who I think you are?” Foril asked quietly. “Vangerdahast?”
“I am,” the spiderlike thing replied. “And I needed to lure this noisy wizard up here so I could converse with her before a royal audience. Vastly increasing the chances she’ll listen and obey.”
Glathra exploded. “What? Don’t presume to give me orders! Your time is past, old man-by the Dragon, your time as a man is past!”
“I serve the realm still. And do so far better than you’ve ever done, Barcantle. Bluster, highhanded rudeness, and lashing out before you consider consequences is never superior to subtle manipulations-even if you weren’t now facing a city full of angered nobles just itching to find provocations. So spare me your shouts, and tender me your ears and whatever small part of your brain you still use for thinking.”
“How dare-? I’ve never been spoken to-”
“Indeed, and what a problem that’s created! Now, will you listen?”
Glathra folded her arms across her chest and tossed her head. “I don’t even know you are the infamous royal magician! You look like a construct an ambitious but not accomplished mage might cobble together! The words we’re hearing from you right now could be those of any traitor noble, Sembian, or other foe of the Dragon Throne!”
“Or they could be my own. Foril, call to mind the line of verse Queen Filfaeril left to you, written in a locket, but say them not.”
The king frowned then nodded. “I remember them.”
“ ‘The Crown of the Dragon is a thing so heavy, that I send my love to all who may wear it when I am dust, because only love can hold it high,’ ” the spiderlike thing declaimed, then asked, “Believe I’m Old Vangey now?”
“No,” Glathra snapped, before the king could speak. “Scores of courtiers know those words now, because of various royal scribes and palace gossip and the Highknights’ use of parts of it, some time back, as pass phrases.”
