Ganrahast held up his hand to stop her. “I want you to list them for us in a moment, lady, but first- Erzoured?”
“Our ongoing work to, ah, take care of every crony and ally he develops,” a thin and dour mage replied, “continues, and he remains isolated, as he has found himself time and time again. Many of the nobles’ factions and Sembian and Suzailan merchant cabals are reaching out to him right now, but he has joined none of them, yet- and all of them fear the possibility he’s a spy for the king.”
Dark chuckles made note of that irony, ere the royal magician stilled them with his hand again and asked, “Glathra? Those smaller players?”
“Targrael, the death knight who believes herself the true guardian of Cormyr. The rival claimant for that role, the ghost of the Princess Alusair. Whoever sent the eye tyrant to attack us last night. The scuttling wraith- spider-I know of no better name for it-who claims to be the infamous Vangerdahast and certainly commands as much about the palace as that royal magician was reputed to-statues, and the like-not to mention the escaped Elminster, and his companion Storm Silverhand, who for some years have stolen magic from us, in the palace.”
“Have any of these joined in common cause with ambitious nobles, while we’ve been… asleep?” Vainrence asked with a frown.
“Not that we know of,” Glathra said slowly, after no one else ventured a reply, “yet all of them are capable of such treason.”
Ganrahast snorted. “So is any dog or passing falcon. We must avoid raising phantoms and fearing them. The real foes are formidable enough.”
“I do have my suspicions about one of us,” Glathra added, raising a finger, “though I admit it is early yet for my alarm to have gained any serious substance. Yet, we all follow our hunches or noses or itches… and this is my newest.”
Ganrahast waved at her to continue. “Raise your suspicions. Please.”
“Welwyn Tracegar,” she replied bluntly. “Last night I ordered him to take three persons into custody for questioning-Storm Silverhand, Lord Arclath Delcastle, and a mask dancer of the city who seems to be descended from the notorious Elminster, one Amarune Whitewave. He did this but has since vanished, along with the prisoners and a man calling himself Mirt, who claims to be a Lord of Waterdeep. Though that name was better known in Waterdeep about a century ago.”
“We can all banish our suspicions about Wizard of War Tracegar,” Ganrahast announced firmly, “and leave him be, to operate without hindrance.”
Glathra leaned forward to look at him, frowning. “Why?”
“I’ve taken counsel with Vangerdahast-or what is left of him-and we have agreed on this,” the royal magician replied curtly. “Ask me no more.”
Eyebrows went up all around the table, but Glathra merely sat back and asked the ceiling, “Will there come a day when someone else besides a former royal magician-who richly earned himself a very fell reputation-will decide things for the Forest Kingdom?”
“Vangerdahast swore to dedicate his life to guard Cormyr, and he is still guarding Cormyr. Guided by wisdom and experience none of us can match,” Ganrahast replied quietly. “In this, I am willing to trust him for a little longer.”
“How little?”
“We’ll see.”
This cellar was beginning to feel like a prison cell. Manshoon paced it, thinking dark thoughts.
He was back in the body of Sraunter, who was given to such gloomy thinking-but the worrying that was consuming him at that moment was all his own.
He could find no trace of Mreldrake or Targrael-or Talane!
Dared he creep back into Understeward Corleth Fentable’s mind, using one of his wagon drovers, who supplied the palace with foodstuffs daily, to reach Fentable? And so seek to learn the current thinking of the Crown?
Or was it time to lie low, going nowhere near the palace? He could instead take fresh measure of the war wizards, with an eye to which ones he could isolate and destroy or ruin with scandal, either by entrapment or deceit.
It went against his desires to lurk idle and let others seize power-it had angered him just to return his beholders to hiding in the cellar-but perhaps that was the best path to take over the next few months. He could work through Dardulkyn to keep some sort of watch over the various ambitious nobles…
He nodded, feeling grim.
He’d succumbed once again to the urge to take a direct hand in things, and the results had been disastrous.
Two beholders gone, for scant gain, and his presence very close to being revealed or at least suspected strongly enough to set the wizards of war to hunting him.
No, lying low and keeping his beholders hidden was best, for a while.
He would work through Dardulkyn-he had, after all, managed to destroy everyone who’d seen his tyrants- and use various lesser thralls, servants and carters, to try to discover just which Cormyrean noble besides Marlin Stormserpent commanded a blueflame ghost.
This stealth should keep him away from Elminster’s notice, too. He would wait until the Sage of Shadowdale revealed himself, and then pounce and destroy Elminster again.
“And bury him deep, this time,” he told the cellar fiercely, as the shop bell rang and he started up the stairs. “As often as it takes, until he’s gone forever.”
“Well?” Marlin Stormserpent snapped. It was full morning and foresters would be about, all too soon. His bodyguards should have managed this a lot faster.
“Done, lord,” came the flat, almost sullen reply. “The huntsman and all six lodge guards are dead.”
“Wrap the bodies in the oldest tent of those up in the rafters, and take them to the bear den up by Blackrock, right down in the rocks at its mouth, for the bruins to devour. Don’t be seen, and don’t trail blood from here to there. Leave Ghalhunt here with me.”
“As you command,” the man replied, almost insolently, and strode away.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Marlin went the other way, to where the doors of the Windstag hunting lodge-his, now, for a few nights at least-stood open and waiting.
Windstag could find another huntsman, and any lout of an armsman could be a lodge guard. It wasn’t as if House Windstag lacked coins enough…
Ghalhunt at least had sense enough to light and stoke the firewood that had been left ready in the lodge hearth, to drive the chill damp out.
With a sigh of contentment, Stormserpent settled himself in Windstag’s big lounge chair, right in front of the hearth, and kicked his boots off, the better to toast his cold and aching feet. He’d always coveted that particular chair…
He gave Ghalhunt a nod of thanks as the bullyblade rose from the hearth.
“Just going to fetch more wood in, lord, before any nosy foresters come by and want to know who all the strange faces belong to.”
Stormserpent nodded, satisfied. The shed was perhaps ten strides away; Ghalhunt would be back in no time to get a morningfeast going. At the very thought, his stomach rumbled loudly.
He heard the bullyblade chuckle at that as he went out, the door squealing ever so slightly in the man’s wake.
The next thing he knew, something had been tossed into the fire, scattering sparks. Something round, that set up an angry hiss. Something that stank of… burning hair?
Marlin Stormserpent sat up, rubbing at his eyes. He must have dozed off.
Was that-what was that, in the fire?
A log slumped, the object he was staring at rolled over, and he realized he was looking at Baert Ghalhunt’s dully staring severed head.
But who-?
He tried to look back behind him, but the high wings of the chair were in his way. Blue flames, cold and
