“ ’Tis always the quiet ones,” Mirt growled, stalking forward and hefting his dagger.
The ghost vanished. A moment later, the cobbles all around Lord Calantar suddenly sprouted war wizards.
“Traitor!” Lady Glathra shouted into the lord’s face, trying to grab his hand and the glowing item in it.
“Hey!” Mirt shouted. “Mind out!”
He pointed, and some of the Crown mages turned to look.
They saw the beholder swooping down on them, its many-fanged maw gaping and its eyestalks writhing like angry snakes.
The war wizards let fly with their swiftest, strongest battle spells, chanting and gesturing frantically-as Mirt swept out one arm, caught Storm around her sword arm, and dragged her hastily back.
She was trying to fight free of his dogged, wheezing grasp when the spells started to strike the beholder- and it exploded with terrific force, shattering windows, balconies, and cobbles, dashing their ears into ringing numbness, and hurling scores of folk in all directions, like so many dolls.
Another trap.
Glathra was smashed flat by two of her own war wizards as they were flung into her from behind-and Lord Calantar was sent tumbling down the street to fetch up against a cart, dazed and mumbling.
Storm stumbled after him, the blast having snatched her out of Mirt’s grasp, and pounced on the noble. Who stabbed up at her with a dagger as he tried to call out his ghost again. The item in his hand-a belt buckle-started to pulse a bright blue once more.
Storm fended off one thrust, took another in her forearm with a hiss of pain, then lost patience and brought her sword down, chopping Calantar’s buckle-holding hand down onto the cobbles. He spat a curse at her and stabbed again, so she swung her sword up and chopped down harder, cutting his hand off.
It was still clutching the belt buckle.
Storm snatched the spurting, severed thing up, buckle and all, and tried to ignore the pulsing blue glow.
She could see the five blueflame ghosts all staring at her and running now, coming for her as fast as they could.
Glathra was on her feet again and running at Storm, too-and was much closer. She was trying to gasp out a spell as she came, but as she trampled on an apparently unconscious Mirt, the Waterdhavian tripped her deftly with one hairy hand. He rose with a grin as Glathra bounced on her face, to shout at Storm, “Go, lass! Get ye gone! I’ll try to-”
The five ghosts were almost upon him.
Storm winced, not wanting to see what was going to happen to Mirt-and then, in a sudden flash and a moment of silent, gentle drifting, it was all gone.
The street, ghosts, Glathra, and all.
Elminster’s magic had snatched her away.
Abruptly, Storm was standing on a hard, smooth, and familiar floor.
She was in the warehouse, holding Lord Calantar’s severed hand, and the buckle clutched in those gore- dripping fingers was losing its blue glow.
Elminster was running to her, Arclath and Amarune right behind him. Rune wore her mask but nothing else; the blue flames El’s magic had shrouded her in had vanished.
“I-” Storm started to say, but a frowning Arclath snatched up a rickety chair at a dead run and flung it, hard.
Storm ducked aside and the chair smashed right into-Wizard of War Glathra, who had just appeared behind her.
Glathra fell to her knees, spat out a curse, snatched a wand from her belt, and triggered it, blasting Elminster, who’d leaped in front of Storm. Flames crashed into him with a roar.
In a trice his familiar face and beard were gone, mere wisps of illusion dashed to nothingness in the flames that tore apart the body that had been Applecrown’s.
The staring face of a much younger man was sent flying through the air as Glathra’s wand blast flung all that was left of Reldyk Applecrown in a dozen directions.
Severed limbs flew, ashes swirled, and Arclath was flung into a stack of crates, to land groaning.
Storm slid past him across the warehouse floor, silver hair clawing at crates and barrels to try to slow herself.
Nude and weaponless, Amarune Whitewave flung herself on Glathra, backhanding the wizard viciously across the face and snatching the wand away. Glathra made a grab for it and got a hard elbow under her chin instead as Rune twisted away to fling the wand as far and as hard as she could, off into the dim distances of the crate-heaped warehouse.
The two women clawed and rolled for a frantic breath or two before Glathra broke free, sprinted out of Rune’s reach, and turned to catch her breath and get out her other wand, the one that paralyzed.
Which was when Storm hit her, launching herself over crates in a wild dive with arms spread wide to make sure the wizard of war couldn’t dodge away.
Glathra tried.
They ended up on the floor together, bouncing and struggling. Storm’s tresses promptly shackled Glathra’s wrists and assaulted her mouth, preventing her from uttering any magic-until the Bard of Shadowdale could get a hand on the war wizard’s head.
Ruthlessly Storm slammed the war wizard’s head against the floor, then clawed it up by Glathra’s hair and slammed it down again. And again.
And again, until her foe went limp under her.
Then once more, just to be sure.
Glathra was far beyond feigning anything. She was out cold.
Panting, Storm rolled away, snatched up the belt buckle-it glowed blue, just for an instant-and cried, “We must get to The Simbul right now! El?”
Elminster’s ashes were slithering across the floor like a snake, making for Amarune, but Arclath roared, “No! To me, El! To me!”
The ashes obediently turned toward the young lord.
Who got up, wincing, to call, “Clothes on, Rune! To the palace!”
“Well, the gods smile on us in at least one way,” the royal magician muttered as he scooped powerful scepters and rods out of coffers onto the table. “Something must have happened to Elminster. They have to walk here, not translocate right past us or up to their chosen palace gate. That will give us time to at least try to get ready.”
Sir Talonar Winter and Highknight Eskrel Starbridge stood in front of him, already clad in all the magical bracers, helms, breastplates, and codpieces Ganrahast had been able to hurriedly find. He continued on to daggers, swords, and little bucklers, as novice war wizard magelings trotted into the room in a steady stream, bearing weapons, shields, and armor plucked from various walls and stands all over the palace.
“This is a fight to the death,” the royal magician added grimly. “Blueflame ghosts are sent to murder our nobles-and now they’re coming here, which can only mean they intend regicide. Storm Silverhand, Lord Arclath Delcastle, that mask dancer, and no fewer than five blueflame ghosts, who are right behind them-”
He swung around to peer into his nearby scrying eye, to make sure what he was saying was still true. Depressingly, it was.
“-and will try to get into the palace. We must prevent them, at all costs. If they penetrate this far, we must spend our lives stopping them from reaching the king. I will make the final stand, because I must translocate His Majesty elsewhere if all else fails. I’ll be sending him alone, because I will not flee this fight.”
“That is not the royal magician’s duty,” hissed an unexpected voice, startling them all. They turned to where it had come from-a space too small for any human, behind the table now strewn with enchanted armor and weapons-and beheld a wavering wisp in the air, a faint shadowy presence.
It darkened just a little, becoming a feminine head and shoulders with arms and a sword… all of which they could see through.
“I am Alusair Obarskyr,” it told them, “and I will fight. Ganrahast, as royal magician, you must see that the
