And looking into his eyes, she realized that he knew it as well.
She took the offered hand and shook it warily. “Alea Dahast,” she replied. “Are you…?”
“Am 1 what?”
“An evil wizard?” she prompted calmly.
“Wizard, yes, evil, no,” Baerauble Etharr replied, and Alea saw a gleam in the human’s eye. “But as a mage, I find the boorish company of humans to be rather a strain at best.”
Alea turned and started walking back to her people again. The human kept pace alongside her, matching her smooth stride. After a few moments of ignoring him, she turned her head and asked, “So if we don’t kill human poachers, what do we do? Give them this land?”
“You can scare them.”
She stopped and looked questioningly at the mage. Facing her, he smiled slightly and added, “You have wolves here.”
“Observant as well as magical,” she murmured, making her words sound like his slight accent. It had to be northern. It resembled the chimelike speech of the Netherese.
“Many?” he asked, acknowledging her sally with the merest ghost of a smile.
“Some.”
“Get more. Feral ones, like dire wolves. And some owlbears, bugbears, and whatever other wood-dwelling horrors you can find. Not enough to burden the forest or make the hunting too perilous for your folk. Put them along the borders… particularly the eastern verges, near the human settlements.”
She stood there, thinking. “If humans see that there are dangerous creatures on the edges of the forest “
“… they’ll think worse beasts lurk in its depths. To some, this might be a peril to eradicate at all costs, but any man going near the forest will be so busy fighting the roaming beasts that very few humans will venture far inside the woods. And so you have-again-your unspoiled hunting preserve. One can’t possibly kill all the humans, but one can steer them aside.”
Alea managed a half-smile as she looked at the burning wreckage of the human camp. She felt the truth in his words warm her inwardly as much as the flaring flames heated her face.
Yes, Iliphar would raise bloody tumult over this when he found out, but this simple strategy, plus the returned ears, might buy her a little grace with the elders. And if she brought along the human mage as a prize…
“You’ll come with us,” she said flatly, then turned her head and shouted a command at her hunters, bidding them make ready to travel.
“Of course I shall,” said the lanky human. Alea did not see the gleam in his eye and the widening smile on his lips, but she knew it was there.
Chapter 5: The Abraxus
Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)
“You sent for me, lord wizard?” The fur-cloaked high priest’s tones were barely respectful. Augrathar Buruin, High Huntmaster of Vaunted Malar for all Cormyr, wasn’t used to answering any summons that did not come from the crown itself.
“I did,” Vangerdahast told him gravely, “and I count your presence in Suzail at this time as a stroke of good fortune for the realm.”
The huntmaster merely grunted, a sound of mingled disdain and disbelief, and swaggered past Vangerdahast, the many dangling claws on the pelts he wore dancing with the weight of his stride. He headed straight to a platter on a sideboard, where he tore a leg deftly from a roast mountain bustard and asked, “So where’s the blood you want spilled? And in the meantime, what’s happened to the wine cellars?”
The Royal Magician’s eyes silently answered the query of the nearest belarjack, and the man scurried over to the cleric with a jack of wine and a goblet. The priest snatched the jack, leaving the startled servant holding the empty goblet, and Vangerdahast turned away before anyone could see him smile.
His movement brought him face to face with the next arrivaclass="underline" the battered old warrior Aldeth Ironsar, Faithful Hammer of Tyr, whose face was stiff with disapproval at the priest of Malar’s manners and presence. The Royal Magician greeted Ironsar warmly, even as they clasped each other’s upper arms, the Chamber of Crossed Dogs began to fill up rapidly. High Priest Manarech of Tymora, resplendent in vestments so new they seared the eye, nodded to Vangerdahast. Manarech smiled, seemingly bearing the High Wizard and the palace in general no ill will for being bathed in Bhereu’s last breaths, and drifted to the sideboard. Junstal Halarn, ranking Visiting Songmaster at Suzail’s shrine to Milil, was not far behind.
All of these good clerics were accompanied by their personal scribes, consecrated pages, and watchpriests. With glances and finger gestures rather than words, Vangerdahast saw to it that all of them were given wine and the small savory pastries that the kitchens of the court were justly famous for. Then he smiled and nodded, listening to their self-important chatter with every evidence of deep interest, hoping that the three men he was waiting for would not be too much longer.
As it happened, they arrived together. The sage Alaphondar and Erdreth Halansalim, a gaunt, no-nonsense senior war wizard, crept in unobtrusively through a side door, while Runelord Thaun Khelbor, Loremaster of Deneir, swept in through the main door. The loremaster bore a tall rune-graven staff of darkest ebony, and small lightning bolts crackled around the staff’s tip.
Vangerdahast fought the urge to smile again at the sight of the loremaster and his portable lightning storm, and he was careful not to raise his eyes in a patronizing glance. The loremaster was the oldest and most gentle of the assembled holy men. Why not allow him a moment of pride? Alaphondar, always calm and graceful, led the tardy cleric over to the sideboard as the Royal Magician stepped forward. Now was the time to take control of these proud men, before their mutual patience was stretched further and disputes could break out.
In a back corner, Vangerdabast saw the grim, white-bearded face of Erdreth start to turn, beginning to ceaselessly scrutinize the gathering from a back corner. The Royal Magician smiled in approval. Erdreth was checking for all manner of magical devices and potential dangers. The priests, of course, took Vangerdahast’s approving grin as a smile of welcome to them and made various gracious nods of superiority.
“Respectful greetings, your hallowed graces,” Vangerdahast said loudly and pleasantly. “The Crown of Cormyr requires your services in an important matter involving the very safety of the state, of your persons, and of the health of every man, woman, and child in Suzail.” That got their attention.
“There is a man in the chambers of Crown Princess Tanalasta,” he went on, not giving them any time to interject any speeches about their willingness, loyalty, and the like, “who may bear a disease, or a poison, or even fell magic. A nobleman. He must be examined without delay, lest he spread a plague-or worse-throughout the palace. And what afflicts the palace touches the court, fair Suzail, and eventually all the realm. I need you to make that examination.”
“Us?” The huntmaster demanded, waving the jack of wine without shame. “Why can’t you-or your precious war wizards-do it?”
Vangerdahast spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “My skills are insufficient, and my presence has been for the moment judged undesirable by the princess.” He fell silent, giving them the opportunity to ask the questions he knew they would.
“Forgive me if this verges on the indelicate,” Manarech of Tymora said tentatively, “but am I to understand that we are being asked to force our way into the bedchambers of the princess? And interrupt her, perhaps, in the company of a man who may be her…?” He fell silent, making a meaningful circling gesture with his hand. No one present lacked the imagination to supply the word that had been omitted: lover.
“And just who is this man?” the high priest of Tyr asked, brows drawn together in a frown of consideration.
“The man is Aunadar Bleth,” Vangerdahast told them, “and he may be the paramour of the princess, for all I know… or have bothered to ask.” He made the last few words almost a rebuke, looking around the room as he uttered them so that no man could feel personally singled out and slighted. Gods, he thought inwardly, priests are as bad as wizards-a keg full of pride crammed into a tankard of wits, the lot of them! Including, no doubt, he reflected ruefully, this wizard as well.