Usually used to store whatever furniture wasn’t in use at the moment, the high-vaulted room was largely bare at the present time. It was lit by moving radiances, the fey lights of working magic.
They gleamed on the golden curves of what had been the bull in the forest, lying in glittering pieces on trestles at the center of the room. Light spells hovered over it, and other magic spells were lifting plates and rings of metal with invisible hands as two women leaned forward to examine them. They wore identical frowns of intense concentration.
One woman was familiar to the Royal Magician. Laspeera Inthre was warden of the war wizards, his deputy in the command of that vital fellowship. Still beautiful, she was beginning to show her years of strain in service to Cormyr. Lines flanked her pursed mouth, and a tiny pair of exquisitely crafted clear crystal spectacles, held aloft by magic, floated in front of her sharp nose as she stared at the intricate assembly of metal objects that lurked behind one of the bull’s nostrils. Without looking away from what she was studying, she raised her fingers in a salute. In all his years of working magic, Vangerdahast had met very few mages who could concentrate on as many things at once as this one. She was murmuring another spell now, the deft manipulation of metal plates and coils must be her work.
He’d seen the other buxom, beautiful woman before, too, but never expected to find her here in the depths of the palace, in chambers normally closed to the public. She tossed her head to shake long, honey-hued hair out of her face and favor him with a smile as he approached. The High Wizard knew he’d last laid eyes on that pert, mysterious, rather catlike smile in The Laughing Lass, a Suzailan establishment that often transformed itself from tavern into festhall when the nights grew warm. The woman been dancing on a table at the time, wearing very little more than a smile and a few strings of coins. She smiled now as if she knew him, but Vangerdahast was sure such was not the case. The web of disguise spells he habitually wore to the Lass was impenetrable. Wherefore his challenge, when it came, was a trifle sharper than he’d intended. “And you are-?”
She raised eyes like warm flames to meet his and replied, “I am called Emthrara Undril, and I can show you something that means more. Pray stay your spells and mistake not my intent, lord wizard, which is peaceful. I but open my locket.” Slim fingers went slowly up to the ribbon she wore at her throat and the oval of chased silver there, to push a tiny catch and swing the locket open. She lifted her chin to let Vangerdahast get a good look inside.
Within was more black silk, and on it a tiny silver harp. She was a Harper.
The Royal Magician’s eyes narrowed. A tavern dancer, aye, that fit with the way Those Who Harp liked to operate… but how came she here to this room at such a time?
“Is this more of Elminster’s meddling?” he asked suspiciously.
Emthrara frowned slightly. “The Great Oversorcerer, Favored of Mystra? Nay-I doubt he even knows I am here.”
She tossed her head almost challengingly, eyes on his, and said excitedly, “I met him once! He was very kind. He said I danced as well as they once did in Myth Drannor, if you can credit that!”
“Harrumph,” Vangerdahast growled and turned away.
From behind him came Laspeera’s low, level voice, the wizard could tell she was amused. “I brought Emthrara here, lord, because I knew she’d once fought, disabled, and then taken apart a giant spider of metal, called by some a ‘clockwork horror.’ Is she not, therefore, the best person in all Cormyr to learn the secrets of this beast?”
“Harrumph,” Vangerdahast said again, striding toward the door. A pace away from it, he spun around and said heavily, “Accept my apologies, please, for my churlish manner. I am overtired and no great friend to surprises at the best of times.”
Emthrara smiled easily. “I’ll look for you again in the Lass, High Wizard,” she said cheerfully, and Laspeera laughed at the way Vangerdahast winced and put his hand to his forehead.
Still shading his eyes, he asked in pained tones, “The abraxus, ladies. Have you found any traps yet, or reservoirs where more of its breath gas might be waiting?”
“No, lord,” they said in chorus, and Emthrara added, “We did find a small metal tray inserted beneath the beast’s chin. It might have held the venom, but it was empty, its poison spent. And a switch along the spine, which appears connected to a set of bellows within.”
“Is the creature newly fashioned?”
The two women exchanged glances, and then Emthrara said, “We think not. In places where no royal blades penetrated, we believe, the metal is bright from wear and use. Some plates and pieces seem newer than others, as if replacements have been made.”
“And can you put it back to how you found it?”
There was some hesitation in Laspeera’s voice as she said, “We think so… if you hold that such a reassembly would be wise, lord.”
Vangerdahast waved one hand. “I was inquiring as to your abilities and the condition of the components, not ordering that such a process be undertaken.” He hummed absently for a moment or two, lost in thought, and then asked, “What powers the magic that gives this beast life? Can you tell?”
Laspeera shrugged. “I cannot be sure, but I am almost certain that life-force must be drained from a beast or a man to make this construct move.”
“And would this be an unwilling sacrifice or an unaware victim? A summoning, perhaps? And does it function according to its own will, or is it directed from afar?”
Laspeera spread her hands in mute demonstration of her ignorance. Emthrara followed suit, but added, “There are devices in the South that use a victim’s life-force for power. These sometimes require a victim of particular ability or appearance to make them function. In such cases, the life-force is sucked from the body as a great green flame. This may or may not be related.”
The Royal Magician sighed and turned back to the door. “Answers, as usual, are all too few and speculations all too many. Nonetheless, both of you have done well. My thanks.” He laid a hand on the door, then turned once more and asked, “So who, in your opinion, might be able to direct such a thing against Cormyr?”
Laspeera spread her hands again, but the Harper dancer smiled thinly and said, “Ah, now, lord wizard, you ask us to venture forth upon the seas of pure speculation.”
Vangerdahast gestured for her to do so.
She shrugged. “Leaving aside the always present but slim possibility that arcane magic has been sent to beset us by liches, lone mad mages, or cabals of ambitious powers from the world below who want our land as their surface playground-illithids, the Phaerimm, and others we know too little of to even list-leaving all these aside, we can easily name the Zhentarim, the Red Wizards of Thay, perhaps even the Arcane Brotherhood of Luskan, or individual archwizards of Calimshan or Halruaa. Such folk have the necessary mastery of the arcane. As to why, we must open a far greater sphere of speculation. The folk who might hire such fell magic could be descendants of the Tuigan Khahan seeking revenge, elements of Sembia, the Zhentarim, or even Archendale seeking to weaken the realm-or even a rival noble house here at home, desiring to exterminate the Obarskyr line.”
The Royal Magician lifted an eyebrow, but the Harper added softly, “That is where I would look first, lord. Outlanders rarely manage to strike with swords or beasts at a specific person, in the heart of the realm, without knowing the ground… and their target… fairly well.”
Vangerdahast nodded slowly. “I have had similar thoughts. If this crisis passes, we must talk again, Lady Emthrara.”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I am no lady.”
“Then you’ll not find a flagon of fine wine too much of an effrontery,” the wizard returned, “will you?”