“Stand where you are, man!” the palace steward stormed. “You’ll stay still, right here, and listen! I haven’t finished yet!”
“Lord Hallowdant, please,” Lothrae tried again. “I really must relieve myself-”
Palace Steward Rorstil Hallowdant could radiate towering disgust just as devastatingly as the very best noble matriarchs; it was one of his best talents. Wordlessly he pointed over Lothrae’s shoulder.
At the door of a jakes that was literally four paces away.
It was not one of the few that had secret panels in its rear wall, either, curse the luck.
Lothrae sighed, resigned himself to perhaps never knowing who’d opened the crypt, and took his feigned need to empty his bladder into the jakes.
As the door swung closed behind him, the ring on his finger quivered and shone even more brightly, and he discovered, all of a sudden, that he truly did need to relieve himself. Badly.
In one of her favorite rooms of the palace-the nursery with the high round window she’d always loved watching the moon through-what was left of Alusair Obarskyr felt the activation of the rune, nine or so floors beneath her.
Not to mention the stirring of someone who had long been silent.
“One of Vangey’s old locking runes!” she hissed, alarmed and excited-and rushed through the palace like a ghostly wind, racing to the spot.
The ring’s brief blue glow faded, leaving Storm Silverhand blinking in the chill darkness.
Ah, royal crypts are such cozy places. Suzail’s was no exception. Still, it was one spot in a palace that, elsewhere, must resemble an agitated anthill about then, where she shouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted while-
There came a faint clank and rasping of sliding metal about four paces in front of her-and then the louder sound of a heavy stone door grating open. In the dim rectangle of resulting light, Storm found herself staring at a menacing figure in full armor.
Who stumbled toward her with a muffled curse, fumbling with its skirting plates.
Thankfully, that pleasantry was uttered in a voice she recognized.
“Well met, El,” she greeted her armored visitor cheerfully, sidestepping deftly in case she startled him. Archwizards-hah, all wizards-were … dangerous. Like unsheathed carving knives forgotten in a dark drawer, they could imperil all who blundered too near.
“Urrah? Storm?” The Sage of Shadowdale sounded astonished. “When did ye return?”
“Now,” she replied simply, stepping around him to close the door. “Whence this sudden thirst for wearing armor?”
“Stops idiot wizards of war hurling spells before they stop to ask who I am,” came the muffled reply. He produced something from under the skirts and thrust it at her. A tray, wobbling more than a little. “Here, hold this-and, ah, help thyself. Must get this blasted helm off.”
“Savory tarts?” Storm asked, her stomach suddenly rumbling. When had she last eaten, anyh-
The world erupted with a white-hot roar.
The scrying exploded in his face, but Manshoon never flinched. He let the tears stream as he smiled.
Lothrae and Mreldrake might be drooling idiots for days, but he’d managed it.
Yes.
Strike hard and fast enough, and you can fell even the mighty. Storm Silverhand should be a broken thing spattered across the back wall of the crypt, and Elminster sorely wounded.
That armor would have saved his life, but he’d be in great pain. And alone once more, as Manshoon wanted him to be.
Aye, this was much better. He busied himself casting another scrying spell to look into that crypt again as soon as possible. Spending days tainting its wards to let him through had been worth every irritating moment, after all.
“Storm?” he gasped when he knew he was Elminster again. He was lying sprawled on stone, afire with pain.
Silence was the only reply offered by the darkness.
“Oh, lass,” he whispered. “Oh, no. Not like this …”
Mystra be with me.
Or … will I join her?
Elminster swam back to consciousness again. The pain was even worse, this time.
The armor was torn and crumpled where it wasn’t missing. He was burned in all those bare places, yet shivering. He lay on the cold hard smoothness, feeling life run out of him … slow, sticky, and inexorable.
The faint glows of the tombs were gone … or was his sight merely dimming as he started to die?
No, there was new light.
Fey witchlight.
Alusair had arrived, and her ghostly glow with her.
“Hail, fair princess,” he murmured, trying to smile.
Metal clinked and tinkled; Alusair was fighting to pluck away shards of Duar’s shattered armor that kept falling through her fingers.
“Damned magic!” she hissed. “Once I could command this entire palace-and now I can’t farruking pick up a stlarning plate of armor!”
“How … mighty … fallen,” Elminster offered, choking on welling blood.
“Hey, now, Old Mage,” the ghostly Steel Princess replied tenderly, her face floating perhaps a hand’s length away from his, “rest easy. If you’re fated to die here, at least you’ll die clowning around in stolen armor-and if we kiss and cuddle as much as I can manage, you’ll go in the arms of a lass trying to make love to you. Isn’t that what most men want?”
“Not … dead … yet,” Elminster managed. “But so damned … weak …”
Which was when a feeble whisper rose from the open door in front of them both, and something dark slithered into view. A wraith, a dark cloud barely able to lift itself far enough off the flagstones to drift, creeping like smoke toward them.
“And how d’you think I feel?” it asked testily.
It was a voice they both knew.
Vangerdahast.
The whisper was coming from all that was left of him. He was obviously a Dragon no longer. And just as obviously barely alive-or barely undead-too.
“Elminster,” Alusair said insistently, “use the codpiece! Heal yourself, before it’s too late!”
Elminster blinked at her, nodded almost absently, obeyed-a glow that brought some measure of relief promptly washing over him-and went back to staring at the dark wraith-thing on the floor. It was looking back at him with what seemed to be a lopsided grin.
“Again,” the ghostly princess commanded, and Elminster obeyed, the pain ebbing still more.
“Vangerdahast?” he asked in disbelief, peering hard.
“Aye,” came the growled reply. “There’d be a lot less of me if Myrmeen hadn’t loved me enough to force the last of her life into me. Yet she did, so this is all that’s left of Vangerdahast, once Royal Magician and Court Wizard of Cormyr. Ruler of a dark and empty closet of a crypt, these last few years. Ever since that snake who stole my ring sealed me in.”
“Who?” Elminster demanded weakly. “Who did it?”
“His name,” Vangerdahast hissed, “I know not. Nor did I see his face. Yet he works here at the palace-I feel the ring near too often for his station to be anything else-and schemes to bring down the Obarskyrs, and fartalks Sembians who send him coin and give him commands, and orders foolheaded young nobles to do the butchery. Which will befall at a council of some sort, by his recent talk.”
Alusair and Elminster exchanged glances. “And what else did you overhear?”
“Nothing useful. I can hear only through the ring, and only for moments ere I collapse into wisps, exhausted, and must spend agonizingly long gathering myself together again.”
“Is …” Elminster realized how helpless he felt. “Can I help ye, somehow?”
“Leave me the codpiece. I can feed on that and gather myself to carry it. I’ll scare a few guards when they see a disembodied codpiece floating feebly along the passages.”