One of them was there right then. She had locked the doors from the inside after entering, and she was not alone.
Raereene was her name, and at that moment she wore only a hungry expression and her long, glossy fall of blue-black hair. The young palace server atop her, Kreane, was gasping out her name repeatedly as panting passion seized them both.
Their ardor might have more than cooled if they’d known who was watching them through the eyes of the smiling portrait of King Duar, which hung across the room, facing the great lamp-studded hanging sculpture of the fire wyrm for which the cavern was named.
Princess Alusair Obarskyr had ridden and been ridden by many panting men in her day, and her eyes were two ghostly flames of hunger and longing as Elminster came up beside her in the secret passage.
Without a word, he put his hand on where her shoulder would have been had it been solid, and he bent to look through the eyes of Duar’s queen, where she’d been painted pressed happily against his shoulder.
“Gods,” Alusair growled quietly, “I miss this!”
“As do I,” Elminster muttered. “As do I. Yet enjoy the memories, lass; isn’t that why ye made them? Hmm?”
Alusair gave him an angry glare. “Wizards may decide to ‘make’ memories,” she hissed. “Sane folk do not.”
Elminster shrugged. “No wonder all those sane folk are so forgetful, and so much evil and confusion flourishes as a result.”
He bent his head and devoted himself to peering through the eyes of the portrait, enjoying the view of the lovers.
“Aren’t you going to go down there?” Alusair teased, passing a hand through him.
Elminster winced, and it turned into an involuntary shiver; her “touch” had a chill that was almost heart-stopping. “And frighten or mortify them into rousing the whole palace in their terror? And never helping us, all the rest of their lives, befall what may? Playing the randy old goat got me a surprisingly long way a century ago, and for about a thousand years before that, but I’ve tired of it. And grown increasingly bad at it, too. I mean, look ye at what’s left of me, lass! Who’s going to be charmed by this?”
“Blind women with numb fingers,” Alusair replied promptly.
After a moment of shared struggling to throttle mirth into silence, they sniggered together.
“Seen enough?” Alusair teased a while later.
“Nay, lass, but-forgive me-ye’re too cold for me to tarry near any longer. My old bones …”
“I know,” the ghost princess replied sadly. “I know. ’Tis why I’m watching yon lovers; they’re making me feel warm. Go, then, old friend, and fare you well. New kitchen fires will be lit by now, down nigh the stableyard doors, for the baking. Take the passage along behind the ovens, and you’ll feel warm enough, right soon.”
“Thank ye,” Elminster whispered, patting a shoulder his hand plunged through, leaving his fingers feeling like icicles.
Frowning in pain, he turned away and walked slowly along the passage.
Azuth and Mystra, if he could hand over his tasks and causes to one like Alusair! The Steel Princess as she’d been in life, that is, not the ghost she had become …
If only … nay. That way lay madness and an utter waste of his thoughts and time. He had one successor to hand, and little else to choose from.
Amarune Whitewave was what he had to work with, and she was young and strong and vigorous and … would have to do.
Yet she must still be won over from thinking him some sort of crazed old fool who lusted after her or who was too madwits to need heeding at all, to, well, embracing her heritage.
“I can’t trust anyone else,” he muttered aloud. “Everyone else will end up saving the Realms for themselves to rule.”
Idly he tapped a spot on the passage wall where he’d have hidden a door if he’d been building this part of the royal palace-and a long-hidden door obligingly groaned open. To reveal a passage, complete with a spike-studded trap. A trap that had claimed a … war wizard, by the looks of him. Walled up for centuries and mummified into a withered, dessicated husk in his robes.
Something winked at Elminster from the throat of those robes. A pendant-enchanted, of course; that was where the glow had come from-dangling from the shriveled remnant of a neck.
“Ah,” he said, brightening. “This will do, indeed. Alassra can be herself again. For a little while.”
It was early evening, and it didn’t seem that long since Tress had dragged Amarune out of a deep sleep and had told her to get ready and take the stage.
The snakeskins merchant was close with his coins and was one of those whose eyes burned into her flesh even as he dared not get bolder, but he’d been a good patron for three years, and seemed honest enough. His name was Raoryndar or Rindlar, or some such.
So when he’d told the others at the table Amarune was dancing above about three lordlings scouring the city menacing everyone with their swords, to yield up any hand axes they might own, she’d believed him-and promptly had left the stage, hurriedly pulled on her clothes, and hastened for Delcastle Manor.
Arclath had told her more about those three since they’d brawled in the Dragonriders’ … he must know about it right swiftly, must-
Amarune found herself coming to a rather breathless halt in front of the gates of Delcastle Manor sooner than she’d thought she’d be. “L–Lorold?” she asked, by the hole next to the knocker. “May I speak with Arcl-the Lord Delcastle?”
The porter slid open his spy plate, and she was aware of the guards stepping forward to peer at her through the bars.
“Lady Amarune,” the porter greeted her formally. “You are welcome, if you’ll accept our escort to the house proper. The Lord Delcastle is at home and has given orders that you are to be admitted, if you come alone.”
“I am alone,” Amarune assured him, sighing with relief. The gates had already been unchained and opened just enough to let someone slip through, and the tallest of the guards-there were four of them, this time-was standing in that gap, beckoning her. She followed him, smiling as pleasantly to the others as if they weren’t holding ready crossbows not quite aimed at her, on down the sweeping path that led to the looming mansion. He immediately waved her past him, then unshuttered a lantern and followed her, just to one side, holding the lantern low and shining it on the path ahead to light her way.
Either the porter had a means of signaling, or the manor guards watched for approaching lanterns, because the doors of the great house stood open between watchful guards, with a steward waiting and two housejacks waving mistballs on long poles to try to keep night insects from entering.
Wordlessly the steward smiled and bowed low to Amarune, then beckoned her and led the way within, one of the housejacks smoothly taking her cloak from her shoulders as she went.
Amarune heard the doors being shut behind her as her guiding servant hastened through the lofty entry hall, leading her to the left and avoiding the grand sweeping stairs that led up into the warmly lit great rooms above.
They passed through a door and into a darkened parlor, where the steward spoke for the first time. “Lady, are you here to see Lady Delcastle? Or the younger or elder Lord Delcastle?”
“Torold,” a crisp, harsh feminine voice said out of the darkness ahead, “she’s certainly not here to see me. At least not by my invitation. Has Arclath taken to trying to sneak his strumpets in through the front doors? As if they-”
“I-ah, pray pardon-,” Amarune began hesitantly, at the same time as the steward turned to her, bowed low, and announced, “The Lady Marantine Delcastle!”