“That’s correct,” the warden of the port said. “His majesty has taken a personal interest in your endeavor.”
Devorast had no reaction to that. Some more of the ransar’s soldiers had approached and Devorast waved them forward. “Take this to the keep. We should have it examined. I’d like to know what it is and where it came from.”
Hrothgar watched Truesilver watch the ransar’s men take charge of the dead dragon-thing. A smile threatened the edges of the Cormyrean’s mouth.
“Maybe we should go back to the keep, too, eh?” the dwarf suggested. “Talk over this canal business over an ale or two, so the warden can report back to his king that he’ll have a sea route to Waterdeep in his lifetime.”
Devorast nodded, and Ayesunder Truesilver grinned and said, “Yes, let’s. I’ll drink to that.”
When the two humans started walking to the keep, Hrothgar breathed a sigh of relief.
25
Higharvestide, the Year of the Sword (1365 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith
"…due to increasing civil unrest.’” Ransar Osorkon read from his own decree.
“Really, Ransar,” one of the last of his hangers-on sighed, “there’s no use in reading it over and over again.”
“Indeed, my lord,” said Kolviss, another of Osorkon’s dwindling supply of toadies. “Thensumkon is right. You did the right thing.”
They stared at him with their wet, dull, puppy eyes, and Osorkon had to look away. He sat at his desk behind a bigger than normal stack of unsigned parchment with his head in his hands.
“Well, Tlaet?” the ransar asked when he thought the silence had dragged on long enough.
“Oh, Ransar, of course I agree!” Tlaet beamed, probably concurring with a point from the day before.
“And then there were three,” Osorkon whispered.
“Ransar?” Thensumkon prompted.
Osorkon didn’t answer, didn’t even look at the bloated, sweaty advisor. Instead he looked at the wide double doors that were the only way in or out of his office. He’d contemplated having a secret door installed, but then none of the other ransars before him had done thatat least if they had it remained a secret. He’d never found one, and he’d looked. There was only one way into the ransar’s office, and only one way out.
“That’s fitting,” he whispered to himself.
“Fitting, Ransar?” Kolviss asked. He smiled and revealed a silver tooth. His hair was greasy, and Osorkon could smell him even from six paces awayand he didn’t smell good. “Do tell us what’s on your mind.”
Osorkon sighed and said, “I was just thinking that I used to have six bodyguards.”
All three of his dim-witted “advisors” turned to look at the doors. On either side of the stout oaken portal, barred with a steel pole it took three men to lift, was a single guard. They stood stiff and at attention, and they were good men who’d been with Osorkon for a long time. For more than a tenday they’d been the only ones to report for duty.
“Did you order a reduction in your personal staff, my lord?” asked Tlaet.
“No, Tlaet, I didn’t,” he said.
“Well, then, who did?” the idiot Tlaet asked.
“Well, you piercer-brained spore-farm, if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it was Marek Rymiit.”
“Ransar?” Thensumkon asked.
“Oh,” Tlaet interjected, “there he is now.”
Osorkon, confused, looked up and followed his boot-lick’s empty gaze to one of the twenty crystal balls that still adorned his private sanctum. Over the past two months they’d one by one gone black until only two still glowed with the image of a distant locale. It had been about that long since he’d seen or heard from one of his staff of mages, so there was no one to tell him why they’d stopped working, and no one to make them work again.
One of the crystal balls was locked on a top-down view of Senator Salatis’s seat in the senate chambers. The second showed Osorkon’s outer office, empty since he’d sent his secretary home to hide in her house while dockworkers and tradesmen clashed in the street, drunkenly beating each other up in lieu of organized holiday festivities.
Osorkon looked into the first crystal sphere. Marek Rymiit sat in Salatis’s blue-and-white upholstered armchair with its bright red cherry wood accents. On the top of the back of the chair was a cherry wood emblem of three lightning bolts converging on a single spot. The symbol was a clear indication that Salatis had recently converted to the worship of Talos, the Bully of Fury’s Heart.
“Rymiit,” Osorkon whispered, confident that the Thayan couldn’t hear him anyway, “what are you doing there?”
Marek looked up, and Osorkon could swear they made eye contact. A cold chill ran down his spine, and he could feel his face go white.
“Ransar?” Kolviss said, his voice shaking. “Ransar, what’s that?”
He pointed at the other functioning crystal ball. Displayed therein was the empty outer off iceor at least it was supposed to be empty. Something pulsed in the center of the room. It looked like a cloud of black and purple smoke, formed in a tall oval shape.
“It looks like a door,” Tlaet remarked with a childlike lilt in his voice.
“Ransar?” one of the bodyguards called from the door.
“Be ready,” Osorkon told the two guards. “It’s happening.”
“What’s happening?” asked Thensumkon. He didn’t even sound curious.
Osorkon glanced at the crystal ball that revealed the senate chamber and saw Marek recline in Salatis’s chair and put his sandaled feet up on the desk in front of him. Again, Osorkon could swear he made eye contact, and the Thayan wizard smiled.
“There’s someone,” Kolviss said.
Osorkon’s eyes snapped back to the view of his outer office, and he stood. A man of medium height but sturdy build stepped out of the cloud of black and purple smoke just as if it was indeed a doorway. He held a finely-crafted longaxe in both hands and was dressed for battle in black leather ring mail.
Osorkon watched as five more followed the first man. All of them looked enough alike to be brothers. They appeared of mulan descent with dusky brown skin and eyes that appeared black in the crystal ball. All six of them went to the doors to the ransar’s office. None of them spoke, no orders were given. They all held identical weapons.
“Stand alert, men,” Osorkon told his bodyguards. “They have axes, so they’ll get in, but it should take a while.”
The ransar opened a cabinet behind him and drew out a carved mahogany box that he set on a stack of parchment on his desk.
“Ooh,” Thensumkon said, “what’s that?”
Osorkon looked at him, but didn’t answer. The fool had no idea they were all about to be killed.
Well, he thought, ignorance is bliss.
While he dug in a desk drawer for the key to the box Osorkon kept his eyes fixed on what transpired in his outer office, though the temptation to look back at Marek Rymiitwho continued to stare directly at him from the Chamber of Law and Civilitynettled at his nerves. Two of the six assassins stood close to the double doors, opened their mouths, and for all appearances vomited on them. A stream of black fluid gushed up from deep in their throats and flowed over the smooth-polished oak. The wood began to dissolve like a sugar cube in a hot cup of tea… actually a little faster than that.
“All right, men,” he warned the guards, “they’ll be through the doors a bit sooner.”
He found the key and blinked sweat out of his eyes as he struggled with the lock on the mahogany box. He didn’t remember feeling so warm before the assassins stepped out of a cloud in the next room.
“Should we be leaving?” asked Kolviss.
Osorkon had to smile at that one, but withheld his reply when he finally got the box unlocked. He opened it with a faint squeak of long-neglected hinges. Inside, nestled in rich green velvet, sat a mace. The weapon, which had been enchanted to contain the concentrated essence of lightning, had been in his family for generations and as a boy he’d been schooled in its use.