"Going hunting?" Phaeldara asked with a smile, the gems in her dark purple hair gleaming in the glow from the ceiling. The Simbul winked.
"Red Wizards, of course," Thorneira put in. Her queen pouted.
"Am I so predictable?" she cried, in mock sorrow. "Does Aglarond offer such limited opportunities?"
"For magical mayhem to the point of spellstorms, yes," came a dry voice from the doorway. The Masked One had arrived, her face hidden as always behind a fantastical mask. This one was long, narrow, and curved, resembling the mandibled head of a giant beetle. Its metal shone with a glass-green hue, and the silver runes that mounted its center caught and held all eyes that strayed to them; a useful thing if those eyes should belong to an armed foe. A magic of clinging mists eddied teasingly around the full, floor-sweeping dark blue state gown the sorceress wore beneath the helmlike mask. The bodice of the gown was unseen beneath a pectoral of polished metal plates attached to the bottom of the mask; similar tongues of flexible metal cloaked the Masked One's shoulders and upper back.
"By Mystra's vigilance, don't you get hot under all that?" Thorneira murmured.
"Yes," the Masked One replied cheerfully, as a small commotion at the door behind her announced the breathless arrival of the last of the four summoned sor shy;ceresses. Evenyl gave them all a little smile and a wave as she gasped. The Simbul nodded and stepped forward.
"I'm off to hunt Red Wizards-particular and not very exalted ones, so a few zulkirs may find unmolested time and personal stupidity enough to strike out at Aglarond while I'm away. I don't plan to be long, but for me plans always fall before whims, of course. Try not to lose the realm while I'm gone." The queen gave them all a wolflike smile, and lifted her hands to begin a spell.
"What should we do?" Phaeldara asked quickly. "I mean.." she gestured toward the throne.
The Simbul shrugged. "Take turns sitting on it. Pull each other's hair, have spitting contests, try jumping over more prone courtiers than each other-determine who rules however you please, or just take it in shifts. You're all capable enough. See how you take to com shy;manding without any warning. I'm off!"
Those last two words were almost a shout of glee. In silence the four sorceresses watched their queen become a whirlwind of darkness, a spinning net of golden sparks that quickened into a high-singing blur, then a puff of fading, drifting purple cloud that rolled past Thorneira's shoulder before it was entirely gone.
The last of the sorceresses to arrive looked at the empty throne and shivered. "Sometimes I wonder just how strong her sanity really is," Evenyl said softly. "She scares me."
"Thankfully for us all," the Masked One said gravely. "She scares the Red Wizards far more."
They all nodded soberly, then, one by one, looked at the waiting, beckoning throne. None of them made a move to go and sit on it.
The man seated at the black table wore garments of black and silver. One of his arms seemed to be more a thing of bladed metal below his elbow than an arm grasping the hilt of a blade whose upper works coiled around and caged his arm.
Spread out on the table in a careful array were cards, large, long and narrow plaques that seemed to be sheets of thin, polished quartz or some sort of ice hued, translu shy;cent stone, each one different. Their varicolored faces glowed and pulsed, seeming to respond in a quickening, dancing white fire as the man reached across them to touch one of the slender, spirelike pieces that stood here and there about the table. He moved it with all the care of a chess player, setting it down with a slow frown of consideration. In response, a line of flashing fire rippled across the cards.
It looked like a game of solitaire using enchanted cards and tokens, but at least one of those watching knew it to be magic as old as Netheril. "Table magic," some called it, but that was akin to a tutor one of the watchers had once overheard at Bonskil's Academy in Telflamm describing swordplay as "hitting sharpened sticks of metal together in opposition."
The man at the table moved another piece. It's some shy;thing he'd never have done if he'd known anyone-anyone at all-was watching.
If he'd known just who was watching, and why, he'd have fled screaming from the room.
Irlmarren watched the cards flash as fingers gloved in black and silver moved another piece, and felt fresh excitement stir within him. If only he could obtain some of those plaques, somehow, and the vedarren-he knew, now, that the pieces that glowed were "vedarren." The "gult," the ones that were always dark, were simply pieces of particular sorts of stone that dampened and bent magical flows to serve as anchors for the spells being built. He could make his own gult, but each vedar shy;ren, it seemed, needed an imprisoned life-of a creature that could work magic-within it, to awaken its glow. Learning how to make those might take a lifetime, might even be something forgotten by the spellcasters of today. He must seize some vedarren, somehow. It would be best if no one knew he'd taken them, and came howl shy;ing at his heels for their return. He would need time to master them, time undisturbed and in hiding, as this adventurer so foolishly assumed he was.
Irlmarren itched to touch, hold, and handle those plaques. If only he could work with them, experimenting alone as this man in the depths of his crystal ball was doing, long enough to learn to build many-layered enchantments.
He understood, now, why Halruaa had never fallen. Even all eight zulkirs standing together-and he could not think of anything beyond the rage of a revealed god that could make any eight zulkirs stand together-would hesitate in the face of spells built like this. A single table magic, if it was intricate enough and unflawed, could lash out like the spells of a dozen arch-wizards acting at once. Some would even outlast their first awakening, and respond to what had aroused them to lash out anew in specific, aimed ways. As many as seven of these could be hung on the edge of being unleashed, carried unseen and untouchable-so long as their tables, hidden elsewhere, remained undisturbed-as single words or symbols in a caster's mind, or in an innocent-looking bone token or earring.
If he could build enough of these, a zulkirate could be his. He could rule in Thay, he could build an empire, he could send mountains marching west to roll over Aglarond and fill in long reaches of sea and make Thay itself larger. Why, he could … wait for the treachery that was sure to unseat him.
Fresh fear stirred cold fingers along Irlmarren's spine. He'd found this man, a minor mage rumbling with things stolen from a tower in Halruaa, but still too well guarded for Irhnarren of Tyraturos to hope to reach, let alone overcome.
There must be scores-could well be hundreds-of mages in Halruaa who could work table magics as swiftly and deftly as a marketplace juggler. Hadn't he seen bone necklaces and pectorals and earrings in plenty in the depths of his crystal ball on the bodies of alert and ruthless Rashemaar witches? Who was to say the Witch-Queen of Aglarond herself didn't play with vedarren and plaques in hidden chambers?
Hmmm. That might well help to explain why the zulkirs never sent more than ambitious underlings, beasts, and sword-swinging armies against Aglarond. Irlmarren of Tyraturos sat back and sighed, letting his eyes wander from the glowing scene in the depths of his crystal. He was going to have to think about this. The world had suddenly become a darker, more complicated place.
"Go right ahead and ponder, idiot," murmured a man in another darkened room with a crystal ball.