He smiled a mirthless smile, then turned and grinned at himself in a nearby mirror. It reflected back a man in robes of purple, whose hair and beard were oiled and cut to razor sharp edges, a man whose thick, powerful fin shy;gers made a rude gesture to his reflection and grinned more broadly when it did the same to him.
Roeblen of Bezantur looked back at the crystal ball glowing before him, and smiled again at the thought of just how useful his trapped crystal balls were turning out to be. Whether looking in at what their user was spying on, or looking out to spy on that user, just two had brought him hours of entertainment and enlightenment in but a handful of days.
Azmyrandyr's gaunt, scar-faced apprentice Stilard was planning to betray his master. Why else would he aid a doppleganger in his private quarters in repeat shy;edly assuming Azmyrandyr's shape, then ask it to become a truly spectacular woman, and bed it? Now this.
Nasty little betrayals were just part of being a Red Wizard, and foreknowledge of them the weapons one simply collected whenever possible, and used whenever they'd best serve. This glimpse of-table magic, was it? — was important. Too important to let an over-impatient idiot like Irlmarren blunder about with, and inevitably reveal everything to a zulkir before Roeblen or anyone else could gain anything useful out of it. The power to effortlessly win a duel with any rival Red Wizard, for instance, or any two rival Red Wizards. Or, for that matter, any three…
"My, my, Roeblen," murmured a woman whose silver hair slithered around her restlessly as she floated in the dark depths of a dry, disused well somewhere in the uplands of Thay, looking into a scene that glowed and flickered between her two cupped hands, "you haven't changed a bit."
The Simbul shook her head disgustedly, and did something with one of her hands. "The implications of something as simple as a trapped scrying crystal seem to be almost beyond you, let alone as powerful a toy as what you two worms have stumbled upon. I don't think we want a nation driven by cruelty, slavery, and a love of magic used to tyrannize, coerce, and destroy to have such power in its hands. Thayans tend only to see things of power as weapons."
Two distant wizards sat bolt upright, mouths falling open in horror, as those coolly-spoken words echoed in their heads. "Wherefore," she added, "and regrettably,…"
Silver tresses did something, a pulse of deadly force flashed through the mind of a Chosen, and two wizards gasped in unison as their eyes went dark and tiny threads of smoke curled up out of their ears.
"Farewell," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond said, in a voice dark with doom. Two crystal balls exploded in bursts of flame, beheading both Irlmarren of Tyraturos and Roeblen of Bezantur in identical storms of glassy shards.
The first rays of real dawn were touching the tops of the olive trees on the hill outside the fortress wall. They were rich plantings, but it was time they were culled. He'd see to that soon. Right after he saw to the culling of his apprentices.
Azmyrandyr stifled a yawn, saw Orth do the same, and said sharply, "We're almost done here. Rildar, shape Taramont again."
The gaunt, black-bearded apprentice grimaced only for the briefest of moments as he stood up, shook out his sleeves, raised his hands carefully, and cast a spell of great length and intricacy.
He was operating at the very limits of his powers, and Azmyrandyr studied him with narrowed eyes. As it was, these four-the weakest of his apprentices, the only ones he dared trust outside Thay with some power in their hands-could only hold their disguises for a matter of hours, but they had to learn to move and speak like the people they were to supplant: the Lord of Nimpeth and his three chancellors.
Ilder Taramont was the "Admiral" of that wine-soaked city of slavers, a one-time adventurer whose thefts and subterfuges had won him infamy before the ascension of Lord Woren. He'd had to learn how to captain ships and move them like weapons, instead of merely stealing from their crews in passing. By all accounts, and by the signs Azmypandyr could see through farscrying, Taramont was a quick-witted, subtle man. Rildar, regrettably, was not.
Azmyrandyr folded his arms, glanced out the window again, then noticed moon-faced Orth was almost asleep, his eyes vacant, his chin nodding. "Orth," he said pleas shy;antly, "get down on your knees. You'll be a sailor-whom the Admiral is displeased with-scrubbing the decks. No, there's no need to take on a shape, just get down."
Rilder was now a shorter man, with a cruel, thin-lipped mouth, black hair beginning to go white at the temples, and sharp features. "And how is this, dog?" he demanded, in a high, sharp voice. "Have we so far descen-"
Azmyrandyr lifted a hand, "Stop," he said flatly. "The voice is right, but Vilhonna don't call each other 'dog.' Short, clipped sentences for the Admiral, one word replies whenever possible. Likes to hiss things, remem shy;ber? A casual derisive term here would be 'dung turtle.' Try it again."
The cruel mage put his toes into the backside of the kneeling man. All four of the apprentices were barefoot, wearing only loose robes to avoid being harmed, or wast shy;ing clothing, in their transformations. "What's this, dung turtle? This deck was claimed clean not very long ago. Has the word 'honesty' any meaning for you? Eh, now?" Azmyrandyr nodded. "Passable, but remember not to overuse that 'eh, now?' If the man knew it was his catch-phrase he'd cut back on it, right? Well, he couldn't help but know it if he repeated it every six sentences. And a little too formal, there. Not 'Has the word honesty any meaning for you?' but rather, 'Honesty mean nothing to you?' Taramont would say it the way you did when ridi shy;culing an important merchant of Nimpeth, but not a sailor or an underling."
He looked down and added in dry tones, "Very well done, Orth, acted superbly."
Everyone-even the sleepy apprentice on the floor-chuckled, and Azmyrandyr drew in a deep breath, threw his head back, and said, "Well, now, Burgel, let's see your Noster. Coming to me, an important merchant whom you don't want to be too rude to, to advise me in a friendly but low-voiced way that I'd best stop being interested in … whatever I'm too interested in. You want me to see that you're trying not to be overheard by others-for my own protection, of course."
Another of the apprentices got up from his chair, a shade less reluctantly than Rilder had, and paced for shy;ward.
Azmyrandyr turned his head sharply. "Rilder! Did I say to relax? Watch and keep silent, by all means, but watch as Ilder Taramont. Stand as he does, fidget as he does, scratch your nose and behind as he does, not as an overtired Rilder Surtlash does."
"Oh, Azmyrandyr! Give the lad some grace, will you? He can't help being a frightened idiot serving a master too stupid to be frightened, now can he?"
That jovial female voice snapped four heads up as if it had been a slaver's lash. Its owner gave them all a wide, affectionate smile before she blew them a kiss-the kiss that triggered the waiting spells that doomed them all.
A gray smoke seemed to pass over the window out shy;side, and three swarms of magic missiles burst forth from the empty air behind the Thayans. Two of the apprentices died without ever seeing the bolts that slew them.
If Orth had been a slimmer man, he'd have been bowled off his feet by Burgel's dying fall, but he stag shy;gered, screeched in alarm and pain as blue-white bolts seared into him, and caught at a chair, gathering himself enough to snarl out his own magic missile spell.
Rilder went white to the lips in fear-the bloody Witch-Queen of Aglarond, laughing at them as she cast how many spells at once? — but he managed to stammer out the most powerful battle spell he had. Perhaps she'd never heard of a spectral axe, and he could get a good chance at her while she fought the others.
Azmyrandyr was the most fearful of all the Thayans, for he knew better than the others what they faced. That had been one of her spell triggers, and there was some sort of barrier all around them now, outside the room. Three swarms of spellbolts-four spells at once, and how many more triggers might she have? It was a slim chance, but his only one right now, given the cursedly paltry spells left to him. He raised his hands and tried to disintegrate the legendary Queen of Aglarond, knowing he would fail.