* * * * *
“He’ll move soon.” Lord Hael coughed from his canopied bed in the corner of the room. He rarely moved from it now; the stout sticks that helped him keep his once-mighty frame upright were covered with dust.
“At tomorrow’s Council meeting, belike,” Lord Phandymm said sourly. “With all of us old lions too stick—or too dead— to stand and vote against him.”
“It’s poison, right enough. Else those with amulets would be laid low like the rest of us,” Lord Hael went on, as if he had not heard. “Then that snake’s spells will rule the Keep, and bring us all into tyranny, then war, then cold ruin, at the last.” He struggled to sit upright in the gloom under the canopy, then shrugged. “At least I’ll not be around to see it.”
Another of the old nobles turned to look at a younger man, who sat uncertainly on a chair in another corner. “Your father was one of the first, young Belator,” he said sharply, “and we know you turned to old Rorst for guidance. What says he, of Manshoon the snake?”
“Aye,” Phandymm echoed, “what says Battlelord Rorst Amandon?”
Lord Belator swallowed, nervous under the sudden and unexpected weight of the keen old eyes fixed on him from every corner of the room, and said softly, “The Lord Amandon bade me tell you all this: We have a secret ally, whose name and station shall remain known only to him—until the Council meeting on the morrow, when he’ll reveal himself, if he must, to save our collective hides.”
There were chuckles. “His exact words, no doubt?”
Belator nodded vigorously. “He made me repeat them, several times.”
Hael laughed in the darkness. “Good old Amandon,” he said. “There’s hope for Zhentil Keep yet.”
* * * * *
The stars glittered in the clear, cold night sky. Manshoon watched them, looking down uncaring and unchanging at the struggles of men, so far below. The lamps of the gods, some called them. There was a sudden flare of light from below him; someone had broken one of his lesser wards with a cleaving spell. He smiled slightly. There’d be an attack tonight, of course.
* * * * *
She knelt, a dark shadow in the nightgloom of the courtyard, and placed the stasis-scepter carefully upright on the stones before her. It winked once as she released it, and stood upright by itself, holding killing spells, alarms, and enchanted creatures—like the silently-snarling gargoyles at the corners of the courtyard—at bay, immobile and ineffective. They’d still have to beware monsters that masqueraded as stone and pitfall traps full of waiting blades, but few wizards kept many such around their city homes unless they had no friends and an inexhaustible supply of apprentices.
The other six, silent in their felt-soled boots, glided after her as the best thief of Westgate moved to the wall beside the door of Manshoon’s tower and started to climb. Her feet clung sure-footed to the stones, and she swarmed swiftly up the wall.
Vrale passed the first window without stopping. A little above it, she twisted aside with sudden urgency as her touch on some stone triggered an old and rusting spear-blade to grate outward, seeking vainly to impale her. Shaking her head, the thief moved sideways and upward for a time, and went on, climbing right up to the claws of another crouching gargoyle.
Its cold eyes moved, watching her—but before her touch could free it into motion, the thief swept another precious stasis-scepter from her belt up into its mouth. It remained immobile as she looped the black climbing-cord around its head and let it fall for the others, waiting below, to follow her.
Then she drew forth the last and most powerful of the Netherese artifacts she’d been given and held it up before her as she surveyed this last, uppermost window carefully. The smooth glass orb remained dark, with no telltale wink or glow to warn her of magic. Good—as she’d expected. Holding the orb ready before her eyes, she climbed past the window and then descended from above, walking carefully so as to peer into the darkness from the very top of the arch.
The chamber beyond held tapestries, a table, and some other rich furnishings, half-hidden in darkness. The orb showed her the faint glow of a “small things” shield against birds and insects, but the room beyond it, though it held many strong enchantments, was empty of life. The thief extended
one of the thin rods she carried in her boots through the opening, but no blade scythed down and no alarm sounded. She drew back the rod, twisted it onto the end of another rod, and thrust it in farther. Still nothing. Slowly she entered, holding her body tense for many a long breath, waiting to leap out again. Darkness and silence hung unbroken. She screwed the hook onto the end of her doubled rod and reached back out the window to pluck at the cord, twice.
There was an answering quiver from below; they’d started to climb. The thief, ears straining in the heavy silence, peered around the room as she waited, unmoving, clinging to the wall. Things were never safe and simple when you were entering the home of an archmage.
There was a sudden scrabbling sound—shockingly loud in the stillness—from just outside the window. A stony scraping. Heart in her mouth, she saw the dark bulk of the gargoyle rise up past her, blotting out the stars, then saw it hurl the cord away.
The thuds and thumps of the bodies smashing against the suddenly-bright courtyard below were worse than any screams could have been. She fought down her own wild urge to scream and looked quickly around the room for a place to hide—any place.
Then the darkness in front of her fell away. She was staring into a forest of eyes that stared back unwinking at her from the end of ten eel-like stalks. The dark spherical bulk of their central body was beyond them, floating lazily in the air. Its magic had cloaked it from her and now she felt herself held against the wall by an unyielding force. She was helpless in its power.
“Welcome,” it hissed and rumbled, and she heard the cruelty in that lazy greeting. The thief trembled. Through her rising sobs, she whispered, “Kill me quickly. Please.”
“Certainly. I shall bite your head off when the time comes.”
Light grew in the room beyond. The weeping thief heard a man say pleasantly, “First I need a few questions answered. Then you may want a few moments to beg and plead—and offer to do things for me. I’m looking forward to that.” The First Lord of Zhentil Keep strolled into view and waved a finger. The thief felt various metal buttons, fastenings, and weapons darting and tearing their various ways free of her and flying out the window. Her steel-nailed gloves, her belt, her gorget and stomach-armor—most of her clothing left her or was torn to ribbons. She shuddered and closed her eyes.
Then a warm and courteous hand was reaching her down from the wall.
She lashed out with the sharpened smallest fingernail of her hand, but its poison found nothing. The hand was a conjured force, not the man himself. Horrified, she found herself looking into the cold, dark eyes of Manshoon. His smile broadened as she curled her finger to scratch her own palm and felt the burning heat spreading swiftly through her own veins.
“Ah, no. You won’t escape me that way. My magic will keep you alive until I’m done with you.” Staring at him, Vrale the thief opened lips that were suddenly purple and numb from the poison—and found that her body was no longer her own. Gripped by his spells, she could not even scream.
* * * * *
The beholder bit down. Blood spattered in all directions as the bare body of the thief twisted and flopped like a landed fish. Lord Rorst Amandon passed a hand over his scrying crystal and the scene faded.
“So passes the hope of the High Imperceptor,” he murmured. “Hardly a surprise, and probably not the only unwelcome visitors to Manshoon’s tower who’ll meet their gods tonight. Still, Etreth, they got farther than I expected.”
His hand trembled as he reached for the goblet beside his bed. In a trice, Etreth was there, to bring the drink smoothly into his hand. Both men knew Lord Rorst lay on his deathbed; by the time Manshoon’s rare and insidious poison had been detected, its ravages had gone too far in the aged body for mere hired spells to repair, and the most expensive sages reported no known antidote for whatever Manshoon had used. It was addictive, too; those who tried going without food and water to escape it ended up shuddering, spasming, and crying out for food and drink. The young wizard had been most thorough.