She had to find a Zhent in armor about the same size as Ornthen Kelgoran, before the ring forming around Highturrets got completely settled. Ah-there!
“You’re the one,” she purred, throwing off her cloak to reveal her complete lack of weapons-and all her now-buxom charms-to the startled Zhentilar trudging along the street, his head down and his mood dark.
He gaped at her. “What, by all the gods-?”
“Take me,” she hissed, whirling him into a doorway. “Here and now! I’ve been watching you for months, I’m crazed about you, I must have you! ’Twill take but moments, then give me your name, and I’ll find you for longer dalliances on later nights! Please, my lord!”
Rather dazedly the Zhentilar ran a disbelieving hand down the warm, smooth flesh offered to him, then hurriedly started to unbuckle and unfasten. “Name’s Vorl, lass! Watching me for months? Who are you?”
“Jahanna Darlwood, of the keep; my father’s Brace Darlwood; seller of roof tiles and stone, and very wealthy…”
“Tell me later,” Vorl snarled, shoving her back against the wall as his breeches sought his ankles. “We must be quick!”
The suddenly melting mask of flesh that smothered him as he tried to kiss it retained a mouth. As he sagged into senselessness, it agreed in a very different voice, “Aye, we must. Sleep now, lusty Vorl. I’ll be tying ye to the door, I’m afraid; can’t have ye racing back to reclaim thy armor before I’m done with it.”
A few hard, swift breaths later, a man in a cloak was bound to the door-and his exact likeness was hurrying down the street in full armor, head down and hand on his sword.
“Vorl, you laggard,” an older Zhentilar hailed him with a snarl, “where’ve you been? Rutting in doorways, all the way from the tavern?”
“Well, uh, yes,” Vorl admitted, but his low mumble was barley audible, and the Zhentilar wasn’t listening.
“Get over here, you lazy dog! We’re to form a ring all around Highturrets-and your reward for being last boots in is getting to stand guard right there, hard by the jakes!”
“There” was an embrasure in the building’s cracked and much-patched back wall, filled with rotting litter and containing a long-boarded-up door. It faced a matching alcove across the street, where a wooden bench with a hole in its seat had been placed over a large, square open shaft leading down into the infamous city sewers. Two unhappy-looking sternhelms were busy rigging up a blanket in a frame of spears, to serve as both a door and a wall for future patrons of the little seat, who might desire some privacy while they were sitting alone.
A jakes. It seemed the Zhentarim were expecting a lengthy siege.
Sternhelm Vorl growled a curse, because that would be expected, and trudged to his post, kicking aside the worst of the reeking, slimy refuse. He hoped he’d not have to wait long.
Mystra smiled on him; he’d barely had time to grow bored and cold ere the wizard Cadathen came in search of the jakes, blowing on chilled fingers and snarling some curses of his own.
If the Zhentarim mage was surprised that a Zhentilar sternhelm crossed the narrow street to hold the blanket open for him, he didn’t show it.
He was surprised when the warrior stepped into the alcove with him, pulling the blanket closed, but only for a moment.
After that, he had no time left to be surprised about anything, ever again.
As the Lord Mage Commands
“Cold, hey? Sitting alone over the sewers, I mean?”
Holding the rank of battle captain, Galandror dared to exchange such pleasantries with Zhentarim mages. Well, he’d not do so with the Lord Manshoon, but Cadathen was very far from “Too cold,” the wizard said curtly. “We’re not waiting the night through out here. Storm the gates.”
Galandror and his fellow battle captain, Narleth, exchanged surprised glances, then nodded in unison. “By your command, Lord Mage.”
Cadathen smiled and threw his shoulders back, like a pigeon about to preen. Obviously, he liked the sound of “Lord Mage.”
Narleth used the title again, quickly. “The front gates, Lord Mage?”
Cadathen shook his head. “The rear. I’ll destroy them with a spell, and the doors behind them, too. You get our blades in there fast, secure the chamber that holds the Darkway, then drive out everyone in that end of the mansion. I want no one creeping up on us while I set to work on it.”
“Set to work on it, Lord Mage?” Galandror asked warily. There’d been no hint of this in their orders, and Lord Manshoon wanted them to be watchful for traitors everywhere. Among his magelings, in particular.
Cadathen gave both battle captains calm, direct looks. “I suspect our unknown foe who’s seeking out Darkways is either hiding in them, or enspelling them to serve as scrying foci, so henceforth he can spy on the rooms that hold them, from afar. I need to cast a spell on the Darkway inside yon mansion, to see if my suspicions are correct. And all of us will have warmth, chairs to sit on, and whatever food and drink can be found in a waylord’s mansion, rather than freezing our behinds outside on a dark street all night.”
The Zhentilar nodded, reassured.
They collected their men swiftly, Narleth leading a dozen around to the front to bang on the main gates and hold Elkauvren’s guards there while Cadathen forced entry at the rear of the towering mansion.
“Right,” the wizard snarled, when Galandror came striding back to tell him all was ready. “Let’s get warm.”
He raised his hands, murmured something, and the night exploded in fire.
Guarding Flickering Silence
“Secure, Lord Mage.” Galandror’s tone was almost respectful.
Narleth had just returned and made his report. Only two Zhentilar had been killed, though Morlar Elkauvren would need to replace most of his house guards and a goodly number of his household servants. The cowering lord was shut up in his own guestrooms above his front gate, with watchful sternhelms to keep him there-and not one member of Elkauvren’s household was both still alive and any nearer to the chamber that held the Darkway than the central feasting hall.
“Well done,” Cadathen replied, turning to the glowing portal. “Now to make sure this hasn’t been tainted by the foe’s magic.”
The two battle captains watched him closely, of course, but they were not to know that the spell he cast was doing no such thing, and instead was altering Manshoon’s slaying spell into his own less fatal magic-just as they were not to know Cadathen was really the infamous archwizard Elminster.
Suspicion was clear on their tense, grim faces, but they visibly relaxed as nothing seemed to happen. Other than Cadathen stepping back to nod in satisfaction and tell them, “Our foe worked a magic so he could spy through this, just as I suspected. He won’t be doing that now.”
When nothing more happened, the two warriors relaxed even more-and soon threw daggers to see who would first go foraging in the kitchens and pantries, and who would first settle down to the tense, waiting boredom of guarding the empty, silently flickering Darkway.
Whispers at the Feast
Though Manshoon knew the waylords were meeting in a high house not all that far away, he kept all hint of his knowing any such thing to himself.
Here, in this grand feasting hall, he was a guest of the most powerful nobles of the city, and was taking great care not to remind them of his ruthless side or the mighty magic he could hurl. Nobles tend to dislike upstarts who threaten them-particularly upstarts who can destroy them at will. His presence was all about reassurance, building alliances if not friendships, and making common cause.
Not to mention establishing a firm alibi for himself, for when word spread of all the waylords slain or embattled, the survivors began to hurl their furious accusations.
Manshoon smiled and thanked his host for the excellent wine.
And why not? It held not even a trace of poison, after all.
His host, directly across the goblet- and platter-crowded table, was Lord Syal Amandon, the callow, bewildered-by-the-world son of Manshoon’s onetime nemesis, the thankfully dead old snow lion Rorst Amandon.