When he did turn around, the two Zhentilar were following him, their swords dripping in their hands… and the huddled heap that had been Sneel lay still in the midst of a spreading pool of dark blood, in their wake.
Justice, mistaken or otherwise, was at least prompt in Zhentil Keep.
Smiling tightly, Cadathen beckoned the two men to him, as he came upon another knot of wounded Zhents. “Would you like to avoid the Lord Manshoon’s wrath, and claim Sarbuckho’s head before morning?”
There was a general murmur of assent. “What if I take myself into the forehall ahead of you, take down Sarbuckho’s bowmen with my spells, then blast the doors open from inside to let you in? Will you be ready to charge into Wyrmhaven to finish the fray?”
“I’ll say!” one Zhentilar replied.
“We’re dead if we don’t,” an older one growled. “None of us can run and hide to where the First Lord can’t find us.”
That brought a general rumble of agreement, as more Zhents came trotting up to join the throng around Cadathen.
“Right, then,” the wizard told them excitedly. “Charge the doors, after I bring them down. Until then, keep back.”
He made two swift, complex gestures-and was abruptly gone, the space where he’d stood simply empty.
War in Wyrmhaven
Elminster crouched low, the moment he felt the stones of the balcony beneath his feet. Being Cadathen was a bit of a strain; thankfully, he’d soon be done playing ambitious young Zhentarim.
Right after he turned, keeping below the balcony sidewall so the Zhentilar below wouldn’t see him, he made the door that led into Wyrmhaven’s fourth floor quietly melt out of existence. Then he hurried across the dark, deserted room beyond. The cold night air followed him.
From all he knew of Ambram Sarbuckho, alert warriors with crossbows would be massed in the forehall and every other room that had an exterior door. Zhentish mansions sported no ground floor windows, so defenders could concentrate where they were most likely to be needed.
Sarbuckho was a swindler from way back, and Elminster felt no compunction at all about blasting down men who fought for him.
So all he needed to do was get to the top of the great corkscrew staircase that spiraled down into the rear of the forehall, work a quiet spell, and stand well back.
As the floor heaved and shuddered, Wyrmhaven thundered and groaned all around him. A blinding flash flung a thick haze of smoke and dust into the air, and a rising roar from many Zhentilar throats told him he’d not only shattered the forehall and its defenders-he’d burst open its doors, letting them flood in.
Smiling, he waited until he thought the moment just right, and cast another blasting spell down the ruined stair, to claim Manshoon’s men, this time. Then he turned and strode along the hallway, seeking a servants’ stair down. He needed to get to Sarbuckho’s gate and alter it, without greeting a poisoned quarrel.
In the eddying aftermath of his magics, he could feel the mounting pulse of the Darkway as he got closer to it. Elminster gave a jubilant little gasp as he saw that it stood unguarded, all of Wyrmhaven’s guards gone elsewhere to fight the attackers.
He did what he had to do with swift ease, and teleported himself back to the alley. It was deserted, though a timid coinlass poked her head out a door to see if it was safe to emerge and seek business. At the sight of a Zhentarim mage, she hastily ducked back again.
El smiled thinly and started a careful circumnavigation of the embattled mansion, to make sure no Zhentilar got away. There should still be some poisoned quarrels left, if he knew his waylords…
Above all, he wanted no witnesses to tell tales about Cadathen or Sneel that would reach the ears of a certain First Lord of Zhentil Keep.
Neither his first circuit nor his second turned up anyone fleeing Wyrmhaven, where ragged shouts and the clash and clang of arms told him the fight was still raging.
That much vigilance would have to be sufficient. There were other things he wanted to do that night.
El stopped at Sneel’s body, turned it over, and looked around to make sure no one was watching. Then he conjured a little light to see by and carefully shifted his own likeness to match the unlovely looks of Lorkus Sneel.
Dragging what was left of the real Sneel to the jakes he’d earlier thrust Cadathen’s body down, he tipped Manshoon’s best spy down into the sewers.
The eels would soon devour it, beneath the reeking waters and drifting filth, and His eyes narrowed. Instead of the wet, sloppy splash he should have heard, there’d been a distinct thud. Hurriedly he conjured light again and looked down.
Bobbing in the waters below was a dead man, face up and palely staring, several threads of red gore trailing from him into the waters around. It wasn’t Sneel, or Cadathen for that matter.
It was Ambram Sarbuckho.
Elminster blinked. That fast, they’d got to him? Or was the Sarbuckho who’d come storming “back” to Wyrmhaven not the real Sarbuckho at all?
For a moment he contemplated just waving this mystery away and getting on with the business of undoing Manshoon’s evil just as swiftly as he could. Then he sighed, waved that thought away, and teleported himself back to a certain balcony.
The room it opened into was as dark and deserted as before. Cautiously he stepped out into the hallway beyond. No guards, no one lurking with a crossbow…
Here, deep in Wyrmhaven, things had quieted down. A lot of the shouters and sword-clangers had, it seemed, perished, and the survivors were running out of foes to loudly fight with.
Up on this high floor there were no signs of life-or any evidence that the fighting had ever reached this far.
El stood against a wall like a thoughtful statue for a breath or two, pondering. If he were Ambram Sarbuckho, where would his grand personal bedchamber be?
High in the mansion, probably on this floor-for the levels above must be smaller expanses, broken by the separations of turrets and towers rising apart, and it seemed only wizards preferred such smaller, rounded privacies-and most likely toward the back of Wyrmhaven.
In other words, right this way…
As he went, El turned one of the rings he wore, to call up a protective mantle that would make him like smoke to metal weapons, and turn back many magics, too. He moved along the hall as quietly as he knew how.
It made a right-angled turn, to eventually meet with the end of a parallel hallway running down the other side of the main bulk of the mansion-and in the center of that cross passage was an alcove, whose back wall was a pair of high, rounded, ornate doors.
Trapped and guarded or not, they were what he’d been seeking. On the far side of them…
He drew off Sneel’s boots, thrust his hands into them, and took a door handle between them, turning it. Locked, of course.
As he let the handle quietly return to its former position, he heard something he’d been expecting: faint feminine sobbing from the far side of the door.
Stepping smoothly to one side of the doors, he asked firmly, “Lady? Lady Sarbuckho? Are you in need of aid?”
The sobbing caught in a great gasping of breath and sniffling, then became a choked and tremulous voice replying in the negative-and furiously ordering him away.
Elminster frowned. Making no reply, he moved along the passage to its far corner, where he found what he’d hoped would be there: a much smaller, plainer, closed door.
It was locked, too, but a swift spell seared through it, leaving the lock holding a half-moon of door separate from the larger rest of it. El gently pushed that larger panel open and stepped inside, finding himself in a dark robing room lined with wardrobes. The weeping was louder now, coming from a gap in the wardrobes along the side wall, where a curtained archway obviously led into the main bedchamber.
Elminster peered through the gap where the two curtains met, satisfied himself that only one person was present-hunched over on the floor at the foot of a gigantic canopied bed, and trembling-in the room beyond, and glided soundlessly through the curtains.