There was a very convincing simulacrum of himself in the bed, apparently sleeping, in case anyone came in while he was gone.
Ancar was in his war-room, a large chamber with a balcony overlooking the courtyard of the palace. Hulda, of course, was still in her cell, and showing no signs of breaking free. The other mages were all with Ancar, but the King did not trust Falconsbane enough to allow him access to the actual battle plans unless things had unraveled to the point that there was no choice.
The servants were mostly elsewhere. Rumors of what Falconsbane had done to the prisoners Ancar had given him insured that, except when he was known to be sleeping. There were two guards at his door, however..,.
Falconsbane moved soundlessly to the doorway, and placed his hands at head-height on either side of the doorframe. This would be very tricky; he had very little mind-magic, so this would all be true spellcasting. Difficult, when one could not see one's target....
He gathered his powers; closed his eyes, concentrating, building up the forces. And then, at the moment of greatest tension, let them fly, arrows of power from each hand that pierced the wall without a sound.
He opened his eyes. There was no noise, no hint of disturbance, on the other side of the door.
He reached for the voluminous cloak he'd had one of the servants bring him this morning and swirled it over his shoulders. It fell gracefully to his feet in heavy folds; he pulled the hood up over his head, using it to cover his face, so that nothing showed but his eyes. As cold as it was tonight, no one would think anything wrong, seeing a man muffled to the nose in a cloak. Likely, everyone else on the street would be doing the same thing and hoping that it would not rain.
He opened the door. The two guards still stood there, at rigid attention. Perhaps - a trifle too rigid?
Mornelithe chuckled and waved his hand in front of their glazed eyes. "Hello?" he said, softly, knowing there would be no response.
Nor was there. Ancar had not thought to armor the guards he had on Falconsbane against spell-casting, trusting in the coercions to keep Falconsbane from doing anything to them. But Mornelithe was not doing anything against Ancar's interests, no indeed....
"Just going for a little walk, men," Mornelithe whispered to the unresponsive guards in a moment of perverse whimsy. "I'll be back before you miss me, I promise!"
He closed the door carefully and set off down the hallway in a swirl of dark fabric. He was not worried about the servants seeing him; if they caught sight of him, they would never imagine the stranger was Falconsbane, and Mornelithe's authoritative stride was enough to make most of them think twice about challenging his presence in these halls. Ancar had a great many visitors who did not wish to be seen or challenged, and people who were foolhardy enough to do so often disappeared. In a few moments, the two men he had bespelled would wake from their daze, quite unaware that anything had happened to them. He would bespell them again on his return.
It was Ancar's other guards and soldiers Mornelithe wished to avoid. He hoped there would be none of them to challenge him, but the best chance of avoiding them lay in getting outside quickly.
He could bespell more guards if he had to, but then he would have to find a way to dispose of them. They might be missed. That would be awkward, and not as much fun as he'd prefer.
He continued down the hall without meeting any more men in Ancar's uniform, but as he rounded a corner and drew within a few feet of his goal he heard the distinctive slap of military boots on the wooden floor. Four sets, at least.
He gambled; made a dash for the door leading to the staircase and wrenched it open. He slipped inside just before the guards came into view, and ran right into a young servingman, just as he closed the door and turned on the landing.
The boy opened his mouth. Falconsbane seized him by the throat before he even managed to squeak. There was no time for finesse; he simply choked the boy so that he could not make a sound. He then wrapped them both in silence, drained the servingboy of life-force, and left him on the landing.
Let whoever found him figure out how he had died.
The staircase led directly to the public corridors of the palace. Here he was even less likely to be challenged, and he opened the door at the bottom with confidence, striding out into the corridor and taking a certain enjoyment in the way people avoided looking at him directly. Anyone who walked in such a confident, unhurried manner in Ancar's palace must be powerful and dangerous .. . both attributes belonged to people that the folk here would rather avoid. Especially if the strangers took pains to hide their faces.
Unhindered, he passed out into the chill and darkness and paused for a moment on the landing above the courtyard. The guards at the doors did not even look at him; after all, they were there to keep people out, not in. He trotted quickly down the steps to the courtyard, casting a covert glance as he did so to the room behind the balcony immediately above the main doors. Lights were still burning brightly, and shadows were moving about inside. The war-council was still going strong.
Good. Let the children play.
There were more guards at the various gates he had to pass to get to the city itself, but once again, they were there to keep people out, not in, and they ignored him. On his return journey, he would come in through another way, via the gardens, and an ingenious series of gates with locks that could be picked with a pin or latches that could be lifted with a twig, holes under walls, and trees with overhanging limbs. This was the route that the servants used to slip in after a clandestine night in the town. Pity it only worked to get in by, but overhanging limbs that permitted a drop down were not very useful when the reverse was needed. He was a mage, not an acrobat.
He passed the last gate and a squad of very bored, very hardened soldiers who looked as if they would have welcomed an intruder just so that they could alleviate their boredom by killing him. Then he was out in streets of the city, and free.
For one, brief moment, he was tempted to just keep walking. Forget a cat-woman who might or might not be Nyara; forget that he might be hundreds of leagues from his own territory. He was free - he could take that freedom and just walk away from here.
But as he thought that, he suddenly felt the jerk of the coercions on him, a chain jerking a dog back to its kennel. The force was sufficient to make him stagger. And he snarled inside the shadow of his hood.
No, this breath of freedom was an illusion after all. And he could not simply walk away. Ancar's coercive spells were set too well, and the King had evidently planned against this very possibility. He had the freedom of the city - but that was all.
At least, until Ancar was dead.
Very well. Let him see if this Lady Cat was indeed Nyara. And if she was, he would use her death to fuel his own powers, taking back into himself all that he had used to make her.
Then he would return to Ancar's palace...and lay some new plans.
An'desha was very glad that his link with his physical body was so tenuous that as long as Falconsbane was awake it might just as well have not existed. If he - or rather, his body - had broken into a sweat of nervous fear, Falconsbane would certainly have noticed something was going on!