Spellstorm (24 page)

Absent were Calathlarra and Tabra, of course; Elminster intended to serve them their
highsunfeasts privately, later.

Lord Halaunt should hear their offers for the Lost Spell, too, but the need to do
that could be used as a delaying tactic if need be, over the next several days. During
which time, if El knew anything at all about the characters of the four guests now
devouring everything in sight, the wizards trapped inside Oldspires were apt to grow
more than a mite restless.

Aside from Malchor, all of them had sent insults and condescension Elminster’s way
throughout the meal, but had derived little satisfaction from doing so; the smilingly
silent steward simply ignored their barbs.

“He smiles,” Maraunth Torr told Manshoon as Elminster passed, “because he can’t think
of replies to our sallies, and the truths we tell wound him.”

Elminster merely smiled more broadly.

“Smile on, Elminster of Shadowdale,” Maraunth Torr added coldly. “You’re not nearly
as clever as you think you are.”

“Could we speak of something else?” Shaaan drawled. “Something at all
interesting
?”

Manshoon favored her with his usual half smile and asked politely, “And would converse
on the topic of the future we’d like to see for, say, the Heartlands of Faerûn be
deemed both interesting and safe common ground? Or have you another preference, Lady
Serpent?”

Shaaan’s eyes flashed, and she smiled. “Lady Serpent—I
like
the sound of that. My thanks, Lord Manshoon.”

“Not at all, Lady Serpent. Pleased to be of service to you.”

“Actually,” Maraunth Torr put in, savoring some sharp purple-marbled cheese from Ulgarth
with evident surprise, “I’m interested in hearing your future plans, both of you.
As much as you care to share publicly, that is. Something a bit more detailed than
‘I intend to rule the entire world,’ please.”

“I intend to control whoever manages to get closest to ruling the entire world,” Manshoon
drawled. “Let someone else do all the gruntwork before I step in and reap the fruits
of their labors.”

“And what if you attempt that, Lord, and find a certain Lady Serpent standing in your
way?” Shaaan asked quietly.

“That
will
be interesting,” was all the reply Manshoon made, ere raising a goblet to his lips
and sipping long and deeply.

Maraunth Torr raised his voice enough to carry through the open doorway into the other
room. “And what of you, Lord Harpell? What are your future plans?”

“My future plans,” Malchor replied dryly, coming to the door with a plate of peppered
pickles breaded and fried in shaltikho oil, “are just that: in the future. As in,
I haven’t made them yet. I’m too busy pursuing my present ones.”

“Which are?”

Malchor regarded Maraunth Torr thoughtfully. “Not for the likes of you to know. Yet
there is one ongoing project I’ll share, being as it can scarcely be hidden from anyone
who devotes an afternoon to looking and pondering: breeding. As in, making sure that
members of wealthy or accomplished families have children together, thus knitting
their clans … to create combined factions that can in time rival those now most prominent
across Faerûn—or simply control them, from behind the scenes, by co-opting the highest-ranking
and most senior faction members.”

Maraunth Torr crooked an eyebrow. “That would seem work that would benefit one’s children
or grandchildren, not oneself—and frankly, I’m not in the business of pleasing grandchildren
before myself. I need plans and schemes that bear immediate fruit.”

“So you do,” Shaaan agreed. “After all, for every man, the world ends when he dies.
Knowing one has a legacy not easily swept away is all most do so far as the far future
is concerned; triumphs are things happening
now
, not yesterday’s gone glory or tomorrow’s empty boasting.”

“Nicely phrased,” Elminster murmured, bending over her with a large decanter of wine
in his hands. “Care for some Clalel?”

“Vintage, yes, but none of the muck they’ve bottled this decade. What year?”

“Forged Sigil,” El replied promptly. “Lord Halaunt has only just tapped the cask.”

“Has he now? Did he do so after finishing all the earlier Clalel in his cellar?”

“He did.”

“Hmmm. Pity, that.” The Serpent Queen drank deeply, murmured her appreciation, and
sank back into the cushions of one corner of the high-backed lounge she had to herself,
along the south side of the room.

As Elminster turned away, she added, “You might just leave the decanter, Elminster.
And save yourself all those trips trotting back to refill me.”

“Ah, now, why didn’t I think of that?” he replied affably, setting the decanter down
on the side table her drink was already at home upon.

Mirt and Myrmeen came in then with steaming platters of roast braerwing and tallgoose
hash, and as the onetime Lady Lord of Arabel passed El, she murmured in his ear, “We
took what’s left of Alastra down to the cold cellar, wrapped in an old weathercloak
to spare the Halaunt carpets along our way. It’s getting a mite crowded down there.”

“I doubt we’re done yet,” he muttered in reply, “but—”

He broke off to stare as an unexpected visitor glided into the room from the south
stairs: the silent, ghostly shape of a sad-faced gowned woman holding her nearly severed,
much-bandaged head on her shoulders with the one hand she had left, her other arm
ending in a cloth-wrapped but dripping stump.

The chatter in the room died away as everyone noticed the gliding apparition. She
paid no one the slightest heed except Elminster; she met his
eyes with a fierce look, then pointed with her stump through the Copper Receiving
Room, drawing back her truncated arm to thrust it forward repeatedly to make the fact
she was pointing clear.

Even to dunderheaded old Chosen of Mystra
, El thought wryly, and was rewarded with the briefest of grins crossing that ghostly
face.

So this was Luse, but he knew who she was pretending to be.

“Gentles,” El announced calmly, “behold one of the hauntings of Oldspires: an early
Lady Halaunt, who was hacked to death by brigands. She seems to require the immediate
services of a steward.”

The apparition nodded emphatically and swept past him, through the copper-clad chamber
and out into the entry hall. Elminster strode briskly after her, followed hastily
by Mirt and Myrmeen.

Alusair did not slow when they reached the entry hall, but turned to its open main
interior door, into the Blue Chamber, and led them through it, gathering speed as
she went.

El, Mirt, and Myrmeen all looked at each other.

“Another death?” Mirt asked. “So who—and who did it?”

Myrmeen gave Elminster a meaningful look. “Whoever got there first, and was in the
mood.”

“Secure the kitchen!” he snapped at her, by way of reply, as he broke into a run—after
the ghost.

Mirt lurched and huffed along in his wake, as El raced down the passages in pursuit
of the ghost princess, dashing to … Tabra’s room.

Its door was closed but—unlocked. El flung it wide.

Someone lay huddled and still on the floor. Calathlarra.

Dead, hard by Tabra’s bed. The Runemaster’s fingers were lacerated with what appeared
to be her own knife.

El barely looked at her in his haste to see to Tabra.

Who met his gaze calmly, from under the covers. “I’m fine,” she informed him. “She
never reached me.”

“Oh? Then what did happen?”

“She picked the lock and came charging at me with that knife, but tripped on the rug—see?—and
stumbled, and fell on her own knife. Then she fell still, just as you see her.”

El and a heavily wheezing Mirt looked down at the rucked-up rug and the still and
huddled Runemaster. There’d be no avoiding bloodstains on
this
rug.

“I see,” Elminster said gravely, meeting Tabra’s gaze squarely. “I quite see. The
gods must have been smiling on ye.” He gave Mirt a silent look, and the Lord of Waterdeep
bent to take Calathlarra under the armpits.

El took the dead Runemaster’s feet, and as he and Mirt started to carry the body out
of the room, the bloody knife balanced atop its belly, asked Tabra, “Shall I bring
ye thy highsunfeast shortly? Or are ye no longer hungry, after … this?”

“I’m never ‘no longer hungry,’ ” the woman in the bed replied flatly. “Bring me food
as soon as you can, please.”

El nodded, bowed, and withdrew from the room.

Outside, he locked Tabra in and turned to a dark shadow lurking by the closed door
into the lord’s robing room. “Luse, I thank ye for summoning us. Will ye stand guard
over the last apprentice of Ioulaum again, for now? We have … business.”

Of course. Involving a fresh corpse. How … typical
.

El gave the tart shadow a merry grin over his shoulder, as he and Mirt began the long,
laden trudge down to the cold cellar. “My, but royal tongues have sharp edges!”

And even sharper points, Old Mage. And sharper points. Try not to forget that helpful
little detail
.

And with that, the ghost princess shrank down into something long, ribbon-flat, and
sinuous, then plunged through the keyhole of Tabra’s door.

El stared after her for a moment thoughtfully, but Mirt grunted from behind him, “
Come
on, wise old wizard. You can stare at that keyhole all day, and it won’t change—and
for all that time, this dead one here won’t get any lighter.”

So they set off, taking the long way through the dark cellars to avoid parading past
the four highsunfeast-devouring wizards with the obviously dead Runemaster.

Soon enough, they were lowering Calathlarra down in the chill dark beside—Mirt named
them grimly aloud—“Skouloun, Yusendre, and Alastra.”

“Well,” El growled, “what d’ye think?”

“That this cellar is going to get even more crowded before we’re done,” Mirt grunted.

El nodded, but said, “I meant about this one we’ve just carried in.”

“Tabra’s lying, and this one died by poison.”

“Agreed,” El replied, “but I doubt it was her own poison. This blade here was poisoned,
but I can’t see a Runemaster using poison she hasn’t dosed herself with for years
until she’s nigh immune to it.” Mirt nodded at that.

“I’d say she died from a different poison, probably on a blade wielded by Tabra,”
El added, and Mirt grunted agreement and nodded more emphatically.

They retraced their steps to regain the ground floor and return to the two rooms where
the wizards were eating highsunfeast. As they passed Tabra’s guarded door, Alusair
emerged through its keyhole again, adopting her own likeness this time, and said,
“Before I rushed in to play Lady Halaunt and summon you, I was patrolling, and saw
something different than what Tabra told you.”

“Of course ye did,” El replied. “Tell.”

“Calathlarra picked the lock on Tabra’s door and charged at Tabra with her knife,
all right, but Tabra had a fireplace poker under her bed. She hauled it out and dashed
aside Calathlarra’s knife with it, probably breaking a few of the Runemaster’s fingers
in the doing, then clawed Calathlarra across the face—and Calathlarra fell and never
got up again. She twisted around on the floor a bit, groaning, then went limp.”

El nodded. “Tabra’s killing with poison she’s put on her sharpened smallest fingernails—certainly
Calathlarra, and likely Skouloun. The question is, why?”

“She fell into the hands of the arcanists of Thultanthar, who tortured her for years
to gain all her secrets,” Alusair reminded him. “Perhaps she’s killing anyone who’s
ever been an ally of the Thultanthans.”

“But Calathlarra attacked her,” Mirt put in.

El nodded again. “If she’d figured out, or even suspected, that Tabra was after allies
of Thultanthar—meaning Tabra would soon be after
her
—why not strike first?”

He turned swiftly then, to look down the passage; someone was coming, in a hurry.

It was Myrmeen Lhal. “Well met,” she greeted them dryly. “I almost fell over Maraunth
Torr on my way back to the kitchen. Dead on the passage floor, without a mark on him,
though his skin’s a mite green. Poisoned, I’d say.”

“Poison, poison, poison
—amazing
the things that become fads in Cormyr,” El muttered. “Luse, Tabra’s just going to
have to take her
chances—and everyone else take their chances with her. Get to the kitchens just as
fast as ye can, to see if anyone’s in there! Myrmeen, ye rush there, too! And once
there, search very carefully to make sure nothing is disturbed or missing, or there’s
less or more of something in its container than there should be!”

Myrmeen nodded, spun around, and sprinted back down the passage. Alusair had already
vanished around corners in the distance, like a racing wind.

Elminster and Mirt followed at a more leisurely pace. When they got to Maraunth Torr’s
body, they found it cold and unbreathing, the skin having a decidedly green tinge.

“Poisoned,” they agreed, though El frowned down at the corpse suspiciously.

“Shouldn’t be death cold for days, with any of the poisons that turn the skin green
raging in him; they generate their own heat, until they’ve finished liquefying the
underlying tissue.”

Mirt shrugged. “Magic?”

El gave him a sour look.

The Lord of Waterdeep was unabashed. “So, what do you want to do with him?”

“Cart him down to the cold cellar and lock him in with the others, for now. Those
still standing are our greater worries.”

Mirt grinned. “Spoken like a true scourge of the living.”

El and Mirt lugged the late Lord Torr down to the cold cellar and locked him in with
the four other still and silent bodies.

Mirt looked them over. “Soon,” he grunted, “we’ll have a good idea of who’s doing
this, just by how few are still standing.”

El gave him an unsmiling look. “Oh, I think I know who’s doing it, but I can’t prove
a thing—and before I begin with accusations, I want to know
why
.”