Spellstorm (32 page)

“Straight out into the spellstorm,” Myrmeen reported, firmly closing, locking, and
bolting the doors again. “And off our present platter of troubles.”

She waved Mirt’s none-too-clean tunic, which was currently serving as a carrysack
for six sleep-poisoned darts, and added, “but I’ll be happier by far when we have
these safely hidden away somewhere. They can too easily be used on us, for my comfort.”

“On to the kitchens,” El ordered grimly. “And let us see how much of a ghost princess
we have left, waiting for us.”

To Mirt’s meaningful look, he added, “Whoever was trying to spellblast us into Sembia
will just have to wait. They haven’t earned the right to be our most pressing emergency.
Yet.”

“Yet,” Mirt echoed. “And I suppose you’ll be wanting me to start the stew and stoke
the fires.”

“Of course,” El replied. “What else are Lords of Waterdeep good for?”

“What, indeed?” Myrmeen asked archly, and they hurried off in the direction of the
kitchens.

Never noticing a lithe masked figure in dark leathers that watched them go, from the
darkness of the Red Receiving Room, and smiled silently in the darkness.

Off our present platter of troubles, indeed …

L
ORD
H
ALAUNT WAS SLUMPED IN HIS CORNER, SITTING UP
AGAINST
the countertops, head lolling to one side and arms limp. “Well met,” he mumbled,
as they unhooded the lantern and thrust spills into it to relight the kitchen lamps—and
Alusair put more dripping sarcasm into those two words than Elminster would have thought
possible.

“Luse,” he asked urgently, “how are ye?”

“I’ve been better. Much better. But I’m recovered enough—and have my thanks for that—to
float around unseen and spy, so long as I don’t have to display myself to frighten
anyone, or do anything at all physical. No lifting lamps or latches, no conveying
small items through the air … I presume you need me on patrol.”

“If ye’re up to it, very much so. Watch over our four guests without so much as peeking
into their rooms. Oh, and look for anyone starting fires, or any hint that a fire
might have kindled, anywhere in Oldspires.”

“Someone may try to burn the place down around our ears?
That’ll
get their Lost Spell for them, to be sure!”

“Gaining the spell doesn’t seem to be everyone’s goal, lass. Far from it, in some
cases.”

“Right, I’ll go see the sights. Until someone lets fly with another spell like the
last one. One of those, and all promises are whirled away on the wind—along with me,
if Tymora smiles not.”

Lord Halaunt stirred slightly, then seemed to slump a little farther as an unseen
wisp of breeze rose from him to glide past Elminster’s cheek, and on out of the kitchens.

“Tymora smile.” Myrmeen murmured good luck wishes to the passing ghost, as she reached
to close and bar the kitchen doors.

When she was done, Mirt wordlessly steered a tankard of something powerful into her
hand, then offered one to Elminster.

Who took it, sipped it, made a face, and asked, “
Where
did ye find this? One of the cesspits?”

The moneylender spread large and pudgy hands. “Hoy, now! I’m playing cook, remember?
In a working kitchen, you use up the oldest stuff, and that’s what I’m doing!”

El handed him back the tankard. “Go to it. I prefer to keep the throat I began my
day with.”

“Speaking of which,” Mirt grunted, taking a swig, “we are going to get a chance to
sleep sometime soon, aren’t we? We mere mortals here—”

“Bleed and dwindle and decay,” El finished for him. “Later, perhaps; right now, we
have work to do! The stews and the fires beneath them, and those’ll be yours, Mirt,
as I’ll be borrowing Myrmeen to fetch and carry some things I need from the pantry
and the larder.”

“For what?” Myrmeen asked, not bothering to hide her suspicion.

“Old remedies,” El told her. “Antidotes for rare and virulent venoms and augmented-venom
poisons. That will probably very soon be needed.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just make some smokepots and take down one Serpent Queen?”
Mirt rumbled.

“It would if matters were that simple. Unfortunately, they’re not. Oldspires has entirely
too many murderers under its roof for my liking.”

“Well, aye, every last one of us, but—”

“But I meant individuals who’ve slain a fellow guest, of the wizards who came here
claiming to be after the Lost Spell.”

“Right, let’s get going on these remedies, then,” Myrmeen said briskly. “If I may
be allowed to take time enough to offer a suggestion about the cooking.”

“Ye may.”

“Aye?”

“There’s that keg of beheaded and plucked braerwing in smallnut oil, in the larder?”

“Aye, spotted it.”

“Spit and roast a dozen of them, then put them to keep warm in trays of smallnut oil
over low coals, weighed down with stones to keep them submerged. Handy ready meals
henceforth. I’m not expecting we’re going to have too many more formal sit-down meals
where we gather all in one place and dine together, guests included.”

“A capital idea! That and a ham, done the same way!” Mirt rubbed his hands, visibly
excited.

Myrmeen smiled. “Glazed in sweet wine, I suppose?”

“But of course!”

Myrmeen turned to Elminster. “Expect us to soon be down one handkeg of sweet wine.
A certain cook will need to sample. Repeatedly.”

“But of course!” Mirt said earnestly.

“But of course,” Elminster echoed, amused. “As long as—”

A chill breeze raced past their faces, swirled, and said, “No fires yet, but Manshoon
has gone to visit Malchor Harpell. The two of them are now locked in Malchor’s room
together.”

El smiled and nodded. “I expected that—but I can tell ye’ve more to impart, and that
ye deem this ‘more’ to be far more interesting. Share, Steel Princess, share!”

“The burglar you let go? Well, let’s hope you’ve gained some expertise at dealing
with masked men, because there’s another one.”

L
EAVING SOME HEARTFELT
profanity ringing in the kitchen behind them, Elminster, Mirt, and Myrmeen trotted
down the gloomy passages of Oldspires once more.

“We stay together, no matter what!” El insisted fiercely. “Deal with this swiftly,
and get back to the kitchens; we
need
those antidotes!”

“What chance this is Drace Taulith, unable to get back out past the barrier, and so
returned to see if he can at least swipe some food?” Myrmeen asked.

“No,” Alusair replied, from the empty air beside her. “This man’s shorter and more
slender—more graceful, too—and is wearing better leathers. Definitely a different
person.”

“Mystra forfend,” Elminster muttered. “Are there no competent war wizards these days?”

“Heh,” Mirt wheezed, “how do we know this one wasn’t sent in through the fog by them?
A Crown spy, to report back what’s going on inside these walls, so they’ve something
to report back to Ganrahast? And ready themselves to best deal with what may come
boiling out at them—because they
know
what that threat is? It’s what I would do!”

“Ye’ve probably pounced on the truth,” El said thoughtfully, “yet there’s another
possibility—a worse one. Ganrahast’s busy back in Suzail with threats to the Throne,
and from what admittedly little I’ve seen of the wizards of war left here to mind
their wall imprisoning us, now that it’s cast, they seemed like the younger, greener,
less powerful Crown mages.”

“That someone could easily overcome,” Myrmeen sighed, “and take down the wall, so
only the spellstorm is left. Which means any number of warriors and thieves and spies
can come scaling the walls and wriggling down wood chutes and smashing windows to
get in here with us.”

“Exactly,” El confirmed. “Luse, once we’ve cornered our latest masked marvel, could
ye shoot on up to that roofless room I tarried in, a while back, and have a look around
at the war wizards? So ye can tell us, later, if there are any, and if they look like
real war wizards to ye? Don’t race back to tell us right then, mind; I’ve more pressing
need of ye back guarding the kitchens against those who’d poison us all.”

“You’re just full of pressing needs this last day or so, aren’t you?” Alusair teased.
“Let’s corner this latest intruder first, and then I’ll certainly—”

And then she moaned, a despairing cry of wordless pain that seemed to recede eastward,
a long way, ere it faded.

They were still hearing its keening fall when the surrounding air buffeted them as
if it was a dry and silent ocean wave rolling in the same direction, outward from … who
knew what?

“El!” Myrmeen snapped. “What just happened?”

Elminster staggered and went to his knees, clutching at his head and then shaking
it slowly.

“Someone,” he muttered, “just opened one of the gates inside Oldspires—I don’t know
which one, or precisely where. And it wasn’t Mystra … or any god, probably. It was
a smaller, quieter working than that.”

“So who—?” Mirt growled, dragging Elminster back to his feet.

El shook his head. “I know not,” he said wearily. “And we’ve lost our spy and guide,
for now. I’ve bolstered her enough with the Weave that she should survive—but she’ll
be suffering; Luse just can’t withstand that sort of surge and be flying around in
her full powers.”

“I heard her wail, and felt the gate opening, all right,” Myrmeen agreed. “So let’s
find this new skulker and take ourselves back to the kitchen. Whoever—or whatever—is
coming through that gate will find us soon enough.”

“So far as I can tell,” Mirt said slowly, “the Steel Princess was leading us toward
the north row of bedchambers—where we put our four male guests. So if we head in that
direction …”

“What if this skulker is no lone burglar, but a skilled slayer or spy working for—well,
it’d have to be Manshoon or Malchor, wouldn’t it?” Myrmeen asked.

“The ‘what ifs’ we could conjure up in but a few breaths could well fill a wagon or
two,” El reminded her. “I’d prefer we trust our eyes and ears, because if our speculations
are wrong, and we heed them and do the wrong thing, and—”

“Yes, I quite see,” the former Lady Lord of Arabel agreed. “That could lead us gravely
astray.”

Mirt held a finger to his lips for quiet as he led them out into the staue chamber,
a widening of the end of a passage with four doors, opening out into the grand staircase
and the bedchambers that had been given over to Skouloun, Maraunth Torr, and Calathlarra.
He pointed at the doors of the three rooms as he looked at Elminster with a silent
query on his face, and El nodded and came forward with his master key. Mirt and Myrmeen
positioned themselves to deal with trouble, and El then unlocked Calathlarra’s door
and stayed back to watch in all directions outside as Mirt and Myrmeen swiftly searched
the room.

Finding it empty, they came out again, and El relocked the door so they could do the
same to Maraunth Torr’s room, and then Skouloun’s. Dark and empty, all of them. They
proceeded past the grand staircase to the Chamber of the Founder, a lounge for the
guests of the Lord Halaunt, dominated by the glower of an ugly statue of the first
Lord Halaunt, and stole across it like burglars past the rooms of Malchor and Manshoon,
to try the door of a vacant bedchamber.

Where Mirt and Myrmeen found no one, as usual.

Until, that is, they had turned to leave, when Mirt happened to glance up into the
gloom of a tapestry beside the door and saw two hands clinging to its support rail,
nigh the ceiling. Without a word he lurched to the door, to depart—and without warning
planted one fist deep in the tapestry, right about where the man hanging behind the
tapestry would keep his stomach, or possibly tenderer organs below that.

The man behind the tapestry made an involuntary
eeep
sound, and fell to the floor—where Mirt gave him no time to ready any weapon or gain
his feet, but hauled hard on some unseen part of him, and flung—sending the man sailing
helplessly across the room into a solid meeting, face-first, with the far wall.

Where Myrmeen promptly put a knee in the small of his back and her arm around his
neck and bore him to the ground, gently murmuring a greeting into his ear that promised
him death if he failed to surrender and cooperate.

“I serve the Dragon Throne,” came the gasped response. “To harm me is a crime punishable
by death or exile. Unhand me, in the name of the regent and of the Royal Magician.”

“Right,” Mirt growled, as Myrmeen rolled over and dragged the masked man over on his
back with her, “unhand you where? Wrist? Elbow? Or just save all the judging and measuring
and have your arms off at your pits?”

Before their captive could utter a reply, Myrmeen snatched his mask away and called
softly, “Lantern!”

Silently Elminster unhooded it, and they gazed down on a temporarily blinded and blinking
face that no one could put a name to, but that Myrmeen and Elminster both remembered
seeing in the grand hallways of the Royal Palace of Suzail.