Spellstorm (4 page)

“Every one of them tried magics, openly but vainly, to force their way through a mysterious
‘storm of spells’ that now surrounds Oldspires. Literally, this is a swirling spell-chaos
of unknown origin—one apparently well-known in local lore as appearing regularly,
once a month, and enshrouding Oldspires for a tenday at a time.”

It was Ganrahast’s turn to favor the ceiling with a comment. “And how is it that every
last wizard of war neglected to inform the
Royal Magician of Cormyr
of the existence of this
minor
enchantment manifesting monthly for
years
, within our borders?”

Vainrence and Glathra winced in unison. “I’ve checked the records,” Glathra said hurriedly,
“and found instructions from Royal Magician Vangerdahast, who recorded it as a defensive
enchantment of the building that’s to be left alone in case it proves useful in future.”

Ganrahast nodded. “I’m unsurprised at that, just a little taken aback at not knowing
of it. What else have you learned about it?”

“Well, it’s not Halaunt’s doing, for neither he nor his father have ever been known
to have any skill at the Art, nor to employ wizards—except when Halaunt’s father was
dying, and hired a house wizard to seek remedies, almost certainly because that would
have been cheaper than paying an independent mage by the day or tenday. Dismissing
the man was one of the first things the current Lord Halaunt did, after his father
perished.”

Ganrahast nodded again. “Fair enough, but surely my—ah, old Vangey set down some specifics
about it; he did for everything else!”

Glathra inclined her head as she called up the memory, and recited in a singsong voice:
“ ‘The storm of spells, as it is known locally, is a violently swirling opaque fog,
having the appearance of the white smoke of a clean fire. It is no more than a navigational
hazard to those who lack aptitude for the Art, but enfeebles the minds of all who
have any ability to cast magic who try to march through it, though fleeting contact
causes only a sickening nausea and does no harm if the affected individual flees its
confines forthwith. It has always been observed to last for ten days at a time.’ ”

She ended her recitation and added in her normal voice, “Several ambitious minor Sembian
mages have become its most recent casualties over the past four days. It has been
around the mansion for four days now.”

“Halaunt and his household servants—who hustled him home, after Lionmantle here got
him out of the burning Dragon—were observed to pass into it,” the Lord Warder put
in, “and have not come out again.”

“So if any of them were wizards, they’re mindless now,” Tarn mused aloud, “and if
a wizard snuck in while Halaunt was visiting us here in Suzail, any such intruder
is presumably trapped inside Oldspires until the storm abates.”

“And in six days,” Vainrence observed, “any wizard can march right into Halaunt’s
mansion and try to take the Lost Spell. I foresee the mother of all spell battles,
as mage after mage …”

Ganrahast sighed. “Yes. Some will be wise enough to let someone else attempt the seizing
first, and someone else pounce on that seizer, and so on. We could have mayhem all
over the realm.”

All four wizards of war nodded in grim unison … and silence fell. Tarn tried not to
be the first to break it, though he was eager to hear what Ganrahast decided. Yet
the Royal Magician parted the heaped and strewn documents in front of him far enough
to lay bare a splendid map of the Forest Kingdom, and studied it in silence for what
seemed a long time. At last he looked up with a polite smile and said, “Well done,
Lord Lionmantle. Both for your actions in the Dragon Rampant, and your contributions
here and now. You left a sickbed to make your report, and must be both hungry and
thirsty. Glathra here will take you to the kitchens to enjoy a good feast with her
and the off-duty wizards of war who are here in the palace.”

Tarn summoned all the schooling of face and voice his Lionmantle elders had taught
him to try to hide his disappointment, but knew, as Glathra silently swept him out,
that he’d fooled no one in the spell-shielded chamber.

“You’ll grow used to that,” Lady Barcantle said softly, as she led him along still
more dark secret passages, deeper into the palace. “I did.”

Tarn didn’t know how to reply, and settled for thanking her formally. He hadn’t known
the infamous Glathra “Razortongue” could be kind or understanding.

Truly, Cormyr held fresh surprises every day.

T
HE SPELL-SHIELD SIGHED
out a momentary wash of white sparks as it sealed itself over the door that had just
closed behind Glathra Barcantle.

Whereupon Ganrahast sat back in his chair and cursed bitterly, a string of colorful
oaths that ended with a heartfelt, “I’m
far
too busy trying to hold Cormyr together to deal with
this
just now!”

Vainrence nodded sympathetically. “Fresh trouble since this morn?”

“Of course. As long as the realm has its nobles …”

Ganrahast studied the map in front of him, sighed, and added, “Every new day brings
new schemes and outbursts; it seems every last noble wants to revel in their own swaggering
moment of arrogantly goading the rest of us. Today, the usual mix of lords grumbling
about or passively resisting Raedra, and some others starting to talk about their
own new ideas about reducing the ruler’s powers—notably the younger Lord Tathcrown,
this morn.”

“Oh? Young Ralaghar? And what’s
his
ideal Cormyr?”

“He wants the monarch reduced to a first among equals, among nobles who can and should
be a lot freer to do as they please. Starting with dismantling the wizards of war,
and killing or exiling most of us, in favor of every noble having their own paid—by
the Crown, if you please!—house wizards who are sworn-loyal to their noble patrons,
not the realm!”

“Trifling demands, to be sure!”

“Rence, he’s one of the more reasonable ones! The moderates had their days of talking
it all over in public, and we did nothing; that’s emboldened the out-and-out traitors,
and they’re just warming up their tongues. Why—”

The light in the room changed, becoming silver blue. Ganrahast and Vainrence both
looked up sharply, hands going to amulets even as they saw what was fading into visibility
on the other side of the table.

And their jaws dropped in unison.

They were staring at a gently smiling, curvaceous woman clad from wrist to throat
to toes in supple leather armor crisscrossed with baldrics and studded here and there
with rounded armor plates and the sheaths of daggers. A long regal blade was scabbarded
down her back, and a slender long sword rode her hip. Her hair was long and unbound,
she wore a gorget and an oversized belt buckle, both adorned with the Obarskyr dragon,
her riding boots flared to the tops of her thighs—and they could see right through
her silver-gray form. Her eyes were two friendly flames.

They knew her, for they had both seen her many times down the years. They were looking
at the ghost of Princess Alusair, the fabled Steel Regent of the Forest Kingdom.

“Well met, Lords,” she greeted them dryly. “Be at ease; I bring no harm.”

Then she turned to Ganrahast and added formally, “Royal Magician of Cormyr, know this:
you don’t have to deal with Halaunt and his Lost Spell and this rabble of overly mighty
mages it’s luring to the realm. As you well know, Vangerdahast has been itching to
do something useful without meddling in the here-and-now politics of the realm—and
this looks to be it.”

Before Ganrahast could even begin to make a reply, white sparks whirled up behind
the ghostly princess as one of several secret doors into the room opened in well-oiled
velvet softness. A woman slipped into the room, nodded and smiled polite wordless
greeting to the two wizards at the table, and stepped forward.

It was Myrmeen Lhal, and out from behind her stepped a man whose life-size portrait
glowered at everyone who ascended the main public stair of the Royal Palace: Vangerdahast,
the former Court Wizard and Royal Magician of the Realm.

“Well?” he rasped eagerly, eyes alight.

Both of the wizards at the table sighed.

“I don’t think so, Father,” Ganrahast said sourly. “I find trusting what you tell
me a trifle difficult. You’ve obviously been eavesdropping—and you’ve lied to me just
about thirty times too many.”

“You’re
keeping count
? This is what the Royal Magician of Cormyr has fallen to?”

The Lord Warder lifted his chin and told Vangerdahast firmly, “There are some in the
realm who deem your son weak, or a shirker because he tries to work with everyone,
delegate all he can, and allow citizens leeway rather than playing tyrant. You chose
the other path, and during your time, there are many who would have wished to ask
you that very same question, had they dared: this is what the Royal Magician of Cormyr
has fallen to?”

A tense little silence fell, during which the ghost of Princess Alusair turned to
face Vangey and half drew the sword at her hip.

Suddenly, Vangerdahast chuckled. “Fairly said. Though the old me feels moved to snap:
‘My time’? Just who are you or anyone else to judge my time over, while I yet breathe?”
Without waiting for a reply, he added more gently, “I chafe at idleness, and if I
can help in this matter, in any way …”

Ganrahast sighed. “I appreciate that. Truly. Yet I cannot set aside my own view that
if all these gathering mages are kegs of smokepowder waiting
to be ignited, you set among them would be the flame that would send the whole lot
up—but I
really
don’t have the time to deal with this Lost Spell mess myself, just now.”

“So delegate,” Vangey murmured archly.

Ganrahast gave him a reproving look. “What needs to be done is to ascertain if Halaunt
truly has a powerful but useful spell that could endanger the realm, or if he was
mistaken or just bluffing—and if he does have something really powerful, to prevent
it falling into the hands of someone mighty in the Art who might use it against Cormyr.
Ideally, the spell should be gained for the wizards of war, and if that’s not possible,
destroyed before it can be copied and spread. At the very least, if any of these powerhouse
wielders of the Art get inside Oldspires, some trusted agent of the realm has to get
in there with them, and see what they get up to.”

“Agreed,” Vangey said, “with every last word. I’d have done all of that, if this had
landed in my lap when I was Royal Magician.”

“Ah, so you admit you no longer are?” Vainrence pounced. “Well, that’s progress!”

It was Vangey’s turn to tender a reproving look. Myrmeen and Alusair snorted in unison
as they swallowed mirth.

“Father,” Ganrahast said quietly, “I respect you, and revere you for the service you’ve
done the realm. Cormyr survives today in very large measure because of what you did.”

Vangerdahast regarded his son with a lopsided smile. “Thank you for those words. A
little thanks was all I needed, down the years, and all too seldom got. However, those
same long years did not leave me a simpleton: I can hear a ‘but’ coming, as loudly
as if you’d blown a fanfare from the battlements. So …”

Ganrahast’s answering smile was thinner. “To put it bluntly, I don’t trust you off
on your own—and for the sake of the realm, I dare not trust you. Luckily, I don’t
have to, because I need you for something more pressing and more important.”

Vangerdahast promptly demonstrated that he could still arch an eyebrow eloquently,
conveying interest, disbelief, and wry amusement in one silent movement.

“I need you,” the Royal Magician told him, “to tell me the closeted skeletons and
backgrounds of all the most objectionable nobles who have
been coming here to Suzail and staying in their city residences busily trying to influence
court rulings and courtiers’ enforcement of Crown policies and generally making life
like unto the Nine Hells for the monarch—not to mention for me and Vainrence here,
too.”

“Gossipmonger?
That’s
your ‘more pressing and more important’?”

Vangerdahast seemed to have grown larger in an instant, and to be still growing, face
purpling and trembling with real anger.

Vainrence grabbed for his amulets again, and Ganrahast kept his eyes fixed on Vangerdahast
and his hands raised and ready.

Myrmeen and Alusair exchanged a silent look as the tension in the room rose to a singing
knife edge, Vangerdahast obviously on the brink of defying Ganrahast by seeking to
resume his deviously ruthless mantle of old—

And then they all saw Vangerdahast’s face relax. He sank back down with a sigh, nodded
a little sadly, and managed a rather weary smile.

“Very well. You are Royal Magician now, and upon reflection, I would be delighted
to help sort out the nobles. A job I should, though I say so myself, be able to truly
shine at—not to mention have more fun doing, at the heart of clashing politics here
in Suzail, than out in some drafty tumbledown country mansion away from all the cut
and thrust.”