CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

WE M MUST D DO W WHATEVER W WE M MUST.

Arclath prided himself on a certain supple grace of stride, a smooth saunter that drew the eye. He'd needed it that morn to thread his way through all the rushing chamberjacks and chambermaids without too many jarring collisions.

He'd also needed all the charm and glib tongue-work he could master to fend off frequent challenges from Purple Dragons as he sought out wizard of war after wizard. The ones he did find seemed to delight in frowningly directing him this way and that.

Not that the one he was standing in front of, at the moment, was any trial on the eyes. A real beauty, with a long, glossy fall of blue-black hair-the hue they called "midnight"-and large, liquid, dark eyes to match.

"I am Lord Arclath Delcastle," he replied to her query. "What's your your name?" name?"

"Raereene," she replied, adding a polite smile and a calm wave of her hand that told him that his come-hither glance was wasted, and that she was more than used to the blandishments of men both young and old. "You're seeking someone?"

"One of your colleagues," Arclath told her. "A wizard of war who asked me to report to her, and gave her name as Glathra."

The young beauty nodded and pointed at a nearby door. "I know not her present whereabouts, but if you wait in yon chamber, I can promise you she'll be there soon. It's where we always find her, sooner or later."

Delcastle gave her a bow and smile of thanks, and made his way to the door. It proved to open into a little office-at the same time as an old, bearded man closed a secret panel behind himself on the far wall of the room and turned to face Arclath.

Who let the door close behind him as they stared at each other, and a crooked smile grew across the old man's face.

"Well met, Lord Delcastle," he said, going straight to a sideboard along one end of the office-ignoring its honor guard of a ceremonial suit of full armor, set up all lifelike on a stand-and selecting a decanter from the neat row atop it. "Care for a drink?"

"Who are you?" Arclath asked, waving the offer away. "A war wizard?"

"Yes," the old man replied, "and I'd like to have something of a chat with thee. I've been hearing some strange things about young Lord Stormserpent and magic and some famous adventurers known as the Nine, and I'd like to know what ye know of such matters. What're the fair n.o.bles of the realm saying, hey?"

Delcastle stared at the old man in bewilderment. "Glathra?" he asked, frowning. "Is it you? Is this some sort of test? I've been known to enjoy little games, yes, but right now I rather lack the time-"

"Ah, n.o.bles, n.o.bles!" Elminster lamented mildly, sipping from the tallgla.s.s he'd just filled. "So important. Never have time for anything of consequence; so busy with feasting and dalliance and debauchery-"

Arclath sighed. "A tune I've heard more than a few times before. Saer, not now now! This council must go perfectly perfectly or-" or-"

"Or thy head'll be served up on the next feast platter? Well, if ye don't listen listen to me, it will go rather to me, it will go rather less less than imperfectly; 'twill be a disaster, perhaps even offering the realm a regicide!" than imperfectly; 'twill be a disaster, perhaps even offering the realm a regicide!"

Arclath arched an eyebrow. "My, my, so dramatic..."

He strolled across the room toward one of the two closed doors at its other end from the sideboard. "However, you don't seem to be the person I'm looking for, so I'll just be-" He reached out, hesitated for a moment, and then chose the handle of the right-hand door.

"Dead in about ten breaths from now," Elminster finished his sentence for him briskly, "if ye step blindly through yon door. The elder Lady Illance is changing her gown in the chamber beyond, and her guards are very very swift with their blades. Their swift with their blades. Their poisoned poisoned blades, may I add, despite Crown law." blades, may I add, despite Crown law."

Arclath whirled around. "What? They'd not dare! dare! The-" The-"

Elminster shook his head. "Ye are blind indeed, young Delcastle. Nigh every last n.o.ble at council will be breaking one Crown law or another-and they'll all all have weapons, spells on themselves, and some sort of forbidden magic or poison about their persons. Are ye have weapons, spells on themselves, and some sort of forbidden magic or poison about their persons. Are ye sure sure ye're a n.o.ble? Know ye ye're a n.o.ble? Know ye nothing?" nothing?"

Arclath stared at the old wizard, eyes narrowing. "You're...you're Elminster, aren't you?"

El smiled, nodded-and slumped into a rather stiff parody of a courtly bow that left Arclath rolling his eyes and grinning.

Then he shook his head, still smiling, and said, "Well, I know I can't walk around the palace asking for your advice and warnings at every second step without half-a-dozen war wizards and Dragons pouncing on us both!"

Elminster produced a grin of his own and went to the suit of armor. Plucking off its close-visored helm, he calmly emptied a dead mouse and its nest out of it, lowered it onto his head, and replied hollowly from inside it, "That's why ye're about to acquire a bodyguard. Help me on with all the rest of this clobber. Duar was about my size, I see, and he's far too long dust to be wanting it all back now."

"About your height height, maybe, but he was twice your girth and even larger in the shoulders," Arclath sighed, "but I doubt we dare tour the palace looking for a better fit."

"I suppose not," Elminster agreed cheerfully. "Besides, this is the suit with the enchanted codpiece-and I just might need it. Ye never know."

His grotesquely broad wink left Arclath rolling his eyes again, but El was already sliding open the secret panel and waving Arclath through it. The n.o.ble stepped into the gloomy s.p.a.ce beyond, and El followed.

The moment the panel closed behind them, the left-hand door at the end of the room swung open to reveal Glathra Barcantle and a man wearing a crown whom half Suzail knew at a glance: King Foril. They had been listening, and their faces were grim.

"So Elminster is after the Nine and believes them to be here," Glathra said gloomily.

The king nodded. "He must not gain them. Any he does find, we must take back from him. Arclath can help us with that."

"Can, yes," Glathra muttered, "but will he?"

Foril sighed. "Distasteful as it seems, it's high time to compel a few of our oh-so-loyal n.o.bles to demonstrate their loyalty to Cormyr. Do whatever you must."

Marlin was high-hearted with excitement, but Lothrae was coldly calm.

The words had all come out in rather a babbling rush, true, in his anxiousness to inform Lothrae that a third third member of the Nine was bound to an item, somewhere which apparently half Suzail knew about! member of the Nine was bound to an item, somewhere which apparently half Suzail knew about!

"Contain yourself, Marlin," Lothrae said curtly. "It will be the height of folly to rush off searching all Faerun for magic that could be anywhere, when the council is almost upon us. We must be careful, avoid doing things that will draw both attention and suspicion, and keep our minds on seizing the right opportunity."

"But we need all the magic we can get," Marlin protested. "The Spellplague was unpredictable. Like a Dragon Sea windstorm, it left some things untouched here here whilst utterly destroying castles'n'all over whilst utterly destroying castles'n'all over there there. And it's not done yet! Things're still changing, stlarn it."

"All of this is both true-and irrelevant. The 'but the Spellplague' argument can and has been used to justify anything and everything," Lothrae replied coldly. "Were you to advance such an argument at court, expect to be openly sneered and laughed at; for far too many years, every single argument began thus. 'But the Spellplague' nothing." nothing."

"But if someone else gets the axe-"

"Then you'll know whom to kill to gain it, without without turning all Suzail upside down and alerting much of it to your name and interests in the doing," Lothrae snapped. "And with that said, leaving it clear to both of us that you have nothing more useful to add to our shared wisdom just now, this converse is at an turning all Suzail upside down and alerting much of it to your name and interests in the doing," Lothrae snapped. "And with that said, leaving it clear to both of us that you have nothing more useful to add to our shared wisdom just now, this converse is at an end." end."

The glowing air above the orb went dark, Lothrae's image winking out, fading, and falling, all in less time than it took Marlin to draw breath to protest.

He was alone amid the dust-covered Stormserpent discards again.

Lothrae had been...irritated. From the outset. Not by news of the axe, so...what? The timing of the contact? Had he been busy or in danger of being discovered or overheard?

Marlin frowned as he restored things to the way he liked to leave them and left the room.

The orbs had come from Lothrae and were old magic. When either of the men entered the rooms where their orbs were kept, a spell cast by an outlander wizard Lothrae had hired and then murdered when his work was done made the other feel feel that a contact was about to come. that a contact was about to come.

Early on, Marlin had usually felt Lothrae's approach to his...o...b.. wherever it was, and had hastened to the disused tower of the family mansion. These days, he usually went to his...o...b..and initiated their converses.

Was Lothrae losing interest in their alliance? Or wanting him to keep silent for a time? Or was there some danger or difficulty at Lothrae's end?

Well, the silent dust around him was hardly likely to offer him any answers. And somewhere out there, probably nearby, was a hand axe that held a secret...

Manshoon sighed.

Marlin Stormserpent. Young. Rash. And at that moment, nigh blind with excitement.

Idiot lordling. So utterly, utterly predictable predictable.

The serving maid whose mind the soon-Emperor of Cormyr was riding shrugged off the stained old sheet to give her sneer the s.p.a.ce she felt it needed.

Young Stormserpent had just rushed past her and was dwindling down the curving stair, all oblivious to his surroundings. She probably needn't have bothered embracing the old broken statue and casting its dust sheet over them both. Just sitting still right under his nose would probably have been sufficient.

Blind idiot lordling. idiot lordling.

"Things're still changing," she murmured, as Manshoon spoke through her. "But you grow no whit wiser, Marlin oh-so-ambitious Stormserpent. Nothing more useful to add to any shared wisdom just now, I'd say. Yet you're one of the brighter-witted lordlings of the realm. All the G.o.ds help us."

Lord Broryn Windstag was right out of breath, Sornstern was in a hardly better state, and even Kathkote Dawntard was panting and going purple. They were all wearing revel masks they'd very recently s.n.a.t.c.hed down off the wall of a shrieking n.o.blewoman's boudoir-but hadn't begun their foray with those masks, and in any case, whatever "protection" the slips of black, betrimmed silk afforded them would last only as long as they could keep out of the hands of the authorities.

Their search for the hand axe had grown increasingly frantic, and they'd had to bruise more than a few folk along the way. War wizards and Purple Dragons were after them, with the city roused; aye, it was death or exile if they didn't manage to get clear away-and stay there for long enough for doubt and planted false rumors and a few convenient "accidents" to befall key witnesses...

Gasping for breath as they stumbled up the back stair of an expensive address just off the promenade, with the senseless body of its guard tumbling to a stop behind them, the three started to wonder aloud at how they came to be doing it so wildly, rashly, and precipitously. Or for that matter, at all.

"Was some spell at work on our minds?" Windstag snarled.

"Well, even if one wasn't, that's got to be our claim if we get caught!" Sornstern panted, reeling against the stairpost as they reached the upper floor.

"When we get caught," Dawntard corrected grimly. we get caught," Dawntard corrected grimly.

Still panting, they paused together to catch their breath in the pa.s.sage outside the door of old Lord Murandrake's expensive rented rooms-and hesitated, exchanging wild-eyed glances.

The wizard and the n.o.ble came to a spot where the dark, narrow pa.s.sage ended in a meeting with a pa.s.sage running left and right.

"This way, lad!" Elminster boomed cheerfully from inside his borrowed helm, turning left.

"Very well," Arclath agreed, following, "but where are we going, if I may ask?"

"Ye may," El replied brightly, "and if ye're very good, I might even tell thee. Before we get there, that is. Life is, after all, a journey rather than a-"

"Destination." Arclath sighed. "I know the h.o.a.ry old sayings, too, saer. What I don't know is why I'm following you at all, when I came here to find the lady war wizard named Glathra, and...ah..."

"Tell her all about me? That I'm after the Nine, is that it? Amarune told thee?"

"She told me a lot of things," Lord Delcastle replied. "That she's your kinswoman and that you want her to help you steal certain enchanted things from the palace-which frankly puzzles me. Are you lazy, or horribly busy, or just trying to keep your hands clean? If you're as mighty an archmage as the tales all say, why not steal them yourself? Or just seize them, brushing aside our wizards of war-fallen far since the days of the legendary Vangerdahast, who was a mere pupil to you, if I've remembered rightly-as if they were so many ineffectual children?"

"My, her tongue has has been busy," Elminster observed. "She must trust ye. Hmm; are ye lovers, perchance?" been busy," Elminster observed. "She must trust ye. Hmm; are ye lovers, perchance?"

"I'm her patron and friend, old man," Arclath replied, a trifle sharply. "It would be improper of me to take advant-"

Elminster turned and made a very rude sound in Arclath's direction. "Ye're a n.o.ble n.o.ble of of Cormyr Cormyr, lad! 'Improper' is what ye were raised to do, and haughtily! An utter dolt ye must think me, to take me for someone who'll swallow 'my morals shine' pretenses out of thy mouth! After all, a simple 'aye' or 'nay' would suffice for a man who had naught to hide."

Arclath knew he should be whipping out his sword, afire with anger, but found himself feeling far too sheepish for any such nonsense. He settled for saying simply, "We talked last night; she's very scared; she does trust me, and I touched her not not. Truth, I swear."

Elminster dragged off the helm, revealing a face glistening with sweat, for just long enough to meet the young n.o.ble's eyes with his wise and twinkling old blue-gray ones, and reply, "I believe ye, lad."

Then the helm came down again, and from within it, the old man added, "So, aye, I'm her great-grandsire, and I want her to take my place in the harness, saving the Realms. She'll be needing help, mind; that's why I'm admitting anything at all to ye, lad, rather than just snuffing out the pride of House Delcastle, here and now. Oh, and aye, I do need to get my hands on any items that house the ghosts of any of the Nine; 'tis vitally important."

"And if, say, the Crown of Cormyr believes differently?" Arclath asked calmly as they started to move along the pa.s.sage again. "And prefers these, ah, haunted magic items be retained here, in royal or war wizard hands, to defend the realm?"

"Lad, lad," came the hollow voice from within the helm, "'tis the way of all rulers, and even more so of their lackeys and toadies, to latch onto anything that just might be of value or hold power-whether they understand its consequences or know how to wield it or not-and keep it safe forever, or until their realm falls, which always always happens first. Trust these words, from one who's ruled more realms than ye or any Obarskyr ever will, and saved this particular one we're standing in a time or two, as well: I can make better use of them than Foril or Ganrahast or all the n.o.bles of the realm put together. Trust me." happens first. Trust these words, from one who's ruled more realms than ye or any Obarskyr ever will, and saved this particular one we're standing in a time or two, as well: I can make better use of them than Foril or Ganrahast or all the n.o.bles of the realm put together. Trust me."

"My dear long-departed grandfather," Arclath replied carefully, "once told me that trusting any wizard is even more foolish than trusting any n.o.ble. I have found that to be wise advice."

"Ye were well raised," Elminster agreed cheerfully. "Yet how much can any of us trust anyone, really? We'll have to talk more on this, ye and I."

He stopped at a right-angled bend in the pa.s.sage, slid open another panel in the wall, and waved Arclath through it, indicating that the Lord Delcastle should precede him.

Arclath bowed and obeyed, stepping into a new and better-lit pa.s.sage-where he found himself face to face with an out-of-breath War Wizard Glathra, who had just come hastening along it.

"You've been looking for me, I hear; you have news?" she snapped.

"I do," Arclath replied. "This is the wizard El-"

He turned, but the pa.s.sage behind him was empty of a man in old, ill-fitting armor. He took a swift step to where the once-again-closed panel was, slid it open with only a moment's difficulty, peered up and down the pa.s.sage he'd just come from, finding it-of course-empty...and turned back to Glathra rather helplessly.