Spellstorm (18 page)

“Huh,” Mirt commented, “that’s nothing.
Lives
seem to leak out of bodies around here if you turn your back for more than a moment.”

“ ’Tis a common affliction, it seems, wherever I go,” Elminster observed.

“That,” the ghost princess said tartly, before anyone else could, “is one more thing
that utterly fails to surprise me.”

S
O IS IT TRUE
,” M
IRT GROWLED
, “
THAT YE
C
HOSEN DON
’
T NEED
to sleep?”

Elminster nodded gravely. “We can renew ourselves through the Weave. Er, if we know
how. So, yes, Luse and I can stand watch all night, while ye snore and Myrmeen—ah,
Myrmeen …”

“Purrs,” Myrmeen supplied crisply. “Practice that courtly diplomacy, El. I’ve a feeling
you’re going to need it.”

The ghost of the princess smiled and waved a silent salute to her for those words.

El nodded, but Mirt was busy stifling a yawn. “I’m too old for staying up with sun
and moon, a-slaving away without a break in the kitchen, and waiting table for wizards
who’re on edge and just waiting to take offense at the slightest trifle. I need my
sleep.”

“We’ll sleep here in the kitchen,” she told the two men firmly. “Its doors can all
be barred from within, I’ve noticed. Which should tell you something about Lord Halaunt.”

“About the lord Halaunts in the dim past, and the time when Oldspires was just this
southeast corner, ye mean,” El pointed out. “But aye, if we close and bar the door
that links the Copper Receiving Room to the feast hall, and bar the kitchen doors
from within—not trusting that sideboard to stay where it is—we can bide safe until
morning. Oh, and bolt the doors of the stairs down into the undercellars.”

“Stairs? Isn’t there just the one ’twixt the butlery and the south servery?” Myrmeen
asked him, feeling something smooth and hard and reassuring under her hand. It was
the hilt of her shortsword, riding in its scabbard at her hip; her hand must have
gone to it out of long habit.

“There’s a secret stair at the end of the plate and cutlery storage,” El informed
her.

“A plate and cutlery storage?” Myrmeen asked him rather wearily. “And just where might
that be?”

El grinned wryly. “Hidden behind sliding panels, in the wall between the servery and
the passage that leads to the larder.”

“Well, of
course
a hidden cupboard would have its own secret stair, so the forks and spoons can go
visiting of nights,” she agreed sarcastically. “How remiss of me not to think of it.”

“Could happen to anyone,” Elminster replied airily. “Now, if ye’ll go with me and
fetch some more chamberpots from the unused bedchambers, so ye need not share a pot
with hairily uncouth males such as the Lord of Waterdeep here and myself—worry not,
we
shall
share the darvorr … There’s a storeroom for such, but ’tis in the ruinous upstairs,
and I’d rather not chance the floors.”

“Dropping in on the head of, say, Maraunth Torr right now would not end well, no,”
Mirt agreed. “So if Mreen and I get some soups and stews going, and get these smallfowl
onto spits, you can tend them the night through?”

“Of course. I expected to have such duties. To ready meals for the morrow without
a night shift would require … magic.”

“Ha ha,” Alusair said politely. “What about what’s left of Yusendre?”

Mirt chuckled. “Aye, that’s going to stain something terrible.”

“I
meant
,” the spectral princess told him severely, “that when we can risk magic here again,
spells can be used to learn things from the dead—but not if whoever slew her has spirited
away the remains. I doubt even Elminster can interrogate a bloodstain.”

“Not sober, no,” Mirt agreed, “but—”

The room rocked soundlessly a third time, and they all exchanged sour looks.

“Better go check on Yusendre,” Myrmeen suggested, “and—I can’t believe I’m saying
this—bring what’s left of her in here for the night. We can use the giant domed platter;
the one intended for serving whole elk, by the look of it.”

Mirt headed for the door into the butlery. “If,” he suggested cheerfully, “there isn’t
another body on it already, just waiting for us under the dome.”

Myrmeen rolled her eyes. “If I scream, will he stop?”

“I doubt it,” Alusair told her. “Does Vangey?”

Myrmeen sighed, shook her head, and went to the butlery door, in time to see Mirt
lumbering into view with the great platter under one arm, and its dome under the other.
She got a good look at both, as the Lord of Waterdeep turned to sidle past the big
board where the keys to all the rooms hung, so his arm wouldn’t sweep half of them
onto the floor.

Well, she’d seen less ornate litters for corpses.

How much use would it get, in the days and nights just ahead?

T
ALL AND CURVACEOUS
in her leather armor, the Steel Princess leaned against the countertop, arms folded.
She looked every bit as solid as a living person, but El knew he could reach right
through her if he had to, to pick up a ladle or a spice vial or some of the hanging
herbs. He tried not to, to spare them both the mild pain, and because it was politer.
He knew that aside from a mind voice from an invisible source, this was the easiest
form for her to take, and sapped her Weave energies the least.

For she was a Weaveghost, something El wouldn’t even mention unless she asked him
directly. He knew how to make Weaveghosts his slaves, and would just as soon that
knowledge wasn’t foremost in her mind whenever she had dealings with him, or any of
the Chosen of Mystra. Underlying fear and mistrust do things to friendships.

They could speak mind to mind over short distances, but even that took more energy
from Alusair’s all-too-paltry measure, so they’d been talking aloud, face-to-face.

Talking in low tones, as Mirt snored on the table behind them with teeth-rattling
vigor, and Myrmeen slept still and much more quietly on the countertop across the
room. Stoking the fires made the most noise, but El had done this a time or seven
thousand before, and was able to keep it a matter of a calm minimum of movements and
din. He was quite content to stand watch until morning, stirring the stews and turning
the roasting smallfowl.

Around them, the old mansion was quiet, creaking from time to time as old houses do,
but free of tumult—or at least, of affright and doings that reached this far, into
what was really a servants’ wing.

“I found it was hard to let go, yes,” Alusair was admitting quietly. Then she smiled
at the knowing look Elminster gave her, and added, “And still do.”

“That’s better, lass,” El said approvingly. “Honesty is best. Remember, when it comes
to not being able to let go, I
know
. Believe me.” He drew forth a steaming gurthwing from under the hearth hood, inspected
it critically, then plunged it into the waiting tray of sauce, ignoring the resulting
sizzling and spitting to look up at her and add, “Perhaps it will help to reflect
on this: every last aging noble of the realm, high and low, goes through the same
thoughts, as their body fails them and their deathbeds beckon—and they know their
children think differently than they do, see the world and Cormyr and their places
in it in ways far from their own, may not even care if ancestral castles stand empty
and abandoned until falling down … and there is nothing,
nothing
they can do to bind their willful offspring beyond their own greeting with the grave.
Control passes; it happens to nigh everyone.”

“I know,” Alusair agreed quietly. “And yet …”

“So Vangerdahast watches his son wear the mantle of Royal Magician very differently
than he did, and Myrmeen beholds an Arabel very different from hers, with a Crown
lord nothing like she was, and ye—ye see a regent of the realm very different than
ye were, who herself must cope with old nobles throwing the deeds and mien of the
Steel Regent in her face.”

Alusair smiled a little bitterly. “And
that
is something I never foresaw, though I should have, I suppose. Not with all the years
of nobles spitting at me that ‘Cormyr has kings, not women trying to sneakily rule
in their stead,’ and ‘no regent has the right to do that, least of all an insolent
chit of a girl who thinks she can outride and outhunt and out-duel any man.’ Should
I visit her, and tell her to pay those who lash her with their twisted memories or
empty legends of me no heed?”

“If ye think it will help. Myself, I think that right now, Raedra Linesse Enchara
Obarskyr has quite enough on her platter, what with Baerovus still on the scene and
Erzoured not only still around but now something of a hero—”

Alusair snorted. “
That
worm! I’d like to separate his black heart from the rest of him. Leaving him alive—for
the short time it would take to sear it on a spit in front of his eyes and serve it
to him on a platter.”

“My, my, aren’t we the bloodthirsty wench! Years of learning patience and prudence
and diplomatic niceties swept aside in a trice …”

The ghost princess shrugged. “Can I not harbor my own opinions even now, El? I’m
dead
, remember! Only a memory in the land I love, shining or otherwise—mostly otherwise.
Reduced to spying and helping in small ways, as I am here and now, while I sourly
watch half the nobles in the realm hammering away at Raedra to get wed and have royal
babies and so save Cormyr—oh, and heed
their
choice of who she should take to the marriage bed. Such as, hem hem,
themselves
, for instance. Fough! Have we accomplished
nothing
since I was getting into trouble with my mother and Tanalasta wasn’t?”

“Lass, lass, ye changed Cormyr
forever
. As markedly as thy father did before thee, and as Foril did aft—”

“Hah! And look how
that
turned out!”

“Easy, lass, easy. We none of us can refight what is in the past, nor change it. We
can tell lies about it, aye, but that truly is hollow villainy. Is it not enough to
know that ye left Cormyr a better place—not more carefree, not more proud and delusional,
but
better
, for by far the greater part of its folk—than ye found it? Your riding with your
Blades did more to knit the realm together than all Vangey’s strivings and thy father’s
heroics!”

“You truly think so?”

“I
know
so, lass. I care about Cormyr, and watch over it as much as I can—what with all the
lunacy and ambitious deviltry alive in Faerûn all the time.”

“Ah, yes. Tell me some of the latest, El. I miss the Harper agents murmuring in the
ear of Queen Fee, and Vangey telling us what little he cared to.”

“And in the spirit of his prudent discretion, what is fit for thy delicate ears? Let
me see now …”

“What
isn’t
, Old Mage?”

“Well, then, the Cult of the Dragon is stirring again. Right now, ambitious individuals
within their ranks seek certain masks …” El let his voice trail off.

Ghostly or not, the face of the princess could register exasperation very clearly.
“
That’s
all you’re willing to share? El, El—oh, to the Nine Hells with it; all I really care
about is what peril this poses to Cormyr!”

“Precious little. Most of the strife I foresee will be on the Sword Coast and its
backlands.”

“Well, then, tell me of perils Cormyrean! Conspiracies we should look for, hidden
dealings soon to lash out in the light of day—the sort of things that gave Obarskyrs
a reason to put up with the wizards of war.”

“I’m not infallible or all-seeing, and never have been. Moreover, I’ve been rather
busy with … larger things. Protecting the Weave and preventing the triumph of Thultanthar
over every farm and wilderland pool from sea to sea to ice sea, for instance—yet with
that said, I know only of the usual small, petty cabals and schemes among nobles.
Mainly concerned with ensuring that whoever sits on the Dragon Throne, their own noble
House will have as much freedom as possible to do as they please, laws and taxes falling
more heavily on others. In other words, the usual.”

Elminster flicked some hot stew into the palm of his hand from a ladle, tasted it,
and reached for more salt. “Right now,” he added, “I’m more concerned with this noble
ye’re giving tongue to, and what’s happening here under his roof. I don’t want these
murders to become a runaway sequence of slaughters, and I fear they could turn into
just that.”

“Pruning the ranks of the deadlier archmages of Faerûn isn’t what Mystra sent you
here to do?”

“How much have you guessed about that?” El asked softly.

The ghost princess shrugged. “Almost nothing. Why speculate, when I can just ask you
outright? I know what rides you, old man—and I know you love Cormyr as much as I do.
So trust me. Talk.”