“Lanternlight on the lock, if ye would, Lady,” El said calmly, then bent to peer at the lock in the illumination she provided. “Fresh scratches; used recently.”
“Trap?”
El shrugged. “The classic way of finding out presents itself.”
“So it doth,” Mirt replied mockingly, reaching behind his belt buckle to slide something forth with his thumb. A lockpick, which he calmly applied to the lock, keeping his body to one side and listening intently.
Myrmeen and Elminster stayed back and kept utterly silent. Mirt manipulated the pick for a few moments, frowning, then reached behind his ear with his free hand for a second pick, thrust it in beside the first, twisted, and was rewarded with a loud click.
Then he shrugged, turned the handle, and kicked.
The door banged open with oiled, unwarped ease, and—
Nothing happened. El plucked up a sliver of slate that some long-vanished scuttling furry invader had carried along this passage from two rooms back, and wordlessly handed it to Mirt—who tossed it forward into the darkness.
They heard it land, shatter, and skitter to a halt.
Nothing followed.
“Lamp,” Mirt growled. Myrmeen obligingly raised it on high and aimed its unshuttered opening so it illuminated—a wardrobe. Six wardrobes. More.
They were staring into a dry, intact room crammed full of wardrobes, obviously moved here at some time in the past from many other rooms on this upper floor, to keep them away from leaks.
Mirt waved his hand in a circle; Myrmeen correctly interpreted his signal and flashed the lanternlight in a slow circuit of the door frame and the floor and ceiling just inside. Mirt nodded, took off one boot, and held it across the threshold, then crossed in front of the open doorway to offer it inside the other side of the opening.
Unbroken nothing. Mirt stamped his boot back on, then stood and listened.
And then sniffed.
And sighed. “I know
that
smell.”
He strode forward through the open door to the nearest wardrobe, and flung its door wide.
And the arm of a dead man fell limply out, to hang loose and lifeless. It was Skouloun of Nimbral, his body slumped inside the wardrobe on a heap of musty weathercloaks and old boots.
Mirt edged past that wardrobe and flung open door after door, but the sixteen wardrobes he opened after that first one yielded up only clothes.
“No more bodies,” he growled at El and Myrmeen as he returned to them. “Just our curiously mobile dead Elder. Who seems to have been achieving much more dead than he did when alive.”
“Not without help,” Myrmeen pointed out, firmly tucking the dead wizard’s arm back into the wardrobe and closing the door on his reek. “Stinking wizards,” she joked.
Mirt chuckled. “So
now
what?”
“So now,” Elminster replied, “we go back to the kitchens, and send Alusair in through Maraunth Torr’s keyhole to see what he’s up to, before we burst in and confront him.”
“But he’s—”
“Not as dead as we thought, I suspect. If he’s not back in his room, we hole up in the kitchens and send Alusair, invisible, all over the mansion to hunt him. Looking for him, or someone she doesn’t recognize, or two versions of someone she
does
recognize.”
“Gods above,” Myrmeen muttered. “My head’s starting to hurt.”
“At least you’ve still got one,” Mirt joked, “and life enough to use it.”
“Yes, but for how much longer? This house is
killing
people!”
“I had started to notice that, lass. I had indeed,” the Lord of Waterdeep grunted.
Elminster, standing behind them, said nothing at all.
CHAPTER 14
Crudeness and Comeuppance
A
S IT HAPPENED
, M
ARAUNTH
T
ORR
WAS
BACK IN HIS ROOM
.
Lying sprawled on his back on the floor.
Dead and stiff, his face contorted in horror and his body in a convulsed and agonized pose, hands frozen in a frenzied clawing of the air. His skin was magenta all over—except for his fingers, which were stained ochre here and there—and yellow foam was hardening around his mouth, nose, and eyes.
He was naked, and there were fanged bites all over him.
“Our thief of the keys,” Myrmeen observed, pointing at the stained fingers.
“And Shaaan’s work,” Elminster murmured, pointing at the bites. “I’ve seen it before a time or two. This is the result of the overreaching ambition of Maraunth Torr, I’d say. She’ll now have our missing keys, too.” He smiled grimly. “Let’s awaken most of our other guests and bring them in here to see this.”
Mirt gave the Sage of Shadowdale a sharp look. “Nothing good will come of that. Stirring up trouble, Old Mage?”
El shrugged. “ ’Tis what I do.”
“I feel moved to say: I hope you know what you’re doing,” Myrmeen told him, “but you always seem to—and after what many will say is far too many centuries, you’re still here.”
Mirt grinned at Elminster. “Sounds like ringing praise to me.”
The Sage of Shadowdale sighed. “Go ye and rouse Manshoon, Malchor, and Tabra, and bring them here. I want them to see this, to see if we can goad one of them into letting slip just a hint of something.
Not
Shaaan, mind. Leave her be.”
Myrmeen gave him a look. “So she’s Torr’s murderer; has it been her, all along, taking down everyone?”
Elminster shook his head. “Nay. Would that it were so simple. Just as neither she nor Torr are our lurker outside the windows. Who’s shorter than both.”
Myrmeen sighed. “Far be it from me to deny old and eccentric wizards their Mystra-given right to be mysterious, but I like to know—purely for reasons of adroit operations, you understand—when someone I’m dealing with is a murderer, stone cold or otherwise.”
El gave her look right back to her. “They’re
all
murderers, lass. Ye don’t rise to the positions they have—Calathlarra, a living Runemaster merely feigning undeath; Manshoon, a ruler thrice over, formal or otherwise; Elders of Nimbral, and so on and on—without killing those who tried to kill thee. So treat them all accordingly.”
“Strike first?” Mirt grunted.
“Be polite, and never turn your back,” Elminster replied. “Now go and get those three—and if they give thee the slightest opportunity, peer past them. Those bedchambers are only so large, and armies, even stealthy ones, take up some space.”
Myrmeen grinned. “Armies I can handle, remember? Annoyed and frightened archmages, though … I’m not so sure. So they’re all mixed up in it?”
El nodded. “Though I don’t think they’ve all done murder, here at Oldspires. Yet.”
“But if only one wizard is left, only one can claim the Lost Spell,” Myrmeen murmured. “And even if that prize isn’t forthcoming, they’ll have left a lot of powerful rivals behind, forever.”
“No contingencies, in all this spell-chaos,” Mirt agreed.
Myrmeen looked at Elminster. “That’s not going to stop them trying, though, is it?”
He shook his head, and she turned and strode away with Mirt to fetch Tabra, whose lodgings were farthest distant from Maraunth Torr’s bedchamber; Malchor and Manshoon were much closer to hand, and could be collected on their return trip.
So, Old Mage, shall I go and camp outside the Serpent Queen’s door?
Her thought came into his mind just before the chill of her presence. Alusair could be both invisible and utterly silent when she wished to be, and Elminster’s feel for the Weave came in roiling waves in this place, so close to the leakages of the gates.
Aye
, he mindspoke back.
It will be very helpful to know if she stirs outside her room, or tries a working inside it
.
Until next
, then, she thought. And a moment later, from farther away, she added,
I echo Mreen
.
Eh? How so?
I, too, hope you know what you’re doing
.
El smiled grimly.
So do I
, he told her.
If Tabra was still feeling ill, she didn’t show it. She had obviously been up and dressed when Mirt and Myrmeen had called on her, for here she was already, limping along with them, a wry smile on her face and her mismatched eyes alight with interest. Or was it mischief?
Malchor looked as if he was only half-awake, roused from deep slumber and still quietly close to toppling back into it. Manshoon looked as alert and superior and sleekly hostile as he always did.
“Frightened by night noises, Aumar?” he asked. “In need of a little company? Missing soft warm lasses to be your pillows?”
By way of reply, Elminster stood back and wordlessly ushered them into Maraunth Torr’s room with a flourish worthy of any doorjack.
The three wizards looked down at Torr’s sprawled body.
Malchor looked sad, Tabra on the not-quite-smiling side of satisfied, and Manshoon both unsurprised and annoyed.
None of them said anything.
Silence stretched.
Elminster gave them an inquiring smile.
When his eyes met Manshoon’s, the Zhent asked coldly, “Why are you showing me this? Is this your crude attempt to frighten me?”
“Nay,” El replied. “Rather, ’tis my crude attempt to reassure thee that the murderer has found his comeuppance.”
Manshoon shook his head. “Some day, Elminster,” he said softly, shaking his head, “you’ll reach too far—and great will be the glee of those who bring you down. There’ll probably be a rush to take part in
your
comeuppance.”
“I daresay,” El told him, gentle smile unruffled. “I do seem to have accumulated quite a host of enemies down the passing years. The burden laid upon me by she whom I serve, I deem it; the inescapable result of matters all being left up to me. Always.”
“Is that your excuse for forever
meddling
?” Manshoon snapped, then turned to Malchor and Tabra. “You’re both being very quiet; do you approve of Elminster manipulating matters great and small, all over Faerûn, for century after century?”
Malchor shrugged. “And you don’t? I don’t. He at least can claim to be serving the goddess who empowers and graces us all.”
“Anyone can
claim
such service,” Manshoon said darkly. “I wonder how much of what he does for Mystra is more self-serving than goddess-serving.”
“Whereas
I
,” Tabra said with sudden steel in her voice, “spend my time wondering about more important things. Those who concern themselves overmuch with other people’s business often make a mess of their own. Wouldn’t you agree, Saer No-Longer-Lord-of-Anything?”
Manshoon rounded on her with a sneer. “Grand words from a marred weakling whose largest accomplishment is being a captive.”
Tabra smiled and flexed her fingers, as weary warriors often do in a lull in fighting, when they’ve been gripping their weapons long and hard. “Try me, latest clone of so many failed predecessors,” she suggested softly, without a trace of fear in her eyes. “Try me.”
“Heh,” Mirt told the ceiling, “I
love
the peace and carefree ease of wizards’ accords, I do indeed.”
“I’ve agreed to no accord, fat man,” Tabra reminded him.
“Hah! Indeed you’ve not!” Mirt agreed jovially. “My mistake. A mere mutton-headed man of action, me, not a clever mage who—”
“Not much action, by the looks of
that
paunch,” Tabra interrupted, but her voice was jesting and her eyes held a twinkle.
“Well, here I be,” the old moneylender leered, swiveling his hips like a dancing girl. “Spurn not your fair chances!”
Tabra, Myrmeen, and Manshoon all rolled their eyes, as the three roused guests turned away to head back to their rooms. El waved to Mirt and Myrmeen to accompany them, and locked the door on what was left of Maraunth Torr.
No blatant slips, and everyone riled. So, now, could anything be salvaged of Mystra’s hoped-for accord? The surviving mages all knew each
other better, true, and that would make them all behave differently in future toward rivals who were no longer strangers, but this many dead was hardly what a goddess who wanted more of the Art in the hands of nigh everyone would want …
Ah, but perhaps this Mystra was at last cleaving more to the thinking of her predecessor,
his
Mystra, that those who used magic for tyranny must occasionally be struck down to end their hoarding of magic and oppression of others who wanted to wield it or gain more of it. Her time in the Weave would have immersed her in the thoughts and desires of the earlier Mystra and the many, many servants of Mystra who were now voices in the Weave, marinating her in their views and emotions, their accumulated wisdom, their memories of what they’d had to do in the service of Mystra …
’Twas no easy thing, being the goddess of magic. A different deity than the rest, in a world so steeped in the Art, a divinity that had to care more for mortals, or embrace utter tyranny. And at the same time share the Weave—the Weave that
was
Mystra, as well as being so much more—with other deities, or what remained of them, like Eilistraee and—
“Well,
that
was fun,” Myrmeen commented, as she and Mirt returned. “They’re all back in their rooms, and both Tabra and Malchor were yawning before they shut and bolted their doors. No armies, by the way. So, what now?”
“Time for ye two to enjoy some slumber,” El told them, “back in the kitchen. I’ll tend the fires and the stewpots, Luse will fly patrol, and—”
“Tomorrow’s another day, that bids fair to be very much like this one,” said Mirt, starting the long trudge down the passage in the direction of the kitchen. “I’m getting to know that kitchen very well.”
“Well,” El pointed out, “ye
do
need skills for thy new career, whatever it turns out to be, and a dab hand in the kitchen is always …”
“
You
, Lord Chosen of Mystra, can go rut with two snakes blindfolded up a tree,” Mirt replied merrily, lurching through the Halaunt trophy chamber and—
Coming to an abrupt halt as Alusair loomed up before him, glowing almost solid, tall and stern and with her hands on the hilts of her spectral sword and dagger.