Spellstorm (16 page)

Sometimes, she wondered why.

Usually, however, she was too blamed busy for wondering. Right now, for instance, as she swooped into the kitchen at last and took up a post swirling invisibly in a corner of the kitchen behind the gentle wisps of steam rising from three simmering pots. A trio that Myrmeen had just told Mirt would run out of fuel and cool down before they boiled dry and their bottoms got burned out.

So here she was, silent, invisible, and standing sentinel against a poisoner who might, after all, be anyone among the guests.

The Runemaster had undoubtedly tried to eliminate her adjacent table-mates, Yusendre and Manshoon, but had looked genuinely taken aback when accused of felling Skouloun. Alusair was there not to grapple with
any intruder, or try to frighten them by confronting them as a furious, admonishing apparition, but rather to see what they did, and warn El and Mirt and Myrmeen about it.

They all believed there was more than one serpent loose in Oldspires now, and Mystra’s hope of prudence and cooperation was a forlorn, thin, and tattered thing … but this crazed experiment had to be tried, and if it succeeded, might well bring a glorious payoff for battered Toril. If even two or three of these archmages fell into friendship, and saw the benefits of working togeth—

A door opened softly and cautiously, and its opener came through it in the same manner, slipping inside the kitchen like a spy.

It was Shaaan the Serpent Queen, sinuously stealthy and sly, her usual cold hauteur set aside. Coming into the room by the back way, from the great entry hall.

Well, well. The most dangerous poisoner of them all, by far, come to tamper …

But no. Shaaan peered unblinking into this, and slunk to where she could see into that, swiftly and deftly prying into the simmering pots, other pots set ready, and decanters and jars all around the kitchen.

What she did
not
do was add anything to their contents.

And when Alusair made a small jar of spice paste, which Shaaan had just replaced the lid of, slide across the counter, seemingly by itself, the Serpent Queen shrank back in a hurry and made for the door she’d come in by, never turning her back on the room.

Alusair watched her feel behind herself for the handle, then let herself out, all in unbroken deft silence.

A bare breath before the main kitchen door—the wide one that opened into the feast hall—swung open with rather less stealth, and the wheezing, floppy-booted bulk that was unmistakably Mirt the Moneylender lurched into the kitchen.

He saw the jar of paste out of place in an instant, and firmly closed the door behind himself ere rumbling, “Princess lass? You there?”

“I am,” Alusair whispered nigh his ear, as softly as any lover, just to see him jump.

He robbed her of that satisfaction; all he did was flinch, just for an instant, ere growling, “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” He wagged a finger at the jar. “Well? Mreen
never
leaves things that forrard on a countertop. You, or—?”

“Shaaan, the Serpent Queen. Came, poked into everything, but introduced no poison that I saw—and took care not to put a finger into anything, or breathe into anything, either; if she was doing more than looking, she certainly fooled me.”

“Planning for later, then,” Mirt concluded. “Or searching for the Lost Spell, hidden in a jar of something dry and granular.” He sighed. “This is right madness, lass.”

“I know,” Alusair told him crisply, turning visible so she could lock eyes with him. “Yet it’s one more adventure for the both of us, yes? And in the best of bright causes, so—”

“So I’m in it, to the death,” Mirt agreed. “The question is, whose?”

“Isn’t that always the question?” Alusair asked archly as she waved farewell and set off through the keyhole of the door Shaaan had used, like restless smoke swirling up on the far side of it once she saw there was no one out in the entry hall to watch, to shape herself into a speeding arrow in flight—well, an arrow that could swoop in tight arcs around corners—back to Lord Halaunt’s body.

He’d be missed, and remarked upon, if she took much longer. Even if moldering in a locked garderobe was the best place for the old muleback.

E
LMINSTER WAS WAITING
when Lord Halaunt opened the garderobe door.

“Ready, Lord?” he asked, with just the slightest hint of mockery.

The ghost princess made Lord Halaunt grunt wordless, grumpy assent as she said in El’s mind:
Ready. No change in the plan?

None yet
, he told her dryly.
Though I suspect this night ahead of us may change that
.

You surprise me not
. The ghost princess sent a tart thought in reply.
I just hope we’re not dooming one of the nicest of our guests
.

Elminster winced. She might very well be right.

Yet if that doom didn’t fall, it still felt right to give the Lost Spell to someone who really didn’t seem to want it—and it was too late to back away from the plan now. Every eye in the feast hall had already turned their way, as they strode in together, and all of those gazes held wariness.

“My guests,” Lord Halaunt said gruffly, “it has been a … surprising evening, after a day most of you must have found stressful. I think it best if we retire now; my good steward Elminster here will show all of you to your rooms. I have decided who shall almost certainly be given the Lost Spell—”

And he looked directly at Alastra Hathwinter, long enough for everyone in the room to notice, before adding, “Yet if I’ve learned one thing in my long life, it is not to be overly hasty in making important decisions. Therefore, I promise to meet privately with each and every one of you on the morrow, to entertain your offers for the Lost Spell—with due courtesy, as befits your stations in life and the importance of this matter. You will find my home not up to the latest fashion, but sufficient to provide for all reasonable needs. I suggest, given what has transpired here this night, that you all lock yourselves in for safety.”

And to no one’s surprise at all, everyone did.

I
T WAS LATE
enough that the guests should all be abed and snoring, but “should” was certainly the word to watch in that opinion. Yet servants work when superiors sleep, so the kitchen in Oldspires was abustle, despite the late hour.

As Elminster came in from stringing a few spiderweb-like threads across a few doorways, and using the Weave to lay a binding across the door of Alastra Hathwinter’s room that might prevent timid attempts at entry, but would fail utterly if she opened the door from within, or an intruder successfully used powerful magic, his too-empty stomach growled a protest at him.

“Ye and Mreen have been working wonders, I must say,” he said approvingly, helping himself from a crock of olives.

“Are those the poisoned ones?” Mirt asked Alusair teasingly.

Lord Halaunt’s chuckle was rather sour. Abruptly the old lord sat down in an angle where the cupboards under one countertop abutted the cupboards under another, leaned against the cupboards, and went limp.

“Easier to be myself, if you don’t mind,” said the ghost, swirling up from Halaunt’s lolling body like thin smoke. “It’s
tiring
, dragging that
old wreck of a body around.” She became visible enough that they could see a spectral head and shoulders as she looked at Mirt and added, “And the two of you
have
been cooking up a storm. The palace kitchens in Suzail were always crowded and noisy, with lots of shouting and rushing around—but there, it took twenty or more staff to do what just the two of you manage.”

The kitchen door opened, and Myrmeen stepped through it, saying, “Why, thank you! It’s nice to be appreciated, I must say. The—”

“Ye left Skouloun why?” El asked sharply.

Myrmeen gave him a look and a shrug. “Because he’s dead.”

She went straight to the simmering pots, lifted lids, sniffed, and reached for some spice vials. “And,” she added, “he didn’t die of what Calathlarra was trying to slip Manshoon and the other Nimbran—because that particular poison turns the eyes of those it kills yellow green and causes rigidity of the limbs.”

“So what did he die of?” Mirt growled.

“Some other sort of poison that turned his face bright purple, and made him foam green from the mouth. Very colorful. He had some sort of contingency magic that manifested at his death, but it collapsed and failed without accomplishing anything that I could see.”

“Oldspires wreaking its havoc on magic,” Alusair mused aloud.

Mirt plucked down a cleaver and a sharpening steel, and started the singing dance of steel that would restore a keen edge. When it was going well, he glanced over at Elminster. “So who killed him?”

Elminster shrugged. “That’s best answered when we know what poison it was, and thus how it works, and how swiftly.”

“So you don’t—?” Alusair asked.

El shook his head. “Ye’ll be surprised at how much I don’t know, lass.”

“So we won’t be burning the body out back, I take it?” Mirt growled, testing the cleaver with a thumb. In crowded Waterdeep, that was often the fate of the remains of someone who died of an unknown poison or disease.

“No. For now, we lock what’s left of Skouloun in one of the cold-cellar rooms, down below.”

“I foresee meat stews in our future,” Myrmeen joked, sampling a pot she’d just spiced.

“Are those safe to leave?” El asked her.

She nodded. “You want to stow the Nimbran right now?”

“I do, if Luse will stand guard again.”

“Do it,” the ghost replied, and Myrmeen set down her ladle and led the way.

They saw no one in the passages as they carried the dead and very purple weight of the Nimbran Elder. And they agreed that was one good thing.

And then they all had the same silent thought: it would have been better if it hadn’t been the only good thing, thus far, about this conclave in Oldspires.

“I hope Mystra’s doing the right thing,” Mirt muttered, as they headed back to the kitchen.

El sighed. “So,” he told his companions, “does She.”

“T
HIS IS JUST
the first death of many, I’m thinking,” Mirt growled, fetching out a stockpot from under the countertop and inspecting it for signs of mice.

“Rodents? Worry not,” Alusair told him. “I’ve already checked.
Every
pot.”

Mirt grinned. “Thankee! That’s good to know.” He looked over at Myrmeen. “So, this Skouloun; did he waken and say anything interesting, ere he died?”

Myrmeen straightened up from feeding the hearthfire and said, “No. This isn’t a lurid chapbook, I’m afraid. He just died.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I didn’t much like the look of that green spume leaking out of him. The poisoning attempts were less than pleasant, too … but perhaps Toril will be lighter by a few nasty, deadly wizards before the spellstorm fades.”

El sighed. “I hope not. A better world we might all share with certain mages gone, to be sure, but Mystra charges me to spread the use of the Art, not stand by while masters of it are destroyed—even if they’re destroyed by another master, using magic. No, however useful that may be, it’s not what any of us should want. Perhaps fear of it will cozen some into better behavior than usual, but I don’t consider even
that
very likely—”