Spellstorm (5 page)

“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.”

“Nobly said,” Vainrence murmured, “so why is it that I now sense a ‘but’?”

Vangerdahast tendered the Lord Warder a smile that was almost savage and replied, “Because you’re not entirely witless, perhaps?”

Vainrence winced, and Alusair chuckled and said, “Now
that’s
the Vangey I remember!”

“
But
,” Vangerdahast said to the Royal Magician, “I offer my wife in my place, to aid at Oldspires—along with the ghost of Alusair.”

“Hoy, now,” the princess said sharply, “your wife happens to be standing right there, and has a name and a voice of her own! By all means speak for me, but surely—”

Myrmeen held up a staying hand, gave the room an easy smile, and said gently, “Vangey and I
did
discuss this beforehand.”

Ganrahast frowned, his gaze roving thoughtfully from Myrmeen to Vangerdahast to Alusair, and back again.

“Well?” Alusair asked him gently. “Mistrust can be carried into churlishness. I was regent of the realm for no short time, and Myrmeen took dragon shape to guard it. Do you doubt us both that deeply?”

The Royal Magician sighed. “I … I respect all of you enough to give you blunt truth. Princess, I don’t doubt your fierce and steadfast loyalty to the realm. Moreover, I trust in your inability, so far as I can conceive of matters, to turn this mission to your own ends in any way that endangers Cormyr.”

“However?” Myrmeen asked quietly.

“However, I remain suspicious that my father will try to work through my mother to somehow control what unfolds at Oldspires.”

“Gan,” Vangerdahast murmured, “you have to starting trust someone, however briefly, or you shall truly stand alone. And I know what it means to stand alone; ’twas my folly for too long.”

“I know that for truth,” the Royal Magician replied calmly, “so I am reluctantly agreeing to accept Mother’s aid out at Oldspires, if Alusair will watch over her.”

Alusair turned to face Myrmeen directly, so neither of the wizards at the table could see her roll her eyes. Myrmeen’s smile crooked up at one end ere she told Ganrahast, “I find those terms quite acceptable.”

“As do I,” Alusair put in. “Now, can we—”

A fresh blossoming of sparks heralded the opening of another secret door, this one right behind the two seated wizards.

Who whirled around in their chairs, frowning—in time to gape in dismayed astonishment.

In the doorway stood someone they all knew: a gaunt, hawk-nosed old man in dark robes, a twinkle in the eyes that surveyed them from above an impressively long white beard.

Alusair was the swiftest to react. “Elminster of Shadowdale, be welcome!”

The old archmage winked at her, then told the Royal Magician of Cormyr, “Know ye that I’ll be taking care of this little Halaunt matter, too—so what could possibly go wrong?”

Ganrahast groaned

CHAPTER 3

No Shortage of Dark Schemers

A
TTEND ME
, I
MBRA,
”
THE WOMEN SEATED BEFORE THE MIRROR TOLD
the empty air coldly, and rose to stride into the next room. She was growing tired of gazing upon the wrinkled ruination of her once-considerable beauty, anyway.

She snapped her fingers as she went, and obediently six severed human hands that had been resting on various surfaces in her robing room rose into the air, the rings adorning them winking to life. They floated after the tall, shapely woman whose long fall of raven-dark hair descended like a supple ribbon down her back to brush at her heels. As she walked, as long-legged and undulating as she’d been these last sixty summers, the hands took their positions, in midair arcs behind her shoulders, to form her usual hovering escort of death-dealing. She doubted they’d be needed just now; one of these days Imbra would betray her, but it was highly unlikely to be this day.

Imbra was still young and ambitious and hungry for power, and one did not rise in the ranks of the Twisted Rune by seeming a clear threat to any Runemaster. So Imbra would continue to play the loyal little spy, thief, and ruthless slayer—for now.

Calathlarra was trusting in that. She’d sent the most competent of her apprentices off to spy on the current troubles in Cormyr, to see if the uneasily shifting situation afforded an aging archmage good opportunities to gain swift riches, and ideally install herself in a position of political
power. Even Runemasters deep into their cronehood needed land, a steady income, and a few luxuries—otherwise, what was being an icy-cold bitch and indulging in cruel villainies
for
?

The tiny bells affixed all around the inner edge of the door to her outer receiving room chimed their cheerful little cacophony to announce her apprentice’s arrival.

“Runemaster,” Imbra announced a moment later, coming to a stop just beyond the space that the door swung through to shut itself behind her, with open and empty hands spread wide and pointing at the floor, as she’d been trained to do, “I am here. Command me.”

“Report,” Calathlarra replied, seeking her favorite seat. “Just what’s new, not all the mind-numbing details of which young lordling called another a bad word or disgraced himself in some tavern or club thanks to imbibing overmuch. You know what’s important; convey to me just those things.”

“The Dragon Rampant club in Suzail burned to the ground after a wild spell duel that began after someone calling herself Shayan the Serpent Queen—”

“Shaaan,” Calathlarra corrected, trying to hide how interested she suddenly was, but failing. She settled for trying to seem thoughtful.

“—and the Suzailan resident calling himself Manshoon traded spells over the mind of Lord Sardasper Halaunt, an old noble of Cormyr who’s fallen on hard times. Halaunt came to Suzail to try to sell—dearly—something he calls the Lost Spell.”

The Runemaster’s eyebrow rose in surprise, but she asked merely, “So who died?”

“Servants, a few lesser diners down on the street level who got trampled; no one of consequence. Halaunt’s mind, however, is said to be ruined. His servants whisked him back to his country mansion, Oldspires, as a drooling idiot, the rumors run.”

“Ah, yes, rumors always run …” Calathlarra drummed her long and still-beautiful fingers on the arm of her chair. “So has rumor galloped far enough afield, this time, to tell us what happened to the Lost Spell?”

“No,” Imbra replied promptly. Then asked, “Runemaster, what is this Lost Spell? The rumors are many, wild, and contradictory.”

Calathlarra smiled. “Of course. They commonly rage around the truth without ever truly grasping it. Know then that the Lost Spell enables its caster to store what may best be termed ‘echoes’ of other spells in their
mind. When active—and used with certain obscure but simple cantrips that enable the caster to wrest magical energy from items they touch, spells they memorize, and even spells memorized in the heads of humans they touch—such energies can be willed to fill the echoes, as molten metal fills a mold.”

“Making new spells?”

“Making new spells; as many duplicates of the stored echoes as a Lost Spell caster desires and has energy to empower. In other words, anyone competent who wields the Lost Spell gains an ongoing supply of their favorite spells that they can cast at will.”

Her apprentice whistled. “So someone who has the Lost Spell can rule over all Toril, if they conduct themselves wisely. They’ll be all-powerful.”

“Yes to your first,” Calathlarra replied coldly, “but no to your second. The Lost Spell was one of the crowning achievements of the god Azuth—and bear in mind what happened to him.”

T
HIS DEEPEST AND
dampest of the cellars hidden beneath the Royal Palace of Suzail was dominated by utter darkness and the slow and echoing drip of water seeping down from the low ceiling. It was a room Elminster remembered, and he had reason to know Vangerdahast recalled it too, but it was quite likely unknown to most current courtiers and Purple Dragons guarding the palace. In fact, he was counting on that.

He was standing in three fingerwidths of water, and its presence allowed him to maintain an old, old spell that should shield what was said and thought here even from the Royal Magician of Cormyr.

The pale glow given off by the ghost of Alusair was enough to illuminate the faces of the other two he was conferring with: Vangey and Myrmeen Lhal. Now that Ganrahast and his oh-so-earnest Lord Warder were safely elsewhere, it was time to make some decisions regarding what they were going to do about Lord Halaunt.

Halaunt’s mansion, Oldspires, was reputed to be haunted. Not by your typical, angry, grieving, or fell undead, but by spirits snared and caged by the Weave inside the mansion—a result of being built on a particular site by a long-ago Lord Halaunt who’d been something of an expert in the Art.

“That Lord Halaunt,” El explained to Alusair and Myrmeen, “chose the site of Oldspires so the mansion would house and hide several ancient gates to other worlds—portals that, these days, can only be opened with great difficulty. Long, complicated, and partially experimental rituals are now necessary, being as the ‘right’ ways to open them have been forgotten down the passing ages.”

“Within the mansion,” Vangerdahast put in, “the Weave is … ah …”

“Twisted,” El offered.

“
Twisted
, yes, in part because of leakage from the gates, and in part due to the decay of protective magics cast long ago to seal them off.”

“As a result,” Elminster interrupted smoothly, “some spells don’t work, or take effect in strange, unpredictable, and uncontrollable ways. Just which spells are affected isn’t known, and they shift at random from room to room and over time—so in general, magic isn’t reliable inside Oldspires.”

“The leakage from the gates causes the frequent and recurring spellstorms,” Vangey added brightly.

“They make quite a team, don’t they?” Myrmeen observed to Alusair.

The ghostly princess smiled, nodded—and swung around like shifting smoke to confront Elminster.

“How did Halaunt
get
the Lost Spell in the first place?” she demanded. “Has it been here in Cormyr for decades—centuries—just lying around for the first lucky finder to pick it up and try to rule the kingdom—gods spit, the
world
?”

Myrmeen shrugged. “Does it matter? Methinks Lord Elminster here will destroy it or hide it very securely upon his person, about three breaths after he gets inside Oldspires.”

El shook his head. “That’s where ye’re wrong. Hiding and denying to folk this or that magic would save all Toril a lot of trouble, time and time again—but denying the Art to anyone isn’t Mystra’s way. Magic belongs to all of us, and we must use it and develop it, and better ourselves and others by doing so. Greater evil flourishes whenever a few control it; they inevitably use it as a club against others.”

“Princess Alusair’s question,” Vangey put in darkly, “stands. How does a magic-blind, sedentary old widower and reclusive noble get his hands on the Lost Spell?”

“By being what all too many nobles are, and non-nobles would be if they could,” Elminster murmured. “By presenting a fair face to the world and
behind it being the sort of weasel who’ll do anything to collect things of power, for profit and to trade and to threaten. He buys all sorts of things from unscrupulous adventurers, and the darker and more magical, the better. Being a dastardly villain in the shadows was what excited Lord Halaunt, and he enjoyed being so. If anyone can be said to deserve such a horrible fate, he does.”

Alusair gave El a hard look. “And you knew what manner of snake he was, and told us
not
? Ganrahast and Vainrence and Glathra should
all
have been told about this peril to the realm! If you truly loved Cormyr—”

“Ah, lass, but I
do
truly love Cormyr. Every last crofter and shepherd and blustering noble of it. And most of the nobles aren’t much better than Halaunt, if truth be told. And if I laid full details of every last one of them before the wizards of war, what would those Crown mages do? Imprison nigh every noble in the land, or worse? Ruining the very land they profess to guard and hold dear? And relying on Elminster the All-Seeing to espy the next foul threat to the land, and the next? How, tell me now, do I love and serve Cormyr by so weakening it?”