Spellstorm (29 page)

So the barrier stood.

Had their mysterious intruder slipped in through a gate?

Or was it someone already in Oldspires, a person they knew? Even masked, that face
at the window hadn’t
looked
like any of the guests, living or dead. Yet a spell or two had worked within the
mansion walls, after a fashion, and a spell that affected the caster without reaching
out to others had a better chance of going right, in this chaos, than …

Hmmm.

Mystra be with us
.

The prayer had become a habit to him, almost a curse, over the years. Save in the
worst moments for the Weave or what passed for balance on Toril, the Mother of Magic
tended to leave her Chosen to their own devices, providing more guidance and manifestations
to convey her approval rather than divine smiting. Her Chosen were her fists, her
thunderbolts, her shows of force. Her disapproval came as nightmares, and spells simply
not working at all. Mystra was with her servant here in Oldspires in the form of a
shield defending the mind of the ghost princess, so no unscrupulous wizard—and El
had a dark notion that in Mystra’s regard, the ranks of such mages might even include
him—could take over the mindless husk of Lord Halaunt and use his voice to set mage
against mage, and confer the Lost Spell upon themselves.

Or was the intruder—a spy only, from what they’d seen, and one in great haste not
to be caught by Elminster and his companions—a Highknight or some other agent of the
Crown of Cormyr? Sent to try to watch over what was going on inside Oldspires?

Was Ganrahast
that
anxious?

Well, now, the lad certainly could be. Tight as a drum and breathing out tension that
simply grew and grew, having none of the ease with which his father had defended the
Throne and manipulated its nobles
and high society in his later years … aye, this could be a watcher sent by the Royal
Magician.

Or Vangey, for that matter. He’d always been one to make fallback scheme within fallback
scheme, until his every endeavor had more layers to peel than an onion—even all those
years ago, when he’d been El’s apprentice. And during his time as Court Wizard and
Royal Magician both, he’d run his own private network of spies to watch over the Highknights
and wizards of war he’d also commanded.

It was no secret that his restoration by Mystra had brought back his old confidence
until he swelled up like a bustard courting hens in mating season, and he’d made little
effort to hide his dismay at the state of the realm during his time as a twisted spider-thing.
Aye. ’Twould be like Vangey to begin assembling his own spies, so he need not trust
what he heard from the reports made to Vainrence, or chafe at what little Ganrahast
and his Lord Warder chose to share. He’d justify it very much the same way Elminster
himself would have, had he stood in Vangerdahast’s boots: for the sake of the realm,
I dare not trust even these our most loyal agents, for are they not the greatest danger
to the Dragon Throne, if they turn traitor? Or even prove false in small ways?

Yet perhaps he was overthinking this. Most likely it was a warrior hired by one of
the archmages to follow along in case of trouble—or to ensure victory in the winning
of the Lost Spell. Perhaps it was just a thief, something as simple as a former servant
sneaking back to see what could be stolen with the rest of the staff gone. And perhaps
it was a spy hired by an ambitious war wizard down there in the trees, desiring to
impress Ganrahast or merely to “do a Vangey” and further his private warehouse of
“what I know and no others do, so that I am wiser and more powerful thereby.”

Mystra be with us, indeed!

Entertaining such thoughts was a swift road to madness, conjuring up perils and shadows
and lurking menaces where there were none, and building minor deceits and the dealings
of self-interested nobles into rampant realm-wide treason …

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Myrmeen murmured softly, beside his ear. El turned to meet
her gaze, realizing how long he’d stood here. All around them were the gables and
ridgelines of the complicated roofs of Oldspires; above them was the moon and the
great glittering vault of stars, and below and
around them were the woods and rolling hills of the Halaunt lands, with the barest
ghost of a breeze gliding past them now, and Mirt sitting like a patient gargoyle
on a heap of fallen roof slates.

“ ’Tis indeed, lass,” El muttered. “We’ve been so much on the run since getting here,
and ye and Mirt have slaved so much in the kitchen, that ’twas more than good to stop
and breathe and think for a moment, in a spot where we can fool ourselves that we’re
out and away from Halaunt rooms and Halaunt gloom and Halaunt stale air—’twas necessary.”

And he waved merrily to the growing cluster of war wizards at the edge of the woods
below, who had gathered to get a good look at whoever was out atop Oldspires in the
moonlight.

Then he drew in a deep breath, shook himself, announced briskly, “I’m getting
old
,” and strode across the ruined floor to one of the doors on the north side of the
bared-to-the-skies room.

“I’m waiting for the room where we get threescore and more bats flying into our faces
when we open the door,” Mirt remarked, as El tugged at the warped and stuck door.

El shook his head. “Not at this time of night; they’re already out and winging it
down there, nigh trees’ edge, where the bugs will be most plentiful. Keeping those
war wizards from getting quite so bitten as they would otherwise. Now, if we were
doing this search by
day
 …”

“Ah. Sorry. Indeed. Forgot bats start hunting at dusk; I’ve been too long a dweller
in Waterdeep,” Mirt growled, losing patience and stumping past Elminster to haul hard
on the door until it shrieked, groaned, and squealed all at once and came open with
a wall-shaking shudder.

He grinned, bowed like a courtier, and with a flourish indicated the way was now clear
to proceed.

Myrmeen rolled her eyes, stepped past him, and unhooded the lantern, holding it out
at arm’s length beside her rather than standing behind it. If there was an archer
ahead, he could at least
work
for his kill.

They found only roosting birds and their droppings
—lots
of their droppings—and the hanging, peeling decay of much water getting in, over
many seasons. For room after room, many of them with old shields and canvas wagon
shrouds nailed down underfoot as improvised patches where the weatherfall in ground-floor
rooms below had become unacceptable.

As they advanced cautiously on, the patches of pitch applied in more thorough attempts
at stopping leaks became more frequent and larger.

“I wonder how many country mansions across the Forest Kingdom look like this, up high
where no one but the owners and their servants see,” Myrmeen commented.

“Most of ’em, if Cormyr’s anything like Waterdeep,” Mirt said, trying to peer through
a gap where two floorboards had warped in different directions. “I wonder if we’ll
meet with any ghosts up here?”

El shrugged. “In my experience, servants less seldom haunt houses than their masters—and
’twas all servants up here.”

“Too busy working when alive to want to tarry a moment longer at the place of their
wearying toil, once dead,” Myrmeen commented, tugging on yet another door. “This one’s
locked.”

“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.

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?”