Spellstorm (5 page)

“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

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?”

The ghost of the princess scowled. “Words, always clever words that bring me to a
standstill with their very rightness, as they always did from your mouth, but still …”

Elminster’s smile was sad. “Are not words cheaper than spilled blood? If I refrained
from cozening with words because being manipulated upset thee—or thy father, or Foril—and
armies marched, and lives were lost and lands laid waste, what price my silence then?”