Ed Greenwood - The Herald

“But-but this building’s been cleared out for a tenday, after two clerks came down with blacktongue! We-”

Mirt’s withering look reduced the protesting mage to silence, and he followed the rotund and wheezing merchant up the narrow and dim back stairs as quietly as possible. As he did, Narancel wondered why they didn’t just go in the front way, but he took care to wonder it mutely.

Two flights up, he heard voices. Mens’ voices where there should be none. Mirt turned with a warning finger held straight up against his lips, then went on. The wizard followed, taking great care to be as quiet as he could.

They were close enough, now, to hear what was being said.

“So you see, I’m prepared to pay you this handsomely just to do your duty . Nothing beyond the rules, nothing that can get you in trouble. You are supposed to inspect noble estates-and their city properties too-from time to time, without warning, to make sure what they tell the Crown tax clerks to be so is, in fact, so. Oh, the particular nobles on my little list, here … ah, your little list, yes? … will be less than pleased, but then, they always are, aren’t they?”

“It’s-if anyone higher finds out-” That voice was anxious, and was echoed by the wordless murmurs of others. Worried others.

“Ah, but they won’t, if none of you talk. See how short that list is? All you have to do is remember one name each from it-just one-and it becomes your choice, and I destroy the list, and-behold! — there’s no evidence left, at all! Now, what say you?”

“I–I-oh, I don’t know …,” the worried voice mumbled, sounding very unhappy.

Which was when Mirt laid a firm hand on the war wizard’s arm, tugged meaningfully, and let go to lurch and wheeze his way through the door and around the corner to give the room of startled men-six palace courtiers and one Manshoon-a nod of greeting and a lopsided grin.

“Well done , men of Cormyr! Well done!” he told them heartily. “You passed this little test as Cormyreans staunch and true! Proving yer honesty and loyalty to the Crown as boldly as any battle-tested Purple Dragon! The Forest Kingdom is proud of you!”

Clasping his hands behind his back, he started to stroll. Mainly to make sure the tremulous young fool of a war wizard had indeed dared to follow him into the room-aye, he had, thank all the gods for small beneficences-but also to put one or two courtiers between him and any little magic an annoyed Manshoon might hurl.

“You rightly saw through the stratagem our peerless actor here”-he waved at the glowering Manshoon-“was so smoothly attempting to recruit you into abetting. It would create dissent among certain noble families whose support the Dragon Throne sorely needs right now. You didn’t know it, but more than a dozen Wizards of War have been watching and listening to it all! Worry not; every last one of you has impressed them. Young Narancel here will escort you back to your offices now, and will echo my praise. Cormyr’s future is bright in your hands!”

Mirt swung around to give Narancel a look. Damned if the young pup wasn’t shaking like a sapling in a fall wind, but at least he knew his cue, and nodded, waving to the courtiers to come with him.

They bolted, almost upsetting their chairs in their relieved haste, and were gone in a door-banging trice. Leaving Mirt alone with a seething Manshoon. The onetime ruler of Zhentil Keep and of Westgate, founder and longtime leader of the Zhentarim-and a vampire, to boot.

Who would kill him in an instant or three if he so much as suspected it was all a ruse, and those more than a dozen war wizards were so much utter fiction.

Manshoon’s smile was as hard as cold crypt stone. “I can think of no magical defenses you can have, fat man,” he remarked with menacing softness, “that will protect you against me if I choose to destroy you now. In slow, writhing agony.”

Mirt chuckled, and took the seat right across from Manshoon. “Ah, so you still can’t think-clearly enough and ahead far enough. Yer usual problem, if you don’t mind me pointing it out. The salient point on the table between us right now is this: you don’t know what defenses I have. I, however, obviously do. Care to be foolish enough to think I’m bluffing?”

Manshoon scowled, then shook his head.

Mirt produced a belt flask with two metal flagons clipped to it, and poured them both wine.

He handed one flagon across the table to Manshoon, who regarded it dubiously. Mirt took it back, drank deeply from it, and handed Manshoon the other, still-full flagon.

Slowly, Manshoon put out his hand, took it, sipped-and then smiled. The wine was splendid.

He sipped again and savored it, sitting back and letting it roll around on his tongue.

Mirt leaned forward and rumbled, “So, Scourge of Westgate and Zhentil Keep and the gods alone know how many other places … why don’t we sit this one out, the two of us? Hmm? At least until half Toril is done tearing itself apart?”

Manshoon regarded the fat and battered man across the table thoughtfully for a long, silent time before he said, “Convince me.”

He sipped again. “More of this wine ought to do it.”

In the third of storm’s kitchen cupboards he rooted through, Arclath made a discovery. He drew the square, human-head-sized wooden box out into the light, set it on the kitchen table, and used his dagger to warily undo the latches and flip the lid, then peered in.

Rune watched him tensely from across the room, where she was washing radishes in one of the sinks.

Arclath relaxed with a pleased little crow of satisfaction.

“Well?” Rune asked, daring to relax a little.

Triumphantly, Lord Delcastle lifted something large and round out of the box, drew aside the soft black cloth swaddling it, and held it up. A crystal ball.

“We shouldn’t ,” Rune told him, though she knew she was looking at it longingly.

“You need to know what’s happening,” her man replied. “It’s eating you, not knowing. I can see that. Hells, anyone could see that.”

“Put it back in the box,” Rune told him firmly. “For now. But leave the box out.”

“While I scour all the rest of the cupboards?”

“Lord Delcastle,” Amarune replied, assuming the manner of a mildly peeved noble Cormyrean matron, “do you really think it prudent to plunder the secrets, if nothing more, of so gracious-and powerful-a host? I hardly do.”

Arclath shrugged. “Prudence, my good lady, has never been one of my strengths. If the Dragon Throne values me at all, it is this well-known lack of prudence that they cherish. So …” He advanced on the next bank of cupboards, but couldn’t resist glancing over his shoulder to see Rune’s reaction.

In doing so, his gaze fell upon the pantry door. Or rather, upon its frame. Where his thoughts seemed to linger.

“I wonder …,” he said thoughtfully.

“What?” Rune asked, finishing with the radishes and reaching for a hand cloth to dry her hands.

His only reply was to open the pantry door, stand back, and peer at the revealed lintel, threshold, and standing frame. Then he reached out warily, wrapped his fingertips around the lines of the molding, and tugged gently.

And with the softest of sighs, the door frame swung open on hidden hinges, to reveal a hidden cupboard behind. The narrowest of cupboards, within the thickness of the stone wall, its door only a finger’s width or two wider than the palm of his hand. It was full of bone tubes with carved end caps.

Cautiously, he drew one out. There was a word graven on the nearest end cap, and repeated on the side.