Ed Greenwood: Bury Elminster Deep

Arclath blinked at her, then-wisely, El thought-nodded. And refrained from pointing out that Rune had been doing just that.

Good lad. Ye might live through this, after all.

“I am hurt, Arclath. I have just met a goddess. Face-to-face-stlarn it, and she touched me! It was terrible, and it was wonderful. I was lost in awe and wanted nothing more than to come back here and tell you how utterly magnificent it was. The most shining moment in my life thus far, possibly the finest happening I’ll ever know. And you’ve ruined it, Arclath, utterly ruined it! I need to share it with you; I need you to understand it; and what do I find? You’re waving a sword around as if that will solve everything! How typically noble! Gah!”

“B-but Rune, he’s stolen your body!”

Amarune exploded up off the floor and marched right up to Arclath, slapping his sword aside with the flat of one hand, angry eyes glittering. “Now you listen to me, Lord Delcastle! Elminster-my ancestor, and don’t you high Houses set much store by your bloodlines and hallowed forebearers, hey? — has borrowed my body. With many misgivings and no intention of keeping it, and I have seen that in his mind. We share my head, remember? I’ve seen his thoughts, and I know. Him I need not trust, because I know what he thinks and feels.”

She halted right in front of Arclath, chin to chin, not quite pressed against him, and said fiercely, her breath on his face hot with anger, “And hear me well, Arclath Delcastle-that borrowing is fine with me. So, if you care about my feelings and my freedom at all, it should also be fine with you.”

Arclath stared into her eyes, going pale, his sword sinking forgotten in his hand.

“If you can’t accept that,” his Rune added, “perhaps you’d better instead accept that none of this is really your business at all.”

The young noble lord studied her face, and then he shook his head and backed away, sword coming up again.

“No,” he said. “No. You’re not my Rune. These words are coming from Elminster, seeking to trick me. Wizard, what have you done to my lady?”

Amarune clenched her fists at her sides and leaned forward to let out a shriek of frustration.

Arclath fell into a fighting stance, sword up. “You’ll have to do better than that!”

“Why?” asked a gentle voice from just behind his right ear. “Can’t we all calm down and sit by the fire to chat about this? I’ve made some tea.”

Storm Silverhand! How had she-?

Arclath spun around, sword slicing the air to lash out And came to a sudden halt, shaking and aghast.

Not only had he almost struck down a naked, unarmed woman, but during his whirling turn, fingers like iron fangs had come out of seemingly nowhere and done something to his wrist to make his sword fly free, then taken his sword arm in a grip he very much doubted he could break.

Storm was stronger than he was. Not to mention much more beautiful than he’d ever be, and pressed against him.

“Applying a binding over clothing won’t keep captive someone willing to shed her garments,” she murmured. “You might with advantage remember that, Lord Delcastle.”

She added a friendly smile, and it was as if the sun had risen in the hut. Silver tresses rose, seemingly on their own, to stroke his cheek and trace the line of his chin.

Arclath stared at her, fighting to keep his eyes on her face. Gods, but she was stunningly good-looking! He-he-it was hard not to stare at all of her or refrain from taking a half-step forward and feeling all of her. If they struggled now, their contact would be both vigorous and… intimate.

“I–I know not what to do,” he blurted, feeling a soft hand (Rune’s, and stlarn it, she was unclad, too!) slide around his waist from behind.

He sighed and gave up. “Where’s that tea?”

T wo steps into the room above the shop of Immaero Sraunter, Understeward Corleth Fentable came to a sudden halt, his eyes going very wide. “I–I-”

The smiling man seated down the far end of the table, at Sraunter’s elbow, waved an airy hand.

“Ah, Fentable, you remember me? Favorably, I hope.”

Fentable was too busy sinking into shocked horror to manage a reply-a state of mind he saw mirrored in the eyes of the third man at the table.

Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake looked as if he’d swallowed a fatal dose of poison, and only just realized it.

They were all the mind-slaves of the man at the end of the table. The handsome, amused man whose dark eyes devoured Fentable.

Under their thrall, he sat down in the last empty chair, barely noticing he was doing so.

He, Sraunter, and Mreldrake had been pawns of the dark-eyed man until some brief time before yestereve, when he’d withdrawn from them and made them forget all about him.

Now he was back, to begin their servitude anew.

“I know we all know each other,” Manshoon said, “though I’ll admit I’d not intended us all to ever meet like this. Yet, circumstances change, and my paramount needs with them. So, gentlesirs, hear and heed attentively.” He gave them a soft, sharklike smile and added, “as I know you will.”

“Pull,” Storm commanded, turning away from him. A trifle gingerly, Arclath obeyed.

“Harder,” she added. Setting his jaw, he put his strength into it.

Suddenly, her arm moved sickeningly in his grasp. The silver-haired woman grunted like one of his guards taking a dagger thrust, reeled a little under his hands, and gasped, “Good. Back where it should be.”

Disengaging her arm, she turned to face him and growled with mock severity, “Now don’t make me have to do that again.”

Arclath drew in a deep and somewhat unsteady breath and then let it out again before he dared to reply, “I’ll try not to, Lady Immerdusk.”

Storm rolled her eyes. “Just ‘Storm,’ please. Whenever I hear that title, I feel several centuries older.” She reached for his tankard with the arm he’d just put back into its socket. “More tea?”

Arclath nodded, glanced at Amarune, and looked back at Storm. “I’m… ah, sorry to the both of you. To all three of you, rather, but Rune most of all. I-this is still going to take some getting used to, for me.”

“You’re not alone,” Amarune told him. “Raise the door bar again, and let’s get some sleep. I’m not just tired now; I’m cold.”

Storm proffered tea with one hand and a sleeping fur with the other. Then she leaned between the two Suzailans, long and sleek and shapely, to blow out the smoldering brazier.

“Let’s snuggle up. Elminster can keep watch.”

Arclath’s head came up. He gave her his best frown, and then peered all around the hut’s lone room… but saw only the two women. When his gaze came back to Storm, she looked amused.

“Try to get a little more used to it,” she said. “Start now.”

Arclath sighed, sketched a parody of a court bow, and sank down among the blankets. His life had changed dramatically in a bare handful of days, and the changes still seemed to be coming-and coming faster.

He hoped he’d manage to stay in his saddle during the wild ride ahead.

Manshoon favored the three frightened faces around the table with an affable smile.

He was indulging himself like the most overblown nobles, he knew, with all of these leering, airy utterances and glee-but by the kiss of Bane himself, it was so utterly fun playing a dastardly villain to the hilt. And after all, why not? Who was to stop him now?

With Elminster dead, a blithely unaware and scarcely defended Cormyr was a certain Manshoon’s for the taking, if he set no foot wrong in overeagerness.

So call this jauntiness a reward, richly won foolery that, after all, had more than a century of accomplishment behind it-unlike the empty, sneering strutting and peacock-screeching of this kingdom’s young nobility.