Lisa Smedman - Realms of Shadow

Filfaeril nodded again, and rose in a shifting of silk

"I'll tell Alaphondar as much as he needs to know." Laspeera smiled. "Leaving Lous for me? Thank you."

"You're welcome," the Queen of Cormyr replied sweetly. She swept out of the room, in the space of an instant somehow becoming every inch the grand dowager оnce more.

Laspeera gave the serene royal back a crooked smile, and turned in another direction to go out a darker door.

Offices breed, somehow. The huge, interconnected fortress of the Royal Court now sprawled larger than the palace itself, and almost entirely shielded-or cut rather-the seat of the Obarskyrs from most of the prod city of Suzail.

Yet, gargantuan though it was, courtiers bred faster They spilled out its great arched doors, across the court yard between, and over into the palace itself. Two of them, dandy-cloaks swirling brightly around them, stood by a shimmering tapestry-a lambent turquoise scene of crawling blue dragons that Laspeera had always liked. They were obviously waiting for her, so Laspeera strode on toward them, not letting them see the slightest hesitation in her step.

On their faces were the easy smirks of men who airily considered themselves masters of the realm, and for a moment, as she bore down on them, the senior war wizard hated them enough to turn them into mice-or ashes under her boots.

How dare they sidle into the private chambers of the royal family to warm themselves closer to the flame of power than their fellows, to whom they'd pretend that they enjoyed the personal confidences of the Obarskyrs. At what time had they lost their fear of guards, or for that matter, of swift-striding war wizards?

"Good Lady-" one of them began, as he moved to block her path, his smile almost a sneer.

"My lords," Laspeera interrupted, not slowing or moving aside, "have you personal business with the queen? Or are you merely lost?"

"Ha ha," the courtier replied, in the eager, empty mirth that by its tone announces that its utterer is about to say something important that should-nay, must-be heeded. "Lady Laspeera," the other courtier said firmly, stepping directly into her way, "it was actually you we came to see. It's a matter of some urgency and delicacy… ah… involving authority over magic."

Laspeera called on the power of the ring that adorned the hand she kept low and behind her-and marched straight into him.

Her shield, unseen and noticeable only as a faint, high singing sound, thrust the man back, startling him into momentary silence. The tall, slender woman in the dark gown was reputedly a powerful mage, yes, but he must weigh almost twice what she did, and how by all the gods "Yes," the laughing courtier's voice sprang into the uneasy moment of his fellow's stumbling retreat, "you see, we need to see the Royal Mage."

"I fear you have the wrong realm, gentlesirs," Laspeera told them over her shoulder, as she strode on down the passage. "In Cormyr we have a Court Wizard who is also our Royal Magician, also known as the 'Mage Royal.' We have no 'Royal Mage.'"

"Oh, come, come," the laughing courtier demurred. "Lady, you know well to whom we refer!"

Laspeera swung around, a warning in her eyes, and replied, "Yes, as it happens, I do-and am therefore puzzled as to why you've come to me. The Mage Royal grants audiences to all at times well known to you, and more private appointments with her may be made through the clerks of the court. Their offices lie considerably to the south of here."

She leveled a pointing finger through a handy window at the impressive bulk of the Royal Court, then turned on her heel, and strode on.

"Lady!" the mirthful courtier protested, with a derisive little laugh. "We're not children! We-"

"— have gotten lost to the extent of wandering across a wide courtyard into the wrong building for some other reason, lords? Excessive drink, perhaps?" a new voice said smoothly, as its owner stepped out of a doorway to block their pursuit. He was a Ready Sword of the Palace Guard, and he was not alone.

In the space of a swiftly-drawn breath the two courtiers found themselves ringed by unsmiling Purple Dragons. Guardsmen, in fact, who held weapons half-drawn and looked like they had never in all their long, weather-beaten lives known how to smile.

Laspeera allowed herself a satisfied grin at the alacrity of the response to the song of her rising shield, which would have been very loud in that guardroom, but kept it inside. Her face was its usual pleasant mask as she swept past another courtier-a son of the Helmstone noble family, this one, with rather more right to be on this floor of the palace-even before he could look up from the servant he was snarling threats of dismissal at, and cry hastily, "Lady! Lady Wizard!"

Laspeera neither replied nor slowed, and so-of course-he came hopping along in her wake.

"Lady Laspeera, I must speak with you!"

Not letting her sigh reach her tone of voice, she asked, "Must you, Lord?"

"Well, ah, yes, actually."

Laspeera turned a corner without slowing. "Then do so," she replied calmly.

"Here? In the middle of a hallway?"

"Why not, Lord? Do you find hallways somehow… tainted?"

"No, no, you misunderstand me, lady. Why, I almost fear you do so deliberately. I-it's just that the matter I must speak with you about is, ahem, regarding, ah, future actions of some delicacy involving the Lady Caladnei, and-"

"Lord Helmstone," the senior war wizard replied, "I fear discussing a marriage proposal with anyone other than the lady you wish to become attached to is less than prudent-as is considering anything at all of the sort without first acquiring the approval of your rather formidable father."

"Wha-marriage? To such as her? Lady, you wound me deeply-"

"No, Lord, not yet," Laspeera murmured, passing through an archway and rounding another corner. "Not yet."

The younger Lord Helmstone was bustling after her, still sputtering in outrage. "Lady, I protest! Nobles of the realm are not to be trifled with, not even by-"

Laspeera spun around so swiftly that he was forced to snatch at a voluptuous statuette on a pedestal to slow himself, lest he crash into her. Seeing what rondure he'd laid his hand on, he snatched his fingers away in cringing haste.

Her voice was low and calm when she spoke, but it drained the high color entirely from his face nonetheless.

"Young men of even less prudence than manners? I say again, Lord Helmstone: before you open your mouth again in the palace, seek the wise counsel of your father." The War Wizard turned on her heel, stepped through the next archway-and discovered that it was her turn to come to a swift halt.

"He did," a deep voice said, in tones as challenging as a sword-thrust, "and is now doing exactly what I bade him to. He is attempting, in his own way, admittedly less direct than it could be, to tell you a plain truth. Lady Laspeera, you we know and accept, though some among us mistrust a secretive woman-and a commoner, at that-holding so much power. You have demonstrated your loyalty to the Crown time and time again. You we would accept as Mage Royal, but not another mysterious woman-another commoner worming her way into office over us-not this motherless Caladnei. I but seek to warn you of the general mood. King Azoun is gone, lady, and our tolerance for the excesses of those he's left behind wanes-it does indeed. We won't take much more of this." "King Azoun the fifth is alive and well, I assure you," she replied. "And who, my most gracious Lord of Helm-stone, is 'we'?"

Laspeera's voice was a razor-sharp dagger of ice, but the elder Lord Helmstone did not flinch. A scuffling sound behind Laspeera told her that his son had, but her shield was still up around her. If sudden ambition-or "patriotism"-should move him to fell a hated war wizard to in some small way cleanse the realm, her back was not unprotected.