Lisa Smedman - Realms of Shadow

Two heads shook in unison, politely declining. The man who'd stepped in from the balcony raised his other hand from behind him, and Lord Summertree watched the light of his favorite lamps gleam along the edge of a very sharp long sword. As he wondered for the first time if he might die this evening, there came a whirling of a different sort of light from closer at hand-and the Mage Royal vanished.

The two men looked at each other-and both shrugged. "A pleasant evening to you, Lord," Glarasteer said softly, ere he took two swift steps and vaulted over the balcony rail into the gathering dusk.

"A bit late for that, don't you think?" Lord Summertree murmured, after a moment of standing alone with his sword raised against no foe.

Setting it carefully on the desk, he went to a sideboard, poured himself a goblet of a favorite wine with hands that shook not at all, and strolled thoughtfully out onto the balcony to watch what bards liked to call "the soft summer stars coming out."

The tentacle that slapped around his eyes and mouth, and broke his neck with a quick, brutal jerk before snatching the noble's shuddering, spasming body back out of sight, was accompanied by a calm, slightly husky, feminine murmur.

"Far too late, my Lord Summertree, but not too late for you to have a change of heart and go to join the conspirators."

For just a moment, as it flexed a pair of tentacles and casually tossed the large, limp body up onto the manor roof for the crows to rend, the shape that had spoken resembled Shamra the Healer. The moment was gone, and it dwindled and thickened, taking on the burly bulk of the much-respected, childless bachelor noble. Barefoot it padded to the robing rooms to choose clothes, plucking up the fallen goblet as it went.

When it set off across the study toward the door and its lock bar a few breaths later, it moved with utter confidence, and a fair approximation of Lord Summertree's stride.

At least she had this one dusty chamber, spell-shielded by Lord Vangerdahast to keep everyone else out, as a refuge.

Right now, Caladnei of the Raging Headache sorely — and that was a mild word for what she felt — needed it.

She clutched at her temples as her head rang and rolled, softly cursing all of the grasping nobles that Cormyr seemed so richly over-endowed with. Gods damn and blast them all!

Even here in the palace, they circled like vultures around Azoun's tomb, eyeing the throne. She didn't want any of this, Royal Magician and Court Wizard and Lady Master of the War Wizards — and all the other barbed, honeyed words at court.

The Forest Kingdom was a beautiful place, and it felt like home — it was home — but why couldn't she just take over an old, ramshackle upcountry house in the woods and be left alone there to work magic?

Every month it surged in her more strongly. Just plain Caladnei could do wondrous things, she knew, if she could take the time to try steering her sorcery thus and so, observe, and try again, unleashing magic that was truly Art, not these dry inscriptions the wizards so loved.

Yet all around her in the gloom were the spells Vangerdahast had left her. Shelves after shelves of fat, mysterious-looking books and pigeonholes of yellowing scrolls. Hundreds of both. Dusty tomes and cryptic symbols and crabbed inscriptions, the things book-wizards loved, true-but to read even one of them awakened things in her, stirred her sorcery to eager life, and left her able to do more… even if it had nothing to do with the written spell. She'd never have been allowed access to such treasures if Lord Vangerdahast hadn't named her his successor.

"Why, take this scroll, here," she murmured aloud, knuckling her head against the pain. She'd found it yesterday, in a cobwebbed corner that didn't look as if it had been disturbed since the palace was built… whenever that was. A translation-by Baerauble himself! — of Names of Power. Words bound into enchantments woven into the Weave in ancient Netheril itself. To utter one of them would summon a Netherese archwizard to you, to render a single act of aid. Doubtless most of those words would bring only a cloud of tomb-dust and perhaps a few crumbling bones, now, but still… think of it! Magic spun when there was no Cormyr and dragons ruled most of the realms of today. Carefully stored here-forgotten, yes, but guarded as the treasures they were-for someone, long centuries later, to find them.

Someone called Caladnei, a wandering adventurer and spellcaster-for-hire. A commoner, a nobody… one топ lowborn wench put in office over us.

The Mage Royal sighed, and let her eye run down the list of Names of Power, wondering if similar intrigues had beset their long-ago owners. Probably, if Netheril was anything like Cormyr or Halruaa.

Brathchacelent. Cathalegaunt. Tarane. Who had they been?

Caladnei sighed. That was the sort of thing she wanted to know, not which blustering noble wanted her horsewhipped and hanged this morning.

Gods, but she might just welcome that about now! The Mage Royal put her head down on a reading desk and moaned, wondering how to master her Art to quell headaches.

Eyes shone like pale moons in the gloom, over the wet scarves that kept them from sneezing in the thick, cob-webbed dust. This secret passage had been forgotten even by the Obarskyrs, just as the phaerimm had said. Maerlyn Bleth looked up sharply as he sensed, more than saw, a blade drawn. Halvundrar Cormaeril gave him a silent glare over it, and jerked his head sharply, pointing at its tip-which slowly, and ever so faintly, began to glow.

Maerlyn stared at it, and by its softly growing light saw the wooden swivel-catch next to it-one of three around the edges of a door or panel that Cormaeril was now patiently tracing. Halvundrar's hand closed on one, and he pointed with his blade at another.

Maerlyn reached for it, but one of the others-Ilryn Merendil; Maerlyn could just make out the line of his short, upcurled beard-was there already, leaving Maerlyn to take the next. Klasker Goldsword and Aldeth Dracohorn squeezed past, their own swords grating out with a sound that was startlingly loud among all the gentle breathing. It earned them a fierce glare from Cormaeril, and he was gesturing again at the catches.

Together, with slow care, they turned, freeing the dry, crumbling wood from where it had rested for perhaps a century, and the panel shifted under their fingers. At a nod from Cormaeril-and who'd named him lord of their little band, anyway? — Maerlyn pulled gently on the catch in his hand, using it as a handle, with Merendil at his side.

The panel came away easily, spilling light into their passage-light tinted crimson by the tapestry in front of them. From beyond it, as they set the panel carefully aside, they could hear female voices. Two: the princess, and the Mage Royal, discussing possible traitors at Court, and what to do about them.

Maerlyn saw Cormaeril grin savagely at the irony, and met it with a mirthless smile of his own. He freed the weighted cloak from his belt and shook it out ready in his hand. The cloak would be his own contribution to the plans of the phaerimm. It would go over the Caladnei wench's head as quickly as he could get it there, to keep her from blasting them with magic before they could get their blades into her. Risky, yes, but he'd far rather be skirmishing with a young, untried Mage Royal than crossing blades with the Steel Princess!

Halvundrar Cormaeril ducked his head, brought his blade up over his shoulder, and burst forward in furious silence-and they were all pounding forward into the light, waiting for the screaming to start.

Seeking screams that did not come.

Glarasteer's hands trembled as he set down the call-crystal he'd just shattered. "If I'm wrong," he muttered, "I'll take the blame."