Cormyr_ a novel - Ed Greenwood [21]
His private library-the one the folk of the court knew about, at least-was little more than a large anteroom whose three full walls were covered by bookcases. Vangerdahast skirted the pedestal with its guardian watchskull and pulled down three volumes from the shelves: one on toxins, one on diseases, and a treatise on mechanical creatures.
He sat in his favorite chair, the one upholstered in sahuagin flesh, and set the books on the small duskwood table next it, placing the topmost tome in a book holder fashioned to resemble a silvery human hand. The hand immediately shifted to open the book to the title page and held it there, propping the pages open with its smallest finger and thumb.
Vangerdahast thanked the magical contrivance gravely-the book bobbed a trifle in reply-and reached out to touch the helm of a staring knight carved into the decorative column of one bookcase. The helm slid inward with the faintest of clicks, and the spines of three massive, immovable tomes on a nearby shelf folded outward, revealing a small-and almost full-hiding place.
The wizard pulled a flat plate from a stack in the hiding place, a circular, mirrored disk with runes around its periphery, and tapped his finger on the door of the secret place, which rose smoothly to conceal the storage niche again. Vangerdahast paid it no attention, he was muttering a spell over the message plate, quickly committing words to it for later retrieval.
A chime only he could hear sounded. Vangerdahast laid one hand on the little sylph statuette that could spit lightning if need be and said sharply, an instant before a cautious knock fell upon the door, "Come!"
The door opened to reveal the anxious face and shoulders of the door guardian, with the news that Lord Bleth the Younger was in Princess Tanalasta's quarters. Vangerdahast delivered a mild curse to the ceiling and gave the message plate to the page, with instructions as to whom to deliver it to among the war wizards and what he was to do about it. The young boy nodded and scampered off, his face stern and serious.
Vangerdahast's features were equally stern and serious as he stalked through the halls of the royal wing of the palace. His grim face and stride, and the half-heard curses he was muttering under his breath as he trod the purple carpets, confirmed to the servants he passed that something terrible had happened to the king.
The Royal Magician put a hand to his lips for silence, swept past the belairjacks and the knights of the chamber, and walked into Princess Tanalasta's sitting room unannounced. The room had been young Azoun's when Rhigaerd was on the throne, but the princess had brought her own delicate hand to its furnishings since then. Gone were the heavy stained oak armchairs and tables, and the maps of the realm that had looked down on them. Vangerdahast threaded his way through filigreed chairs of white-painted bow wood and gilded lounges covered with floral print cushions. The maps were gone, too. The old wizard thought, as he always did, that there were too many mirrors in these chambers now. As a mage, he thought of mirrors as things from which unbidden horrors could emerge, not as something to admire oneself in.
Princess Tanalasta was seated on her favorite divan, wearing a dark blue high-throated, swept-shouldered gown that made her look like a mature, no-nonsense priestess instead of a high-ranking noble. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a half-coil, from which it flowed freely down her back-and inevitably strayed over her face when she was distraught. Now, for instance.
Aunadar Bleth was on one knee before her, stroking her hand. Tanalasta looked as white as a ghost and much older than her thirty-six summers. Tears glistened on her cheeks and chin. A damp and crumpled anathlace in her hand told the tale that these were not the first tears she'd shed this morn. Bleth looked up, then hastily stood as Vangerdahast strode up to them.
"His Majesty and the others…?" began the young noble.