Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [104]
He waited a moment, seeing by their burning stares that he had their interest, all right. No superior and sneering detachment rode any face around the table just then.
“I have a weapon in my keeping that legend trumpets often but very few folk suspect truly exists. One we can use to conquer Cormyr when the time is right. Friends—fellow conspirators—I have a hold over someone I will not name nor breathe any hint of where this someone is hidden. Someone whom spells protect me from revealing by coercion, spells that I can use to kill in torment any who seek to coerce me. Lords, I control … a long-imprisoned Obarskyr!”
A wordless, hastily stifled murmur—almost a gasp—arose. Then silence. The silence of men leaning forward eager to hear, excited and delighted.
“We must work out the details of my grand—and, yes, treasonous—scheme together, in meetings to follow this one. Yet here is its general outline. Agents I’ve been training—with, from time to time, your assistance—will deal with any courtiers who learn too much about us as we proceed. Our work shall be to eliminate living Obarskyrs—without betraying our own identities, and as much as possible delaying anyone seeing this goal of royal elimination—until we can present the one who’s under my hand as the sole remaining true Obarskyr!”
He fell silent to let them burst out with their questions.
“Coronation,” Stonestable murmured. “And then?”
Marlin gave them all a warm and friendly smile. “At my covert bidding, this new king will name me Lord Chancellor and Marshall Supreme of the Realm—and appoint all of you to the other major offices of the kingdom.”
“And then?” That was Handragon, his voice soft and almost lazy.
“And then,” Marlin purred, “Cormyr will be ours, and we can all settle all the scores we want to. I have my little list, and I’m sure all of you do, too. I expect much blood.”
The Sage of Shadowdale sank down into a crouch in the reeking alleyway, peered through the best of the many gaps in the untidy heap of rotten crates between him and the crowd of Purple Dragons milling about in front of the Bold Archer, and listened hard.
Not so much to the Dragons, for he’d heard Dragons who knew little but were being grandly the-entire-realm-rests-on-my-proudly-uniformed-shoulders about it more than a time or two before.
No, he was intent on the two persons in the little throng who weren’t wearing Dragon uniforms: Lord Arclath Delcastle and the dancer who was with him, her cloak swirling open at every step and trying to take her robe with it. Amarune Whitewave, pride of the Dragonriders’ Club. His descendant.
Hopefully his successor.
She was keeping silent and staying at Delcastle’s side, as the young lordling asked questions of various Purple Dragons. He got some curt answers from the lowest-ranking, and a few “I know not” shrugs, but Dralkin’s telsword answered his query with a blunt, “Who are you two? And why are you here, instead of keeping back beyond our sentinels?”
Arclath smiled. “I,” he informed the Dragon officer loftily, “am Lord Delcastle, and I am charged by the war wizards to learn as much as I can about what’s happened here.”
The telsword regarded him expressionlessly for a moment and then raised his arm to point at the barely clad Amarune. “And her?”
“She,” Arclath replied grandly, sweeping an arm around his ill-cloaked companion, “is with me!”
“Just for the evening?” another Dragon asked cynically from behind them. Arclath whirled around to confront the man, but couldn’t tell which of the six or seven impassive veteran Dragons standing there had spoken.
He turned back to Amarune to say something supportive—and saw she was both pale and trembling with weariness. The excitement of the fray and seeing bloody death was wearing off or hitting home or whatever such things did. There was only one gallant thing to do.
“Lady fair,” he announced, “Suzail seems all too full of brawling nobles—and worse—this night. Menaces who may well reappear, despite the vigilance of these dedicated Dragons. Pray, allow me to escort you