Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [115]
Marlin Stormserpent turned back to triumphantly telling his table of conspirators all he could remember of what the talkative wizard in the Favorite had said … and he could recall almost everything.
“That axe must be found!” he added, bringing his fist down on the table. “Find it, seize it, and bring it here! I—there’s, ah, a spell I’ll have to awaken, to call forth the slayer inside it to do our bidding!”
Your bidding, more than one noble around the table thought, but that thought made their faces slip only momentarily, for Marlin was watching them closely.
Eager enthusiasm was what they strove to show. With one exception.
“But how?” Irlin Stonestable asked sourly. “There must be a lot of hand axes in Suzail!”
“Call on the nobles who’ve come to town for the council, in their rooms,” Marlin snapped. “Say you want to really get to know them and strike up friendships. Bring your House wizards along with you’ to sniff out magic with spells they cast before you go in to meet any lords. Your mages only have to pay attention to hand axes, remember.”
“Or things that look like something else, but that their spell sees as a hand axe,” Handragon pointed out.
“Yes!” Stormserpent agreed excitedly, whirling to point at Handragon. “Well thought! Well thought!”
There were nods around the table, ranging from Sornstern’s gleeful one to Broryn Windstag’s grimmer agreement.
Every lordling in the room knew Huntcrown’s flaming slayers must be two of the three Nine survivors who were bound into items, and it followed that the sword and the chalice must already be in the hands of someone in Suzail who knew how to use them. Stormserpent’s outburst had just left them all with the strong suspicion that he was that “someone.”
The someone who commanded two flaming men or ghosts who’d slay anyone he chose. Any young noble lord he took a dislike to, for instance.
“Just the hand axe?” Stonestable asked confusedly. “You already know who has the sword and the chalice?”
“The palace does,” Marlin snapped, after a hesitation that was just a whisker too long. “The war wizards keep them both hidden, or I’d have had them already, and we’d be using them to make inconveniently nosy wizards and courtiers—and, the Felldragon forfend, nobles, too—disappear for good. Our good gain, that is.”
He was almost babbling. “But enough talk for now! This news overrides all! Get up and get out there, everyone! There’s a hand axe to be found!”
Chairs scraped back and lordlings clapped hands to the hilts of their blades out of long habit as his words rang around their ears. Then there was a general rush down the stairs as everyone hastened to do his bidding.
Or go back to bed.
At the moment, he cared not which.
Behind their departing backs, Marlin was busy wincing at the slip he’d made. He turned to seek his favorite decanter again.
If some of them said too much, and wizards of war came around poking long noses into the affairs of House Stormserpent, could they tell that the sword at his hip or an innocent chalice held a blueflame ghost inside it?
They’d not noticed the one or the other—even under their very noses, in their own palace—all these years, but then, they hadn’t really been looking, had they?
What did they spend most of their time really watching instead?
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
DRIVING WIZARDS TO DRINK
There were more guards than usual stationed about the palace—and no wonder, with the council almost upon Suzail, a flamboyant riot of nobles freshly arrived in the city, and more lords on the way.
Nevertheless, Lady Highknight Targrael made her way up two floors and across the vast building with casual, almost contemptuous ease. With Ganrahast and Vainrence missing, their wizards lacked both orders and attention for much else but finding their commanders—and as they’d long since scoured the palace several times over, most were seeking elsewhere.
Which meant