Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [147]
Narulph broke the silence with a sudden, angry oath. “You let her get away! Without even telling us how to get the horses!”
Starbridge shook his head slowly. “When she kissed me, his name and a word just appeared in my mind: ‘Denneth Rhardantan,’ and ‘glimmerdeep.’ ”
He shook himself again, as if awakening, and snapped, “Get these dolts awake—they work for the Crown, so be gentle—and let’s be finding the trail to Mistledale. If this council goes as ill as I fear it will, I want to be back in Cormyr before it erupts into war!”
His command all stared at him; he gave them a glare, waved his arms, and roared, “Did you hear me? Move!”
They moved. All except the war wizards Mereld and Lemmeth.
“Sir Highknight,” Mereld asked quietly, “are you all right? What else did she do to you?”
Eskrel Starbridge stared back at them for a moment and then said, “I’m under no glamour, if that’s what you fear. Put down those sticks, Lemmeth; they’re not wands. She just took them from the kindling to make fools think they were seeing a wizard with wands, so they’d leave him be. She told me that, too.”
He started across the hollow. “And she gave me a look into her mind,” he added in a whisper. “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping for some while. I know now what real loneliness feels like.”
The two war wizards stepped into his way, wearing frowns. “We’d better get you to—”
Starbridge gave them a wry grin and shook his head. “I’ll be all right. You see, I know now what true love feels like, too.”
“What’s wrong?” Marlin Stormserpent snapped.
Windstag was too out of breath and too terrified to be coherent. He put his head down almost against Marlin’s belly, gasping and shuddering. “Get us inside! Magic—don’t know whose—yours?—snatched us here!”
Marlin bundled the three nobles through the door and slammed it in a whirlwind of haste, then rushed them along a dark passage, up some stairs, and into a room in Stormserpent Towers that none of the three had ever seen before. The Lords Dawntard and Sornstern promptly fainted.
Marlin gave them a grim look then snapped at Windstag, “Catch your breath, then tell me your tale.”
Nodding, head down, and panting too hard to speak, Windstag fumbled in the breast of his disarranged jerkin and brought out—a glowing hand axe!
“Ha ha!” Marlin burst out, snatching it from him. “Well done! Oh, well done!”
And he rushed from the room, chortling in triumph.
Broryn Windstag fought to get in two gasping breaths more of air, then forced himself into a run, up and after Stormserpent.
Who was luckily still visible, racing up a narrow servants’ stair in the dimly lit distance. Windstag struggled after him, lungs burning, lurching like a drunken man in his pain and weariness, but clawing his way up the stairs and keeping Marlin—or at least the glowing axe—in sight.
Stormserpent ended up in the room where he always met with them. Axe in hand, he spun around, pointed at Windstag, and commanded, “Be still. Don’t move or speak until I’m done with the ritual.”
He turned away without waiting for a reply, so Windstag lurched to his usual chair and collapsed in it. Where he leaned on the table, still gasping loudly, able to do little more than stare at Marlin Stormserpent.
Who turned away for a moment, his elbow moving as if his fingers were busy getting something out of his own clothing, then turned back to face the table and Windstag.
Holding the axe up as if saluting with it, Marlin read from a scrap of parchment that he hadn’t been holding moments earlier. “Arruthro.”
That word seemed to roll away across a greater distance than the room could contain—and the air darkened. At first Windstag thought it was his own labored breathing that was making things seem that way, but then he felt a tension, almost a singing, in the air, too.
That definitely hadn’t been there, before.
“Tar lammitruh arondur halamoata,” Stormserpent announced, speaking loudly and slowly.
The room seemed to grow colder. Windstag swallowed a curse.
“Tan thom tanlartar,” Marlin