Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [150]
“Send no hounds to hunt me down,” he muttered, belching sage and eggs.
“Stop daydreaming and attend my words!”
This sort of bark meant Hallowdant was really angry. O Purple Dragon, preserve us all.
The man who called himself Lothrae when he was sitting masked in front of an orb talking to foolish young Stormserpent stifled a sigh and put a pleasantly attentive smile on his face. “Yes, Lord High Steward?”
Rorstil Hallowdant preened visibly. He loved it when someone pronounced his full title with just the right hint of reverent awe.
Lothrae wished he could enjoy toying with the buffoon, but the man was in office over him, and—Great Gods Above!
And, very suddenly—as ice raced down his spine and he felt himself breaking into a sweat—he greatly desired to be elsewhere in the palace, right then.
The ring on the next-to-smallest finger of his left hand had once belonged to the legendary Laspeera, and it had just awakened. For the very first time in all his years of wearing it.
He tried not to stare at its warning glow—silent, but so vivid and so sudden—then turned it on his finger to hide that radiance inside his closed hand, and cursed silently. Its warning meant someone had opened the royal crypt from the outside—but he dared not go to see who just then, with the steward literally jawing in his face, thundering order after order at him.
My, but Hallowdant was in fine form for that time of a morning. An hour at which he was usually nowhere to be seen. Lothrae tried to console himself with the thought that one of the royals must have given him a real blast, to put him in such a state and have him up and about so early … but that musing utterly failed to improve his own mood.
“—and another thing! The candles in the balcony sconces in Anglond’s Great Hall are half-burnt and need replacing! Now, before the council is upon us and we’re too busy to remember them, but need their light to fail not!”
“Ah, yes, Lord High Steward,” he agreed hastily, starting to hasten along the hallway. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see to it and report right back to you for more instructions—”
“Stand where you are, man!” the palace steward stormed. “You’ll stay still, right here, and listen! I haven’t finished yet!”
“Lord Hallowdant, please,” Lothrae tried again. “I really must relieve myself—”
Palace Steward Rorstil Hallowdant could radiate towering disgust just as devastatingly as the very best noble matriarchs; it was one of his best talents. Wordlessly he pointed over Lothrae’s shoulder.
At the door of a jakes that was literally four paces away.
It was not one of the few that had secret panels in its rear wall, either, curse the luck.
Lothrae sighed, resigned himself to perhaps never knowing who’d opened the crypt, and took his feigned need to empty his bladder into the jakes.
As the door swung closed behind him, the ring on his finger quivered and shone even more brightly, and he discovered, all of a sudden, that he truly did need to relieve himself. Badly.
In one of her favorite rooms of the palace—the nursery with the high round window she’d always loved watching the moon through—what was left of Alusair Obarskyr felt the activation of the rune, nine or so floors beneath her.
Not to mention the stirring of someone who had long been silent.
“One of Vangey’s old locking runes!” she hissed, alarmed and excited—and rushed through the palace like a ghostly wind, racing to the spot.
The ring’s brief blue glow faded, leaving Storm Silverhand blinking in the chill darkness.
Ah, royal crypts are such cozy places. Suzail’s was no exception. Still, it was one spot in a palace that, elsewhere, must resemble an agitated anthill about then, where she shouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted while—
There came a faint clank and rasping of sliding metal about four paces in front of her—and then the louder sound of a heavy stone door grating open.