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Marlin Stormserpent flourished his sword, snarling an insult.

Arclath sighed. “Ah, the besetting fault of the nobility—having temper tantrums whenever someone disagrees with them. Such shining leadership for the realm.”

“And you think House Delcastle is better than House Stormserpent, I suppose?” Marlin sneered.

“I think nothing of the sort. I know I’m a wastrel, and freely admit it. Would such candor cost you so much? Oh, wait, I was forgetting. Candor is your greatest foe, given the laws of the realm and the presence of war wizards in it.”

“How did you learn so much?” Marlin hissed.

Arclath regarded his fingertips idly and told them, “In conspiracies, someone always talks.”

“Do you mind,” Marlin asked coldly, “leaving my home, so I can enjoy my hired company?”

“Not at all,” Arclath replied with a smile. “I have the answers I came for. You need not fear the dawn on my account.”

“Good,” Marlin snapped, ringing the bell for Whelandrin.

Arclath did not wait to be escorted. When the trusty appeared, Marlin snarled, “Make very sure the man you brought in is gone from our house and grounds, and the gates locked against him and all others. Be swift.”

Whelandrin bowed and hastened away, and Marlin shot a look at the chalice and blade, wondering if he should send his slayers after Arclath.

No. Not with the lass there; no one must see him calling them forth.

With a shrug he turned to her charms, pouring his anger into being brutal to her. “Strip!” he ordered harshly.

She promptly doffed cloak and gown and started on her boots, but he grabbed her elbow in an iron-hard grip and snapped, “Leave them on, and get you to yon bed!”

She gasped in pain but managed to murmur, “My lord, be gentler!”

By way of reply he backhanded her across her chest with all his strength and snarled, “Get on that bed! Think of twenty golden lions, and keep your mouth shut.”

“Yes, Lord,” she whimpered, hurrying to obey.

“A moment, lad,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said sharply from the far end of the room.

Marlin spun around. “Who—”

“Call back thy slayers,” his gaunt old visitor snapped. “Half the Dragons and war wizards in Suzail are fighting them right now—and being led here as they do.”

By way of reply, Marlin Stormserpent sneered and strode to snatch up the Flying Blade from a sidetable. “Get out! Whoever you are, get—”

“Elminster’s the name,” the old man told him cheerfully as he tossed a handful of metal vials under the noble’s boots.

Marlin slipped, smooth metal rolling under his feet. He made a wild grab for his sword, got it—and went down helplessly, dragging the table down atop himself.

A moment later, the Wyverntongue Chalice came down on his head, and Cormyr went away very suddenly.

“Satisfyingly solid,” Elminster remarked approvingly to the woman on the bed. “Ye might want to leave now, before—”

“It’s too late?” a coldly malicious voice said in his ear out of a sudden roiling glow, just before it claimed him in a savage roar of unleashed magic.

“I’ve business inside, look ye,” the old man in battered leathers with the sword in his hand said truculently. “Stand aside.”

The Purple Dragons stopped smiling tolerantly and lowered their spears to point at his chest.

“Saer wizard?” one of them called to alert the duty wizard of war behind them.

The response was a grunt and several swift thuds, as if something heavy had fallen. One Dragon started to turn.

Only to grunt in his turn and topple forward. His fellow soldier had just time to stare at him, before joining him.

“Mirt,” Storm Silverhand said delightedly from behind the men she’d felled. “Come in, and be welcome! It’s been years!”

Elminster opened his eyes, feeling weak and scorched.

He was in the royal palace, in a small stone room he’d seen a time or two before. A chamber with stone benches built along two walls, closed doors in the other two, and a table in the center of the room.

Storm Silverhand was lying on it, faceup, dead or senseless.