Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [21]
The noblewoman nodded. “I could kill you right now,” she announced calmly, hefting the bottle of Arrhenish as if to throw it, various rings on her fingers glowing into sudden life. “Give me good reason why I should not.”
Her darkly handsome host smiled and held up a languid hand to count points off on his fingers. “Firstly: I am not here. You would be slaying a mere husk of meat under my control, not me. Secondly: you are not the only person in this kingdom to own and use powerful magic. Thirdly: I have plans for Cormyr. Big plans. If I want you or any other noble dead, that can be accomplished with swift ease. The kingdom would profit from many of those deaths, believe me. Yet a select few nobles can be very useful to me and to Cormyr, and if they willingly serve me in furthering my efforts, I’ll reward them handsomely. If they refuse, of course …”
“They die,” the noblewoman replied promptly, uncorking the bottle. “And you deem me—thus far, at least—one of these select few.”
The darkly handsome man gave her a deep and smiling bow. She did not fail to notice that his eyes never left hers for a moment, and she had no doubt he controlled magic that could smite her before her rings could do anything at all.
Very slowly she held up one hand for him to see, spread her fingers, and made the rings on them wink out. Then she unhurriedly poured herself a glass, raised it to him in her other hand in salute, and quelled those rings, too.
Then she sipped.
After a moment, evidently finding nothing amiss with its taste, she visibly relaxed, allowing herself a small smile. “Your health, mysterious lord. How much are you now going to tell me?”
“As much as you want to know. I am familiar with both your family holdings and your personal hideaways, from the rented Sembian properties—even that squalid pleasure-girl bedchamber by the docks in Saerloon, with all of its persistent little crawling and biting inhabitants—to the fishing boats whose ownership is so carefully not linked even to you. I’ve even seen that little cottage in the nether wilds of Harrowdale. In short, there’s nowhere you can run to that I can’t find you—and if you go straight to the king of Cormyr or the Royal Magician and unburden yourself of all you learn here in hopes of gaining more by that unexpected loyalty than by working with me, let me inform you that I have planned for such duplicity. Not only would you die very promptly and painfully, Cormyr itself would be plunged into a war from which very few of its nobles would emerge. Certainly not a single member or byblow of your family; I would see to that.”
The hand that then set down the half-empty wineglass trembled only slightly. “I understand. Speak then, Lord; tell me of the part I am to play.”
“You will continue to do what you are doing as Talane. The blade in the night, the silken threat, the use of coerced or unwitting intermediaries whenever possible. Pursue your career of self-enrichment, insofar as it doesn’t conflict with the tasks I give you to do. I will not explain why you’ll be asked to do this or that—though you are welcome to your own speculations—but the ends I seek include a new rule for Cormyr in which more of its folk enjoy better lives. Some noble families will abruptly disappear, but others will be rewarded, even elevated. Given present company, I might mention the Truesilvers, who should, if your loyalty to me holds, rise to be the foremost family of the realm, firmly separated from the royal House and therefore unlikely to be dragged down with them by the seemingly endless would-be usurpers, but wielding more real power than anyone short of, say, the Royal Magician.”
“I … appreciate that.”
“As a measure of my unfolding trust in you, Lady, let me speak of the powerful magics that will almost certainly soon be in play in Cormyr.