Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [36]
The twisted wards still roiled constantly, in a way that unsettled the minds of all mages. Marlin himself had once seen a white-faced war wizard spewing up a good meal before collapsing on his face in his own mess, and had been told the man had ended up that way by merely trying to walk across the infamous chamber—despite giving up and fleeing right back out again after only a few steps.
However, neither he nor any of these hireswords, unless they’d been lying to him—and deserved any doom they tasted, thereby—were spellcasters.
He and all Stormserpents had a very good, longstanding reason for wanting to get past the roiling wards around the Dragonskull Chamber. Unfinished family business that even in his youth had excited him. Something he’d long dreamed of taking care of …
Seizing the Wyverntongue Chalice.
Alone among living men—thanks to the unfortunate demises of certain of his kin, Marlin Stormserpent knew where the chalice was hidden. A secret not even Caladnei and Vangerdahast had known, something hidden, presumably, even from the very ghosts of the palace. Behind a false wall—and those tainted, roiling wards that had so effectively kept nosy war wizards at bay—in a forgotten room behind, but not actually in, the Dragonskull Chamber.
So, thanks to years of energetic and handsomely paid spies and informants, he had maps of the palace, many accounts of where the room he was seeking must be, and a strong band of armed men around him, inside the palace and moving fast.
Oh, yes, Marlin let himself smile more broadly than he’d beamed for many a day. He was trembling so much that Thirsty shifted recklessly inside the breast of his jerkin, his stinger grating along the metal plates he wore across his chest.
Lord Marlin Stormserpent, who might soon be so much more, allowed himself an eager chuckle. He could almost feel the chalice in his hands …
CHAPTER
EIGHT
MUCH BRAZEN CREEPING ABOUT
Where are they heading, d’ye think?” Elminster gasped, as he fetched up against a doorframe and clung to it, fighting for breath.
Where the ghostly princess could fly, he had to walk. Even when he sprinted, he couldn’t move nearly as fast as Alusair.
She’d long since taken to repeatedly racing off to check on Stormserpent’s band and then returning to the Old Mage, as he panted his way along dark palace passages, hoping he’d not meet anyone.
If he did, he planned to pose as old Elgorn—with the aid of strips torn from some linens he’d purloined in the undercellars and had just wound around most of his face in a false bandage—and tell some tale or other about discovering how long it had been since certain footings had been checked. “Mustn’t let this grand place fall down about our ears, look ye!” he’d growl.
For years around the palace, he’d been old Elgorn Rhauligan, “repairer and restorer of the ever-crumbling stone, plaster, tapestries, and wood of these great buildings.” Not to mention a descendant of the famous Glarasteer Rhauligan. Who didn’t usually work alone, of course; Elgorn trusted in his scarcely younger sister, Stornara, to remember things and calculate stresses for him. Hardly anyone ever told her she looked like the old portrait of the Lady Bard of Shadowdale anymore, with Elminster’s masking magics to make her appear as old as he.
Not that Elgorn Rhauligan was in any better shape to go rushing around the palace than Storm would be if she wore herself out racing back there from her farm kitchen in distant Shadowdale.
“Dragonskull, for all the gold in the upper treasury,” Alusair answered him disgustedly. “Unless their thoughts are captivated by old and broken furniture.”
Then she stiffened and lifted her head