Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [42]
He waved his glass at no one and asked almost jovially, “And now, what are you reduced to? Stealing magic to drag your brain-burned lover back from insanity for a few moments! With the loyal lass who can’t even sing anymore, let alone cast a spell worth a hedge wizard’s striving, fetching and carrying for you. Whither your Harper armies now? Your scores of apprentices? The thousands who cowered to your bidding whenever you sent a glare their way? Why, I fancy my paltry agents outstrip yours. At last.”
The darkly handsome man strolled on. “And I shall enjoy corrupting your little lass into joining their ranks … just as hope rises in you that you can count on her.”
Manshoon sipped, smiled approvingly—much better than Arrhenish and a credit to some long-dead cellarer of this sprawling pile of a royal palace—and murmured, “And where neither she nor Talane nor Marlin will serve, I have others. Nobles and wizards of war … and a certain Lady Dark Armor.”
The vampire who had ruled cities and citadels drank more deeply, smiled again, and added almost gently, “Nor am I less than formidable, myself. The score between us is deep, and I have thought long and hard on how best to settle it. While you, as is your wont, have wasted your time saving the Realms for others. This time, Elminster Aumar, Sage of Shadowdale, you are going down.”
Some of his hirelings were so frightened, he could smell it, but he was paying them well and had made himself as safe as he could be. His ironguard magic should protect him against their blades, and he had other magics he could call on. He bore a potion that could quell poison, his high metal collar and gorget should foil stranglings, and a deadly secret nestled against his chest, ready to strike the moment he loosed it.
More than that, he knew just where he was going and what to do when he got there.
Yes. Unlike the many courtiers who thought the legendary Wyverntongue Chalice was hidden somewhere in or near the Dragonskull Chamber, Marlin Stormserpent knew exactly where it was concealed. Even the notorious Silent Shadow, if he or she came looking for it, wouldn’t know that.
An Obarskyr family treasure, gifted to Queen Filfaeril by a Waterdhavian envoy not long before her death, it had been stolen from its display plinth in the Room of the Red Banner during a long-past palace feast … more as a drunken prank than anything else. For fear of being caught by war wizards using magic to trace the chalice, the thief had hidden it that same night elsewhere in the palace, before departing its gates.
That thief was Nethglas Stormserpent, Marlin’s eldest brother, whom Marlin remembered as a sharp-nosed, mustachioed, unpleasant shark of a man.
Nethglas had intended to boast of the theft all over Suzail to win the general acclaim of elder nobility, but quickly grew too scared of the repercussions to say a word, after war wizards seeking the chalice started mind-reaming other nobles who’d attended the feast—and those reamings ruined their minds and those of their war wizard interrogators too.
Not wanting the Stormserpents to face reprisals, or himself to be slain, imprisoned, fined, or even just banned from the palace, Nethglas publicly kept silent. He’d already boasted of what he’d done to his three brothers, but sought to mend that error by threatening them with murder if they told