Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [82]
Vainrence smiled a trifle bitterly. “And that order is?”
“No courtier nor visitor is to be allowed within earshot of the Chamber of the Wyrms Ascending until specific orders to the contrary are proclaimed by the king or by me,” Ganrahast replied. “And any unfamiliar person seen in the palace is to be retreated from and reported to me—even if they claim to be royalty or an envoy or a ghost or a highknight.”
Vainrence nodded and made for the door.
Ganrahast watched him open it, look out, and acquire the near-smile that meant something had met with Vainrence’s approval.
Something had. The guards had been facing the closed door from the other side of the passage, spaced apart from each other and to either side of the door a good distance away, not pressed against the door trying to listen.
Vainrence beckoned to the courtier he saw beyond the farthest guard, standing by another, open door farther along the passage—and murmuring instructions to a steady stream of scurrying servants. It was Understeward Fentable, who bowed his head and hastened forward to hear Vainrence’s will.
As Vainrence started to repeat Ganrahast’s orders to the courtier, the Mage Royal turned away and stalked across the room to stare grimly down at the sprawled and senseless Kordran.
It hadn’t been much of an interrogation. Perhaps something was awry with the man’s wits.
So with that dark possibility raised, what did they really know of these latest murders?
If some sort of resident undead had done the slayings, why now—when it had supposedly been haunting the palace for years?
What deeper darkness was it going to herald or goad into happening?
In the darkness of his cavern, Manshoon smiled. Clinging lightly to a small part of Lord Warder Vainrence’s mind, he sent his will plunging somewhere else, into a mind darker, colder, and deeper.
Awaken, my Lady Dark Armor. A little task awaits …
Hurrying along a passage in the darker, damper depths of the royal palace, Ganrahast and Vainrence stiffened in unison and exchanged anxious frowns. An age-old alarm spell had interrupted them, unfolding in their minds like a forgotten door. An unwelcome surprise telling them one of the caskets in the royal crypt had been broken open!
Now fresh tumult was unfolding in their minds. A second Obarskyr coffin had just been breached.
“Should we warn Mallowfaer?” Vainrence snapped.
Ganrahast emitted a very un-Royal Magician-like snort. “Lot of good that will do.”
His second-in-command smiled. “Heh. Point made. Well, then, shall we warn Fentable?”
“Time enough for that later—when we know what we’re warning him about.”
They turned the last corner, wands raised and ready and shielding spells spun into being in front of them. A thief’s poisoned dart could be a very nasty greeting.
The passage stood empty, and the doors of the crypt were closed.
They exchanged silent glances. Undead, within?
Ganrahast drew a rod he’d hoped never to have to use from its sheath down his leg, and Vainrence activated one of his rings.
At a nod from his superior, the Lord Warder unsealed the doors.
Then he opened them, wand up again, to reveal … darkness. Still and silent darkness.
The two mages looked up and down the passage, then at the ceiling, then peered at the ceiling inside the crypt. Nothing.
Ganrahast held up one hand with a ring pulsing on it as seeking magic stole forth, and waited tensely as it found … nothing.
The two men exchanged doubtful looks again. Then, hesitantly, they stepped into the crypt, wands held ready.
The silence held. Nothing moved, nothing seemed out of place—hold!
The royal crypt was not visited often, but to both men it seemed the coffins and the few relics on the shelves along the back wall were undisturbed, everything very much as it had been the last time they’d been there.
With one exception that