Stop mind-muttering, mage! Show me!
[images, whirling up brightly, unfolding...]
"Th-through here, Lord Mage M-most High," the mouselike Keeper of the Vaults quavered.
"Yes, yes, yes," Vangerdahast replied irritably. Strangely enough, having laid his own share of protective enchantments on the Hall of Scrolls and Ledgers, albeit years ago, and being the only court official to often consult its contents, he did have a fair idea of where so vast and central a chamber was. As if he hadn't enough important worries right now, what with-
He stopped and stiffened, his mouth dropping open at what he saw. A moment later, he firmly closed it... far too late to escape the notice of the Keeper. The little man didn't quite dare to let a smirk show on his face but couldn't keep it out of his suddenly triumphant eyes.
"Leave us," the Royal Magician snapped, "and close the doors behind you."
He did not bother to look at the hastening courtier, and did not move a muscle until the huge and heavy bronzed double doors boomed closed behind him... and he was alone with the thing.
The thing that should not have been there.
His predecessors, generations of War Wizards under their command, and a rare few visiting mages deserving of such trust had cast spell after crawling and flickering spell on the walls, floors, and ceiling of the hall and the rooms surrounding it. Defensive magics, all, designed to foil each new method of scrying or translocation or other means of access. Growing thus over the centuries, they formed a complicated web that no man alive knew or could unravel without months of work and considerable personal peril.
Vangerdahast himself had overlaid the existing magics with several subtle misdirections designed to foil all but the most exacting users of wish spells. He had also cast far less subtle backlash enchantments that would twist intruding spells-unless preceded by a secret key-into paralysis, feeblemind, and smashing-blow effects against their casters. He would be loath to send even a magic missile at the thing protruding from the floor right now, lest each of its pulses come back at him.
The Royal Magician let out the breath he hadn't until then noticed he was holding. He took a few cautious steps to one side and peered at the mystery that had appeared in the hall.
A convulsed male human hand-long-fingered, bereft of the rings that had left pale bands of flesh, and with a few dark hairs adorning its back-protruded from the glossy-smooth marble of the vault floor. The forty-foot-square slab weighed many tons. It seemed that the owner of the hand was now entombed in that slab, for the hand did not look severed.
Vangerdahast had a sudden urge to give it a good kick to make sure, but royal magicians of Cormyr don't grow old and fat by undertaking stupid acts. Wherefore he did nothing more than peer around the hall until he was sure nothing else was out of place or missing He circled the hand, which hadn't moved in the slightest, and grew no wiser.
The Royal Magician let himself out. He sternly ordered the anxious Keeper and the ring of stone-faced Purple Dragon guards clustered outside to clear this entire wing of the palace, and then take themselves as far away as the Chamber of the Brazen Fool. He stood silently, waiting until the echoes of their obedient movements faded.
Vangerdahast spoke a quiet word. It awakened guardian magics that would reveal any hidden, lurking spy. He received with complete lack of surprise the lore that no such intruder existed within range. Making sure he was standing on a specific floor tile, he touched one of the rings on a hidden chain around his neck and spoke a word he'd hoped never to have to use again.
There was suddenly a taller, black-robed man standing on an adjacent tile, rubbing his beard and looking less than happy. "Yes?" he snapped.
Vangerdahast bowed slightly to his guest. "My apologies, Lord Khelben. Be welcome in the royal palace of Cormyr, in Suzail."
"Oddly enough, Vangy," Khelben growled, "I know where the royal palace is. I'll even accept that apology. The honor of your hospitality overwhelms me. It will do so even more if you unfold the reason for my summoning." The edge of his mouth curled. "A sufficiently interesting answer may even blunt Laeral's wrath at my abrupt disappearance. Note that 'may,' and speak accordingly."
Vangerdahast drew in a deep breath as their eyes met. "We stand outside the Hall of Scrolls and Ledgers. You had a hand in casting some still-active defensive spells here. Something has appeared therein; it's my hope that you can identify it and explain its appearance."
The Blackstaff raised one dark eyebrow, turned to face the massive double doors, and made a twisting gesture with one hand.
There was an instant of singing silence. Then the doors collapsed into shards and dust with a roar that swelled and shrank away to nothing again. The torrent of falling metal had vanished, swallowed up by thin air just above the floor tiles the two men stood on.
"How-?"
"One of the spells I cast, long ago. No door in this palace can stand against me."
It was Vangerdahast's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Oh? Why did you do that?"
Khelben shrugged. "We all have our own ways of doing things." He pointed across the mirror-bright floor of the Hall to the human hand jutting so improbably out of the smooth marble. "This, for example, is Elminster's work."
"What!'' the Royal Magician snarled. "You're sure?"
Khelben strolled over to a certain spot on the floor and murmured a word. The air glowed for a moment, he raised his hand into the glow, and when the radiance faded, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep was holding a large, ornate decanter.
"Unmistakable. I've seen this spell before. Someone sprang one of his traps-probably cast on a spot where he meets with the Simbul."
"So, that's a Red Wizard." Vangerdahast mused. "Or... was."
Khelben nodded, sipping from the decanter without bothering with a flagon.
Vangerdahast looked at the decanter rather unhappily. How many more hidden surprises did the hall's web of spells hold? He asked rather hesitantly, "And to get rid of it?"
Khelben licked his lips and raised the decanter again. "I'm sure you know how to call on him," he replied. "Even if you don't want to."
Vangerdahast winced, as if something painful had struck him. Stepping reluctantly out through the entrance that the doors no longer guarded, he lifted one hand and murmured something.
Khelben watched, not quite smiling.
Abruptly a ring of light glowed on the floor tiles. A moment later, someone stood in its center.
She was tall and slender-some would almost have said bony, for her ribs showed clearly as she spun around. Unruly silver hair writhed about her like a nest of roused snakes. She faced her summoner. Vangerdahast swallowed.
The angry eyes of the Simbul, Witch-Queen of Aglarond, were barely three paces from his. She wore nothing and did not look amused.
"Vangerda-" she began, her voice dangerously low and soft. Blue motes of magical fire gathered above her left palm, and she turned to look into the hall.
Her face changed. She crowed in delight and raced across the floor on silent bare feet to where the hand reached up from the floor.
Bending over to peer at it-both men stared a moment, looked away, cleared their throats, and turned again to regard her-the sorceress clapped her hands and hissed happily, "Adrelgus, yes! Foolish enough to try to slay me!"
She spun around to regard the two wizards, planted her hands on her hips, and bubbled, "This is what El meant by my 'little present, reaching for me'!"
She clapped her hands, muttered something. The hand was abruptly gone, the marble floor as smooth and unbroken as if it had never been there.
The Simbul gave them a cheery wave, tossed her hair in a defiantly alluring pose, and snapped her fingers- whereupon she vanished too.
Inevitably, the two men stared in unison at where she'd stood, cleared their throats, and slowly turned to look at each other.
"If you're ever captured," Khelben said in a very dry voice, "try not to let it be by a woman... or at least, not that one."
Vangerdahast glanced involuntarily back to the floor where the hand had been. It bore no trace at all of ever having held a Red Wizard.
"How many palaces, vaults, and castles across Faerun, which their owners think are secure," he asked, looking sick, "can be breached so readily?"
Khelben smiled with only a corner of his mouth. "Oh," he said quietly, "you'd be surprised."
No, no! [ripple of rage] not mages you taught or now take to bed! Early days, i said!