The princess stared at him and chuckled. "Well said, wizard. Just don't start a series of jokes about 'What does the wayward princess carry in her codpiece,' hey? Mother's been through enough lately."
Vangerdahast gave her a severe look as he came close to her. "I know that well. Unlike some oh-so-important young lasses, I've been comforting her."
Alusair rolled her eyes. "Vanj," she said, employing a nickname she knew he hated, "the queen is stronger than any of us. She needs comfort like a dragon needs more scales. Now, what do you need me for-oh. What're you doing?"
The Royal Magician of Cormyr had unlaced her gorget and flipped it aside, and his thick fingers were now busy with the laces of the leather jack beneath it.
Alusair arched one eyebrow."Really, mage! Have you not heard of courting? A glance, a few honeyed words, perhaps a glass of wine for a girl-"
"Alusair Nacacia," Vangerdahast growled, "behave. Blast-look you, lay bare your throat and fish out that pendant I gave you." He distastefully eyed the pointed double-prow of her breastplate and rubbed at his forearm where he'd bumped the sharp-sculpted Purple Dragon adorning it. "Your breastplate leaves me very little room to work."
The Steel Princess gave him a wry grin. "It's not supposed to. Some men who come close to me use swords and daggers, remember?"
"Huh," the wizard growled. "They're the wise ones."
Alusair let out a roar of laughter.
Vangerdahast had to shoot a severe look over her shoulder at the Purple Dragons who'd leaned in to see why their warrior princess held her armor aside and her throat out to the Royal Magician.
"Now this," Vangerdahast said, carefully clipping a new pendant onto the old one, "will protect you against some rather nasty spells that I'm afraid our latest crop of traitors will try to fell you with. It's... it's..."
"Wizard?" Alusair snapped, putting out a hand to steady him. She'd never seen Vangerdahast's face go so grim and ashen before. He looked afraid and old. Afraid and... ashamed.
"Van," she murmured, shaking him as she stared into his eyes, "what is it? What ails you?"
With a growl, the Royal Magician broke free of her and stepped back. "I-nothing that need concern you. It's a wizardly matter."
"Oh, I see. Like a knight staggering into his hall with two swords through him. That's a 'warrior's matter?"
"Alusair," Vangerdahast said heavily, with signs of personal distress, "leave me. Please. You cannot help in this. No one can."
Alusair stared at him, clapped his arm wordlessly, turned, and strode out. In the next room he heard her murmur, "Jalance, lace this up for me, will you? And this time, try to keep your fingers on the thongs, hmm?"
Several men laughed, and the old wizard heard them moving away. He stood alone in the center of the room, feeling close to tears.
"Mystra save me," he whispered, "but I cannot. I'm old. I would not have lasted five breaths in Avernus at the height of my reckless youth. My place is here, in Cormyr, where I am needed for a little time more. Oh, Lady Mystra and Lord Azuth, forgive me. Elminster, forgive me."
He looked wildly around the deserted room and saw the brief glimpse that had been twisted Into the fading edge of that second memory. The sharp rocks of Hell jutted like dark teeth against a blood-red sky. A broken thing crawled, the sharp ends of bones protruding from its tortured limbs.
A shaggy face drooled and bled and wept, with deep-set eyes he knew. His old teacher, Elminster.
The Old Mage of Shadowdale was trapped in Hell, his magic gone or captive, reaching out with his mind to those lie hoped could aid him. It must be all he had left.
Vangerdahast took two swift steps across the room, shaking his head. Those eyes... with an effort he banished that image from his head. It had been wrested from the gaze of some lesser creature of Hell, to be sure, who'd been watching Elminster. That meant El was probably dead by now, half-devoured. Yet he should make sure, should try to do something to aid the old meddler. He should... should what?
"Mystra, Mother to Wizards," he whispered, the words of a very old prayer, "what should I do?"
Silence was his only answer.
"What should I do?" His shout rang around the chamber ceiling and brought startled servants and Purple Dragons alike running.
When they reached the room, it still echoed with anguish, but the Royal Magician was gone.
Chapter Six
ANOTHER WARM DAY IN AVERNUS
It seemed he'd been crawling forever, in pain forever, wandering in Hell with an archdevil tramping through his mind.
My, my. Nether the usefulness nor the entertainment. I'd expected-or been promised. Show me more! Show me what shaped you, little being of silver fire! Swiftly, before i give in to the growing urge to make things more entertaining.
[mindworm thrusting, mental fire, bearing down, tightening]
[shriek, welter of images, howling failure to flee]
A grim man in black strides warily through a dripping wood, his hand on his sword hilt. His cloak, drawn up around him, is pinned with a brooch in the shape of a silver rose. From time to time, his alert and peering eyes seem to flame with silver.
Yes! More silver! Get to the silver that flows and burns! Snow me!
A silver harp pin, bobbing on the breast of someone running, in shadowed darkness where hounds howl and men curse, close behind …
Don't twist away from me, wizard! Show me the silver magic at work, not every last cursed silver thing that holds magic! Your mind is like a library where every tome's been shredded, and now you hurl handfuls of torn parchment in my face!
Show me silver and magic together. Now.
A silver-handled cane, black and slender, hangs in the hand of a fat, bearded mage. Heavy-lidded and sighing, he trudges clown gleaming marble-floored halls, past high-arched windows whose uppermost glass is worked into stained reliefs: images of a purple dragon in flight. The Purple Dragon of Cormyr.
"Honored Vangerdahast," a voice murmurs from ahead, "the queen has need of you, and in some haste."
The mage glares at the unseen speaker but quickens his pace.
Not that doddering fool! I watch over him myself!
Another bearded man in robes, taller and grimmer, strides through a room of many beds where young lasses are hastily dressing. Robes, sashes, high boots, and garters form a flurry. He sees them not, though he snaps orders obviously meant for them. He paces on, his gaze intent on a small blue sphere that floats in the air before him, flying slowly and smoothly elsewhere.
Khelben of waterdeep is not unknown to me either. Is this leading somewhere, elminster? Or are you but wasting my time once more and courting fresh torment?
The two bearded faces, together, wear expressions of irritation as they whirl down a rainbow-hued well…
A slender feminine hand reaches with firm, unhurried confidence through blue moonlight to touch the black-robed shoulder of Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun. The wizard stiffens, wonder warring with apprehension on his face. The hand dissolves into a flurry of small stars that swim and dance and spin to become a circle of nine stars.
Khelben goes to his knees in reverence, his eyes never leaving them. The nine stars race around in their circle to become seven, and the seven one. One that's not a star, after all, but a single blue-black eye, shot through with many racing motes. It winks coyly, once, then is gone…
No! No more teachings of mystra! What's this, over here-what you're dwelling on behind this cavalcade of snatched glimpses that avail me nothing! Show me what you're rummaging through!
[whirl of images, swept aside]That's better. I’ll judge what! Should see, captive.