It was Myrmeen's turn to chuckle. "Doth the Steel Regent's temper grow… more tempered?"

The queen sighed. "Yes, more credit to her, yet being away from the saddle and the sword and her young lords to fence with smiling lies every day… I can see it building in her. Someone, someday soon, is going to say one wrong word or do something small and only slightly offensive-and the storm inside Lous is going to break." "It won't be the only thing in the realm to break that day, I doubt not," the commander of Arabel agreed. "But I fear I waste too much of your time, Fee. You should know some other things, of events up here." The queen nodded and smiled.

"Speak."

"Sightings of terrified Zhents fleeing out of the Stonelands," Myrmeen replied. "Oh, yes; hard to believe, but I saw some myself. They've apparently been babbling about great magical battles, therein, between mighty wizards and horrible flying beasts."

A royal eyebrow lifted. "Apparently?"

"So the jailers say, and they're good ones. I’ll make tune tomorrow to question the lone live captive we have." Laspeera had been watching the Lady Lord of Arabel intently through the crystal.

"That was your better news," she said quietly. "Now tell us the rest."

Myrmeen held up one scarred, long-fingered hand. "Just one thing, gods be thanked for small mercies. Our patrols have scoured the east."

"And?" The queen's voice was as gentle as if she'd been soothing a crying child.

"Tilverton is gone," Myrmeen said bluntly. "Truly, utterly gone."

"Destroyed," Filfaeril murmured. It was not a question. The Lady Lord of Arabel nodded sadly back at her through the scrying-glass, as the queen sighed, threw back her head, and added evenly, "Thank you, Mreen. It's good to hear truth, and not…"

"Courtiers' honeyed words," Laspeera said quietly. "Our thanks, Myrmeen. Get some sleep."

The Lady Lord of Arabel gave them a wry smile and a derisive grunt together. This was my sleep, ladies. Gods keep you well, and Cormyr better." She raised her goblet in salute, swung her legs back down to the floor, took up her sword-and the crystal went dark.

"Gods keep you, Mreen," the queen said quietly, staring at it. "One of the few true blades we can trust. Oh, they are so few…"

"Lady Queen," Laspeera said crisply, "we can only wallow in despair when the needs of the realm permit us time for such indulgences."

Filfaeril's head snapped around, her eyes blazed up into flames, and she gave the senior war wizard a twisted smile.

The queen bowed her head, and murmured, "Right you are, Laspeera. Command me."

"My Queen!" Laspeera said, truly shocked.

Filfaeril rolled her eyes and said, "Well then, good Lady, what now is your advice?"

"Alusair must be informed," Laspeera said, nodding at the crystal. "As must the Mage Royal, so she can best order the War Wizards to proceed."

The Queen of Cormyr lifted both her eyebrows. "You've forgotten how to give orders?"

The senior war wizard sighed. "She was Vangy's choice, and we can't expect her to stand strong and loyal when next our need is greatest, if we don't let her so much as give a simple command here and there. I don't want to be Court Wizard, High-Fee. I never have. And what's better, Caladnei doesn't either."

The Queen nodded.

"The reluctant serve the best." Laspeera nodded at the old maxim instead of making face or sticking out her tongue, as she might have done at another time and in another mood. She merely added in thin, tired tones, There's still a ghazneth out there, and I don't think any of us are hungry, just now, for any more magical tumult in our back pastures."

Filfaeril nodded again, and rose in a shifting of silk

"I'll tell Alaphondar as much as he needs to know." Laspeera smiled. "Leaving Lous for me? Thank you."

"You're welcome," the Queen of Cormyr replied sweetly. She swept out of the room, in the space of an instant somehow becoming every inch the grand dowager оnce more.

Laspeera gave the serene royal back a crooked smile, and turned in another direction to go out a darker door.

Offices breed, somehow. The huge, interconnected fortress of the Royal Court now sprawled larger than the palace itself, and almost entirely shielded-or cut rather-the seat of the Obarskyrs from most of the prod city of Suzail.

Yet, gargantuan though it was, courtiers bred faster They spilled out its great arched doors, across the court yard between, and over into the palace itself. Two of them, dandy-cloaks swirling brightly around them, stood by a shimmering tapestry-a lambent turquoise scene of crawling blue dragons that Laspeera had always liked. They were obviously waiting for her, so Laspeera strode on toward them, not letting them see the slightest hesitation in her step.

On their faces were the easy smirks of men who airily considered themselves masters of the realm, and for a moment, as she bore down on them, the senior war wizard hated them enough to turn them into mice-or ashes under her boots.

How dare they sidle into the private chambers of the royal family to warm themselves closer to the flame of power than their fellows, to whom they'd pretend that they enjoyed the personal confidences of the Obarskyrs. At what time had they lost their fear of guards, or for that matter, of swift-striding war wizards?

"Good Lady-" one of them began, as he moved to block her path, his smile almost a sneer.

"My lords," Laspeera interrupted, not slowing or moving aside, "have you personal business with the queen? Or are you merely lost?"

"Ha ha," the courtier replied, in the eager, empty mirth that by its tone announces that its utterer is about to say something important that should-nay, must-be heeded. "Lady Laspeera," the other courtier said firmly, stepping directly into her way, "it was actually you we came to see. It's a matter of some urgency and delicacy… ah… involving authority over magic."

Laspeera called on the power of the ring that adorned the hand she kept low and behind her-and marched straight into him.

Her shield, unseen and noticeable only as a faint, high singing sound, thrust the man back, startling him into momentary silence. The tall, slender woman in the dark gown was reputedly a powerful mage, yes, but he must weigh almost twice what she did, and how by all the gods "Yes," the laughing courtier's voice sprang into the uneasy moment of his fellow's stumbling retreat, "you see, we need to see the Royal Mage."

"I fear you have the wrong realm, gentlesirs," Laspeera told them over her shoulder, as she strode on down the passage. "In Cormyr we have a Court Wizard who is also our Royal Magician, also known as the 'Mage Royal.' We have no 'Royal Mage.'"

"Oh, come, come," the laughing courtier demurred. "Lady, you know well to whom we refer!"

Laspeera swung around, a warning in her eyes, and replied, "Yes, as it happens, I do-and am therefore puzzled as to why you've come to me. The Mage Royal grants audiences to all at times well known to you, and more private appointments with her may be made through the clerks of the court. Their offices lie considerably to the south of here."

She leveled a pointing finger through a handy window at the impressive bulk of the Royal Court, then turned on her heel, and strode on.

"Lady!" the mirthful courtier protested, with a derisive little laugh. "We're not children! We-"

"-have gotten lost to the extent of wandering across a wide courtyard into the wrong building for some other reason, lords? Excessive drink, perhaps?" a new voice said smoothly, as its owner stepped out of a doorway to block their pursuit. He was a Ready Sword of the Palace Guard, and he was not alone.

In the space of a swiftly-drawn breath the two courtiers found themselves ringed by unsmiling Purple Dragons. Guardsmen, in fact, who held weapons half-drawn and looked like they had never in all their long, weather-beaten lives known how to smile.