by Ed Greenwood
The Dragons didn't disappoint him. "We were assigned just that task," the deep-voiced commander told him. "If you know the truth, perhaps you'll succeed in swaying your companions-the ones called Pennae and Semoor in particular-to behave themselves."
"Your candor," Florin told the officer-an ornrion, balding and with what little hair he had left gray-white at his temples-"is appreciated."
"I'll bet." The ornrion did not quite smile. "The Royal Magician ordered us to send out patrols and shepherd you out of Cormyr, trailing behind you unseen until needed. We were to make very sure you didn't turn aside into hiding to try to stay in Cormyr or get caught up in troubles along the way."
"As we did," Florin said, a little wearily. "We seem to be good at getting caught up in trouble."
"A judgment I share," the ornrion agreed, wearing a smile at last. "You owe your lives to the diligence of Lionar Threave, as it happens. It was he who insisted on doubling up two of our usual patrols and bringing along Wizard of War Rathanna"-a homely, unsmiling woman in dark robes stepped into view from behind the ornrion's shoulder and gave Florin a nod-"and our priest, Maereld, Able Hand of Torm. With their aid, you Knights were healed and brought here to Halfhap. You'll night over here in the gate-tower, and we'll see you all fed in the morning, given what remounts you need, and attended by holycoats to lead you in prayers. Then we'll let you forth-to go around Halfhap, mind, and ride on."
Florin sighed. "You'll not be escorting us, just to be sure?"
The ornrion half-smiled. "Oh, someone will. If Tymora smiles, you'll not meet with them. They're led by someone who's fast becoming an old friend of yours."
Florin sighed again. Dauntless, for all the coins in his purse.
He politely didn't ask the ornrion for confirmation. He was beginning to be able to read the manner shared by many Purple Dragon officers, and that particular half-smile meant "expect to receive no answers."
"Thanks for my life," he said instead. It seemed the polite thing to do.
Chapter 4
Just such a task
The realm needs saving again? No need have ye to even ask Every Purple Dragon we rrain Works daily at just such a task
(Anonymous) from the ballad "Dragon High, Forever" first heard circa the Year of the Adder
The tapestry had barely fallen back into place behind the departing Lady Targrael when Laspeera slipped into the room from behind another one. "That one is on the proverbial sword edge," she said.
Vangerdahast shrugged. "Send one problem after another. If they destroy each other, that's two fewer we must deal with."
"IfT Laspeera said doubtfully. "No Wizard of War riding with Dauntless, hey? So is it to be the belt-buckle method?"
The Royal Magician shook his head. "Rumors about that are finally beginning to drift from Dragon to Dragon. No, I want the spells cast on items no Purple Dragon will leave behind: his codpiece and boots. Belts they can-and will-contrive to change, so cast something swift and worthless over those, to fool them. Their cods, and both boots, mind, are to be enchanted so that I-and you and Tathanter-can listen through them at will. See to it."
Laspeera nodded. "Wouldn't it be easier to just-?"
"Send a Wizard of War riding along with them? And have Dauntless blind and foil us at a time of his choosing by arranging matters so 'something happens' to our mage? I think not. Our loyal ornrion is proving to have… surprising depths."
Laspeera nodded again and smiled. "I'll see to it." Bowing her head, she turned and departed the way she'd come, the tapestry swirling gently in her wake.
She was careful not to sigh until she was no less than three closed panels away from her irascible superior.
Like almost every mage of the Brotherhood, Mauliykhus of the Zhentarim was ambitious. Wherefore he was going to dare this casting, risky though it was.
He had locked and barred two sets of iron-bound doors between himself and the common passage in Zhentil Keep, and there was nothing suspicious in that.
He had his orders from Lord Manshoon, spell-workings that were both dangerous and would yield results that should be kept secrer from stray eyes. Wherefore the shielding scepter was resting in its holder, in the heart of the flickering yellow-green flame of the brazier to which he'd so carefully added powders, and no one but the most powerful archmage should be able to spy on what he did next.
Which was a good thing, because he intended to disobey both the leader of the Zhentarim and one of its most powerful and mysterious mages.
Manshoon had given him a working to perform:-just such a task as he needed for an excuse to raise a shielding-and Mauliykhus was going to do something else instead.
And that "something else" was a casting that Hesperdan had just specifically ordered him not, under any circumstances, to attempt.
No fell creature of the Abyss was to be contacted, for any reason, until he received explicit orders otherwise from either Hesperdan or Manshoon himself.
Mauliykhus had no idea if Hesperdan suspected what he planned and was trying to prevent him-or goad him into doing it in all haste, for that mattet-by forbidding him to seek out a demon… or if all Zhentarim were forbidden from demonic contact, forthwith. It soundedlike the latter, but Hesperdan was very good at imparting impressions without actually saying what you thought he'd said. Hrast him.
Mauliykhus smiled, shrugged, raised both hands dramatically above the black table upon which he'd arranged everything he would need-and began the incantation. Sealing One's Own Doom, some of the older grimoires tauntingly entitled the words he was now reading.
It took only half a dozen of the deep, harsh-sounding words for the room to darken, all of the braziers flickering at once, and chill shadows to start to glide and swoop out of the darkness.
He spoke on. The dark, cruising wisps seemed sentient, yet he'd been told many a time they weren't. They merely sought life and light and warmth, stuff of what made up worlds and that which lay between worlds.
A way started to open between his locked and barred stone chamber in Zhentil Keep and somewhere in the Abyss.
Mauliykhus brought his hands down, watched fire that was not fire form between them and circle from thumb to thumb and smallest finger to smallest finger to shape a silent hole in the air…
The way began to open, and he was through and doomed.
Darker shadows of malicious-and gleeful-awareness streaked into him out of the yawning, howling darkness. Into his ears they plunged, before he could say a word to stop them, lashing into his mind like burning ice.
Fury drove them, fury and exultation. Harsh, ruthless, and insane they were, and they knew themselves as Old Ghost and Horaundoon as they reveled in ravaging his mind.
What had been Mauliykhus quailed and cowered, unable to even mew in his terror; one of the terrible spirits in his head had already slashed control of his mouth and hands. They leered into his silently shrieking self, leaned in, and took big, greedy bites… and Mauliykhus knew no more.
The body of the ambitious Zhentarim wizard stumbled around the locked room, toppling a brazier onto the stones, its coals spilling harmlessly amid hissing smoke. His head sank in slightly, literally beginning to melt from within as both angry wraiths, snarling their Abyssal madness ar each other, roiled around behind his eyes.
Mauliykhus lurched upright and staggered to tug at the bars of the innermost iron-bound doors. Mad Old Ghost and Horaundoon might be, but their cunning was stronger than their raving, and they knew very well what they both most wanted.
Mauliykhus of the Zhentarim clawed the doors open and hastened to the next set of doors.
Vangerdahast favored the tapestry that had fallen back into place behind his loyal Laspeera with a faint smile. He knew very well she'd be sighing and rolling her eyes about now.
"Such a task will nettle you as it always does," he said, "but you'll do it, darling Lasp, as you always do." Then the Royal Magician sighed and turned away. "If you knew just a little less about what I've had to do… and I w
ere a whole lot younger…"
He sighed again, went to one of the magnificently paneled walls of the ready chamber-the only one where tapestries and broad doors were both lacking-and put a finger onto a particular piece of carved trim on the glossy dark phandar wood. It obediently swiveled into the wall, undoing an unseen catch, and the ornate panel just below it smoothly folded down from the wall to become a seat, revealing a shallow drawer set into the wall behind it.
Vangerdahast sat on the seat and pulled open the drawer to reveal a dressed leather desk surface complete with quills, an inkwell, and a small heap of parchments. He plucked up the topmost, set it aside with a snort, took up the one that had been beneath it, nodded, stroked his chin, and settled down to read and hopefully-if the scribes hadn't been too creative-sign this heap of decrees he'd ordered drafted earlier.
There was always much to be done and never enough time to do it.
When, some six parchments later, the faint but approaching din of a raging princess fell upon his ears, echoing down passages and rooms and through several closed doors, he allowed himself the faintest of smiles.
Royal Magician of Suzail was an office that afforded him so little real entertainment, but he was going to enjoy some now.
"Farewell, Halfhap," Semoor said mockingly. "Deathtrap inns, dragonfire swords, and all. I wonder where our faithful Purple Dragon shadows are, this time."
Florin shrugged.."Using a war wizard to scry us so they can stay out of sight, but I'll wager Dauntless is leading them and that they came from yon gate towers on this side of Halfhap. So they got a good look at us when we rode around Halfhap and past them. They'll be somewhere behind us all the way to wherever along the Ride they usually turn back."
"I'm not complaining," Pennae said. "I can still feel that arrow." She shuddered, shook her head, and then asked, "They're still out there, aren't they? The ones who attacked us, I mean."
"Yes," Doust said quietly. "Six at least got away. I heard the Dragons talking. They took one alive and questioned him. Our foes were-are-Lord Yellander's bullyblades."
Pennae cursed and added, "That's not good."
No one argued with her.
"I'd rather talk about Shadowdale," Doust said. "I've heard 'tis all trees and farms, with the Old Skull landmark along the Ride in its midst. Oh, and the beautiful lady bard Srorm Silverhand that they tell so many tales about dwells there. Yet what's befalling there now, that the queen wants us there with such urgency?"
Semoor snorted. "The urgency is to get us out of Cormyr, out of the royal hair-"
"Vangerdahast's hair!" Pennae corrected sharply.
"— not any urgency in and about sleepy Shadowdale, I'll wager."
"Vangerdahast paid us to get out of the realm, that's what he did," Jhessail said darkly.
"And this bothers you?" Semoor gave her an incredulous look. "More coin each than we'd probably have made in a summer of hard work, if all of us had been striving together?"
The stare the fire-haired mage gave him back was grim. "And what if we don't live to reach the border? Vangerdahast is a powerful wizard, remember? Who rules an army of wizards who can watch every step we take and whisk themselves to stand in our path with blasting wands ready, whenever they choose. I suspect Old Thunderspells has every intention of retrieving these gold coins from what's left of us- when we're well away from where the citizens of Suzail can see our smoking bones and mutter unpleasant comments about what happens to heroes of the realm when Vangey gets his hands on them."
Doust held up a hand and then waved at the trees along the road, beside them and ahead of them as far as the eye could see. "We're well away from where the citizens of Suzail can see anything now."
"But not yet where the traders in Halfhap and travelers between Halfhap and Tilver's Gap can't see what happens to us," Islif said.
"And you think Vangey-or the nearest Purple Dragon or anyone else in all the fair Forest Kingdom, for that matter, gives an altar-warming damn about our fates?" Jhessail's voice was bitter. "Other than how entertaining the tale of our fall is when told at taverns? Or reassurance that one more dangerous irritant has been removed from their lives?"
"Our little lady hath found armor at last," Doust murmured. "Stout, strong, gleaming-and very properly called cynicism."
Jhessail shot him a searing look, then accompanied it with a certain gesture.
Florin raised his eyebrows at the sight of that rude signal. Semoor and Islif chuckled.
Pennae murmured, "Teeth at last. I knew she had some…"
"Are you going to be this gloomy all the way to Shadowdale?" Semoor asked Jhessail, his innocent manner a blatant fraud.
"Not much to look forward to, is it?" Pennae teased.
"Neither is my blade up your backside," Islif said. "Which is what certain folk riding here are risking by goading our Jhess."
"Oooh, the threat direct!" Pennae gave Islif a rather disapproving look. "Haven't learned much subtlety yet, have you, Longface?"
"I have not," Islif replied flatly. "Slyhips."
"Ah," Semoor told the sky loudly, dusting his hands in evident glee. "This should be good."
"Enough" Florin said heavily. "Semoor, stop goading-hrast it, that goes fot all of us. We'll all die if more outlaws attack us and we're busy tongue-lashing each other and scheming to do worse. We're supposed to be one-a fellowship, a shieldwall!"
Slowing her mount to a walk, Pennae turned in her saddle to fix him with a level look. "Agreed. Yet when you say that, you really mean, All of you must do as I say, for I stand here, and the shieldwall must form to me, thus.' So I then have a question for you, tall and handsome ranger: Are we always fated to be your slaves? When will the shieldwall form where and when I say?"
Florin frowned in a sudden tense silence. Everyone had slowed their horses. "I never asked to lead this company," he said, "and am less than experienced, but-"
"But someone has to? So I ask again: Why you? I've years of adventuring under my belt, and-"
"And you're a thief," Jhessail said, "and known for it. Riding under your command would make us targets for all, where otherwise our knighthoods might see us past some folk without bloodshed. And we all know each othet from growing up together in Espar, and we look to Florin. We chose him; he didn't name himself. He won the charter, yes, but once we're in our saddles and out from under the noses of everyone-except the war wizard spies who are undoubtedly listening to every word of this now and having a good grin-only we know who truly leads. And I like to be led by a man who is my trusted friend and who doesn't want to lead or think himself good at it. Overconfident and glib 'I can handle this' sorts are buffoons. Dangerous buffoons."
"Hearken for Pennae's answer," Semoor told Doust lightly. "Will she admit to being a dangerous buffoon?"
Pennae turned again to Florin and asked calmly, "Commander, have I your permission to smite yon priest?"
"Only gently. And using nothing that is edged or pointed. Or poisoned."
"Except your tongue," Semoor added brightly. "I'd rather enjoy-"
"I'm death-steel certain you would," Pennae told him sweetly, bringing her horse no closer to him. "So, Sir Florin, if you govern how fast we go and how we conduct ourselves along the way, what are your orders? Ride fast and steady, and get ourselves out of Cormyr as fast as we can?"
Florin shrugged. "I know not. Steady, yes. No thieving or acting like lawless adventurers. No raiding anyone who looks villainous and threatening, just because we happen to see them. No pilfering from orchards."
"No thieving? After the way we've been treated by Vangerdahast, why not?"
Several of the Knights tried to answer her at once, all of them sternly, but it was Jhessail's voice that overrode those of her companions: "Because he can turn us into toads or blast us to dust, along with whatever mountain we're hiding behind, that's why!"
Pennae sighed in mock dismay. "Oh, dear. Too late."
"Oh? What does that mean?" Islif snarled. "What clever theft have you man
aged now? Does it involve the Royal Magician of Cormyr directly?"
Pennae shrugged. "Once, there was a thief who was also a Knight of Myth Drannor. Let's call her 'Pennae.' And being a woman and therefore vain about her appearance, she owned a mirror. A little oval of bright-burnished metal. Now, not being quite that vain after all, there were days on end during which she never took up or even looked at the mirror. Yet she knew its heft and looks and tiny nicks and scratches well enough-and one night, in the Royal Palace of Suzail, this particular wench got a little surprise. Her carefully packed mirror was gone, and another, very similar-but lighter and with different scrarches and nicks-mirror was just as carefully packed in its place."
"War wizards," Semoor murmured. "Vangerdahast."
Pennae inclined her head in firm agreement. "Indeed. Some war wizard stole my mirror and introduced a substitute. Obviously on Vangerdahast's orders, and almost certainly so he could spy on us all and trace me with ease. Such trust abounds in fair Cormyr." Islif frowned. "So because of this you intend to steal-" Pennae threw up a hand sharply to indicate she wasn't done. "So I dropped that new mirror down the guard tower garderobe last night.
However, I considered Vangey's little ploy ample justification for a theft of my own."
Islif sighed. "Of course."
Pennae shrugged. "If wolves force me to run with them, may I not take an occasional bite, too?"
"A moral stance that gets debated often by we who serve Tymora," Doust said, "and-"
"Holynose," Islif said pleasantly, "shut up."
Pennae nodded thanks at the Lady Knight, inspected the back of her left hand, and told it, "The Palace is a large and fascinating place, just made for wandering. It's astonishing what one can overhear from time to time on such meanderings, if one escapes notice. Among many other fascinating things-remind me to relate some amusing details of the sexual preferences of some high ladies of the Court, should we ever need, say, a tenday of verbal diversions-I overheard one Wizard of War proudly explaining the powets of a row of gems he'd just finished crafting for the use of Vangey's little army of spell-hurlers, on the Royal Magician's orders, of course. Tracer-gems, they are, and I have one of them with me now."