by Ed Greenwood
Chapter 10
Tasks, Travels, and Life altering choices Tasks are given to us all Travels embraced or forced upon us All our daily choices alter our lives And shape also those of others So we must master tasks, travels, and choices Or lack precious time enough For love, friendship, and laughter.
The duskwood tree was old, large, and had been lightning-scarred long ago, leaving its loftier reaches with a sort of natural seat where its trunk split into three. Anyone sitting in that juncture could teadily lean his back against the eastward trunk, prop one booted foot against the rising northwestern trunk, and stare between it and the southern trunk to enjoy a good view southwest over Cormyr. Even as the thick canopy of leaves above gave him full shelter from the wind, weather, and all but the closest prying eyes.
A lone man sat in that lookout seat now, a heavy sack beside him, enjoying the view.
The Immerflow was just visible far off to the left, a glimmering silver ribbon in the sunlight with the unbroken dark green horizon of the Hullack Forest beyond. Rolling emerald hills rose to a few gentle peaks in the distance ahead, and the higher, broken Stonelands-all torturous cliffs and crags cloaked with scrub woods-thrust up to the right, with the Moonsea Ride arising over a succession of hillcrests between the peaks and the Stonelands to run right past the tree. Two distant dust clouds were moving along the road, but otherwise it seemed deserted.
That suited Totm fine, just now. He needed time to sit and think, and the bulging sack of stolen coins, gems, and small valuables sharing his perch was a large part of why he was pondering where to go and what to do next.
Things were getting rather hot for him in the Forest Kingdom, but he'd found he vastly preferred it, for all its laws and ever-nosy war wizards, to noisy, crowded Sembia, where hired spying and alarm and warding spells were becoming all too common, and rivals and foes both too numerous to count.
Abruprly he became aware that something was floating in midair right in front of him. Something that certainly hadn't been there- two arms-lengths away from his nose, blocking his view of the gentle peaks-a moment ago.
It was a curved pipe of a style favored by older and whiskered men or backcountry farmers. A thin wisp of smoke was arising from its bowl, as if someone invisible, who could somehow recline leisurely on empty air about sixty feet off the ground, was enjoying a relaxed smoke.
Torm was so astonished by this sudden apparition that he almost fell out of the tree, but he knew full well that he was staring at magic, and that magic in Cormyr meant war wizards, andHe snatched out a dagger.
Only to find his hand pinned against the tree trunk by a stone-strong force.
"Oh, stop that," a man's voice drawled at him, apparently issuing from the pipe. "As I see it, ye now have a choice, young Torm. One of those life-altering ones. Ye can accept the task I'm about to offer ye, or I'll dump ye into the hands of the war wizards-specifically, into a cell in the little prison they maintain in the Royal Court in Suzail. I'm feeling rather patient at the moment, so I'll give ye the space of six full breaths to decide which fate ye wish to embrace."
"What sort of task?" Torm asked suspiciously.
"Stealing something."
Torm brightened.
"Traitors, you cannot escape the vengeance of Cormyr!" The lich's voice seemed hollow and distant. Tiny blue bolts of lightning leaped and spat from its rings, arcing back and forth-and suddenly twisted up into a writhing, crackling lance that stabbed at the Knights… only to become a flood of white blossoms that showered petals in all directions as they tumbled to the floor.
"No Witch Lord shall depart this place alive!" the lich said. "You have wrought your last craven foulness and foolishly strayed within my reach at last! Die! Die!"
The magic that roared forth at the Knights this time was a rose red flame that made hitherto-invisible preservative enchantments on the great carved door flare up a vivid blue-a spitting tongue of fire that became a hissing rain of" Cider? " Islif exclaimed. "That's cider I smell!"
The lich flung out a hand to point at Islif's nose and stalked forward, right at her. "You, Pretender Prince, are rhe very root and branch of evil that we have for so long striven to winnow out of fair Cormyr! I know you and decry you, false knight! You no more have Obarskyr blood than I do! Why, I'd not be surprised if you were even a woman, behind your posturings and oversized codpieces!"
"Strangely enough," Islif said wryly, as the lich-fear faded suddenly from all the Knights, "neither would I."
That pointing fingertip was only inches from her nose. She resisted the impulse to chop it with her sword and instead ducked away.
"Come!" Islif urged her fellow Knights-as the fear surged back over her in a wave that made her heart lurch, and the need to run rose in her mindlessly. She sprinted along the wall and took the cross passage. "Let's get away from this thing. We don't have the spells to stand and fight it if its charms suddenly turn effective!"
"R-r-right behind you!" Doust panted as he and Semoor stumbled over each other in their clawing terror to be the first to follow her. In their wake, teeth chattering, Florin slashed aside the lich's arm as the creature turned to follow them. His strike sent it tottering away across the passage.
"Filth of Sembia!" it said, pointing now at the wall. "You fail to deceive me with your clever disguise of aping polished wood! I shall hunt you down and destroy you utterly! Hah! "
The magic that roared out from it this time looked like a darting swarm of tiny white hummingbirds that burst into tinkling, flashing dust before they could reach the wall the lich was now angrily confronting.
Fear surging and ebbing in them like roiling nausea, the Knights fled, following Islif around the corner and down the cross passage.
"This is… not good," Pennae snapped, wiping sweat from her face. "I know it's the lich-magic making me afraid, but I feel just as scared as if there were a good reason to be! We've got to find a way out of this place. That mad lich back there won't menace the wall forever!"
"I'm thinking the way out might be on the other side of that door," Semoor said. "Care to lead the charge?"
"Sabruin," Pennae cursed him. "Tluining well do it yourself, Saer Holy Smarttongue."
"Ah, no, I think not," he said. "Getting blown apart with a spell isn't the sort of new beginning Lathander intends his priests to seek."
The thief gave him a contemptuous look. "So priests of the Morninglord justify becoming adventurers how, exactly?"
"Not now, you two," Florin said. "We've got-ohh!"
His voice rose in helpless fear even as a bolt of fire snarled past his ear ro claw at the paneled wall high over his shoulder. Protective magics arose from it like rainbow-hued flames to ward off the fire-bolt, even as the Knights cursed and backed away from this new peril: a second lich, taller and clad in robes less decayed than the first one.
It strode toward them as purposefully and lithely as any vigorous living foe, wearing no rings but waving some sort of scepter that clasped around its forearm like a bracer and sparkled in the wake of its firebolt-hurling.
"Intruders into the royal vaults can expect only one fate," it said, raising the scepter again, "and I shall swiftly visit that doom upon you!"
Fear ebbed from the Knights again, and Florin said, "Scatter!
Don't give it a good target! Give yourselves room ro run without slamming into someone else!"
The lich laughed hollowly. "Scheming will avail you naught, foes of Cormyr! Prepare to die!"
"These fellows were waystop-inn actots in life, weren't they?" Semoor asked. "Bad ones."
"The first lich isn't blocking out way back," Islif said. "We still have time to get back across that passage crossing by the door and go the other way!"
"So run!" Semoor cried, spinning around and doing just that. A firebolt snarled past, so close to his shoulder that his right ear and cheek felt its heat. The firebolt wrestled again with flaring defensive magics, then fizzled out.
The Knights ran.
"Is this
the being brave adventurers part?" Doust panted in the rear of the line. "Fleeing like children?"
"Who's fleeing?" Pennae called back. "Have you no appreciation fot battlefield strategy? We're not retreating. We're strategically withdrawing to seek better ground!"
"Ah hah,"Xyouit said in open disbelief. "Better ground where?"
They pelted past the cross passage where the first lich was still loudly threatening the wall. They ran down a slight ramp or slope through another passage crossing to reach… a dead end.
"Doors, anyone?" Florin called, slowing. "No one digs out a passage to a dead end and then goes to the trouble of paneling the walls!"
" 'Digs'? How can we be sure we're underground?" Pennae said. "Holynoses, your glowstones! I need to get a good look at the walls, to see it-"
" 'Ware, all!" Doust shouted, fear making his voice high and wild again. "We're trapped!" "Trapped?" Pennae asked.
The Knights whirled around again to stare at the priest and where he was pointing.
Out of that second ctoss passage had stepped a third lich, this one taller than the other two and wearing a gold circlet around its brow. It carried a black staff surmounted by a bulbous head, inset with gems and graven with glowing copper and silver runes. The lich did not seem to be calling forth any magic from the staff. Instead, it held the staff in the crook of one arm and raised both hands to cast a spell-hands whose skeletal fingers were adorned with many glowing rings.
"Naed," Semoor muttered. "Jhess, is there anything left that you can cast to get us out of this?"
"N-no," Jhessail replied from beside his elbow.
A moment later, Islif and Florin both drew in breath in loud, startled hisses.
As the other Knights looked at them and saw where they were staring and pointing, they realized why.
Standing among them were two Jhessail Silvertrees, not just one.
The cave was deserted. Tsantress sighed with relief as she reached its mouth and peered out into the forest. There was no sign of any lurking creature and no spoor suggesting anything had even come close to her little hidehold.
"Tsantress Ironchylde," she murmured as she stepped past the little teethlike knobs of stone jutting up through the tangled grasses that marked where she'd cast her wards. Saying her name would prevent her passage from ending the ward spell she'd cast seasons ago.
She needed to think-think hard and not stlarn her conclusions, because for once her life really would depend on that-and knew she did that best while wandering the woods near the cave, not crouching in its dark depths.
What should she do? Where should she go?
And, stlarn it, was there any way Vangerdahast could trace her?
Tsantress was a good six paces out into the tall grass, with bird-song starting to die away at her presence, when it struck her that she should probably pray to Azuth and Mystra for guidance-and an answer to that last question.
She returned to the cave and sought out its deepest, darkest back crevice and in the cool, damp darkness knelt down. Her knees knew the right spot, even if she could see nothing in the gloom. She cast a spell into the darkness in front of her. A small working, a light-kindling.
The altar she'd made swallowed the magic silently, giving her back a brief glow all around its edges. A very good sign. It was intact, still holy, and she was being heard.
Which meant she was still worthy of attention.
"Lord Azuth, Guide and Wise One," she prayed, "and Great and Most Holy Lady Mystra, Yourself the Greatest of Mysteries, hear me now, I plead. Unworthy I am, unworthy I remain, yet strive to know and obey you both better. Hear my prayer, as I seek to kiss the Weave."
She kissed her own fingertips, reached out into the darkness, and started to pray as she always had, as if addressing an affectionate mother who was somewhere very close by, just beyond her reach.
As a war wizard, Tsantress had been afraid from time to time and uneasy more times than she could count-but it had been a long time since she'd been as bewildered and at a loss as to what to do. She prayed from the heart, respectful and yet blunt, speaking candidly rather than resorring to the flowery phrases of praise so many Mystran and Azuthan clergy excelled at or even used exclusively before altars.
"Come what may, I remain your servant, Wise One and Mysterious Mother," she finished, "and I pray that your own time be bright until next we speak."
Letting her hands fall into her lap, she sat back, awaiting any sign that might come. She expected none, but it would have been the height of disrespect to assume no response would manifest and rush to rise and depart and go on with mundane things, as if the prayer had been rote duty and not something truly meant.
The altar remained dark, though she sat there for a breath longer than usual. Tsantress sighed, rose to her feet-and became aware that the faint light from behind her, the dim radiance from the forest outside that reached this deep into the cave, had just been blotted out.
"Well, well," came a cold and familiar voice from behind her. Light blossomed from a torch. "You're one of the war wizards who helped slay my Jalassa! I remember. Kill her!"
She turned swiftly. Lord Maniol Crownsilver was standing with his arms folded across his chest and a triumphant smile upon his face-and there were three robed wizards standing behind him. Sembian hirelings, by the looks of them.
The three looked reluctant. One of them leaned his head forward and said in the noble's ear, "Yon's an altar to Azuth and Mystra both. 'Twere-"
The noble whirled around as if they'd slapped him. "Who's paying you?" he spat. "Two deaf deities of magic? Or me? Strike her down! "
The harmless spell Tsantress had cast into the altar erupted back out of it, arcing over her head with an angry rumbling that was more felt than heard. It lashed out at the three mages, startling them with its flash of light. Behind them, an ornrion of the Putple Dragons rose up with a stout tree bough in his hands. Tsantress knew him and tried ro keep astonishment at his appearance off her face to avoid aletting the wizards.
Crownsilver saw Dauntless, of course, but so incoherent were his first gabblings of outrage that he warned his three wizards not in the slightest.
Dauntless brought his bough sweeping down, braining one Sembian solidly. That mage toppled silently, out cold. By the time the wizard standing beside him saw his fellow fall and turned, mouth dropping open, to see its cause, Dauntless had his club ready to smash him across the face-and did so.
That mage collapsed into the third wizard, who was already springing back. The last Sembian lifted one hand like a claw, and blue bolts streaked from all his fingertips, lancing into the ornrion and sending him sraggering back, grunting in pain.
Which gave Tsantress more than time enough to hurl herself cm y-rnrnwooa backward until she stumbled into the altar and sat down hard on it, and from that undignified perch unleashed blue bolts of het own.
True to what she'd been told, long ago, the altar she'd so recently made offering and prayer at doubled the strength of her spell, sending a swarm of bright blue missiles racing into the last Sembian mage.
The mage crumpled in silent senselessness, leaving Lord Maniol Crownsilver alone, facing Tsantress and Dauntless.
The noble paled-and darted past Dauntless, seeking to flee the cavern.
The ornrion pounced, dashing Crownsilver to the ground with one blow of his battered tree bough. The nobleman's head lolled loosely, and he joined his three hired wizards in the land of dreams.
Dauntless looked at Tsantress and gravely bowed his head to her. "Much as I dislike slaying lords of the realm," he growled, "this one has brought grief to many. Should I-?"
"No," Tsantress said. "That's a temptation always best avoided, I'm afraid. No matter how much I want to say yes."
They eyed each other in silence for the space of a long breath or two, ere she spoke again. "Ornrion, I've seen you before. Escorting the Princess Alusair, among other things. What brings you here, clear out of the realm?"
"The orders of Lord Va
ngerdahast. A task that-if the Knights of Myth Drannor don't seek to turn back into Cormyr-is done." Dauntless regarded her expressionlessly for another long moment ere adding, "So, Lady Wizard, command me."
"IamcalledTsantress,"shetoldhim,gavehimahalf-smile,andadded, "and I believe I will. Come. Let's see what these Knights of yours are up to."
Wizard of War Lorbryn Deltalon stopped. He liked the look of this little clearing-and he was more than close enough to the person he was seeking. From here, he couIaIjust smell the woodsmoke of the man's fire.
Taking the palm-sized, enspelled plaque from his belt pouch and tilting it on a handy rock so he could clearly see Laspeera's face and body from the waist up, he strode two paces north to a fallen tree trunk and set up a polished metal mirror angled in the same manner.
Stepping back to make sure he could see both at once, he murmured the incantation, bent his will, and watched himself slowly take on the likeness of the second most powerful war wizard of Cormyr.
He could mimic Laspeera's speech fairly well and her gestures and gait closely. That would have to be good enough.
Should be good enough to fool one war wizard-avoiding bullyblade, who was now encamped alone and brooding just over the next ridge.
Lorbryn collected mirror and plaque and returned them to their pouches. He took up the two clinking sacks he'd brought, smiled- Laspeera's wryly gentle smile-and vanished from the clearing, in the proverbial blink of a sailor's eye.
The feeling of being constantly watched while in Zhentil Keep was something one just had to get used to. Or go mad.
The wizard Targon got that feeling more acutely from time to time and supposed everyone else did, too, but it had long since ceased to bother him.
He was feeling it now. "Stlarn and blast all," he murmured, not feeling any real irritation. He'd undressed and sought his bed long before he'd really begun to feel tired. As usual. He still didn't feel tired now.
He would be sleeping alone-also as usual-but was sitting up against a small mountain of pillows, happily immersed in his spell-book. As was his wont of evenings, his favorite part of any day.