by Ed Greenwood
"They are," Vangerdahast said. "I'm just far more used to agony than, say, your average band of Crown-chartered adventurers. I've been enduring pain for years."
Jhessail gave him a look that was dark with disbelief.
He stared back, twisting his face momentarily into a manic, gleeful smile-and then letting that smile fall right back off his face to leave it looking grim and old.
"This door," he said, not bothering to look at it. "The next panel is in here, to the left. I can sense it."
"Can you sense what I'm thinking now?" Semoor rasped.
"Yes," Vangerdahast replied. "Two things occupy your mind. One is your bladder, and the other is treasonous, so I'd advise you to start thinking of Lathander instead. The Unbinding will certainly bring about a new beginning."
Semoor groaned. "Will we be alive to see it?"
Chapter 15
Swords among the walking dead Nothing worse could be than raw butchery The stink, the screams, the blood so red But that was before I first made war With swords among the walking dead
The sixteenth panel fell in shards, and lightning flooded forth, a blue-white tide that dashed all the Knights to the floor. Only the Royal Magician stood unmoved. He waited patiently as any statue amid the feeble groaning at his feet.
It was some time before anyone could rise. Pennae managed it first, crawling grimly to where the two priests lay heaped upon each other. She clawed her way up that heap until she could sit on it. Sliding her feet out to the floor, she shoved at the entangled ptiests behind her, thrusting herself upright to stand unsteadily. Taking a few trembling steps, she reached down, almost falling on her face, to haul Jhessail to her feet.
The two of them clung together, leaning breast to breast for support. When they found the strength to break apart again and stand free, most of the other Knights had made it at least as far as theit knees.
Islif was the first to manage normal strides-and when she did, lightning crackled in the air before her at her every step. The air seemed thicker, as if she were wading in stiffening mud or trying to bathe in some of her aunt's hardloaf dough.
Not far away from her, Florin bit back a curse.
"You, too?" Islif asked. "When you walk… the air seems thick?"
The ranger nodded and gave Vangerdahast a long look.
The Royal Magician spread his hands, looking-or trying to look-innocent. "I can guess what's befalling you, but a guess is all 'twill be. No one's ever made it this far in the Unbinding before.". "You fail to surprise me," Jhessail said from beside his elbow. "Point us to the next room, Vangey. Let's just take care of the next panel, and only then concern ourselves with the one after that. I find I lack the energy for doing anything else."
"Har hur stlarning hardy har har," Semoor said to that, struggling to his feet. "Tymora, walk with me!"
"If She does, see if you can get Her to break the panels for us," Pennae said, watching Vangerdahast's arm rise to point out the door.
The portal swallowed Tsantress and Dauntless without a sound, and the cellar fell silent and deserted. For about half a breath.
Then magical light flooded it, making it as bright as any royal court lit by tiers upon tiers of hanging candles, thanks to a wave of the Royal Magician's hand.
Vangerdahast hastened down the stairs, Laspeera and Dalonder Ree at his shoulders. He watched the portal flicker as his conjured radiance swirled around it. He sighed at the sight of that silent, magical skirmish and told Laspeera, "I'm not waiting for any Purple Dragons. If whoever it is manages that Unbinding…"
She nodded, and he stalked forward. Dalonder Ree hastened after him, throwing out a long arm to bar Laspeera's way to the portal.
The look she gave him was a silent question, and in response he pointed back up the stairs out of the cellar, then at her, clearly intimating she should tarry for the Dragons Tathanter should be sending.
Slowly Laspeera nodded, and Ree strode after Vangerdahast.
Who had turned, just before the portal, to see Laspeera nod to Ree and then hang back. He drew in a deep breath and roared, "Has all Cormyr fallen out of the habit of obeying me? Hrast it, the realm is doomed!"
"Belt up and get in there and save it," Ree said, giving the wizard a firm shove into the portal.
Still glaring, Vangey vanished.
Ree shot Laspeera a smile and plunged through the portal himself, muttering, "Well, we all have to die somewhere."
"Gods'. "Islif swore, head bent with the effort of trudging forward. "Now I know why no one ever managed this Unbinding before!"
Pennae cast a dark look at Vangerdahast, walking slowly but unharmed behind them. She gasped and said, "No Royal Magician ever had a large enough band of stone-headed pain-lovers before, I'd guess."
"Did I mention I really need to piss?" Semoor groaned. "Not now, holynose!" Pennae told him. "This is lightning around us, remember?"
For all of the Knights, it seemed hatder and harder to move, as if the air had turned to sucking mud. Their strides were slow and labored, and the Lost Palace had gone very quiet around them. Even their strained breathing seemed hushed.
Jhessail kept stumbling, and Florin kept clawing her up again. Struggling, with Vangerdahast standing unbowed in their midst, the Knights of Myth Dtannor fought their way along a long, high passage.
Far ahead, facing them at the end of the passage, stood a tall door graven with a unicorn's head amid trees.
As they came closer, the door started to glow, its graven lines flaring a deep blue. As they got nearer still, those glowing channels started to pulse and spit little blue lightnings.
This was Rhallogant Caladanter's favorite room in all Suzail. Which was a eood thine, beine as it was a room in his own house. Reclining on his favorite lounge, he sipped another tallglass of wine-his seventh, or was it eighth? — and wondered where Boarblade had gotten to.
The door opened. Rhallogant looked up to see which servant was daring to disturb his solitude, and then his jaw dropped. He was staring at-himself!
As he gaped, the other Rhallogant pushed past the lounge and strode toward the door to his bedchamber.
"Here, now!" Rhallogant protested to the intruder's back, waving his tallglass. "Who d'you think you are?"
His double stopped, turned, and gave him a crooked smile. The face wearing that smile changed. He saw Telgarth Boarblade and something more. Something humplike was receding down rhe front of Boarblade's jerkin. Ah. Some sorr of mask he'd tugged off. Must be.
"Good disguise, hmm?"
Rhallogant nodded, flustered at being so bewildered. "Certainly, certainly. 'Tis indeed. So, what's afoot?"
Boarblade's smile widened to near smugness. "Much tumult. We'll be going to the Palace later this night with an urgent need to.speak to some war wizards."
"About?"
"About something secret."
Boarblade went to Rhallogant's spirits cabinet as if it were his own, carelessly swinging open the doors and taking forth a tall, slender decanter the master of House Caladanter couldn't remember ever having seen before.
As it caught the light, he saw it was more than half full of a purplish translucent liquid. As he watched, Boarblade unstoppered it and calmly set about dipping the blades of all the daggers he was carrying in it, one after another, setting them on the tailboard to dry. He seemed to be wearing a lot of daggers, some of them hidden in rather surprising places.
"What're you-?" Rhallogant started to ask, then he hastily waved his hand to banish his question. "No, no. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I want to live."
Boarblade looked up with an almost fond smile. "Very wise of you. And you will, if you do exactly as I say." "Poison," Rhallogant muttered.
"What a good thing I didn't catch that," Boarblade said. "The results, if I had, might well have been fatal. Some war wizards are going to catch some of this soon, and we'll see how they fare, hmm?"
Rhallogant suddenly felt very cold. He found himself shivering and decided-reaching for the
second decanter of his best rubyfire-he needed another glass of wine to warm himself up.
Watching the noble trying unsteadily to refill his tallglass, Boarblade's cold smile grew wider.
Laspeera climbed up out of the cellar, out of the ruin, and into the forest. If she was fated to die after she followed Vangey through that portal, she wanted to smell a fresh breeze and see forest leaves one last time.
Three steps away from rhe opening that had once held a door, a dozen Purple Dragons suddenly appeared all around Laspeera. The trodden turf was empty of all but leaves one moment-and full of grim, fully armored soldiery the next.
Warriors who were all staring at her expectantly.
Laspeera met the eyes of most of them, trying to look as calmly imperious as Vangey always did, then turned, pointed at the doorway, and said, "Through there! Down the stairs and step right through the glow. Save Cormyr, and obey Vangerdahast. As usual."
That earned her their grim grins-grins that widened when they saw her turn to hurry in and lead them down the stairs rather than stopping to watch them go on into the unknown without her.
Barely finished nodding and smiling pleasanrly to the armory door guards as he passed by, Lord Elvarr Spurbright looked ahead of himself once more and blinked in surprise.
Yes, 'twas the Princess Alusair hurrying toward him along the passage, striding along as sternly as any angry Highknight. What was she now, all of thirteen summers?
As she approached and their gazes met, her eyes fairly scorched him. Oh, she had the fiery side of the Obarskyr temperament! Flame where her morher, the queen, was ice.
Almost jovially he sketched a deep bow and asked her if he might be of service.
"Yes," she snapped, startling rhe lord. Her nexr words took him past blinking into dumbfounded staring. "Find a sword and that preening son of yours-and anyone else you can think of who's handy and knows how to die for Cormyr-and ger to the Hall of the Unicorn as quick as you can! There you'll find Wizard of War Tathanter Doarmund and the Royal Sage Alaphondar. Tathanter will send you to where you're needed. I understand there's a portal you must step through, in a ruins."
Lord Spurbright gaped at her. "Die for Cormyr? Doing what?"
"The same cause of death that awaits most Dragons," she told him tersely over her shoulder as she continued on, "obeying Lord Vangerdahast."
"While you will be doing what, exactly?"
"Deciding where and how I can best defend the king, my father," she said, as she stopped before the doors of the armory and waved at the door guards to get out of her way.
Spurbright blinked again at her back as she plunged through those hastily opened doors.
Then he turned and started to trot along the passage. Torsard should be in one of the forehalls by now, enjoying a goblet or two before departing the Palace for the Spurbright city tallhouse.
"With me," Laspeera commanded, and she plunged through the portal.
The six Purple Dragons right behind her never slowed, charging inro its glow after her.
The others were still hastening down the stairs, in such a hurry to follow that the flying blade that came lancing down the stairs behind them struck thrice in swift succession before the last three Dragons even knew it was there.
Its third victim fell forward after the sword banked, whirled, and thrust its gleaming length in his open helm and through his throat-to thrust into the Dragon who'd just reached the bottom of the steps below him.
Both men slammed to the ground to the accompaniment of a startled shout from the Dragon underneath. That made the two Dragons hastening for the portal whirl, their own swords flashing out of their scabbards.
They were in time to see a sword that flew like an arrow, with no warrior's arm guiding it, sliding at them out of the darkness. They were not in time to parry well enough to save their lives.
The flying sword whirled away from them and buried itself deep into the mouth of the Dragon fallen at the foot of the stairs, who'd just shed his dead comrade and had struggled to his feet.
The sword drew back, dripping dark blood, and hung in the air for a moment, as if studying the portal.
The glow of that magical door seemed to brighten as the Sword That Never Sleeps drifted slowly nearer, point-first.
Then it shot forward, racing into the waiting glow.
The portal flickered, snarled as angry lightnings burst out of it and raced up and down its length in wild spirals-and then the portal collapsed in a flood of drifting sparks that swiftly scattered and faded, leaving only darkness to cloak the sprawled dead Dragons.
"Welcome to the Lost Palace of Esparin," Vangerdahast said grimly to the Harper behind him as they sprinted through dark, empty chamber aftet dark, empty chamber.
Dalonder Ree was wise enough to keep his mouth shut and let the wizard lead him. The Royal Magician, it seemed, needed almost all of his bteath iust to keen uo his whirlwind nace.
"Graul," he muttered at last, as they came out into a room where someone had recently smashed one of the wall panels, "feel that? They're almost done! We've got to…"
The two men plunged through the door at the other end of the room, out into a passage, and rushed along that passage until they rounded a corner. The two found themselves looking at the rear of a mass of undead who were filling the hallway, crowded together and moving slowly along the passage away from Vangey and Ree.
With all their wands, long flowing robes, and gem-winking crowns, the undead looked to be liches. All of their attention was bent on something beyond them that neither the wizard nor the Harper could see through the press of dark-robed, skeletal bodies.
Yet there was something else for Vangerdahast and Dalonder to gaze upon, or rather four somethings-and they were much closer than the liches. About three paces away, in fact.
Four living persons they knew.
One was facing their way, cowering on his knees. It was Brorn Hallomond, longtime bullyblade of the Lord Yellander, and he was staring fearfully up ar the other three, who stood in an arc facing him, menacing him with two wands and a sword. Neither Vangerdahast nor Dalonder Ree needed those three to turn around to know who they were: the War Wizards Lorbryn Deltalon and Tsantress Ironchylde and the ornrion most widely known as Dauntless.
Vangerdahast calmly drew wands from his belt. Brorn saw that movement, stared past the three foes facing him at the Royal Magician of Cormyr and the Harper, and cursed, "Stlarning gods above, take me now! Tluining Vangerdahast! Stlarning well spare me being turned into frogs and gasping fish and being fried alive!"
His shout made even the rearmost liches turn to see who he was staring at-whereupon Vangerdahast spellburned undead with his wands. He snapped at Ree, "Use those things if you know how, or you'll die right here and now!"
The Harper nodded and awakened the wands in both his fists, sending bright bursts of magic arcing down the passage. Aiming the wands carefully, he set about blasting liches as hard and as fast as he knew how.
Lorbryn and Tsantress hurled themselves to the floor to get clear of all the wandfire and started crawling to reach Vangey and Ree.
On hands and knees the bullyblade scuttled in the other direction, seeking escape through a side door down the passage.
Dauntless ducked wandfire and in a low crouch charged through and under more wandfire and the fell magical beams now stabbing back at the war wizards from the liches. He soon caught up to Brorn.
The bullyblade turned to slash at Dauntless, but the ornrion backhanded Brorn's blade out of the way with one hand, knocked him cold with one swing of his other fist-and fell flat atop the bullyblade as ravening magical fire sizzled past too close for comfort.
The passage and the very air in it was starting to shake, as lich after lich cast spells that struck and wrestled with the wandfire in a blinding, billowing chaos that flashed and roiled, building to hide all sight of the liches from Vangerdahast's view.
Then Lorbryn was past the Royal Magician and plucking wands from him, and Tsantress w
as similarly plundering what Dalonder Ree was wearing but not using. Crouching against the walls of the passage, the two war wizards added to the wandfire, driving back the crawling chaos of magic until they could see liches again-including liches blown apart into dust and shards as wandfire smashed into them.
Liches started to fly, turn wraithlike, or just wink out, teleporting away as the unleashed wand fury tore into their ranks.
"Scatter, everyone!" Vangerdahast said. "Get a solid wall at your back!"
He hurled down a spent, crumbling wand and snatched out another. A moment latet, Ree cursed and did the same, shaking his hand at the pain of scorched fingertips. His spent wand rolled away along the passage floor, smoldering.
Tsantress shrieked a warning as a lich suddenly leered at her elbow, ereen magical flames roarine uo to shroud irs bones as it tried to embrace her. The fire of four wands promprly met inside the lich and sent its upper body into oblivion. Tsantress was able to kick its flaming, stumbling legs away until they crashed to the passage floor.
Behind the wand wielders, Laspeera and a handful of scared-looking Purple Dragons came rushing down the passage, weapons out.
Even as Tsantress called a greering to them, she saw a sword appear, gleaming in the air behind them. It darted at them like an arrow loosed from a bow.
It ran through one startled Dragon from behind, up under the tail of his codpiece and into his vitals. He shrieked, clawing the air in agony, and collapsed.
"Ger against a wall! In pairs!" the Royal Magician bellowed, aiming the wands in his hands so the beams of snarling magic streaming from them met in midair right where a lich had just appeared. The lich burst in the blinding white explosion that followed, but more were appearing down the passage behind the Dragons, teleporting in from the group Vangey and Ree had been ravaging with wandfire.
Cackling wildly, a skull flew past everyone, eyesockets streaming flames, attacking no one but mad with glee at all the destruction. The flying sword struck again, darting as nimbly as any hummingbird in a palace garden, and Purple Dragons hacked at it frantically. Wandfire spat in all directions. Deltalon shouted for another wand as one he was using darkened and burst into dust in his hand. Ree flung one to him, sending it cartwheeling through the roiling air. Liches cast spells up and down the passage, and the palace's defensive magics flared up in scores of places.