Swords of Dragonfire tkomd-2

by Ed Greenwood

  Wherefore, when she paused in a dim, little-used chamber she was strolling through to get from the Chamber of Three Dragons to Runsor’s Robing Room, to look into a cloudy old crown-to-ankles looking glass and sneer critically at her oak brown eyes and swirling, honey-hued hair-and her ever-curious fingers traced the carved berries of its frame, finding and pressing the one that sank inwards, in the heart of the cluster-her heart leaped in quickening delight when the mirror shuddered and swung open.

  Princess Alusair cast a swift glance back the way she’d come. Old Alsarra hadn’t yet turned the corner, and was probably flirting with the drooping-mustached doorjack she seemed to fancy so.

  She swung the mirror open, to reveal narrow shelves of dusty old tomes.

  The racing of her heart slowed a little, but then she smiled and shrugged. After all, a secret stair was unlikely, with a main hallway just the other side of this wall. What might these books hold? Forbidden spells? Descriptions of Palace trysts? The court gossip of yesteryear? Being ever-curious was good.

  Alusair thrust fingers up both her nostrils to keep from sneezing, and with her other hand plucked forth the most intriguing-looking volume: a slender black book with no lettering down its spine. A musty smell, rag-paper pages that seemed to be wanting to return to being rags, and some of the most crabbed and dry poetry she’d ever tried to read. Ugly words in uglier phrases-“ ’Ywis my bonden heart now doth for thee bounding-hart-leap high/All across fair Cormyr in answer the realm’s maidens all tremulous sigh”-ughh! She slid it back into place, and with both hands wrestled out the thick maroon volume next to it, a squared-corners, metal-bound book as fat as her own arm.

  It proved to be latched, the metal black with tarnish that dearly wanted to be on her hands, and to be an account of naval sailings of six long-ago reigns, with informed debate as to the best riggings to use in particular winds and specific waters. Alusair rolled her eyes, flipped its pages in hopes of finding a battle at sea or a map or some thing, and heard something metallic clink and then slither down the inside of the book’s spine.

  With mounting excitement, she cupped her hand over the bottom of the spine to keep whatever it was-a key? — from falling out, turned so as to block Alsarra’s view of what she was doing-should her overshoulder spy finally wrest herself away from Lord Hairylust-and shook the heavy book as hard as she could. Its weight almost defeated her slender wrists; she had to go into a hasty crouch to keep from dropping it end-over-end.

  Which is when, of course, she heard the expected cry, “Princess? Princess! Alusair, what’re you doing on the floor, child? Are you well?”

  Alusair sat down with a thud, scooped the book into her lap, and worked its covers back and forth frantically with both hands-whereupon the slithering something fell out. A ring!

  An old ring, silvern and smooth-flowing in shape, like elven work. Not a stone on it, but it was on the first finger she could slip it onto in a trice, and-she gasped and shuddered as it shifted gently to resize itself, and a window seemed to open in her mind, showing her… showing her…

  “Child, what have you gotten yourself into now? ”

  The trouble with Alsarra was that she acted like a disapproving old aunt, and that both Alusair’s father and mother confirmed her in full authority to do so, almost once or twice a tenday, very firmly and enthusiastically. Alusair wanted to tell the old watch-hound-watch- bitch, yes? — to run and plunge face-first into the mud of a castle moat, preferably a castle somewhere north of shining Silverymoon, half Faerun away, and never stop eating that mud, but…

  Bony hands were plucking the book from her hands, wrinkled lips were clucking as if she were some sort of disobedient barnfowl, and Alusair sighed, folded her hands together (the one without the ring over the one now wearing it), and announced, “I found some old books, and wanted to look at them. The only ones I looked at were very boring, but this one was so heavy I almost dropped it, and one”-she dropped her voice into viciously accurate mimicry of Alsarra’s own tones-“should never damage a book, so I-”

  “Sat down to try to forestall the fall? Quite so, child, quite so-and may I say an admirable sentiment and deed for a younger princess, whose deportment and manner will be such an asset to House Obarskyr in time soon to come!”

  So I can be married off like a prize cow, Alusair thought sourly.

  “I say again, as I’ve said so oft before, that you should watch your sister Princess Tanalasta, and strive to act as she does!”

  Alusair nodded out of unthinking habit, and Alsarra smiled and went gushing on, words flowing in a sharp and exclamatory flood. She restored the book to its place and hauled the wayward princess to her feet so the mirror could be closed, Alusair’s dust-soiled breeches could be exclaimed over, and Alusair could be chided once more for refusing to wear a gown that any fair woman-to-be would find fitting and suitable, to say nothing of a royal princess of Cormyr. Alusair nodded absently and heard not a word of it all.

  Instead, she raced excitedly back and forth through the new thoughts and images in her head that the ring had put there, telling her that it was old and mighty, and had three powers: teleportation, to four set places that were unknown to her; something called a “non-detection shield,” that would make her, whenever she willed, invisible to all magics that sought to detect or locate her, or read or influence her mind… and something else, too, that she didn’t understand. Warm delight grew in her like a comforting fireside flame. With this, she had the chance to slip away from her everpresent war wizard and Purple Dragon watchers. She was free.

  “Alsarra,” she said firmly, “I must find a garderobe. My near-fall, you understand…”

  “Oh, but of course! Are you sure an examination would not come amiss? We really should-”

  “If there’s blood, I’ll hasten to let you know, Alsarra,” the princess said very firmly. “Now, stand out of the way, or this royal bladder will-”

  “Of course! Of course! Oh, gods and guardian spirits forfend! Here I am, a foolish old woman, a-twittering while-”

  Well, at least you know what you are, Alusair thought sourly, slipping past her watcher. Wouldn’t you just be delighted if there were blood? Then I’d be fertile, and you could lock me up straight and proper, never again to set foot out of my bedchambers except to appear at feasts and be put on display for suitors-until one of them bit, and my life of true slavery could begin.

  She sped down a narrow passage to the filigreed gates of the nearest ladies’ garderobe, and instead of turning left into its comforts, turned right, ducking through the hanging to the unlit, steeply descending servants’ stair. Standing in the darkness at the head of its steps, she told the ring: hide me.

  And the adventure began.

  First, to find herself a sword, a dagger, and some proper traveling boots! Then a little food, a belt flask of something to drink, and Alusair faltered, halfway down the stair, as she discovered she could feel the alarm of the war wizards who’d been their usual bored selves, magically spying on her. Their minds rushed past her like frantic wraiths who couldn’t see her. They were far from bored now. Her knife-abrupt disappearance from their scrying spells had them shouting at each other and ringing gongs!

  She snickered-and then spat out a curse. Those ringing gongs were even now summoning thunder-booted Purple Dragons and irritated senior war wizards to start a search for her.

  “Ilmater’s pain, but I hate this place,” she murmured, as lamplight spilled out into the hallway at the bottom of the stair. She hurled herself down the last few steps, her heavy pendant smacking her across the face, and just had time enough to duck around a corner, thankful for her soft slippers, before servants rushed out into the hall and up the stair she’d just left.

  “Has anyone seen the Princess Alusair?” a maid asked sharply, in the room where the lamp was. “We’re to find her and bring her to the nearest war wizard. Drop all and get up into the staterooms, all of you!”

  “Drag Little Lady Pouting-Trouble half the
length of the Palace to find a spellhurler? And get beheaded for our troubles? After she kicks all our organs clear up and out of our bodies and pulls every last hair out of our heads?”

  “Well, she won’t have much hair to pull on your shining pate, Jorlguld!”

  “I’ve got nose-hairs, ye know,” Jorlguld said darkly.

  “Well, there won’t be all that much dragging; every chamber of the Palace is filling up with war wizards, just as fast as they can-”

  Alusair whispered something very rude, and went in search of a sword and dagger. Her purse would have to buy her the rest, once she was out of here.

  This passage ran along to an end stair with a Purple Dragon ready-room. Normally it was a place she’d want to stay well away from, if she was trying to hide, but with the alarm raised, surely they’d all have rushed upstairs to poke and pry and waste much time before they got around to thinking a high-and-mighty princess might go below, down into the dark, dank servants’ halls. And not only did Purple Dragons never close doors unless someone ordered them to, they always had extra weapons in their armories. Lots of extra weapons.

  Yes! The ready-room stood empty of men, the wooden racks on its walls a-gleam with swords and daggers in plenty.

  But nary a scabbard for any of them, or even a cloak. Alusair peered around in dismay, and then shrugged, took down a sword she liked the look of, and then a dagger, likewise, and “I saw someone along here, I tell thee, and it could have been a lass!” The man’s voice echoed, still far down the passage.

  Alusair spun around to face the door, hefted her sword and dagger-the sword was a trifle too heavy for comfort, but it would have to do-and thought about the ring. Hard.

  And being elsewhere, to that first destination. Wherever it was.

  Obligingly, the Palace whirled away, and she was suddenly falling, falling endlessly through chill blue mists…

  Chapter 3

  MORE LEAVINGS

  My life has been full of leavings-some tearful, some contented, and many of the sort that kings tend to term “not a moment too soon.”

  Tamper Tencoin, A Life’s Cargo of Mistakes published circa the Year of the Bloodbird

  "The Royal Magician-?”

  “Has other pressing matters to attend to,” Laspeera said. “However, I trust myself and you five to translocate six sleeping Knights from here to Arabel. Now. ”

  It was rare for the warm, kindly manner of the woman most Wizards of War fondly called “Mother” to slip, even for a moment, and the mages around her blinked, carefully made not the slightest reply, and devoted themselves to swift, accurate spellcasting.

  Wizards, chairs, and the sleepers slumped in them were suddenly no longer in an inner chamber of the Palace, but in a smaller, dingier room with boarded-over windows, that by the sounds of clottering hooves and creaking wagon wheels, stood hard by a street or drovers’ alley, somewhere slightly colder than Suzail.

  “Mother,” Wizard of War Sarmeir Landorl asked cautiously, “do I risk my neck at this time, if I dare to ask you some questions about this matter at hand?”

  Laspeera’s sudden smile was as bright as a flaring flame. “Of course not, Sarm. You need not fear my ‘brisk moments’ in the slightest, so long as you obey me with alacrity during them.”

  “Huh,” muttered another mage. “Vangey says the same thing.”

  “Indeed, Orzil, wherefore it should come as no surprise to you to learn you’d do well to believe us both,” Laspeera said, “and conduct yourself accordingly. Your questions, Sarm?”

  “This is the hideaway-house in Arabel, yes?”

  “Yes,” Laspeera confirmed pleasantly.

  Sarm waited for her to add more. In vain. As the silence started to stretch and Laspeera’s gentle smile wavered not at all, some of the other wizards started to grin.

  “So,” Sarmeir said carefully, “that being the case, why didn’t we just march the Knights through the usual portal?”

  “Sarmeir,” Laspeera replied, “we may need half the Dales not to know about that particular portal for a little while longer. Moreover, none of our snorers here are keyed to the portal, and I don’t want them to know about that, either.”

  “Why would they need to be keyed?”

  “Doing so cuts down on vanishings, and they’re carrying a pendant we do not want them to lose.”

  “Vanishings?”

  “Have you never wondered why-given that all sufficiently gifted folk can craft portals-merchants still struggle overland, through mud and stinging flies, brigands and blizzards, to carry, say, candles from the hamlet of Hither to waiting townsfolk at the market of Yon?”

  “Well, no, ” Sarmeir replied. “We seem to receive far more encouragement to do as we’re told, and leave ‘wonderings’ to the likes of Vangerdahast, and Margaster-and you.”

  “Shrewdly struck, Sarm. I reel, but recover.” Laspeera’s dimples told the now tensely watching war wizards no eruption was about to occur. “Harken, then, to the new, emerging danger of portal travel: vanishings.”

  “You mean people going missing?”

  “No, that’s hardly a new danger. I speak rather of the matter of the portals themselves betimes melting away things taken through them-trade goods, the sword in a wayfarer’s hand or on her belt. Suchlike.”

  “Ah,” Orzil put in, “the old matter of ‘on dread deeds bent, I charge through the waiting way full-armored and sword in hand-and arrive at the other end grinning at my foes, naked and weaponless.’ ”

  “Indeed.”

  Yassandra, the darkly beautiful lady war wizard, frowned at that. “I thought sages of matters arcane always blamed such vanishings on snatchings done by creatures watching over or guarding the portals. The same creatures who sometimes do or intend far greater ill to portal-users.”

  “They do. I thought alarphons were better schooled than to believe them.”

  Yassandra flushed and said sharply, “None of us, so far as I know, have been told anything of portal vanishings. If I understand you correctly, they are why portals will never replace caravans for overland trade, yes?”

  Laspeera nodded. “And why we still use mass teleport spells, yes.”

  Sarmeir frowned. “But we’ve been told that a teleportation done purely by a spell can’t be traced later, whereas a portal jump-particularly by a keyed individual-can. So was that a lie, and these vanishings the real reason?”

  “No. War wizards use portals whenever possible because they are both more reliable and for tracing reasons. If you run into trouble, the rest of us can more easily trace you, and if you are pursued and hide a document or item to keep foes from seizing it when they take you, colleagues investigating later can follow your portal uses and know where to search. Yet everyone not already sworn to the Crown of Cormyr and standing high in both service and trust who learns the location and nature of a portal opens a gap in the shared armor of the realm. Wherefore we avoid portals and cleave to spells instead when time and circumstances allow, when shuttling common citizens and outlanders around Cormyr. Keying can’t be done on the sly; even if a person we do it to is unaware of what we’re doing, he soon discovers what we did, and what powers he’s now gained. That’s why we don’t tend to key just-risen adventurers, whose loyalties may stray far from us-” She waved her hand at the row of sprawled and sleeping Knights of Myth Drannor, just as Doust started to slide off his chair. Laspeera launched herself across the room in time to catch him and thrust him back onto the seat, turning back to the younger wizards with a shushing finger to her lips, and concluded, “-but do key Crown messengers and envoys.”

  “And why,” the Wizard of War Ghoruld Applethorn purred, smiling at the unwitting face of Laspeera in his glowing scrying crystal, “I can trace everyone who uses any portal in the Palace.”

  He beamed at her unseeing beauty and told her unhearing ears, “Vangey has trusted me too much, for too long. And trust, as better men than our dear Royal Magician discovered to their costs long ago, is a blade with tw
o sharp edges.”

  Florin came awake very suddenly, and found himself looking into a pair of alert dark brown eyes. They belonged to a slender, dark-haired, handsome man in robes, now bending over him, that he’d seen somewhere before, recently, but… oh, yes: this was a war wizard, one of the five Laspeera had introduced to them, in Quick glances told him his fellow Knights were still sitting on chairs beside him, Islif as awake as he was, the others seemingly asleep. But they were in no room Florin knew or had ever been in before. And of Vangerdahast, Laspeera, and the other war wizards, there was no sign.

  “Where are we?” he asked. “And why?”

  “This is Arabel, and you are here in obedience to the queen.”

  “Departing the realm forthwith,” Islif said. “And you are… Melandar ah, Raentree.”

  The handsome war wizard nodded, his smile tight, his face revealing nothing. “At your service. You were magically transported here while you slept. I have been assigned to oversee your departure.”

  “Well,” Semoor grunted, “I suppose it is too much to expect the queen to trust us-we being her sworn Knights, and all.”

  “We being adventurers, ” Jhessail told him, her smile rueful. It seemed everyone was awakening.

  “Well met again, fellow weaver of the Art, and Holy of Lathander,” Melandar greeted them both. “Not much time has passed since you spoke with Her Majesty, but by means of magic you are now in Arabel. This is a-well, a nondescript backstreet house owned by the Crown, that stands hard by a busy stable. Wherein await mounts for all of you, saddled and ready. Purple Dragon mounts when this day began, but yours to keep now.”