Swords of Dragonfire tkomd-2

by Ed Greenwood

  Upon a whim she silently reached for one. Its glow blazed up as if in welcome as her long fingers got close…

  Then Laspeera of the Wizards of War shrugged, smiled, shook her head, drew her arm firmly back, and used it to crawl steadily through the portal.

  Lord Prester Yellander stood at the back door of his hunting lodge, and stared out into the depths of the Hullack Forest, at a wild and familiar beauty that didn’t seem to hold any answers.

  Ignoring the questioning looks the swordjacks guarding the door were giving him, Lord Yellander hauled the door shut, dropped its bar into place for good measure, and turned back to face Lord Blundebel Eldroon.

  “I still don’t know what to do now,” he snapped, waving an angry hand. “So speak. ‘Confer with me worriedly,’ as the writers-of-plays say. Everything seems to be going wrong.”

  Lord Eldroon said, “I have little comfort to give. You saw what I saw.”

  The two nobles exchanged grim looks. Both of their Halfhap portals now opened into sagging, splintered-wood ruin. It seemed the Oldcoats Inn had been destroyed. Purple Dragons wading in that rubble had seen and shouted at the bullyblades Yellander and Eldroon sent through the portals to learn more. Those blades had hastily returned, but there was no telling how soon Purple Dragons might-would-come flooding into the hunting lodge through those portals.

  “We must put this all behind us, or our heads and shoulders will soon want for each other’s company,” Yellander muttered. Then he clapped his hands, drew himself up briskly, and went back to the door.

  “Brorn, Steldurth: Bring all the lads in here! At once!” he barked. To Eldroon’s silent, questioning look, he murmured, “Later.”

  When his four-and-ten surviving bullyblades were assembled, Lord Yellander crisply directed them to heap the furniture in the room into two long barricades well out from the walls, facing the two portals both before and behind.

  “Poisoned bolts,” he commanded. “You are to await and fell anyone coming through these magical ways except Lord Eldroon or myself-or anyone with us, if we tell you to refrain from slaying them. Keep at this duty in shifts, until I order you to cease, even if that’s a tenday or more hence. Use the other rooms to sleep, eat, and cook. Keep hidden behind the barricades when in this one, and keep all doors closed. If Purple Dragons come to the outer doors, you know not where I am, and are guarding these portals-which just appeared, startling myself and the Lord Eldroon very much-for the safety of the realm, awaiting our return with war wizards to deal with them. You’ve never been through them, you don’t even want to go near them, and you don’t know where they lead.”

  Collecting their nods of obedience, Yellander nodded curtly back at his men and turned away, tapping Eldroon’s forearm in a silent direction to walk with him.

  Together they strode through the door that led into a retiring room, and thence to Yellander’s bedchamber. As the door swung shut behind them, Yellander silently directed Eldroon to help him lift and set into place its inner door-bar, as soundlessly as possible.

  Then he hurried into the bedchamber, turned immediately through a door to enter the adjoining jakes, and turned again to pass through a small door into a wardrobe. Eldroon followed silently, following Yellander down a dark row of hanging cloaks, breeches, doublets, and boots, to a sliding panel at its end that flooded the wardrobe with cold blue light. There was just room in the cubicle beyond for them both to stand, breast to breast, without touching the portal itself. Yellander slid the panel closed again.

  “Where?” Eldroon whispered, jerking his head at the cold blue fire so close to them.

  “Suzail. Where we’ve been these last two days, engaged in the longest and most fascinating game of castleboard either of us has ever played.”

  “Ah. Are we off to slay Crownsilver?”

  Yellander lifted an incredulous eyebrow. “While he can still play the guilty traitor responsible for all? Far from it!” He inclined his head toward the panel they’d just come through and murmured merrily, “Truly, ’tis amazing, in a realm so well governed and so strongly held, the sort of thieves, ravagers, and blackguards that so swiftly infest the private hunting-lodge of even the most upstanding noble in their absence, and work lawless deeds so evil as to verge on treason!”

  Eldroon smirked.

  Yellander’s reply was a shrug and the words, “Or so my tale runs, as I stand staunchly behind it!”

  The portal swallowed him, then did the same to Eldroon an instant later.

  Wherefore neither lord heard the door of Yellander’s bathing chamber open in the next moment, and a fully restored Ghoruld Applethorn step out of it, wearing a crooked smile.

  “Yes, you oh-so-clever conspirators,” he murmured. “Run to your spies at court, to see how many war wizards have fallen. And so present yourself to Vangerdahast as the traitors he’s looking for. And while he’s gloating over you…”

  He grinned broadly, strode across the bedchamber until he was as far as he could get from Yellander’s private portal, and teleported away.

  Chapter 17

  THE KNIGHTS GO TO WAR

  Oh, but the realm should tremble

  If ever the Knights go to war.

  Ilmdrar of Zazesspur, Dreams of a Dark Future: A Sage’s Visions Regarding Fair Tethyr published in the Year of Shadowed Blades

  Keep moving,” Florin murmured, as Dauntless strode out of the blue fire, found himself in a dank, utterly dark stone passage somewhere underground, and faltered. “Two paces. That should give Lady Laspeera room enough not to run into you.”

  Dauntless growled agreement and took his two paces. He could tell by the warm ghost of breath that someone was standing near him. He wrinkled his nose, breathing in leather and a faint whiff of sweat. She-sweat, coming from someone as tall as him. Islif. “So, where are we?”

  Islif said not a word, but Semoor offered brightly, “Somewhere underground and dark.” His voice sounded as if he was slumped against the wall a few paces on. Or lying on the stone floor.

  Dauntless growled again, letting a little of his anger into it.

  “Somewhere utterly unfamiliar to us,” Jhessail said quickly, from beyond Semoor. “I can give us light, but Lady Laspeera’s magic may be far better than-”

  The cold blue fire flickered again. Laspeera stepped out of it, stopped, and asked calmly, “Where are we?”

  “I was hoping you might be able to help us with that,” Florin said, from beside her. “Jhessail can give us light to see by, but if you’ve a spell that would serve better…”

  “No. Jhessail, please do.”

  The casting was simple, and when it was done two spheres of flickering light appeared above Jhessail’s palms. She willed them to the ceiling-damp, of large fitted stone blocks, and low overhead-and sent them past herself a little way, showing them all a long, straight passage lined with well-dressed stone. Then she sent them bobbing past the Knights in the other direction, veering around either side of the portal and on, to illuminate more of the same.

  “Very exciting,” Semoor commented. “Not quite the thrill the inn became, but-”

  Laspeera handed him a potion, and another to Doust. “Your healing potions,” she murmured. “Drink, everyone who stands in need.”

  When Islif shook her head, the war wizard’s voice sharpened. “In the name of the Crown of Cormyr, Islif Lurelake, I order you to drink one of these. Stubborn heroes are usually soon too dead to accomplish anything.”

  Islif nodded, took the proffered potion, and drank.

  “Still dark, dank, and utterly unfamiliar,” Doust commented, looking down the passage. “So, where are we?”

  An instant later, Florin snapped, “Pennae, get back here! ”

  Behind their backs, beyond the portal, the thief-Knight had been softly walking away down the passage, but at Florin’s command-and the approach of Jhessail’s dancing lights that followed-she stopped, turned, put one hand on her hip, and gave Florin a look that wasn’t quite expressionless. “A
nd you became my keeper when? ”

  “Pennae,” Islif said, “we’ve talked about this. When we know not where we stand, we stay together until we’re agreed on what we’ll do.”

  Dauntless chuckled, and Pennae favored him with a withering look.

  Laspeera smiled. “Pennae-no, all of you Knights of Myth Drannor; I’m well aware of your charter and your oaths that accompanied it. Yet I must hear truth from you, here and now: Are you loyal to the Crown of Cormyr?”

  “Lady,” Florin replied, “we are.”

  “I know your loyalty well, ranger,” Laspeera replied, “but I have yet to be convinced as to that of some of your fellows. You, thief-lass?” Her eyes were steady upon Pennae. When Pennae’s gaze became a challenge, Laspeera let her eyes drop meaningfully to the things that had been Yassandra’s, now hanging from Pennae’s belt, and then stared up into Pennae’s eyes again.

  “I have sworn an oath,” Pennae said stiffly, “and I stand by it.”

  “Good. Priests?”

  “Forgive me, Lady Laspeera, but my first loyalty is to the divine,” Doust said, “and my second to my fellow Knights. My third is to the Crown of Cormyr.”

  Semoor added, “Those words are mine, too.”

  Laspeera nodded. “Honestly said. Wherefore I’ll not try to arrest or thwart you, Knights, and instead tell you we are standing in what’s called the Long Passage, a way that runs under the courtyard between the Royal Court and the Palace, linking secret passages within the walls of both buildings. It is guarded at both ends, at all times, so you’d best stay with me-and Ornrion Dahauntul.”

  “You step into a bare stone passage, and know where it is?” Semoor demanded suspiciously. “Or did you know all about the portal we just came through?”

  “I did not. I can, however, feel the wards all around us, and they are as familiar to me as your childhood homes undoubtedly are, to you. The portal is part of them, so long unawakened that I was not aware of its existence. It is fading back into invisibility already. See?”

  They all looked, and saw.

  “So we’re in Suzail,” Doust mused, “somewhere between the Palace and that huge stone pile of offices and audience chambers and more offices that stands in front of it. And presumably we’re in trouble for not staying out of the realm.” He looked up the passage, and down it again. “So which way is the Palace, and which way is the Court?”

  Laspeera pointed in the direction Pennae had been heading. “Palace.”

  Jhessail’s dancing lights moved smoothly a little way past the thief-Knight, farther down the passage Laspeera had pointed along than they’d been before, revealing to the Knights that there was a bend in the passage… and something written low down on the wall there.

  Something fresh.

  Pennae hastened to it, peered hard at it and then at the wall across from it, and said, “Oho.” Then she turned and started trotting back to rejoin the Knights.

  Laspeera smiled. “ ‘Oho,’ indeed. Yes, Pennae, the treasury vaults are somewhere behind us. Before you race off in search of them, know this: the guardians of those vaults were old and wise a thousand years ago, and they can destroy any of us with casual ease.”

  Semoor looked interested. “Even the Royal Magician?”

  “If he’s not careful. Just now he’s being very careful: he’s hunting you. Now, have I your word that you’ll peacefully accompany me to where I can translocate all of you safely to Shadowdale, right now, or am I going to have to-”

  Pennae launched herself into the air, hurling herself right at the war wizard. Dauntless stepped forward to clutch at her, but she kicked his hands aside-and slapped Laspeera’s face as she hurtled past.

  The war wizard reeled, threw up her hand to the spot of blood now welling up on her cheek, and murmured a little sadly, “Poison?”

  “Sleep venom,” Pennae said tenderly, lifting her hand to display a fanged ring on the inside of one finger.

  Laspeera nodded-and toppled over. Florin caught her, even as Dauntless cursed and clawed out his sword.

  Pennae sprang back at the ornrion, and did a handstand right in front of his reaching blade to arch over in the wake of his swinging steel and kick him in the face.

  Shaking his head and growling, Dauntless grabbed at her knee to haul her down.

  Pennae slapped twice at his hand as he hauled at her, but he twisted away to protect his face and managed to kick her arm aside, winning himself room enough to pluck her up by breast and back of knee-and charge her hard into the passage wall, putting his shoulder into her.

  Pennae gasped as something snapped wetly-Jhessail shuddered-and the ornrion ground her against the unyielding stones. Half-hidden behind his bulk, the thief-Knight sobbed.

  “You little bitch,” Dauntless growled, waving his sword wildly to keep the other Knights at bay. “If you’ve harmed Lasleeeraaahhh…”

  As his voice trailed off into gurgles, he sagged down the length of Pennae’s body to the floor. By the time he reached her boots, he was snoring.

  Pennae kicked herself free of him and went to Laspeera in Florin’s arms, wincing as she bent over to snatch the last few potions from the war wizard’s belt. Drinking one, she thrust the others through her belt.

  “Pennae,” Florin snapped, into her sweating face, “ what have you done? ”

  “Won us a little time to rescue the princesses!” Pennae blazed back at him. Then she looked from Knight to Knight, and raised her voice. “Listen! There’s a conspiracy to kill Lord High-and-Mighty Vangerdahast and the king, and the queen-and I’m beginning to think all the war wizards except Vangey are in on it! See that?”

  She pointed down the passage, at where the words were written on the wall.

  “ ‘Leak here,’ ” Semoor said slowly. “Doesn’t look as if anyone’s obeyed it yet…”

  “Ha-ha. Look yon, across from it. Any writing there?”

  “No.”

  “Good. This side is one wizard saying he’s ready. If there were another ‘Leak here’ yonder, it would mean the other wizard was ready, too, and to start it all by grabbing the princesses. Well, we’ve got to stop it! You heard Laspeera: Vangey’s hunting us. Well, the Royal hrasting Magician doesn’t hunt with dogs or riders in the forest: he hunts with spells. I want him off my well-rounded rump now — and henceforth. You saved the princess! That ought to be worth some thing! If we can get to the queen and get her to order Vangey off our trail and work with us, mayhap we can stop this treason.”

  “It’ll be one more order he disobeys,” Semoor said sourly. “That man is a law unto himself.”

  “Well, then,” Pennae said angrily, “isn’t it time we were too?”

  Faerun holds many deep, dank stone chambers.

  Chambers beyond counting, most built by hands now forgotten and crumbled to dust, many for purposes now unregarded. A man may spend a lifetime just visiting the rooms that are safe to enter, free of hauntings and monsters, and those not guarded by the jealous vengeance of kings and rich merchants, who regard every visitor as a thief bent on stealing what they have hidden down there.

  Even an elder elf or a tireless dwarf may exhaust their days before seeing and counting all such chambers, even if they limit themselves to those no more deeply buried than the buildings most men dwell in rise above that ground.

  Yet Faerun is large enough to hold them all, without complaint and with very few murmurs.

  Consider just one such chamber. This one had a war wizard in it, rushing around alone. He is working, placing crystal balls on black stone waist-high plinths and chalking circles around them, which he then links back, with carefully chalked lines, to a central circle. And as he works, in the way of many wizards who trust no one but themselves-and perhaps not even that-he is talking to himself.

  “First Vangerdahast must fall,” Ghoruld Applethorn murmured aloud, carefully touching up a ragged edge of his latest chalked line. “And then the Obarskyrs.”

  “Alaphondar and half a dozen Highknights have co
me to consult with me,” a sharp, exasperated male voice announced suddenly from the empty air above his head, “and I can’t get away to write ‘Leak here’ on anything. So take it as written. Do it now!”

  “I hear!” Ghoruld replied loudly, and he glanced over at the one crystal that was awake.

  A bright scene was shifting in its depths. He strode over to it, folded his arms, and watched.

  “Yes,” he said, murmuring to himself again, the smile that was growing across his face repeatedly threatening to twist into a sneer. “Vangey’s closing his net around them now.”

  He turned away and went to the door, letting the sneer take hold. “Gloat over them long enough, Old Goat,” he told the door as he swung it open, “and my spell will be ready. And every scrying crystal in all Suzail will explode, and behead anyone looking into it, upon my signal. It’s a pity your self-importance demands you surround yourself with eight or nine crystals. There won’t be enough left of you for them to find and bury.”

  Pennae raced down the Long Passage like a storm wind in a hurry to catch up with its gale. The rest of the Knights pounded after her.

  “So just where are we heading?” Islif demanded, putting her shoulders down and really starting to move.

  “Well, if Laspeera was honest with us and the Palace is this way,” Pennae panted, racing along just ahead of her, “we have to get past the guards and up out of its cellars into the Palace proper. The royal wing is at the back and on the east side, overlooking the gardens.”

  “I was, ah, talking with one of the maids, once,” Semoor gasped, “and-well-aren’t all the secret passages inside the Palace guarded too?”

  “Yes,” Pennae said sweetly.

  “We’ll have to change everything, ” Lord Yellander muttered, a step ahead of Lord Eldroon as they hurried along the hallways of the Royal Court. “There’s no way we can take shipments through Halfhap with every jack and brat in the town crawling all over the inn ruins, gawking.”