by Ed Greenwood
“True, true,” Eldroon agreed, nodding and wagging his forefinger as if it were a sword. “The heart of it for us right now, though, is how much do the war wizards know about us? That’s what Ruldroun’ll know-but we’ve got to get in and out fast, in case old Thunderspells already has them all looking for us!”
Yellander nodded grimly. They ducked through a door, stopped in the side passage beyond immediately and faced another door on their right, opened it, and stepped into the usual gloom.
“Ruldroun?” Yellander said into the darkness. “The raven hunts at twilight.”
All around them, darkness fell away in a sudden blossoming of bright white, magical light, showing them a large, thronelike chair with a matching footstool. Rising from it was a bearded and all-too-familiar man in robes, who offered the two noble lords a wintry smile.
Vangerdahast’s teeth positively gleamed. “I’m sure Ruldroun will be fascinated to learn the habits of ravens-in a decade or so, when I let him out of the deep cells. Old Thunderspells, traitors, at your service!”
“ Naed, ” Lord Yellander spat, and whirled to run.
There was no door behind them any longer-only a thing like a fleshy wall, of many staring eyes and silently screaming mouths and clawlike fingers, looming up over them like a great, crawling darkness.
Vangerdahast smiled gently and said in a voice as soft as silk, “Do try to run. Please. We haven’t fed the gravewall for days.”
“You promised, ” Lord Maniol Crownsilver hissed.
“And I’ll do it,” Wizard of War Ghoruld Applethorn said, holding the trembling lord by the shoulders. “Your Jalassa will live again. This very night. There’s just one thing you have to do for me first.”
“What?”
“Run to Vangerdahast-right now, and getting past anyone who tries to stop you. Tell them you bear an urgent, private message to him from the king, that’s for Vangey’s ears only. If he happens to be with the king, then say the message is from me. Anyroad, the moment you’re alone with him, tell the Royal Magician I’ve captured the princesses! You heard me gloating, but then I vanished right in front of your eyes, and you don’t know where I’ve gone!”
“ What? ”
“That’s all you have to say-just that! Go! And Jalassa will be in your arms again tonight, alive and loving!”
Lord Crownsilver blinked, shook his head as if to clear it, and rushed away, sideswiping a table in the process.
The war wizard watched him go, and grew a slow smile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a wolf.
Hearing that news, Vangerdahast could hardly help but look into a crystal ball-or teleport into the Dragondown Chambers.
And either way, headless Royal Magicians make poor powers-behind-thrones.
“ Hold! Who are you?”
The end of the Long Passage was indeed guarded, and the Purple Dragon hailing the hurrying Knights sounded angry. His spear flashed as he turned to menace them. It bore a collar that supported a ring of eight more spear tips, all pointing at the Knights, and seeming to fill the passage, all by themselves.
Beyond him, in a little ring of glowing light, another six-or more-Dragons readied their own weapons, one of them turning toward an alarm gong, and fumbling for his dagger to strike it with.
As Pennae skidded to a halt, panting hard and clawing at the wall to slow herself before she came within reach of all those sharp points, Florin snapped, “Stop the one at the gong!”
Doust and Semoor nodded and stepped grandly past him in almost perfect unison, raising their holy symbols. Waving their free arms in flourishes, they fixed the rearmost guards with flashing eyes, calling upon divine power, and commanded: “ Fall! ”
And those two guards crumpled, the gong unstruck.
“Eight in all!” Pennae cried. “Two down!”
“For Cormyr!” Florin roared as he charged. “That the king may live!”
“Forget not the queen!” Islif shouted, springing to join him as he struck aside the unwieldy Crown-spear and kept running, hurling its wielder back into the Dragons behind. Islif did the same, ducking and parrying so the spear menacing her went past her shoulder and she could simply run in along it, drive her sword between her Dragon’s legs, and bring the flat of it up as she kept running, thrusting him off his feet and back into more Dragons, behind. They in turn stumbled over their two fallen comrades, just behind them, and went over on their backs in a confusion of wildly kicking boots.
The Dragons were all shouting now, as they fell into a confused tangle. Pennae sprang forward and swarmed into it, slapping faces with her ring as she danced, ducked, ran up arms, and vaulted sagging bodies.
She slapped the last guard standing three times, leaving him shaking his head, glaring at her-and then bringing up his spear in slow menace.
Pennae danced back, waved the hand with the ring at her fellow Knights, and sighed, “Out of venom, I guess.”
“Ah,” Semoor responded, wading through the heaped bodies. “Well, then.”
The spear swung around at him, but he clawed up the shaft of a fallen spear from the tangled fallen to block its point, and then thrust it aside. “I do most humbly beg your apology for this indignity,” he said to the startled Dragon, as he pulled his way down the spear-shaft to reach the man, “but the needs of bright Cormyr compel us all, and in this particular case, that means-”
He tugged with all his strength on the spear, the snarling Purple Dragon kept hold of it but overbalanced and came staggering forward-and Semoor lifted his knee to take the man under the chin with devastating force.
As the man crumpled, Doust picked his way past all the fallen Dragons.
Islif gave him a look. “What’re you doing, holynose?”
“Seeing if I can take this gong down — without sounding it-so we can take it with us. They’ll find it a little hard to ring it if it’s missing, no?”
“Yes. Or no. Just be careful.”
“I don’t like this,” Jhessail hissed. “Fighting loyal Dragons of the realm, courting banishment or worse at our every step!” Her voice rose, trembling-as her light spell wavered and then failed. “What’re we doing? ”
“There, there, Jhess. Greet a little calm,” Semoor told her. “We’re the heroes, remember? This will all end happily.”
Jhessail glared at him. “But what if it doesn’t? ”
Florin put an arm around her shoulders. “Ah. Then, lass, it’s not really the end.”
Chapter 18
WHEN REVELS GO ALL WRONG
Be ready, O thou minstrels
To raise thy cheerful song
For blood will stain the carpets
When revels go all wrong
Orammus ‘the Black Bard’ of Waterdeep from When Revels Go All Wrong a ballad contained in Old Or’s Black Book published in the Year of the Scourge
I like these guards’ glowstones,” Doust commented, lifting the one in his hand to peer at yet another moot of ways, in the dark maze of passages they were now lost in. “They beat lanterns all hollow.”
“Use it, don’t admire it,” Pennae snapped, pointing Doust down the way she thought was right. “Some urgency does ride us, you know.”
“Ah,” Semoor said dryly, as they all started to run again. “That would be why you poisoned Lady Laspeera and the ornrion, and why we’re running along fighting every loyal Purple Dragon we see. I knew there had to be a reason.”
Pennae gave him an exasperated look. “We’re looking,” she said, not slowing, “for some linked rooms called the Dragondown Chambers. It would be good if we could find them before some of the guards wake and start striking that gong.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe they reinforced it with adamantine wire. What sort of see-to-all-details courtiers do that?”
“Cormyrean ones,” Doust offered.
Pennae snarled something dirty at him, then snapped, “Just remember: we need to find the Dragondown Chambers.”
Semoor peered at the passage wall he was tr
otting past. “I’m not seeing any handy signs,” he said.
“Pray harder,” Pennae suggested.
“The next guards we meet, we ask,” Jhessail said. “ Before we send them off into dreamland.”
“Or they put their swords through us,” Semoor added.
Doust threw up his hand and waved the glowstone to warn all the Knights to halt. When they joined him, he wordlessly pointed with the glowstone. They were standing at the junction of six dark, apparently identical passages.
“So, which way?” Florin asked.
Pennae frowned, raised her hands to indicate two adjacent passages that angled off slightly to her right, seeming to diverge only a little from each other, then shrugged and dropped one hand, to leave the other pointing. “That one. The Chambers must be a fair distance on, yet.”
“Huh,” Semoor said, as they started to trot again, on into the darkness. “Just like the treasure that was supposed to start showering down on our heads, never to stop, when we gained our charter.”
“You,” Islif told him, “can be replaced.”
“ Oh, no,” he replied, holding up both hands in mock dudgeon. “I don’t think so. An Anointed of Lathander willing to rush around the realm taking down Purple Dragons, fighting your many-gods-bedamned robed and belted wizards of your fabled Black Brotherhood of Zhentil sarking Keep, while inns tumble down around his ears and lady war wizards lecture them on ethics, to say nothing of being told what to do by their armed companions, many of whom seem like reckless dolts-I’m trying to be polite, here-would seem to me to be a rare breed. A very rare breed.”
“Behold, Watching Gods, our Wolftooth speaks truth,” Jhessail observed with a wry smile. “For once.”
“Just how blazing big is this Palace?” Doust asked, puffing along. “Or do its cellars and underways underlie a good bit of Suzail?”
“They do,” Pennae and Islif answered together-ere each giving the other a frown and asking in unison, “and just how is it that you know that?”
Semoor rolled his eyes. “Crazed-wits, all of them. And I’m trapped down here with them.”
“Florin,” Islif inquired, “would it be a breach of our agreement if I drove the toe of my boot forcefully into a certain Wolftooth backside?”
“Just one boot?” Florin replied. “No.”
Then he chuckled. A few running strides later, he chuckled again. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Almost immediately, Islif and Doust joined in.
And so it was that the Knights of Myth Drannor were laughing like madfolk as they came rushing out of the darkness at the next astonished Purple Dragons they were fated to meet, four full-armored soldiers standing deep in boredom around a painted Purple Dragon on the passage wall.
A guardpost. This one, thankfully, had no gong.
The younger Zhentarim was breathing hard as he came through the door.
“I got them all back here- just in time. There’re more Purple Dragons riding hard to Halfhap right now than I thought Cormyr could muster!”
“Local Dragon commanders shrieking about Lord Manshoon and the Blackstaff and Elminster blowing up an inn in town will do that,” the older Zhentarim said, rising from a desk littered with librams, grimoires and scrolls.
“Huh. Morelike old Vangerdahast got the scare of his life, ran home with his tail between his legs, and shrieked hard in his king’s ear. And Azoun was so awestruck at his oh-so-haughty Royal Magician babbling in fear that he called out all his armies!”
“Perhaps so, indeed. So we’re well out of it, and can thank Lord Manshoon for the continued good health of our necks.”
“You mean he got the same scare?”
“Careful, Mauliykhus, careful. One never knows what words he might hear, or how he might take them. ’Tis best not to speculate as to his thinking; he frowns on those who do. Deeply. All I know is, from now on, we’re to stay out.”
“Just that? ‘Stay out’? Aumrune, where did you hear those words?”
“Orders. From the top. I hear the Lord Manshoon doesn’t want any of us near when the envoy from Silverymoon is welcomed at Court with all the pomp and glitter Suzail can mount. It seems some of the sorceresses she travels with like to hunt we of the Brotherhood-and they have something that links them all together, and makes them far more deadly than a mere handful of nosy women with a taste for the Art, each working alone. If they sniff us, Manshoon said, Harpers will just flood into Cormyr and trammel us for years, hacking at our backsides whenever we turn around.”
Mauliykhus blinked. “Ah. Well. Put that way…”
“Exactly.” Aumrune reached for a decanter, pointed at two goblets in a silent command to Mauliykhus to fetch them, and sat down at his desk again, sweeping glowing written magic aside with a careless wave of one arm.
Turning a ring on his finger that awakened a singing in the air-a singing Mauliykhus had long suspected shielded against scrying-the older Zhentarim added in a lower, softer voice, “None of which forbids us to discuss points of interest in this matter that obviously had nothing at all to do with Lord Manshoon’s decision. Like the disappearance of one of his most trusted mages, Sarhthor. And a few treasonous nobles whose trade routes and dealings-when they’re soon jailed or beheaded-we may be able to make a little private use of. Oh, and talk of something called a hargaunt. And the wraithlike things seen plunging into and probably possessing too many loyal Zhentarim, to make them turn on fellows in the Brotherhood. Or the possibility that the Dragonfire magic, lo these many years passing, just might be more than mere illusion and minstrels’ fancies, after all.”
Mauliykhus smiled as he set the goblets down, and took a seat across from his superior in the Brotherhood. “Ah. Good. I’ve been struggling not to ask over-many questions about all those things, but they’ve been burning inside my head these last few days.”
“I’ve noticed,” Aumrune commented, his voice drier than Mauliykhus had ever heard it before. He poured until the goblets were full to the brim.
“Just make very sure that talking and watching is all you do, until we receive orders otherwise. For now, we stand back and let nobles doom themselves with their little treasons, and Ornrion Dahauntul snarl and roar like a boar in rut, and these Knights of Myth Drannor stumble around like the naive fools they are. If Bane smiles on us all, their blunders will reveal more to us of the true nature of those wraiths and what the Dragonfire magic really is, before…”
“Before we need to pounce on these Knights of Myth Drannor?”
“No. Before it’s too late.”
“ Peace, loyal Purple Dragons!” Florin cried, waving his open and empty hand. “We serve the king and queen, and bear their charter! We have no quarrel with you, but must in haste find the Dragondown Chambers!”
He broke off with a sigh. Faces hardening, the soldiers had already spread out, drawing their swords-and revealing a door behind them, out of which another four Dragons were hurrying, swords and maces in their hands.
“Peace? Parley?” Islif snapped.
“Surrender!” the oldest Dragon ordered, gesturing sharply at the passage floor with his drawn sword. “Down on your bellies, and toss your weapons aside!”
“ That’s the fastest way to the Dragondown Chambers?” Pennae asked impishly.
“Hoy, now!” one of the Dragons said in pleased surprise. “Some of ’em are women! ”
“Fancy that!” Jhessail said sarcastically, looking down at herself. “All these years I’d not noticed, until now.”
“Awake at last, Dragon?” Islif asked that Purple Dragon archly, smashing aside his sword with her own and twisting her blade to send his clanging and skirling from his hand.
The Dragon beside him thrust his blade at her throat, shouting, “ Surrend- ”
That was as far as he got ere Islif ducked past his sword point, and her free arm caught hold of his sword arm and tugged sharply. Her other hand, still gripping the hilt of her sword, crashed hard into his chin as he fell helplessly forward. He
sighed, rolled his eyes up into his head, and crashed to the floor like a full, wet sack of grain.
Beside her, Pennae danced across in front of three of the Dragons, blowing them a kiss-and then flung herself at their ankles, rolling hard and sending them toppling forward over her. As they landed, amid startled curses, Doust leaned forward and carefully rapped each one on the back of the helm with his mace, counting like a child at play in the street, “ One Dragon. Two Dragon. Three Dragon!”
“What madness is this?” the Purple Dragon officer snarled. “What’re you doing? ”
“Searching for the Dragondown Chambers!” Florin said. “Can you help us?”
The officer flung up his weapon in a dramatic pose. “ Never! ”
Semoor swung his mace. It slammed into the man’s helmed forehead and sent him reeling. Pennae promptly ducked behind him, going to her knees-and he tripped backward over her and crashed down onto his behind, roaring in pain. Thoughtfully she turned and hopped, landing with both knees on his armored chest and driving the wind out of him.
His head snapped up as he struggled for breath. She smiled sweetly at him and backhanded him across the face, ringing his helmed head off the stone floor.
“Then kindly drift off into dreams and get out of our way!” she snarled into his face. “We have a kingdom to save! Yours! ”
“No, Torsard, not the jeweled blade. No magic, remember?”
“But-but-”
Lord Elvarr Spurbright sighed. “Did we not discuss this? Have you not been instructed in Court etiquette for lo these dozen years now and more?”
“But Algranth Truesilver will be wearing his best sword. It has quillons made to look like spread eagle wings! Why will he- ”
“He will not, ” Lord Spurbright interrupted. “Vangerdahast may-with a frown-allow the Obarskyrs to wear weapons that bear magic to a revel, and just perhaps not rend the visiting envoy of Silverymoon limb from limb in front of us all for daring to do the same, but neither of us are royalty. Which is why your Lady Mother won’t be wearing her tiara that chimes, nor your sisters those glow-gem pectorals they’re so proud of. It may be a high-handed rule, it may be irksome, but Vangerdahast’s duty is to protect the Crown, he is doing so, and he worked to make this particular rule stone-solid long before you were born. You’ve grown up with it as something that ‘is,’ just as your noble standing ‘is.’ How can you accept the one without the other?”