by Ed Greenwood
Guests screamed, and their cries brought every head in the hall around and an astonished silence to the scene.
Ramurra Hornmantle and Ildaergra Steelcastle hastily drained their flagons, not taking their eyes off what was unfolding for an instant.
They saw Pennae land, drop into a crouch, and without pause spring up again like an acrobat, to deftly avoid the emerald beams of Vangerdahast’s next magic-which struck plumes of smoke from the polished floor.
Pennae came crashing down into the Royal Magician’s arms, bearing him to the floor and entwining herself around him to hiss into his startled face, “There’s a conspiracy to kill you, Wizard! Don’t look into or go near any crystal balls! Any moment now, word will come that both princesses are endangered-that’s the signal!”
As Vangey blinked at her, Lord Maniol Crownsilver cried despairingly from halfway down the hall, “Lord Vangerdahast! Royal Magician! A rescue! A rescue! Ghoruld Applethorn told me to tell you I’ve-he’s-captured the princesses! Gloating, that’s it! Then he vanished right in front of my eyes, and I don’t know where he’s gone!”
“Oh, tluin, ” Vangerdahast groaned, and took hold of Pennae’s wrist in a grip of iron. “Go nowhere, little thief. You are going to explain all of this to me.”
“Gladly, my lord,” Pennae breathed in lavish imitation of an ardent, smitten lady.
The stout, bearded mage underneath her gave her a glare and growled, “Adventurers! Now get off my bladder and let me up. ”
Wizard of War Beldos Margaster was, as usual, in his chambers. When events as large as this revel were unfolding, his scrying involved more than a dozen hovering-in-air crystal balls, and he preferred quiet solitude and room to work ordered as he saw fit, to use them in.
Wherefore he looked up, blinking, as the War Wizards Tathanter Doarmond and Malvert Lulleer bustled into his chambers at the head of a dozen Purple Dragons, who bore the bodies of Lady Laspeera and an ornrion of the Dragons on great decorative shields obviously torn down off the Palace walls.
“I’ve purge-poisoned the Lady Laspeera, and she’s waking,” Tathanter explained excitedly, without even a greeting, “but that’s my one such spell. Can you see to this ornrion? We found them in the Long Passage. Its Palace-end guards were served the same way; all but two who came to us, warning of adventurers who must be in the Palace right now!”
Beldos Margaster frowned. “How so, when they’d have to wade through scores of other Dragons, on guard all over the cellars?”
“That’s just what they’ve done,” one of the Purple Dragons growled.
Margaster crooked a disbelieving eyebrow, then got a good look at the face of the ornrion on the shield, and hurried to a cabinet to pluck forth a vial.
“For this,” he said, waving at both of the stricken, “potions are more reliable than the purge spell. That’s why I’ve no such spell ready to cast.”
He forced open the ornrion’s mouth, emptied the vial into it, and held those slack lips together with his hand.
Almost instantly, Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul’s still face creased, he started to cough, and then his eyes flew open.
They met Margaster’s gaze a moment later, as the mage hastily took his fingers away, and Dauntless growled, “Gaster! Wanted to tell you, next I saw you: we left the Dragonfire swords behind us, in Halfhap! They’re real after all! Flying and glowing, right enough. They’re holding up most of the inn right now!”
Margaster looked interested, but said, “They’ll have to wait until after you tell me what befell you and the Lady Laspeera. Here, that is, in the Long Passage, not in Halfhap.”
Dauntless blinked. “Oh, gods! The Knights of Myth Drannor! They came out of Halfhap with us, but the moment the Lady Laspeera told them the Royal Magician was hunting them, they went mad! The thief slapped us both with a sleep-venom ring!”
Margaster glanced over at Laspeera; her eyelids were fluttering. Turning hastily to Tathanter and Malvert, he ordered, “Take this ornrion to the Battlebanners Room and keep him there until I come for him. Don’t leave him and don’t let him go anywhere. I’ll see to the Lady L-”
“Oh, no, you won’t, Gaster,” Laspeera snapped, looking up at him. “You’ll stay right here and relay all that’s befalling, as the rest of us search the Palace for these Knights! I’ll be having them in chains by nightfall!”
She heaved herself up from her shield, reeled, and caught hold of Dauntless for support.
“Leave him with me,” she snapped at Tathanter and Malvert. Then her face changed, and she asked them rather wearily, “Wasn’t there a revel here, this night?”
“Yes, Lady,” Malvert replied hastily. “The reception for the envoy from Silverymoon.”
Laspeera rolled her eyes and wobbled to her feet, leaning on Dauntless. “ That’s where they’ll be. If I know my starving, thieving adventurers, they’ll not be able to resist all the food and jewels! Lead me there!”
She strode out, visibly gaining strength with every step, and everyone went with her except Beldos Margaster.
Alone again, the old war wizard smiled faintly. Then he shrugged, opened another cabinet, took a pile of dark cloth from it, and shook out the uppermost cloth; it was a hood. Working quickly, he hooded each crystal ball and put it into the cabinet. When they were all closed away, the cabinet firmly latched, he went to the other end of the room and worked a spell.
When the horizontal whirlpool occurred in midair, Margaster bent over to peer into it, and kept his intent gaze upon it as it started to spin, and his scrying began again.
“ ’Strordinary!” Lord Ildabray Indesm commented enthusiastically. “Hurled herself right at old Vangey, she did! Took him to the ground and rode him like a… like a…”
He suddenly became aware of his wife’s cold-eyed scrutiny, and harrumphed into red-faced silence.
“ I think,” Lord Bellarogar Rowanmantle said loudly, “That the realm needs bold adventurers of that sort, to shake our Royal Magician right out of his confidence every tenday or so. Not to mention the entertainment his comeuppance affords us all.”
Others standing near rolled their eyes. Lord Rowanmantle thought a lot of things, and all of them loudly.
“Now, now,” Lord Horntar Dauntinghorn said soothingly. “We must remember that aside from bruised dignity and a few wine-stained gowns for which the Crown will no doubt compensate handsomely, no one was harmed. Our Dragons are back at their posts, halberds in hand once more, with no trace of blood on the floor. Moreover, all the ruffians went off in the company of Lord Vangerdahast, who claims ever that his haste and highhandedness befalls only for the good of the realm. And they were hurrying, all of them, so perhaps-”
“The day that sword-swinging adventurers are dedicated to the good of the realm,” Lady Indesm said darkly, “is the day the madwits rise to rule and Cormyr as we know it shall be swept away. I pray to the gods that I not live to see that day!”
“ Really, ” Ramurra Hornmantle murmured disgustedly to her friend Ildaergra, in the silence that followed that dramatic declaration. “If I could do it and escape death for it, I’d borrow a Dragon’s dagger and answer her prayer for the gods forthwith! Whyever should she share in Cormyr’s brighter future?”
King Azoun IV of Cormyr, Dragon of Dragons, Conqueror Triumphant of Arabel and of Marsember, Lord of the Stormhorns and Thunder Peaks, and dozens of other titles he preferred to forget, looked down at the crown on the black velvet cushion with decided distaste. “Must I? Won’t a simple circlet do? Or nothing at all? ’Tisn’t as if the people don’t know me!”
“You can if you want to insult the envoy, dear,” Queen Filfaeril said reprovingly, taking up the crown to settle it expertly on his head, “but she does represent Silverymoon. And she is very beautiful.”
She glided around him, adjusting the crown ever-so-slightly ere stepping back to survey him critically, from crown-spires to booted toe. “And goodness me, but I know full well that lasses swoon for a man in a crown.”
&nbs
p; Her impassively regal face marred only by a swift wink, she went to her knees in a smooth shifting of skirts, to plant a kiss on the flaring gold filigree of the ornate royal codpiece.
“ ‘Swooning’ isn’t exactly what I’d call it,” he chuckled, lifting her to her feet and towing her by her chin to his lips.
Their kiss was long and ardent, and they moved against each other and murmured wordless need before Filfaeril pulled gently back to whisper, “Later. After you’ve tasted what Silverymoon has to offer.”
“Fee,” Azoun said reproachfully, “I’d not betray-”
“Hush,” the Dragon Queen said softly, putting a finger across his lips. “I know you, Az. And you won’t be betraying me- if Sune and Sharess smile upon you, and the lady does too-because you have my full and loving agreement in this.”
She leaned in close again, to kiss one of his ears, and whispered into it, “Make Cormyr proud.”
Azoun blinked at her, then grinned, and finally shook his head in admiration and said huskily, “Gods, I love you, lass. Don’t ever change.”
His queen faced away from him, deftly hiked her ornate ankle-length gown up to her waist to show him she was bare beneath, stuck out her tongue at him ere she let it fall again, and said, “Now we’re more than fashionably late! Come! Anglond’s Great Hall is a fair hike from here, and I can’t roll along quickly in this! ”
Chapter 29
TREASON TO SLAY
For who stands forth bold, the realm to save
And face the bloody traitors’ day?
We who loved the land, our lives we gave
Now rise from graves, treason to slay.
Tethmurra “Lady Bard” Starmar from the ballad The Dead, They March This Day published in the Year of the Spur
"Ghoruld,” Vangerdahast growled, letting Lord Crownsilver’s head slip from between his hands. The noble’s eyes rolled up in his head as he slid bonelessly to the floor, forgotten. “I might have known. Knights, come with me. It seems I can’t trust a single war wizard just now. We’ve treason to slay this night!”
Treason, the whisper began around him, leaping from one excited Cormyrean to another, a murmur that spread outward, racing across the hall as swiftly as a shot from the bow of an expert archer.
Vangerdahast strode to an apparently solid painting on a wall-and stepped right through it as if was but empty air, the Knights of Myth Drannor hard on his heels.
Guests, guards, and servants alike gawked in startled silence. Then everyone spoke at once, rumor rising in a great wave of excited chatter.
In a deep stone chamber stood a ring of black stone plinths, each topped with a dark, lifeless crystal ball. Those squared fingers of stone stood waist-high, each in its own chalked circle on the stone floor, and each circle was linked by a chalk line to an empty central circle. One circle held no plinth, only a crystal ball on the floor-and that crystal was glowing, shapes and colors moving and flickering in its depths.
Ghoruld Applethorn stood over that sphere, watching and listening to what was unfolding in its depths. He saw Crownsilver slip to the floor, and the great secret growled aloud by Vangerdahast.
Applethorn chuckled then, and in his satisfied mirth spoke words to the crystal that he knew the Royal Magician could not hear.
“Crownsilver was about as competent as I expected, Vangey-and so are you. It doesn’t matter why you come striding for me. Just so long as you come.”
There came a pattern of tapping on a certain door deep in the gloom of one back corner of Anglond’s Great Hall. The servant who’d been expecting this hailing eased the door open, making a swift gesture in mimicry of three fingers plucking harp strings.
That gesture was matched with a smile, and the servant opened the door wide. Resplendent in dark finery, Dalonder Ree slipped through. “Sorry I’m late,” he hissed. “The hrasted countryside’s changing! My favorite stream to follow through the King’s Forest is gone! Clean gone! ”
The servant gave the Harper ranger an incredulous look, but murmured, “No harm done. The king hasn’t rolled in, yet, so you’ve missed nothing! The envoy’s just entering now, yonder, and I doubt overmuch harm will come to her. See her maid, following at her hip? Well, in truth, her maid’s deep in spell-sleep back in her guest chambers. That’s Dove, wearing her shape.”
“ Dove? Well, I am unnecessary, then!”
“Oh, I’d not say that. They always need a lot of help mopping up all the blood, after.”
“The princesses are safely with Beldos Margaster,” Vangerdahast growled to the Knights, as they hastened into an empty room together. “So it’s the king and queen we most have to worry about.”
Ushering them in, he closed the door firmly and pointed at it. “Guard that,” he ordered Islif, who wordlessly hefted her sword and took up a stance facing it.
Vangey nodded and pointed Doust at a taller-than-a-man painting on another wall, and Semoor at a wardrobe on a third. “Those are doors, too. Guard them. If any war wizard-or anyone else, even the king himself-tries to come in, shout out and try to stop them.”
Returning the center of the room, he beckoned Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail to stand with him, and spread his hands on high, as if to dramatically commence spellcasting.
“Right,” he barked. “No scrying crystals. Let’s go hunting war wizard traitors. Applethorn, where are you?”
“Ah, so prudence at last takes hold of our Royal Magician,” Ghoruld Applethorn purred, “despite the overconfidence that dooms him. Just who will protect you, Vangey? Your own oh-so-puissant spells? A handful of backcountry blunder-neck adventurers?”
Shaking his head, Applethorn unhurriedly worked a spell that turned him into the likeness of a plinth like all the others-a plinth with a hand that carefully lifted the glowing crystal atop itself and did something that made that sphere go dark like the rest.
Around that resting crystal, fingertips sank into the top of the plinth, as Applethorn’s voice spoke mockingly from it. “So-behold-I hide me. Can you find me? In time? Before what Margaster unleashes finds you? ”
“Careless, Ghoruld, careless,” Margaster murmured, turning away from his scrying whorl. “Don’t announce me and what I’m doing to all listening Cormyr! You’re becoming expendable.”
Kneeling on the stone floor, he flipped back a corner of the carpet to reveal a row of nine words chalked on the flagstones. Touching each in turn, he said it aloud with firm, grave precision.
Then he rubbed them all away.
In a dark, dusty secret passage elsewhere in the Royal Palace of Cormyr, each of Margaster’s words sounded out of the empty air-one at a time, in turn-above a row of nine skulls resting on little stands along a shelf.
Each skull wore an old warrior’s helm and each was connected by a trail of dried blood-a deliberately drawn line of blood-down from its stand to the shelf, and from the shelf all the way down the wall, and a little way across the floor to an unscabbarded sword lying on the flagstones.
As each word was spoken, the skull linked to it rocked, glowed briefly, then rose into the dusty air and melted away, leaving an empty helm floating in the air.
Dust swirled and coalesced, until it would have been clear to anyone watching-if there had been anyone alive to watch in that dark and deserted passage-that shadowy, wraithlike shoulders connected each empty helm to arms that seemed but more shadows, yet were able to lift, hold, and wield a sword.
Nine solid, real swords were plucked up from the floor, to be hefted and swung in eerie silence. The shadows trailed away raggedly below each set of shoulders; none of the nine shadow-things had a torso or legs. They were little more than ragged wraiths.
Nine helms turned this way and that, as if the emptinesses within them were looking at each other, and conferring.
Then, with one accord, nine bladewraiths flew down the passage.
Amid the inevitable fanfare, the King and Queen of Cormyr entered Anglond’s Great Hall arm in arm, giving the guests and courtiers serene sm
iles and nods.
Not letting his broad smile slip in the slightest, Azoun muttered to Filfaeril, “This has all the makings of a disaster.”
“Now, Az,” she murmured back fondly, “like most things, it’s only a disaster if you act like it’s a disaster.” She patted his hand. “So don’t. Seduce someone instead.”
Azoun growled faintly, to let her know her teasing had been heard, and they proceeded smoothly on, pretending not to hear the whispers of “treason” that were loudly racing around the hall and raging along the balconies.
Filfaeril smiled up at the folk there, as she always did, then turned to look back over her shoulder at the balconies behind, to make sure no one felt ignored. She nudged their linked arms to signal her royal husband to do the same. Cheers rang out, from here and there across the hall, and were taken up by servants and Purple Dragons until the hall was a-roar.
Up on the balconies, merchants and their wives crowded the rails. Impassive, full-armored Purple Dragons stood among them, at intervals. Each held a cocked crossbow, pointed straight up at the ceiling, and was vigilantly surveying the crowd below.
Amid the hubbub, the royal couple glided across the miraculously clearing floor of the hall-that “miracle” caused by war wizard suggestion magics-to meet the envoy of Silverymoon.
She responded, moving forward at the same pace, as her tall, elegantly beautiful aides and maids fell away from around her-and Cormyreans all over Anglond’s Great Hall gasped at the revealed beauty of the Lady Aerilee Hastorna Summerwood.
She was as tall as Azoun, and strikingly beautiful. Slender in dusk blue shimmerweave, as fluidly graceful as a wave riding across fair seas, she was a half-elf with dark, arched eyebrows, pale high cheekbones, a lush and kindly smiling mouth, and eyes like two great, deep sapphires. She was barefoot, and the shifting clingings of her ankle-length gown left little doubt to any eye that she was bare beneath it.
She greeted the King of Cormyr with a herald’s respectful bow and fair words, but turned without pause to embrace Queen Filfaeril and give her a deep kiss, almost as if they were lovers. A long, tender kiss that left Azoun blinking in pleased surprise, and the hall buzzing with murmured comment.