by Ed Greenwood
He had. Exulting, Targrael raced up the stairs after a young and panting Purple Dragon who was trying to catch up to at least two more. Gauntur would be with the foremost pair, to be sure, unless he was even more of a reckless young fool than she suspected. Even Highknights knew better than to challenge renegade wizards of war alone, when loyal and ready swordswingers were at hand.
Just two floors higher was the Veil, icy cold and endlessly whispering. A curtain black as night and everpresent, it was a field of magical force created long ago by Thayan mages hired by the villainous Lord Ildool, and deemed too useful to destroy.
Useful because those who ventured into its chill darkness and tarried there long enough were freed of all scrying, tracing, and prying-from-afar magics…
Ah! Of course! Much magic was kept in the chamber next to the Veil, and young Gauntur was no doubt eager to get in there and use most of it. Notably a scrying sphere that might help him find Mreldrake if his quarry had been truly stupid and not cloaked himself from it…
At the next landing Targrael caught up to Troon. Tapping the young Dragon on the shoulder, she easily caught his sword as he spun around to gape at her, and dragged him down until their lips met. Stifling any cry he might make, she drove her blade up under his chin.
He convulsed in her embrace and spat blood helplessly into her mouth. Targrael enjoyed its iron tang as she held him through brief and violent death spasms. When he sagged, she let him sprawl on the steps, and continued on.
The two remaining Dragons were veterans whose names she’d recognized; she would not overcome them so easily. Yet defeat them she must-the trick was to do it either without Gauntur knowing, or in a way that made them shields against the young fool’s magic, until she could get within sword’s reach of him…
“What’s through this door?” a man snapped. “Perhaps he went in here!”
Watching Gods Above! One of the Dragons was heading to the Veil!
Targrael swarmed up the last flight of stairs so swiftly she generated her own wind; its chill made Narbrace turn to face her as she reached the head of the stair. It was simplicity itself to thrust the tip of her sword through the open front of his helm-huh, he was the first of those she was hunting wise enough to wear a helm-and into his face.
Narbrace gurgled out his lifeblood as she stalked forward, twisting her sword and thrusting upward at the same time to make sure he died. That noise was enough to make Gauntur, who was on the far side of the half-open wizards’ armory door, call, “Narbrace? Is aught awry?”
Targrael smiled a brittle smile and moved to the wall beside the armory door, letting the dying Dragon slide off her gore-spattered sword.
Gauntur stuck his head out of the door at about the same time that the last Dragon-Hethel-emerged from the room with the Veil, saying, “There’s something in there that you’d best see, saer mage-”
The Dragon broke off to gape as he saw Gauntur staggering forward, clutching his slashed throat in a vain attempt to keep blood from spraying all over the stair he was about to topple down.
His tall, sleek slayer left his side, and stalked toward Hethel with a wide and gleeful smile on her face.
Her dead face.
The Purple Dragon backed away, starting to swear. Then he frowned in thought and glanced over his shoulder, obviously deciding it would be good to stand and defend the doorway of the room he’d just stepped out of, if he ducked back through it and Targrael gave him no more time to think of tactics or curses.
Thrust, parried, ducked low for a lunge that became a parry and forced the Dragon’s sword high, flung herself at his ankles in a roll, used the edge of her hand against the back of one knee as she pivoted around his ankle in a swift scuttling that left his sword biting only flagstones behind her, hacked up at his face and made him lose all balance in a wild parry, then tripped him over backward, over her.
He landed in a heavy, bouncing crash, and she pounced. Throat sliced open then up, up and sprinting for the Veil before he began his last choke.
I’m not betraying you, Master, I’m just carrying out my orders. Still busy killing the six you sent me after…
The Veil’s cold was like a welcoming caress. She was always cold, but this whispering left her skin tingling-alive, as she’d not felt in many a year-and her mind suddenly empty of Manshoon and all else.
Targrael shuddered, as if in the highest throes of lovemaking.
Free at last.
The magic crashed into Manshoon’s mind-and his waiting wards. He felt a shrieking, clawing instant of swirling chaos, of magic clawing vainly at magic, that for a moment gave him the feeling of an icy tingling, then swirling, veil-like darkness, and loss…
Manshoon blinked reflexively, unharmed and with an unwavering smile on his face, in the wake of what was Lord Relgadrar Loroun’s most powerful magic.
The old noble was retreating from him with reluctant defeat all over his face, letting fall the hand that bore hissing streamers of smoke where an ornate ring had been.
“That was the defense you were trusting in?” Manshoon asked incredulously. “Dear, dear.”
And he struck. Plunging through a pitiful excuse for a ward and into Loroun’s undefended mind, making it his with ruthless speed.
It was a dark and twisted mind, a place that felt almost welcoming. As with Crownrood-whom Loroun detested as a rival but measured as at least enough of a man to have the wits to be a rival-Manshoon was now master of a lord who plotted treason with eager gusto and fell intentions.
As his hold over Loroun deepened, he watched a slight smile to match his own slowly spread across the noble’s face.
A sudden storm broke over Marsember with an ear-splitting crash, the sky splitting in bright lightning that stabbed past the highest windows of the king’s tower. Then the rain came, hammering against the double-thick panes loudly enough to drown out anything less than a shout.
All of which suited Targrael just fine. The guards came down the stair from the roof in a drenched and cursing rush, charging right past the spattered blood without seeing it in the dark, lightning-shot wetness as their boots, cloaks, and scabbards all shed streams of rainwater.
Targrael stood still and silent behind the door that was only just ajar, listening to them pound past. The heavy trap door slammed down behind the last of them, two miserable men who spat water out of their mustaches to trade friendly insults and fervent desires to get “down below, to the fires” and warm themselves.
The death knight wished them every comfort, so long as they kept well away from these upper rooms until she was done searching them. The bodies of the six she’d been sent to slay were heaped against a back wall in the concealing darkness of the Veil, and unless any betraying ribbons of blood ran out from them to alert more diligent Dragons, or someone came along with a lantern and saw that some of the seas of water now adorning the tower flagstones were dark red, nothing looked amiss.
“I care not!” a man’s gruff voice floated up to her as a door banged open several floors below. “A far worse storm than this one will hit Suzail if we don’t keep vigilant, Swordcaptain! I want-”
Another door banged, taking whatever the Dragon officer wanted well beyond the reach of her ears.
Targrael smiled, willed the storm to rage on all night, and set about searching the rooms of the uppermost level. What she was seeking was old, dark, heavy, and decidedly unflattering. A one-piece warrior’s helm of oiled metal that bore no device or ornamentation, except a whimsical little etching of a wizard’s tall hat above the eyeslit.
A night helm. Or perhaps the Night Helm.
The tales said the legendary meddling mage Elminster had only given one to the Highknights of Cormyr. Perhaps he’d made the thing himself, though she’d never heard of him doing smithy work.
A “last defense” for an Obarskyr heir on the run, he’d termed it. The thing cloaked the mind of its wearer from all magic, so he-or she-couldn’t be magically found or influenced by wizards of war or any
one else.
Vangerdahast had hated the very idea, of course, and had tried to confiscate the thing and outlaw its possession or acquisition-but Caladnei had held a different view, and he had instead advocated making many night helms, to be held in secret, guarded storage until need arose.
Targrael knew not if any such helms had been made, but palace lore insisted Elminster’s gift had not been destroyed nor had any curse cast on it, but rather had been hidden away somewhere “well out of Suzail.” In Marsember, most rumors suggested. At the top of the king’s tower in the damp and often rebellious port, one whisper specified.
Targrael very much hoped that particular whisperer had been right, and the helm was here, so it could hide her from Manshoon henceforth. And of paramount importance, hide her from his scrying spells before he came looking for her.
She flung open a door and started searching. The gods smiled upon her thrice in this; first, the king’s tower was old and massive, made of stonework that did not hide new construction well, and hadn’t been built with hideaways in the first place. Secondly, Cormyrean armories, magical ones in particular, were strongholds where items were carefully crated, shielded from each other by stone half walls or even full walls with stout doors, and everything was tidy. Lastly, as a Highknight, she knew how most Cormyrean seneschals and garrison commanders liked to arrange things-and that they did not like to face nasty trap spells or alarms when snatching up arms in an emergency. Such spells would be found lower in the tower, commanding the stair up to the top levels, not on the upper levels themselves.
Unless, of course, even more idiocy than she’d thought had crept into the minds of the upper ranks of Cormyr’s wizards, soldiers, and her fellow Highknights in the long years when she’d been resting in that tomb.
The Night Helm was nowhere to be found in the first chamber or the second, though she did acquire a useful trio of daggers in forearm and ankle sheaths-but it was the first thing to strike her eye in the third room.
She peered around swiftly for traps, alarms, or paralyzing-bite spider guardians, saw none-and picked up the helm.
Nothing happened.
With tense excitement, Targrael examined the helm carefully to make sure nothing was inside, like a blade set to snap across the wearer’s throat, or any sharp inner points coated with suspicious substances. None.
She hadn’t needed to breathe for over a century, but as she lifted the helm, she realized she was trying to hold her breath.
In sudden impatience, she hauled it down over her head, settled it in place, and peered out of its eyeslit at the room around her.
Nothing happened. Silence.
Utter silence, that is. The ever-so-faint, everpresent singing sound that had been in her head since Manshoon’s first trampling invasion was gone.
Gone.
She was free.
Truly free.
Unleashed and with the leash torn away, let loose to follow her own desires. To serve Cormyr properly once more.
Free to hunt Manshoon down. And do the same to Elminster the meddler and the incumbent fools of the court, the current courtiers and wizards of war-from the doorjacks on up, most of them were incompetent traitors and fools who endangered Cormyr by their very presence.
Yes, she was free to be herself again. No archwizard’s slave, but the guardian of Cormyr.
The guardian of Cormyr. Its sole true bannermaster. Her every thought and moment once more devoted to calculated deeds that would advance Cormyr to new greatness. Unmoved by sentiment and misplaced loyalties to traditions or the House of Obarskyr or anything else. She would be the clear-headed, dispassionate agent of the Forest Kingdom.
Unless, of course, she ran into that bitch Alusair again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LET IT BEGIN
It had been, Elminster decided, a very long day.
This young lass whose body he was riding was more fit and supple than he’d ever been, but right now she was footsore and weary.
Her legs groaned at every step; she’d long since reached the stumbling stage; and if her life suddenly depended on sprinting somewhere farther off than, say, yon tree… well, Amarune Whitewave’s life would come to an end right then.
He had a new appreciation for the views of upcountry Cormyreans who said the King’s Forest went on forever.
El knew better, having walked across it a time or two and magically whisked himself over it or translocated from end to end of it often. But, traversed this way, step after clambering step in the deep brush flanking the Way of the Dragon trade road, it certainly seemed endless.
The cozy, private Delcastle hunting lodge Arclath had promised them was still half a day’s trudge north, then a good walk west from the road along a grassy track straight into the deep heart of the forest. A walk that would happen on the morrow, being as night had fallen while they were tarrying in one of the roadside camping glades, debating whether or not they should push on to the next one.
“Clean jakes,” Storm reported crisply, in a tone that made it clear she’d decided they would stop there for the night.
Arclath gave her a sour look that swung around to include El. “So you’ve decided, have you?”
“Look ye, young lord,” Elminster replied, waving at the trees ahead. “Can ye see clearly, to avoid missteps? Or to always find room enough to swing thy blade in a good clear sweep, so as to slash a wolf off its feet and away from thy throat? Because I’ve been hacking at wolves in forests for far more than a thousand years longer than ye have-and I know I can’t, when nightgloom gets this deep.”
“Well, of course not now, in your dotage,” Arclath muttered, but bit off his next words with a sigh, shrugged, and spread his hands. “You’re right. We camp here.”
Storm chuckled. “Well, we can go on arguing about the life El and I lead-and our fell attempts to ensnare Rune in it-just as well here, around a fire, as we can stumbling on blindly through the forest in the dark.”
Arclath gave her a look.
All day long, as they had trudged along beside the road, they’d debated the ethics and merits of the life in service to Mystra that El and Storm had led for the better part of the last century. Arclath was obviously more interested in what they’d done than he cared to admit, but he held several reservations about his Amarune joining in that life, not to mention dragging him along with her.
“Couldn’t we just have stayed in Suzail to fight Windstag and his ilk barehanded?” he asked. “Or taken on those blueflame ghosts, with us naked and blindfolded? Wouldn’t that have been safer?”
Storm smiled. “Safety is most often a matter of how one feels, rather than true security. Ask your Amarune about Talane, and see if she feels so eager to return to Suzail.”
“I can’t ask her,” Arclath pointed out bitterly as they went to the glade’s little roofed stand of ready firewood to take what they needed for a small fire. “Not with old Leatherjaws in residence.”
From the far side of the clearing came Elminster’s dry chuckle, higher pitched than it should have been thanks to Amarune’s younger throat. “I may be ancient, lad, but there’s nothing at all wrong with this splendid young body’s hearing. Speaking of which, I should be returning it to her so the two of ye can kiss and cuddle and try to pretend ye’re alone.”
Arclath gave El a hard look, or tried to. He found it difficult to favor his beloved with a properly withering scornful glare, even when she was wearing the lopsided grin El liked to adorn her face with.
The noble gave up trying, sighed again, and went to his knees by the firepit to set down his wood for Storm to build the fire. Firetending was something Delcastles left to servants; he knew only enough about it to be certain you didn’t just pile the wood in a heap and try to get it going.
“I believe I’ll be more accepting of this,” he told the silver-haired lady, “when I know who-or what-Mystra really is. To me, she’s little more than a name from the past. The dead goddess who once ruled or corrupted all magic.”
Arclath nodded. “That, I freely grant.” He held out some of the smaller split logs to her. “Yet I hinted as much earlier as we walked, and instead we talked more about the current politics of Cormyr.”
Rune joined them, still speaking with Elminster’s voice. “Well, such concerns matter more to ye and to the lass, right now. Talk of gods-and ethics-can take lifetimes.”
She bent down and embraced Storm, breast to breast. Arclath watched, fascinated, as ashes suddenly flowed from Rune’s mouth, ears, and nose, flowing like purposeful lines of ants down Storm’s cheek and neck, to vanish into her bodice.
Then he looked away. It seemed somehow… obscene. “Done yet?”
“Well, El’s out of me,” Rune murmured in her own voice, reaching out for him, “if that’s what you mean. Is there anything to eat?”
Storm smiled. “Trust me. Where foresters make these camping spots, Harpers hide food nearby. And despite what you may have heard, there are still Harpers in the world.”
Arclath nodded skeptically. “Can you name me one, who’s here in Cormyr?”
“Certainly.” Storm gave him a wink. “Me.”
Under her hands, the fire flared up then, with an eager crackle. She fed it carefully, calmly moving a flaming twig to three different spots before letting it fall into the rising flames, then she rose to her feet.
“I’ll be right back. Or I can take some time returning, if you two would prefer.”
“If-? Oh.” To her surprise, Rune found herself blushing.
“Oh,” Arclath added, catching on more slowly. He gave Rune a swift glance and added, “Uh, no. Not this night. Not… out here, under the trees.”
Storm nodded and walked away, moving almost soundlessly into the deepening darkness where the clearing ended.
Arclath watched her go but was astonished at how quickly he lost sight of her amid the trees. He thought he saw movement, but… no, he could no longer be certain where she was.