by Ed Greenwood
He regained his feet and strode along the hall, hissing curses.
Only to stop, stunned anew. Reeling, he fell to his knees, clawing at his head this time and making the hargaunt chime in furious discordance.
It felt as if someone had just reached a fist into his head and torn something out. The mindworm link was simply-gone.
The Swords blinked again. They could see nothing inside Blackstaff Tower but impenetrable darkness, with a faintly glowing flagstone path running away into it.
Running a longer way, it seemed, than it should have been able to stretch, given the size of the tower… or at least, the size the tower had seemed on the outside.
Pennae held up her glowstone. Its faint radiance was strong enough to show her itself-just-but shone nothing on the gloom all around them.
They stood tense, a darker menace settling on the backs of their necks: a strong, constant feeling of being watched.
“Naed,” Pennae whispered. “Jhess, lead on.”
“Me?”
“ ’Twas your idea, lass, this marching right into the tower of the Blackstaff himself.”
“But-”
“ I’ll lead,” Florin said, stepping around them. “Keep your feet on the path, and don’t reach out into the dark.”
They watched him walk away from them. After only a few strides, he vanished, becoming part of the great darkness. All they could see of him were moving occlusions of the flagstones.
“Come,” Islif ordered the others, setting off after Florin. “Holy men, don’t go casting any spells.”
They all walked the path, and soon enough came to Florin, standing on a small cluster of glowing flagstones. In front of him, the path ended, and steps climbed on, each one floating alone in an apparent void.
Frowning, Pennae climbed the lowest step and cautiously reached out to either side-only to draw back her hands. “Cold, hard stone,” she murmured, “but I can’t see it.” She ran her hand over the hard nothingness to her right, seeing how far it extended-and then jerked her hand back with a hiss. Something small and unseen had bitten her, warningly.
“What is it?” Florin asked.
Pennae shook her head. “Just climb,” she said, “and keep your hands in close.”
They climbed.
The stair ended in darkness: a level, smooth stair stretching away they knew not how far. Cautiously Pennae advanced, tapping with her toes to make sure solid stone awaited her next step. “Keep still,” she snapped over her shoulder. “ Don’t go wandering.”
She took another two cautious steps-and suddenly, silently, without any fuss at all, vivid brightness sprang into being around her knees.
She was standing knee-deep in emerald green, dun brown, dark blue, and white-flecked gray: a glowing, incredibly lifelike map of Faerun floating in the room all around her. It seemed as if she were a striding colossus, standing at the heart of… the High Forest, with Waterdeep just here and Cormyr over there, Suzail a tiny glittering on its coast, and Arabel…
“Gods above us,” Florin murmured in wonder. All of the Swords were gawking at the splendor around them, walking with slow caution yet disturbing nothing with their movements.
“So, you are-?”
The voice was old, dry, calm, and male. It seemed to come from all around them.
They looked about uncertainly, still seeing only darkness where there should be walls and ceiling.
Florin cleared his throat. “I am Florin Falconhand, unseen sir, an-”
“I know who you are, all of you. I should have spoken more precisely; what have you become, you six? A destructive whirlwind that at least knows what it destroys, as it blunders across Faerun? Or-wonder of wonders-a wind of destruction that begins to care about what it shatters?”
The Swords of Eveningstar looked at each other.
The voice spoke again. “Perhaps that’s too much to hope, yet. Well, then: let me at least aim you, if you’re the sort of weapon biddable to being aimed. How would you like to be wealthy lordlets and ladies of a beautiful backwoods dale, with a castle to call your own?”
Pennae drew in a deep breath. Here’s where we get slain. “What’s the catch?”
There was a chuckle, and the map faded around them-light stealing into the room to replace it, showing them no walls nor ceiling, but a faint, featureless glow.
Standing in it was a stout, burly shouldered man, muscled and vigorous, whose robes were as black as the staff in his hand. His bristling brows and unruly hair were black, his close-cropped beard was black but with a white tuft down its center, and the face above his raven-dark mustache was craggy and stern.
“Blackstaff am I,” he said. “Welcome to Blackstaff Tower, Swords of Eveningstar. I’ve heard good things of you.”
“Really?” Islif asked, startled into speech. “Who the Nine Hells from?”
Khelben laughed-a dry, rusty sound, as if mirth seldom burst from this particular wizard. “Surprising sources,” was all he said, when his laughter ended.
Florin eyed him, waiting for him to say more.
Khelben merely met the forester’s gaze and smiled.
Silence fell and stretched.
And stretched.
Finally Semoor sighed and said, “So tell us more of this lordlets and ladies offer… and as Pennae asked, the downside to it. We know full well: there always is one.”
Khelben nodded-and there was suddenly a pendant floating in the air in front of Florin’s nose.
An oddly twisted thing, hanging from a chain that floated in the air as if around a phantom neck.
“Behold the Pendant of Ashaba.”
The Swords gazed at it in silence.
“The lordship of Shadowdale,” the Blackstaff added. “Yours, if you’ll take it. Meaningless, if you go not to Shadowdale, to the Twisted Tower of Ashaba that stands empty, and assert it. One of you can be Lord of Shadowdale-before the gods, one of the prettiest places I’ve ever laid eyes on, verdant farms walled in by a great greenwood, on the main trade road between the Moonsea and Cormyr. Your fortunes are made, if you but take it.”
His words ended, and silence returned.
“I mean no disrespect, great Blackstaff, but I’m still waiting to hear the catch,” Pennae said.
Khelben arched an imperious eyebrow. “Life,” he replied, “is the catch. Life unfolding has a way of tangling and tripping up the best schemes… the brightest dreams. The gods play with us all-and I am no god, to have any skill at such games. So expect many catches, but be the bold adventurers you’ve been thus far, and they will fall before you.”
The pendant glittered.
“Yon bauble,” the Blackstaff added, “bears only magics that preserve it from time. It does no ill to him who touches it. Florin, will you take it?”
Florin shook his head. “I am a ranger. I want to walk the forests and be free, not sit on a stone throne. I need to feel the wind, see dawns and dusks standing under an open sky. I’d be happy enough to ride hither and yon, bearing Shadowdale’s banner. Yet, Lord Wizard, my fellow Swords are all worthy folk. All of them would probably make good Lords of Shadowdale.”
“The throne holds only one backside at a time,” Khelben said dryly. “Choose among yourselves, then.” All around him, the light started to fade.
Hesitantly the Swords eyed each other then bent their heads together.
“He can slay us just like that, ” Pennae whispered. “I’m thinking taking this lordship is the only way we’ll leave this place alive.”
“Agreed,” Semoor hissed sourly. “So: who gets to be Lord High And Mighty?”
“Why not Islif?” Jhessail whispered. “Must it be a ‘Lord’?”
“No,” Islif said savagely, “I’ll not take it. I might make a good tyrant, but I’d be a bad lord-and I’d hate myself so fiercely as to welcome death, even as I lorded it. I will not do this.”
“Pennae?” Jhessail asked.
The thief grinned. “I’m too restless, and much too corrupt.” She poke
d Doust in the chest. “How about you? Feeling lucky?”
Doust groaned, and Florin nodded. “The best lord is a reluctant lord.”
“Yes,” Pennae agreed. “Well?”
“He’s got my vote,” Semoor said.
“And mine,” Jhessail added.
“Hold,” Islif said. “Doust, how do you feel?”
The novice of Tymora shook his head, sighed, and said, “Well, if none of you want it, I’ll do it, but don’t blame me if-”
“We won’t,” Islif said, whirling him around by the shoulders and calling, “Lord Arunsun? We have our lord.”
She shoved Doust a few unwilling steps forward.
The Lord Mage of Waterdeep looked amused. “Eager?”
Doust sighed. “Lord, I am-we are all-less than easy about this. We hold a charter from Cormyr, and some promises yet unfulfilled. We are nothing better than outlaws if we break our word.”
Then he flinched, startled, as the pendant vanished from where it floated in the air-and reappeared, solid and heavy, in his hands.
The Blackstaff smiled. “I begin to think you are that wonder of wonders. Your coming was not unexpected-though you found your own way here and were not herded; I daresay Arabel is being turned upside down for traces of you right now. How’s young Amanthan getting on, anyhail? He was one of my more promising app-but let us speak of him later; suffice it to say that your arrival was anticipated. Wherefore, as Alaise delayed you on my steps, I did what was needful. Step through yon door.”
An archway silently appeared, outlined in soft radiance, beyond Khelben.
Hesitantly, the Swords went to it. The room behind them went dark, Khelben vanishing with it, even as the one ahead began to brighten.
By the kindling light that came from no source they could see, the Swords beheld a throne with a regal-looking crowned woman sitting on it, and a half-moon table beside it where a wise-looking man sat, writing furiously.
He looked up, set down his quill, and stood. “Kneel before your queen. Adventurers, behold Queen Filfaeril of Cormyr.”
The Swords gaped at the smiling woman on the throne, and then hastily went to their knees.
Filfaeril waved her hand. “Rise, and be at ease,” she said. “Enough of that nonsense, Alaphondar. Swords of Eveningstar, I propose a trade. I need a task performed, and in return I believe I can amend your charter. Cormyr would dearly like to have friends we can trust in Shadowdale, as a bright light on the road that brings so much Moonsea metal and coin to us, and sends our food and horseflesh thither. So turn thy back and open thy codpiece, Florin; the charter is needed.”
Smiling at their startled looks, the queen said serenely, “Cormyr has many watchful eyes. Some of them make me quite confident the knighthoods I am now going to bestow are fully deserved. Florin, for example, made such fine work of the Lady Narantha that several scores of nobleborn mothers desire to send her daughters to him, forthwith.”
“My, my,” Islif murmured at the ceiling, “won’t that prove diverting?”
In a room whose midair glowed with a life-sized, moving duplicate of the room where Filfaeril was now busily granting knighthoods, Dove Silverhand threw back her head and laughed aloud. “Ah, Islif,” she murmured, “we might be sisters!”
Then she lost her mirth and murmured, “Not that I’d ever wish such a doom upon you.”
Alaphondar had been busy writing the proclamations, it seemed-for he now spread them out on the table before the dumbfounded Swords.
“Knighthoods always come with a grant of lands,” Queen Filfaeril added, “or a keep, or coins-gems, actually; ’tis hard to carry twenty thousand lions in one’s hands-in lieu. Alaphondar, pay them.”
The sage hesitated. “Your Majesty, one heraldic necessity must be seen to, first.”
“Well?”
“They must be named knights of somewhere.”
“Well, of Shadowdale, man!”
“Nay, good Queen, it must be the name of their granted lands in Cormyr-or, failing that, a legendary place.”
“A legendary place?”
“Aye, such as ‘of the Forest Eternal,’ or ‘of the Castle Unseen.’ A place not of mere invention, but one known to heralds and loremasters, that’s either lost or ruined.”
“Well, pick one!”
“Nay, Highness — they must choose one.”
Filfaeril shrugged and turned to the Swords, spreading her hands in an unspoken question.
The adventurers stared at her and then at each other.
“Uh…” Doust began, then ran out of words and fell silent. Pennae shrugged, and Florin and Islif stared at each other blankly.
High in the tallest tower of his mansion in Arabel, the wizard Amanthan smiled over a tiny crystal ball that held the room in Blackstaff Tower in its glowing depths, and cast a quick, deft spell.
A bell tolled warningly in Blackstaff Tower, the light in the room shivering in its booming echoes.
Khelben appeared behind Filfaeril’s throne, eyes narrowed above a deepening frown… and something made Jhessail and Florin say together, “Let us be Knights of… Myth Drannor.”
“Ah,” Alaphondar said in satisfaction, dipping his quill in the floral-shaped metal inkwell before him. “Perfect.”
The Blackstaff regarded the Swords thoughtfully as Filfaeril fished something on a fine chain out of her cleavage: a signet. Rocking it in an oval ink-dish Alaphondar held out to her, she applied it to all six parchments in turn, scribbled her signature in an oval around each signet-mark, and announced, “Done. The gems, Alaphondar.”
The sage trailing behind her, the queen walked to the Swords, drew her dainty belt dagger, nicked each of them, leaving the tiniest of pricks on the backs of their hands, and said, “I dub thee all Knights of Myth Drannor. And now the task.”
The newly made Knights held their breath, expecting the worst.
Filfaeril smiled.
“After being torn so precipitously from my husband’s side, I’d prefer to return to Suzail with rather more dignity-with, in fact, a knightly escort. There’s a royal remount stables on the Way of the Dragon nigh Zundle, and an easy ride home from there. If you’re agreeable, my knights?”
Florin swallowed, seeking words, but Islif’s tongue was swifter. “Command us, Highness.”
As Alaphondar scrambled to pack his things, Filfaeril turned to Khelben. “Blackstaff?”
“Of course,” Khelben replied. “I know the place.” He raised one hand idly-and the Knights of Myth Drannor, the sage Alaphondar, and Queen Filfaeril of Cormyr were suddenly standing in strong-smelling straw, blinking at each other.
“I’ll never get used to that,” Filfaeril sighed. Then she gave the dazed adventurers a little girl’s grin. “Knights, choose your mounts!”
A handful of hairs flared up in sudden flame. Horaundoon looked at them in satisfaction.
His spell had worked. Florin’s hairs, torn from him on that moonlit night above Starwater Gorge by Narantha Crownsilver’s ardent hands, were now giving this particular cunning Zhentarim a way to reach Florin once more.
So the ranger was outside the wards of Blackstaff Tower, and in… Cormyr?
“Azuth mount Mystra,” the Zhentarim cursed disbelievingly. Was the Blackstaff with the forester?
Horaundoon cast a spell over the bowl of water, watched it ripple violently then smooth out-and found himself gazing down at a stables, with three-no, all six surviving Swords leading forth horses… splendid beasts… and two others: a courtier and Queen Filfaeril.
“Mystra return the favor,” he swore in astonishment.
And then clapped his hands, raced across the room for what he’d need, and set to work. Victory comes never to the mage who casts not.
Swinging his fire-tongs with all his strength, Amanthan shattered the crystal ball into a thousand shards. Just to be safe.
In life, Old Ghost had been a mage few could match, but the Blackstaff was one of Mystra’s Chosen.
Poor doomed bastard.<
br />
Eyes glowing eerily with Old Ghost’s riding presence, the young mage hurried into the next room, to fetch another crystal ball. ’Twas time to scry Horaundoon-before that Zhent fool got up to any more mischief.
“There!” Horaundoon beamed triumphantly, stepping back from the flying snake. It was frozen in spell-stasis, wings spread and head thrust forward, its body a graceful curve. He’d just placed the last of the eight mindworms around its snout. Six Swords were grand quarry, but a senior courtier of Cormyr now… and its queen!
He snorted in sheer glee, and worked the teleport that would snatch his serpent to the air just behind Florin Falconhand’s head, whence it could easily swoop and strike.
Amanthan was feverishly working a spell of his own, glancing up betimes at one of the two crystal balls flanking him-the one scrying Horaundoon.
Done. Whew. The hairs he’d plucked from the vial that had appeared in front of him melted away, and the mage sat back in satisfaction.
Old Ghost would prevail. As always.
He waved the second crystal into life and looked from the first-Horaundoon-to the second: the newly minted Knights of Myth Drannor, riding along a road with the royal sage and the Dragon Queen of Cormyr in their midst.
To echo Horaundoon, this was shaping up into a superb show.
Radiance blossomed silently in the air behind the knights’ heads, hidden from view in the lee of tree-boughs the knights had just ridden under. Out of that swift-fading light glided a flying snake. A single wingbeat took it over the boughs and into a long glide, its mouth opening, toward the back of Florin’s neck.
Mindworms wriggled down the snake’s pointed head to cluster between its fangs, dark and glistening…
Dove sat bolt upright in sudden alarm, eyes widening. “No!” she cried, silver fire kindling in her eyes as she clenched trembling fists. “Not Florin!”
The Weave howled with the frantic fury of her reaching.
Though he was too far.
And she was too late.
The snake struck, Florin grunting and stiffening-but no fangs sank into his neck, for at their touch the serpent vanished in a sudden burst of spell-light.
Horaundoon hadn’t even time to blink as serpent jaws gaped, right in front of his face.