Laspeera nodded—and then three wizard’s heads turned as one, as they all watched something black and slimy gush from Florin Falconhand’s nose, lift from the cot like a wet and unwilling bat, and sail through the air to land with a splat in the brazier in front of Laspeera. She lifted both of her hands in command. The brazier’s flames roared up obediently, and the black thing sizzled.
Suddenly it popped, sending Laspeera reeling back—but Margaster was ready. Something streaked from his pointing finger, consuming the black fragments in a tiny, raging sphere of flames that drew the fire of the brazier up into it, extinguishing the blaze, but reducing the blackness to nothing at all.
“That’s the last of his mindworms,” Vangerdahast said. “We’re almost done.”
All three of them turned rather reluctantly to look across the room at another cot. It held all that was left of Narantha Crownsilver, a bloody heap surrounded by more spell-glows. From the waist up, she was nothing but wet, amorphous gore.
“So ends that fair flower of the Crownsilvers,” Vangey muttered. “She’s riddled with them, and must be burned, I’m afraid. Lasp?”
Laspeera nodded grimly, and cast a careful spell that enshrouded the cot with magic that ignited—and, spiraling slowly, drank—all within it. Narantha’s funeral pyre rose into softly reaching flames and smoke that became part of the rising shroud, twisted into it, and then dwindled.
The three wizards watched until nothing was left but ashes on the stone floor. Vangerdahast cast a spell of his own on them, sighed, and announced, “This threat to the realm is ended.”
He strode briskly to the door. “Now for the next one!”
Master Understeward-of-Chambers Halighon Amranthur strode grandly to the double doors and flung them wide, seven liveried doorjacks at his heels. “Now we must make haste,” he commanded, “because the Knights will be here in less than a bell, and all must be—”
He stopped, blinked at the four people sprawled quietly in the most comfortable lounges at the northeastern corner of the room, and snapped, “And who are you? How did you get in here?”
The woman who looked like a burly, almost mannish farm lass looked up at him and said calmly, “Islif Lurelake. At your service, courtier.”
“Courtier? Courtier?” Halighon almost spat the word, voice rising into full and scandalized incredulity, his shoulders prickling with the (quite correct) realization that the doorjacks were undoubtedly exchanging delighted grins behind his back. “Wench, I am no mere courtier, let me assure you! I am—hold!” His voice sank down into the deep, hissing whisper of real shock. “Are those weapons upon your persons? Here, in the Royal Wing?”
A smaller, darker woman in form-fitting leathers put her feet up on the best cushions and drawled, “Yes, sirrah, your eyesight fails you not. And such swift, keen wits you have, too! These are indeed weapons upon our persons. Here, in the Royal Wing.”
As the understeward stared at her in shock, mouth gaping and face pale, she inspected her nails idly and told them, “Oh, yes; Halighon, be aware that I am best known as Pennae. And whereas Islif politely places herself at your service, I expect you to service me.”
In the silence that followed that serene observation, a doorjack snickered—and Understeward Halighon lost his last desperate hold on his temper, stormed to a bellpull beside the door, and tugged it so savagely that the cord tore and was left hanging by a few threads. “This—this is scandalous!” he snarled.
“When the Purple Dragons storm in here,” Pennae murmured imperturbably, “be sure to introduce us properly. This personage of dainty carriage is Jhessail Silvertree, and this handsome but quiet priest of Tymora is Doust Sulwood. Two of our companions are absent, but should join us shortly: Semoor Wolftooth, a holy man of Lathander, and Florin Falconhand, who’s—”
A paneled section of wall burst open and a dozen bright-armored men streamed through the revealed opening into the room, swords drawn. They peered alertly in all directions, eyes stern and faces grim.
“Who sounded the danger-gong?” the foremost snapped, from behind a formidable mustache. “Where’s the peril?”
Pennae pointed languidly. “Behold the sounder of the gong and the only peril we face in this chamber, all in one man: Understeward—ah! Pray forgive me—Master Understeward-of-Chambers Halighon Amranthur.”
“I—ah—that is to say …” Halighon faltered, as the Purple Dragons strode nearer, giving him hard looks.
Then he gathered himself visibly, reddening in the process, and glared at Pennae. “How is it you know my name? And who are you—all of you, your two absent friends included? Just how did you get in here?”
Pennae smiled. “Answer the first: Fee—ah, pray pardon, Queen Filfaeril to you—told me. Answer the second: we are the Knights of Myth Drannor, royally chartered adventurers. Answer the third: Vangey—ah, forgive me again, I am unused to court protocol—Royal Magician Vangerdahast brought us here through that same secret door the loyal Purple Dragons have just employed, and bade us remain here until he brought Florin to us. Florin is meeting privately with Vangey, Laspeera, and Margaster elsewhere in this quaint pile. War wizard business, I’m given to understand.”
Master Understeward-of-Chambers Halighon Amranthur had slowly gone a dirty yellow hue, as of old bone, and was now trying to manage a hue as white as fresh linen.
The Purple Dragons gave him contemptuous glances, sheathed their swords pointedly, and exchanged rolled eyes with some of the doorjacks. At a curt nod from the Purple Dragon commander, the doorjacks departed the room.
That commander dispensed another pointed look that sent his own men filing back through the no-longer-so-secret door, and ere following them, turned to favor Halighon with a cold glare.
After the door closed softly behind them all, leaving the understeward alone with the Knights, Halighon regarded the four folk on the lounges with open loathing.
“Adventurers,” he hissed. “I hate adventurers.”
“I quite agree,” said an all-too-familiar voice from right behind him, sending the courtier up into the air with a little shriek of startlement. “However, it’s not politic to say so, out loud, when we can perhaps still get them to do something useful for us. Lesser Understeward Amranthur.”
Halighon Amranthur tried to sink right through the rich furs underfoot, but as they lay upon a solid stone floor and yielded not a fingerbreadth, he settled for toppling into a senseless heap.
Court Wizard of the Realm and Royal Magician of Cormyr Vangerdahast sighed, stepped over the unconscious courtier, and regarded the grinning Knights with what some might have described as a “jaundiced eye.”
“Can’t you lot keep out of trouble for less than a bell? Do you know how much it costs to train good servants?”
“Ah,” Pennae replied serenely, pointing at the huddled heap on the floor. “That must be why you haven’t gotten around to training him.”
Behind Vangerdahast, one of the two grandly sinister war wizards who’d accompanied him into the room snorted with mirth.
Vangerdahast sighed again. Patiently.
“Your Florin will live,” he growled, “and his wits are his own. More than that, he seems to have as many as most folk need in life. Which is better than I can say for some of you.” He turned his head slowly, to give all four Knights a warning glare.
“You may enjoy royal favor, and a proper charter, but let me remind you that you do not command any license to thieve freely through every grand house and noble mansion in Suzail or Arabel or anywhere else in the realm. Nor is making foes of loyal servants of the Crown a wise road on through life, no matter how tiresome they may seem to you. Cormyr presents the appearance of a tolerant land, but believe you me, Cormyr has a way of dealing with irritants.”
“The war wizards and their master with his oh-so-subtle-threats?” Pennae asked archly. “Or were you speaking of some other way?”
The Royal Magician of Cormyr regarded her expressionlessly for a long moment, and then said
flatly, “I managed to save Florin Falconhand. I could not save the Lady Narantha. Her father will not forgive that. And before you feel moved to shrug that away with more insolence, I bid you—all of you—remember three names: Martess Ilmra, Agannor Wildsilver, and Bey Freemantle. Three who are too dead to be Knights of Myth Drannor any longer.”
He turned away.
“Lord Vangerdahast?” Islif asked quietly, from behind him, rising from the lounges. “May we thank you for our Florin’s life?”
“You may.”
“Thank you,” Jhessail said fervently, standing up in turn.
“Aye, thanks,” Pennae added quickly, still lounging with her boots up. “Do all his bits still work?”
Making sure they could not see his smile, Vangerdahast sighed again. Loudly.
The boom of distant double doors being violently flung open brought the two casually lounging Highknights into stiff, impassive alertness. An instant was all they needed to assume formal stances, halberds crossed in front of the door into the royal study.
In the distance, a fast-striding figure turned a corner and began the long walk toward them, cloak swirling. It did not slow as it approached, but merely snarled, “Get out of the way!”
Lord Maniol Crownsilver was already in a towering rage. As the halberds moved not a fingerwidth, his eyes widened, his face reddened, and his lips drew back in a snarl ere he burst out, “Underlings, move! I demand audience with the king! As is the right of every noble-born Cormyrean!”
The Highknights might have been two statues, if statues could regard sputtering nobles with coldly withering contempt.
“Obey, gods curse you!” Crownsilver roared. “How low has this fair land come, when insolence rules its very Palace drudges?”
Silence was the only reply they gave him, even when his howlings rose into curses commenting personally and quite specifically upon their ancestry, social habits, and thankfully armor-hidden physical attributes. They stood like statues when Crownsilver clawed at the hilt of his ornate court sword and then drew it on them.
“Must I hew you like tree trunks?” the lord ranted, swinging hard—and striking the metal-clad haft of a halberd with a ringing clang that numbed his arm right up to the shoulder, but moved the halberd not a whit, that he could see. “A little obedience is all I expect!”
He swung again as he spat, “And is that too much to expect, in the Cormyr of here and now?”
Another ringing clang and another, the halberds moving smoothly to catch and deflect his strongest blows.
Panting, the noble used his favorite trick: thrusting at one expressionless face and then swooping his blade down viciously at the flaring top edge of that guard’s codpiece—only to have the other guard do something blurringly fast with his own sword, that sent Crownsilver’s halberd back over his head to clang off the passage ceiling and clatter somewhere behind him.
Lord Crownsilver stared at the two guards in speechless disbelief. He’d been disarmed with casual ease, and lo, they were back in their statuelike poses again as if he weren’t there at all!
He whirled away, seething, and spat out the worst insults he could think of, one after another, as he clawed at the floor with numbed fingers for his blade.
Recovering it, he spun around in case one of the guards was considering his backside a suitable target for a kick, snarling, “And your stone-faced insolence betrays a lawlessness that bodes the realm ill, in its brazen disregard for rightful rank! You may think yourselves clever, you lowborn pizzle-heads, but no statue of a sentinel is revered by pigeons, and I’ve half a mind to down my breeches and serve the both of you the same—”
Which was when he noticed that the study door behind the two impassive guards had quietly opened, and the King of All Cormyr was standing in the doorway not quite succeeding in keeping a smile off his face, as he silently beckoned his visitor in.
And Maniol Crownsilver suddenly ran out of words to say.
“Fool! You bear the wasting curse that now afflicts all of you Knights of Myth Drannor! You shall all soon be as I am, if you tarry west of the Thunder Peaks! Doom reaches for you, Semoor Wolftooth! Doom!” intoned the mage, ending his spell with a flourish that made the unicorn-headed ring on his fingers flash in the lamplight.
In his mind, he watched the skeletal wench melt to nothing in the distant—and astonished—Semoor Wolftooth’s arms. The Knight’s fearful flight, an instant later, made him chuckle.
“Alluring flesh to bones to terrifying nothing! A night or two more of this,” the War Wizard Ghoruld Applethorn told himself gleefully, “and they’ll bolt for the swiftest road out of the realm no matter what Vangey threatens them with! Hah!”
He strode to the door, and began making the complicated passes and murmurings that would part ward after ward—the same wards that kept Vangerdahast himself from spying on what Applethorn or anyone else did in this secret chamber.
Only Vangerdahast was supposed to know of this room—but the Royal Magician was so busy, and had so many secret chambers all over the realm, and so many distractions to keep him from noticing from when someone who knew how slipped into one and used it for a breath or two.
“Yes,” Applethorn gloated. “Let them off to the Dales to dance at the Blackstaff’s bidding among the hayheads and hairy lasses, out of my way but handy if I need them to wear blame.” He chuckled. “Hah! Talking to myself again! Ah, well, as long as I don’t fall to arguing with myself. Or worse yet, losing those arguments!”
He snorted mirthfully at that thought, parted the last ward, opened the now-unlocked door, and hurried off. Vangey so hated to be kept waiting.
Mortification had left Maniol dumbstruck, but his still-flaming rage and the king’s kindly manner gave him a boldness that would have surprised him if he hadn’t been so angry.
“Azoun—Majesty—don’t make me plead!” he snarled. “I must have the throats of these villainous Knights of Myth Drannor! Here, in these hands, I must have them!”
He shook his hands, like two upturned claws, under the nose of the seated king. “My wife they’ve taken from me, and now my daughter!” Then he whirled away, pacing down the room to cry, “I demand justice! Give them to me, for me to butcher fittingly while all the realm watches. All will see what it means to dare to slay a Crownsilver!”
“No, Maniol,” the king said, and his voice was stern. “They did not take your wife from you. Nor your daughter. Foul magic did that; foul magic your wife nurtured and was part of! She forged the doom that slew her, and it infected your daughter. More than that, it infected the some of Knights, and those who have not followed your Narantha into the arms of the gods may well soon!”
Crownsilver stared at him, mouth working, a dreadful hope openly warring with grief and disappointment on his face.
“Demand not justice too loudly,” Azoun told him, trying not to let any trace of the disgust he felt at Crownsilver’s reaction show in his face or voice. “For when you loose it, who knows whom it’ll strike down?”
The noble took a few unsteady steps nearer, whimpering.
“Fear not,” Azoun said. “The Wizards of War are at work on the Knights right now. Any who may yet live when our mages are done with them will no longer be welcome in Cormyr.”
Lord Crownsilver stared at his king with widening eyes—and then burst into sudden tears, staggering forward almost blindly. Azoun rose from the chair swiftly enough to embrace and comfort him, crouching to enfold the shorter man to his chest.
Maniol Crownsilver buried his nose in a royal armpit and cried like a baby.
Chapter 2
A HASTY DEPARTURE
I daresay there’s not an adventurer alive
West of the Plains of Purple Dust
And north of the hot southern seas
Who hasn’t had to make a hasty departure or two.
Those who tell you differently are lying
Or undead, and talking from beyond the grave
Because they left off leaving until
it was too late.
When’s that? Well, when her father thrusts her
Bedchamber door open, and bare and hasty as you are,
You discover you can’t fit through the window.
Tamper Tencoin
A Life’s Cargo of Mistakes
published circa the Year of the Bloodbird
Knights,” the old steward Orthund said gravely, “pray enter, and fall on your knees before Her Most Gracious Highness, Filfaeril Obarskyr, Queen of Cormyr!”
He stood aside from the door he’d just opened, revealing a familiar regal figure standing in flowing robes in the center of the room beyond.
Florin felt as weak and pale as he looked. He lurched through the doorway a little unsteadily. Islif moved like lightning to take his arm and lower him gracefully to his knees, descending with him.
Behind them, Jhessail and Pennae entered and knelt too, leaving Doust and Semoor to bring up the rear and going down on one knee only, as all priests did.
“Rise,” Queen Filfaeril said, “and take your ease. Orthund, leave us and pull the doors to. We are not to be disturbed by any less a personage than the king himself.”
Obediently, the Knights rose. The steward deftly drew the doors together behind them. The room, somewhere deep in the royal apartments, was richly paneled and carpeted, but sparsely furnished: it held only a chair and two polished, magnificently carved doors, both closed. The Dragon Queen occupied the chair, flanked by two robed men the Knights had come to know rather well over the last few days: the Royal Sage Alaphondar, and the eldest-looking war wizard they’d yet seen, a quiet, fatherly man called Margaster.
“All talk in Cormyr echoes most loudly here in Suzail, and tongues wag nowhere more energetically than in the passages and antechambers of the Royal Court,” Queen Filfaeril said gently. “Wherefore, my Knights, you cannot be unaware of the rising mood in the realm.”
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