by Ed Greenwood
Gulkanun raised an eyebrow. “While we—?”
“While we search every other nook and cranny of this fortress for intruders.”
Farland coughed. “There are two persons in a cell, right now. They were outside the walls after the south tower fell. Asked for shelter from a dragon, gave their names as Harbrand and Hawkspike, and say they’re Crown-licensed investigators-for-hire. ‘Danger for Hire,’ they call themselves. Never seen two such clumsy law-sly rogues in my life.”
Lucksar smiled. “Take me to them, before we do any of the rest. I should be able to get them to tell us more than they’ve shared with you thus far.”
Gulkanun looked stern. “By enspelling them?”
“That wasn’t my intention, no.”
Arclath turned to the lord constable. “Let’s be about it. I’d welcome some answers—before the next blast.”
Farland winced, nodded, waved for everyone to follow him, and strode off down the passage.
“Well, someone connected to the palace is organizing treason among the nobles—and I’m getting more and more suspicious of Chancellor Crownrood.”
“We’re all suspicious of this courtier and that noble, Rymel. D’you have any evidence? Something that can be waved in his face, not ‘you were seen with Lord Stumblebones, and the next day Stumblebones got drunk and yelled that the Dragon Throne should be hurled down’ stuff. If that were all it took to get traitors into cells, half the court and all the nobles of the realm would be in the dungeons, right now!”
“No,” Rymel said heavily, “I don’t have anything I can openly challenge Crownrood with. Yet. But I think I know how—urrAAAghh!”
“Rymel? Rymel?”
The younger war wizard’s voice was high and shrill with fear. Vranstable had heard a man sob like that once before, after being stabbed. It had been the last sound that man had ever made.
So he got his wand out and ready before he peered cautiously around the corner.
“Rymel?”
Another wand—Rymel’s wand—was thrust into Vranstable’s mouth, choking him.
His own dying sob sounded even worse.
Manshoon shook his head as the second body slumped. “Killing these fools isn’t exactly difficult,” he murmured aloud. He wiped the wand clean on his second victim’s robes and retrieved the other wand from Vranstable’s hand. “Why, I’m doing Cormyr a favor, weeding out such weaklings.”
Elminster smiled. Aye, she knew these two.
“Well met, Drounan Harbrand. Or do you prefer ‘Doombringer’?”
The man she’d greeted gaped at her, then shut his mouth hastily without saying anything.
The drow hadn’t waited for a reply; she had already strolled over to the other man. “And you, Andarphisk Hawkspike—how are you keeping? Or should I call you ‘Fists’?”
The five Crown folk standing behind the dark elf watched the two men in black go pale.
“H-how do you know us?” Harbrand asked, finding his voice. “We’ve never met.”
The drow walked back to him, advancing until they were face to face, and gave him a knowing smile. “Oh? I know all about you, Drounan. Shall I share it with everyone? Even the things you might not want Fists here to learn?”
Harbrand swallowed. Hawkspike had turned to glare at him, but the drow stepped between them, and advanced leisurely on the scarred brawler.
“And you, Fists,” she purred, “are you ready for your partner to hear about … Sulblade?”
Hawkspike fell back, gaping at her. Behind the smiling dark elf, Harbrand was frowning. “What about Sulblade?”
Hawkspike shook his head frantically. “Don’t believe her, Droun! Whatever she says, don’t believe her!”
Oh, El, you are evil, Symrustar purred merrily, inside Elminster’s head.
The commander of High Horn quelled a sigh and gave the visiting wizard of war a sour look.
“No, nothing since Darlhoun’s murder,” he said shortly. “We’re not missing any more Crown mages. If you’d like to search for one, I hear Rorskryn Mreldrake’s still missing. Or have you found him yet?”
It was the war wizard’s turn to sigh. “Lord Sunter,” he said patiently, “I’m aware you hold little love for wizards. Yet there’s no need for anger on your part. We are on the same side, you know. We revere and guard the Dragon Throne, too.”
Erevon Sunter ran a hand down the old sword scar that gave his chin its twisted look, and he nodded abruptly. “I know. I’m just … unsettled. Fed up. Half the nobles in the land talking treason, darker rumors every day, monsters we’ve not seen in sixty summers suddenly everywhere, pouncing on my patrols …”
He looked up, fixed the war wizard with tired eyes, and growled, “Why don’t you tell me the truth, for once? What has brought you here, to stand and ask me your coy questions? Tell me. Something’s happened, that much is plain. Well, what?”
The Crown mage was young. He hesitated, then took a step closer and said in a swift, quiet voice, as if he suspected there were spies hiding in every corner of the commander’s office, despite it being at the top of the main keep tower, “Lord, wild magic has been seen in the skies by night, in many upland corners of the realm, these last few nights. Blue flames, great wild conflagrations in the skies, sometimes with a lone, flying human outlined at their heart.”
Lord Sunter studied him. “And you don’t know what to make of it, you mages, and you’re scared,” he said slowly. “Well, now you have company in that.” He got up, went to his suit of armor on its rack in the corner, lifted the visor of his war helm, and took out a decanter.
“Flagons yonder,” he said briefly. “Sit down, drink up, and we’ll talk. I want to hear the truth about these rumors of Vangerdahast coming back from the grave as some sort of spider thing.” He chuckled as he sat down again, and unstoppered the decanter to pour. “Probably pure fool-tongue wildness, being as they’re talking about that old goat Elminster striding around the royal palace, too, but …”
As he saw the expression on the young wizard’s face, his words faltered. “Oh, tluin. Hrast and tluin and all gods damn.”
“That about covers it, yes,” the war wizard whispered, holding out both flagons to be filled.
Arclath, Rune, Farland, and the two war wizards watched with interest. With a few drawled words Lucksar had terrified the rogues.
Rune could read their faces like two glaringly headlined broadsheets. The two men in black were suddenly facing a beautiful, menacing female drow they’d never seen before, who obviously knew all about them and could tell it to war wizards and a lord constable, in a cell full of chains and manacles in the heart of a Cormyrean prison they were already locked into …
“If—if you promise to swear by Lolth to say nothing at all about our pasts,” Harbrand stammered, “we’ll … we’ll answer any questions about why we’re here.”
“I swear by the deadly kiss of Lolth,” the drow replied. “Talk.”
“I—we—uh—”
“You came here to get inside Irlingstar, didn’t you?” the lord constable asked sternly. They nodded, and he asked, “To do what?”
“Fulfill our commission.”
“We gathered you were hired by someone,” Gulkanun said sarcastically. “To do what?”
“Get someone safely out of Irlingstar, then out of the realm.”
“Into Sembia. Who?”
“Uh, ah …”
“Look at the shorter one!” Rune snapped suddenly.
An odd expression had appeared on Hawkspike’s face. It had gone from anger, in place of its customary surliness, to apprehensive, to queasily uncomfortable. They watched that discomfort grow, and be joined by astonishment.
“What’s happening?” Farland barked. “Is someone using magic on you?”
Hawkspike suddenly tore open his codpiece, snatched out something small and metallic—that was starting to glow—and flung it as hard as he could, high over everyone’s shoulders, through the doorway and out of the room.<
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They heard it clatter on the flagstones and slide.
“What was that?” Farland roared, rushing to pinion Hawkspike’s arms. “Sirrah, if you’ve—”
From the passage outside there came a sudden roar. A roar that burst back into the room like a hurtling dragon, filling it with force and fire.
Royal Magician Ganrahast suddenly clutched his head, shrieked, and crashed down face-first onto the table, thudding against its polished top senseless and staring, blood streaming from his eyes and nose.
“Here we go again,” Glathra snapped, rushing to his aid. Vangey had already scuttled along the table to the stricken Royal Magician. Vainrence and Storm crowded around Ganrahast, too.
“Don’t touch him!” Glathra warned the silver-haired Harper, but she was ignored. Storm stared at her own finger, used that stare to make blood well up out of it somehow, and thrust that bloodied finger up Ganrahast’s bleeding nose.
After a moment, she reported calmly, “He was working with the mindlink. Something struck at him through it.”
“Well, lady?” Vangerdahast demanded gruffly, dancing impatiently on his spider legs. “Can you heal him?”
“I’m healing him right now,” Storm replied, “but Vainrence, if you can fetch in some real healers—priests, Wizard of War Sanneth …”
Without a word the lord warder bowed his head and hurried out.
“What are you doing to him, exactly?” Glathra asked, sounding more apprehensive than suspicious.
“Holding his mind. Like something frozen in ice, I’m keeping it as it is right now, so it can’t get any worse. Shielding the rest of it against the damage.”
“I didn’t know you could …” Glathra let her words trail off, not knowing what to say next.
Storm gave her a gentle smile. “We should get to know each other better, Lady Glathra. If you knew more about me, you might just begin to trust me.”
“Might,” Glathra echoed, managing a wan smile.
“Then,” Storm added dryly, “we could even start to work on liking each other.”
Glathra winced. “I deserved that,” she whispered. Vangerdahast walked away down the table, carefully not looking in her direction or saying a word. Storm merely smiled.
Then many priests and war wizards were crowding into the room, Vainrence with them.
“Sanneth,” Storm said as firmly as any king, “cast your spell—you know the one—and link to me. Holy ones, please heal this man, as gently as your prayers can. Sanneth and I will guide what the gods give you.”
She was obeyed without query or hesitation, but it seemed a long, tensely silent time before Ganrahast groaned, his arms jerking around for a few moments. Then he tried to sit up, closing his staring eyes so he could start blinking wildly.
“Ganrahast?” Glathra asked. “Royal Magician?”
One of the priests wiped away the blood. Ganrahast sniffled, shook his head, groaned again, then gasped, “Y-yes, it’s me. I’m … back.”
He looked at Storm, and Sannath beside her, and added fervently, “Thank you.”
Both the Harper and the war wizard merely nodded gravely. Without a word Sannath stood up and quietly ushered the priests out of the room.
“Well?” Vangerdahast rasped the moment Vainrence had closed the door on them. “What by all Nine of the Hells happened?”
Ganrahast smiled wanly. “I, ah, felt the scrutiny or at least the reaching out to me of a team ring. Its wearer was seeking me. I in turn reached out to the mind wearing it—a mind I don’t think I know, which suggests that the ring wasn’t being worn by anyone who’s supposed to have one. Yet I can’t be certain of that; I didn’t have long enough to, to …”
“Taste that mind, and identify it,” Storm murmured helpfully, earning herself a surprised look from Glathra.
“Taste, yes. What I did manage to feel was that the mind of the ring wearer was of tremendous power. It sensed me, sought to block me—and then, everything seemed to … explode.”
“Whereabouts was that mind?” Vangey asked sharply.
“In the northeast of the realm, somewhere remote,” Ganrahast murmured slowly, grimacing as his attempt to remember brought on throbbing mental pain.
“Irlingstar,” Glathra said grimly. “Of course.”
Sraunter’s cellar was again aglow with Manshoon’s scrying spheres. The incipient emperor of Cormyr sat at his ease in their midst, intent on only one sphere. In its depths, he was watching a black dragon he’d spotted flying among the Thunder Peaks while seeking isolated war wizards at work in the eastern borders of the realm. If he could destroy them, he would awaken fears of a Sembian incursion, so as to draw more wizards out for easy slaying.
There was something intriguing about this ancient black wyrm. It wasn’t one he’d ever ridden or conversed with, to be sure—but it seemed familiar, somehow …
In his sphere, the dragon was swooping closer to the prison keep, Castle Irlingstar—and an explosion promptly erupted from an upper room of the castle, blowing out windows amid gouts of flame and tumbling stone dust.
Manshoon blinked in startlement, and from its hasty back-flapping, followed by angry circling rather than fearful flight, the dragon seemed startled too.
It glided very close to the castle walls, passing the keep and peering in … then, though Manshoon saw no attack upon it, nor any reaction at all from inside Irlingstar, it flapped away in frantic haste, as if pursued by its bane, fleeing into the mountains.
Something powerful must be in there, to cause explosion after explosion. Something unusual and powerful, if it could frighten an experienced and powerful dragon …
Manshoon waited to see if more of the castle would blow up, in case the dragon had fled an explosion it could see was imminent.
Yet time passed, and no second blast occurred.
So, now … a fresh problem. How to scry past or through the castle wards, to see inside Irlingstar …
CHAPTER
TWENTY
WATCHING THE WILDNESS UNFOLD
Faster, hrast you! Faster!” Harbrand snarled.
Hawkspike was panting too hard to answer.
They pelted down the narrow stone stair, crashed bruisingly off the walls of what was hopefully the last landing, stumbled and almost fell down the last flight of steps, and nearly ran onto the points of the spears two guards were holding—guards who stood in front of a very solid-looking metal door.
“Hold!” one of the guards snapped. “Prisoners are not to be—”
“We’re not prisoners!” Harbrand roared—as Hawkspike grabbed both spears and fell to the floor, swinging himself forward and kicking at the guards’ ankles.
They fell atop him, cursing and struggling. Harbrand promptly clubbed the backs of both their necks with his fists, then tore one guard’s belt dagger from its sheath and battered their heads energetically with its pommel, smiting them both senseless.
Hawkspike struggled to get out from under the senseless guards and trampled the sagging Dragons in his haste to follow Harbrand. Harbrand had snatched the rings of keys from the belts of both guards and was feverishly trying every key that looked remotely likely to be right in the three locks that secured the door—head-high, ankle-low, and in the middle.
A few gasping moments later, the door banged open and Danger For Hire burst back out into the waiting wilderness and then sprinted for the welcome cover of the trees. They were a good long way into the leaf-littered gloom before Harbrand found breath enough to rather grimly suggest to his colleague that Hawkspike forthwith provide some explanations. “What just almost killed us? And what by the Dragon Unseen did you throw, anyhail? Since when did we own any Gondar bombs?”
Hawkspike went right on crashing and struggling through the forest, making no reply but violently and repeatedly shaking his head, in negation or denial.
Harbrand caught up to him and shoulder-slammed him, snarling, “Not deeper in! Do you want to get eaten by wolves—or worse? Back to the verges, where
we can follow the road and not get lost!”
Hawkspike’s shakes became a nod or two. That lasted until he tripped on a leaf-covered root and fell headlong.
Harbrand hauled his dazed partner upright with a snarl of anger, and they both stood there panting for breath, Hawkspike’s face a mask of mud, twigs, and leaves.
When he had enough breath back to manage a deep sigh, the Doombringer plucked several ugly forest mushrooms off Hawkspike’s face, and demanded wearily, “Tell me, Hawk. Where’d you get the flashbang? And just when were you going to get around to telling me about it? How many other secrets are you keeping from me? Just what is all this about Sarl?”
Sarl Sulblade had been one of their partners in Danger For Hire, before his sudden, violent, and until now mystifying death. The drow somehow knew that Hawkspike had killed him. Harbrand needed no words from his partner to get that far, and Sulblade had been a right nasty bastard, but it would be nice to know …
Hawkspike was back to fervently shaking his head.
Harbrand sighed again. “Forget all that, Hawk. Forget what I just asked. Just tell me: what happened back there in the castle, just now?”
His much-scarred partner wiped away mud, saw a handy fallen tree, and thankfully sat down on its huge trunk. A snake, disturbed by the arrival of his behind, promptly slithered away. Hawkspike watched it go, then said slowly, “That was my fair-fortune charm. Bought it from a caravan master in Suzail, who said it was real magic, came from a temple of Tymora, and would bring luck. Just a little everbright-treated silver image of the goddess, smiling, that’s all. I’ve had it for years. Make the girls kiss it, when they find it … the few girls I get.”
“That caravan master tricked you into carrying a bomb?”
Hawkspike shrugged. “I know not, Har. It’s been riding with me for three years, now, winter and summer, day and night. I’ve dropped it, fallen on it … it’s baked in the sun, gotten wet, nigh-froze with my breeches on the cold stone floors of winter nights … just a good-luck charm.”