Swords of Dragonfire tkomd-2 Read online

  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 t
hem 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.”

  Florin and Islif both nodded slowly, but said nothing. Nor did the other Knights behind them.

  “Our Court is teaching you tact already,” Filfaeril added, her smile as wry as it was sudden. “That will never do. One more reason that it’s best that you immediately and covertly depart Suzail and hasten to Shadowdale, as Khelben urged you to do.”

  “Your Highness, may we know the other reasons?” Doust asked quietly.

  “Of course. That which I alluded to: the rising anger of many noble families, across the realm, who out of ignorance or for their own purposes choose to blame you for the deaths of Lady Greenmantle and both Lady Crownsilvers. To say nothing of another and more just cause of noble fury: thefts from many nobles, here in Arabel.”

  The queen turned her head to look meaningfully at Pennae, who looked demurely magnificent in a plain storm gray gown, but blushed guiltily under the direct and knowing royal gaze.

  As that reddening raced down her throat and across her bodice, the obtainer among the Knights shrugged and became suddenly and intensely interested in the state and hue of her fingernails.

  Semoor rolled his eyes at that, and asked his own diffident question. “So we’ll cause the Throne trouble by staying?”

  Filfaeril nodded. “And goad some noble or other into trying to show the realm who holds true power in Cormyr by hiring someone to slay all of you-despite Our royal protection.”

  “Your Majesty, we are honored to obey,” Florin said. “Command us.”

  The queen smiled and rose. “Have my thanks. Such unhesitating obedience is gratifying. It is an art too few here at Court seem to have mastered.” She went to one of the beautifully carved wooden doors in the back wall of the chamber, drew it open by means of one of the many entwined dragons standing forth from its edges in bold relief, and waved at the Knights to pass through this inner doorway.

  They did so, finding themselves in a stone room where a row of six chairs faced a group of gravely murmuring war wizards, who all fell silent and turned to regard the arriving Knights.

  In turn, the adventurers beheld Vangerdahast, Laspeera, and five unfamiliar war wizards, one of them female and all of them looking very solemn.

  “Be welcome, Knights of Myth Drannor,” Laspeera said with a smile, stepping forward. “May I present Melandar Raentree, Yassandra Durstable, Orzil Nelgarth, Sarmeir Landorl, and Gorndar Lacklar.”

  All five wizards nodded unsmilingly as they were introduced. Pennae, who customarily looked first at the eyes and then at the hands of everyone she met, noticed that Melandar, Yassandra, and Orzil were all wearing unicorn-headed rings, Sarmeir and Gorndar wore no rings, and the rings on Vangerdahast’s and Laspeera’s fingers had been fashioned to look like the sinuous, scaled tails of dragons. Just what did those rings-or their lack-betoken?
r />   Vangerdahast gave her no time to ponder. Like an impatient battlemaster, he waved the Knights to sit in the waiting chairs, his gesture an imperious command, and then took up a stance in front of them, frowning as if he were the coming storm of doom and their punishment were at hand.

  Laspeera was already leading the five war wizards she’d just introduced past the Knights, heading for the door.

  “Oh, Tymora,” Doust murmured under his breath, “ this doesn’t look good.”

  “Vangey never looks good,” Semoor whispered back, taking the seat beside Doust. “I think he battles nigh-constant indigestion. Either that or he’s just sick of all of us.”

  By then Laspeera and the five mages had reached the door-where they turned, behind the Knights, and pointed to enact the same silent spell in unison.

  And the six seated Knights slumped over, instantly deep in magical slumber.

  The war wizards looked to Vangerdahast for approval.

  “Well, what’re you waiting for?” the Royal Magician asked them curtly. “I want this mess off my hands as fast as you can work your spells!”

  Princess Alusair Nacacia Obarskyr had now seen thirteen summers, and they had proven more than enough to make her headstrong and rebellious, honing her hauteur and a quick temper, but failed utterly to quell her ever-welling curiosity. Wherefore, servants and courtiers alike had learned to avoid-and certainly never to rebuke or even to try to proffer suggestions-the young princess who so moodily prowled the Palace, forbidden to break blades with Purple Dragons or down tankards in any tavern or do much of anything on her own.

  Alusair was a familiar sight in the Palace passages, all gangly arms and legs, a “lad in lasses’ clothing” who climbed where she shouldn’t, got dirty every chance she could, and seemed to wear a permanent scowl as she pointedly turned away from everyone who looked at her. Especially her everpresent war wizard and Purple Dragon minders and bodyguards, whose silent scrutiny she bitterly resented, almost as much as she hated their all-too-frequent interventions to stop her “having any fun at all.” They watched everything she did, from bathing to filling chamberpots to picking her nose-hrast them. There was nothing she liked better than an adventure in the dungeons, deep well chambers, vaults, and other dark, unfamiliar, and off-limits parts of the Palace-and it seemed there was nothing they liked better than preventing such forays.