The Sword Never Sleeps tkomd-3

by Ed Greenwood

  It was Alaphondar, Sage Most Learned of the Royal Court, wearing robes of rich maroon glimmerweave and an irritated expression. He pointed at the dagger on the floor.

  "There's poison on that blade," he told the wizards behind him. "He'll have more. Be careful."

  He bent his dark and knowing eyes upon the cowering Rhallogant. "Lord Calandanter, why don't you come with me to where we can sit down while you tell us everything you know about your friend here?"

  "Y-y-yes," Rhallogant managed to stammer. "Why don't I?"***** Vangerdahast handed out replacement wands to the three standing with him, and the last of the wall of flames died away entirely behind them.

  "There goes the shield at our backs," Laspeera said. "Should we-"

  Whatever she was going to ask was drowned out forever as the liches far down the passage hurled powerful spells. Their magics crashed into the unleashed wandfire and wrestled with it, creating a roiling, growing conflagration that surged back toward the four living Cormyreans.

  "This is what I feared would happen," the Royal Magician said. "The more we fight, the more their wandering wits sharpen with anger, and they remember how to work spells and clutch at a purpose for doing so."

  "Aye," Dalonder Ree agreed wryly. "Destroying us."

  "Indeed," Vangerdahast said, watching spell after spell batter the whirling magical chaos, driving it nearer. Some spells were managing to win past the struggle, too, despite the wards he'd devised that reached out'to draw in all manner of magics. Even as a sudden jet of flame scorched the stones not far from Laspeera's ankles, an errant magical whirlwind slammed into the ceiling, shredded the protective magics there, and sent a fall of stone down to crash and tumble just behind Lotbryn Deltalon.

  Hastily he thrust his own wands into his belt and set about casting another ward spell. The weavewall Elminster had taught him years ago was designed to draw in all manner of magics, like water sucked down a drain in a spinning whorl, but if it went on too long without discharging its snared effects into a creature and took in too many spells, it might well collapse, spilling wild magic everywhere-or explode, destroying them all anyhail.

  The new weavewall melted into the old one, flaring momentarily and taming the snarling magics down into a more circular, solid, and smooth doom that drove closer and closer to the Harper and the three wat wizards.

  Nearer…

  Now a few paces nearer…

  Vangerdahast watched grimly as their fate became obvious. The roiling weavewall drew closer still.

  When it touched someone, all the spells it had drawn into itself would rush back out of it into that creature. This one was so large that it would slay in an instant, leaving most of its fell magics to leak out in all directions-and probably slay every other creature left in the passage.

  Laspeera and Deltalon were both white with fear now, and Vangerdahast judged that the tight-lipped Harper knew what was coming, too.

  "Ree, Deltalon-spread out so you can keep your wands on my weavewall," he ordered, drawing forth the most powerful rod he had from its sheath and twisting it to awaken its magics.

  "No, Vangey," Laspeera said softly. "No."

  "Yes," he said, striding forward until the roiling weavewall was right in front of him, and raising the black rod as the colorless gems up and down its length flashed excitedly.

  "Royal Magician Vangerdahast," Laspeera said, "I believe what you're now about to do is a mistake, and-"

  "Laspeera, belt up!" Vangerdahast roared at her. "Open a portal-don't use that one where the door was-and get everyone out! Including Ree and Deltalon! Everyone!"

  "Lord Vanger-" she tried to protest.

  But he raised his voice in a furious bellow, "Obey me! May the one true Purple Dragon damn you! Just stlarning well obey me!"

  Then he said something to the rod and stepped forward into the roiling weavewall. The rod flashed in the heart of that blinding chaos-and the weavewall became a roaring torrent of magic that swept down the passage, shredding liches as it went.

  Watching skeletons crumble, small fragments of bone hurtle in all directions, and skulls bounce and shatter, Dalonder Ree and Lorbryn Deltalon both swore softly, the fire of their wands steady and sure.

  Shaking her head and turning away so they would not see her tears, Laspeera set about obeying Vangerdahast the Royal Magician.

  Wizard of War Gheldaert was never in the best of tempers-even when he awakened from slumber at his own pace. Roused frantically from his bed by several perturbed younger war wizards, he was decidedly not in the best of tempers now.

  Glaring around the room full of anxious young faces, he said, "And why should I care that a barn burned down outside Wheloon? Why should I even be told that a barn burned down anywhere? Why should any of you waste your time and tongue-wagging over such trifles? Are you not war wizards? And being so, have you nothing better to do?"

  "Gheldaert, this wasn't just any fire!" Rhindin said. "The barn burst like a spell blast and hurled out bolts of lightning in all directions-and balls of green flame that flew everywhere, too!"

  "So someone was spellhurling and made a mistake, or two mages decided to hold their little private duel in a barn! I presume you've spent a few spells trying to find out, yes? As the standing orders that Old Thunderspells never tires of reminding us all about insist be done? Or are you telling me all this because someone forgot to do so-or cast the spells but blew himself up, leaving only smoking boots behind? Or just went missing?"

  "We're telling you this, Irvgal Gheldaert," came a cold voice from the door, "because the investigator of the fire that destroyed Indarr Andemar's barn wrote his name in the duty book, added the title of a report on his investigation, and then stopped writing, leaving the test of the page blank. And the name he wrote was Gheldaert Howndroe. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

  Gheldaert gaped at the person standing in the doorway. "Q-Queen Filfaeril?"

  "Ah, war wizards always penetrate my best disguises," the woman in the doorway, who wore no disguise at all-and clearly nothing much at all beneath her clinging silken nightgown-replied in a voice that dripped with acid. "Wherefore I'll expect a full report on this in the morning. Not until then, mind. I have a little private duel of my own to attend to right now. In the Royal Bedchamber."

  "Y-yes, Great Queen," Gheldaert managed to reply. "I, uh, I-"

  "And while you're at it, Irvgal," the Dragon Queen added over her shoulder, as she turned and strode barefoot out of the room, "you've been following up on that shapeshifting matter in Shadowdale-Craunor Askelo's report, remember? — for some months now. Are you not a war wizard? And being so, have you nothing better to do?"

  Gheldaert swallowed, not knowing what to say, then tried to say something. What came out was a heartfelt "Tluin."

  He froze, aghast. Gods! He had just said a very impolite word to the Queen of Cormyr.

  "Indeed," she replied from down the passage. "That's exactly what I'll be doing. How perceptive of you. With such keenwitted Wizards of War serving us so diligently, there's hope for the realm yet."

  Then she added something that sent him staggering to the floor in sudden relief. She chuckled.

  It was as dry and gleefully dirty a chuckle as he'd ever heard.

  Dalonder Ree blinked, shook himself, and blinked again. He was sranding our of doors on well-trampled ground amid trees. Somewhere. Where was he?

  Oh.

  The Harper was standing in the camp hollow between the road and the Stagheart ruin, in the bright moonlight of a calm, warm night.

  In just the same mannet as he was blinking and staring around Lorbryn, Tsantress, and two of the Knights of Myth Drannor-the ranger Florin and the fighting-lass Islif, both looking more than a little dazed-were staring around at the hollow, at each other, and down at themselves.

  Those glances down showed them the Wizard of War Laspeera lying face-up and senseless on the ttampled turf between them, clutching the broken and smoking ends of wands in both her hands. />
  Farther away, strewn all around them, lay the crumpled bodies of the ornrion Dauntless, the bullyblade Brorn Hallomond, and the rest of the Knights.

  "How-?" Florin asked hoarsely.

  "The wizard Laspeera," Ree told him. "Obeying the Royal Magician to get us all here, out of the Lost Palace. While he remained behind to fight alone against-"

  He stopped speaking and whirled, raising his wands, as behind him arose a faint chiming as of faerie bells, and the air glowed a sudden, vivid blue-white.

  Then the glow was gone, and a dozen or so men who had not been there before were standing where it had been. They blinked around ar the hollow. Each held a sword in his hand. Most were Purple Dragons in armor, but standing with them in Court-fashionable finery wete the noble Lords Spurbright, father and son, looking stern.

  "Well met," Tsantress greeted them in a dry voice, raising and aiming her own wands at them. "How come you here, Lords, and on what purpose bent?"

  "To defend Cormyr by aiding the wizard Vangerdahast in his time of need," the elder Lord Spurbright replied. "We were sent here by the Princess-"

  One of the Dragons behind him shrieked, flung his arms wide, and toppled forward. A glowing blade was just sliding back out of his backside, glistening with his blood.

  " 'Ware!" Dalonder Ree cried, firing his wands at the blade. "Guard yourselves!"

  Tsantress blasted it, too, as the Dragons and nobles hastily scattered, cursing. Deltalon scrambled to where he could blast it clearly.

  The sword darted here and there, thrusting at legs and hands and then springing up ro stab at Purple Dragon faces.

  "Get it!" Ree snarled. "These wands must be good for something! Blast it to shards!"

  Lorbryn and Tsantress joined him in blasting the sword, striking it repeatedly as the Dragons and nobles flung themselves down, scrambled and rolled aside, and clawed their ways back to where wandfire could give them some protection from the flying blade.

  Flying raggedly, the sword finally veered off behind trees and fled, disappearing back into the forest under the lash of their blasrs.

  Silence fell, broken only by the hisses of pain from some of the lacerated Dragons. Ree looked at the wounded men, then down at all the silent bodies. The last place he looked was up at Lorbryn and Tsantress to ask, "And now… what?"

  As the Spurbrights came silently up beside them, the two war wizards shrugged.

  Tsantress frowned as a thought struck her. Wagging a finger, she said, "Turn Laspeera over. She'll have some healing porions on her. She always does."

  Gingerly, Ree lifted the war wizard's limp torso and turned her over. Bending over him, Lorbryn Deltalon plucked some metal vials from loops along the back of Laspeera's belt.

  The Harper frowned. "I'm wearing a whole sash of those, I think. Took them off Vangey's table."

  He slapped his hip, and a hitherto-invisible baldric melted back into visibilitv and soliditv.

  Tsantress peered at the row of metal vials tanged down that baldric. She nodded and smiled at what she saw, then pointed at the stricken and the bodies all around.

  "Start pouring them down throats. Don't choke someone you're healing, mind, or they'll haunt you."

  Remembering the liches crowding in closer back in the passage, Ree shivered.

  In a spell-sealed chamber in a certain tower of Zhenril Keep, the Brotherhood wizard Targon peered into a scrying sphere at a moonlit hollow that now held nary a flying sword at all.

  Old Ghost knew a magic that Targon had never known, which would have enabled him to force the crystal ball to trace and watch the sword's flight on through the forest-but he couldn't be bothered.

  Shrugging, he turned away. "Horaundoon, Horaundoon!" he told the empty air disgustedly, as he flung the door-bar aside and threw open the doors into the moonlit chamber beyond. "No discipline. Slaughtering just anyone merely gets you blasted. I gave you orders. Idiot."

  The same moonlight that fell upon the exasperated Zhentarim mage Targon fell also upon a high room in a ruined, window-less tower that soared up out of the leafy canopy of a wooded wilderness.

  It touched the boots of the wizard Hesperdan as he stood with his arms folded across his chest, watching a floating, glowing, spell-spun scene in midair. The disgusted Targon was turning away from that distant scrying sphere and striding to the door.

  Hesperdan smiled. "And so, Arlonder 'Old Ghost' Darmeth," he murmured, "you begin to know how it feels to have reckless, know-better-rhan-thou underlings disobey your every order, intimation, warning, and suggestion. Get used to it, in the time you have left. It shall not be nearly as long as you think it will be."

  The archwizard strolled about the ruined room, the glowing scene moving with him to stay right in front of his gaze.

  "Winnowing the Zhentarim of the unworthy is going to take even longer than I expected," he said to himself. He often talked to himself, for he had discovered long ago that a certain Hesperdan was by far his most patient audience. "Moreover, shifting Fzoul to the fore so I can use Manshoon for my own purposes is going to take some seasons on top of that. 'Tis a very good rhing I'm a patient man."

  He stood thinking for a moment and almost absently corrected himself in a voice so soft even he could barely hear it. "Well, 'patient,' at least."

  Princess Alusair gave the two men her best glare. "I thought I gave you strict orders…," she began menacingly, nettled by their almost-grins and well aware that she looked ridiculous in a full suit of very ill-fitting armor that had been her father's when he was young.

  Yet she stood her ground, her gauntleted hands clutching her drawn sword's quillons. She kept it grounded point-first on the floor, her feet planted wide behind it, grimly defending the doors to het parents' bedchambet.

  "The definition of an idiot," Tathanter Doarmund replied tartly, "is someone who obeys your orders. Your Highness."

  "Truly, Cormyr is full of idiots," the sage Alaphondar added, his voice all I'm-merely-making-an-observation innocence.

  "Hrast you, take me seriously! "Alusair snapped at them both. "If you wake my parents-!"

  "Oh, we're awake," growled the King of Cormyr from just behind her.

  Alusair whirled, astonished she'd never heard the door open. "So, little lioness," Azoun asked his younger daughter, crooking one Harklv snlendid evebrow. "have vou a clever explanation for rhis?

  Can't your mother and I enjoy a little time together to bounce on the royal pillows without-"

  His jaw dropped open in astonishment, and he stared over Alusair's shoulder down the passage.

  Everyone turned.

  Vangerdahast was limping slowly up the passage toward them. His face was gray, one of his arms looked like it had been melted away just below the elbow, and bare ribs showed through seared flesh on the other side of his burnt-bare torso.

  "The mad liches are bound again," he rasped, "but there are far fewer of them, I fear."

  "The… the mad liches?" Alusair asked, hefting her sword-and feeling herself blush hotly as she saw that the blade was trembling.

  "Crown secret," Vangey said. "That you're too young to know yet."

  "Oh?" she flared. "And when will I be old enough?" "Around highsun tomorrow," he mumbled-and collapsed on his face at her feet.

  Chapter 17

  Another Crown Secret, or Seven So I let them take my horses tall My chest of coins, wagons eleven My best boots, sword, and all For no thief can find or measure My greatest carried treasure In my head, crown secrets seven.

  He had done the right thing, cutting his losses and getting out. The right thing, he reminded himself, seeking the cool, calculating calm he prized so much.

  Hotheads doom themselves. Hot rage burns the rager. Be as the patient ice and stone, biding in silence until the right moment of thunderous fall.

  The trite sayings brought just about as much comfort as he'd expected them to, and Manshoon kept right on striding along the dark passages of Zhentil Keep, knowing he should feel relief if he let himself fee
l anything at all. Still he burned with fury.

  "Black, black temper," he murmured the words of a currently popular ditty, seeking to divert himself. And failing.

  He was in a black temper. He'd done a mastetful job of impersonating Vangerdahast. He'd brought the Unbinding to the proverbial brink of being complete. He'd brought about the destruction of many of the liches he'd had to work so hard to escape or pacify on his earlier visits to the Lost Palace. And he'd caused many potential foes-those adventurers, a few Harpers, some war wizards, perhaps even Vangerdahast himself-to be wounded, weakened, or even slain.

  Yet he could find no pleasure or satisfaction or even just some scrap of comfort in any of that.

  He was furious at those who'd brought him so close to death and more furious at himself for being afraid to return to the Lost Palace to destroy them all.

  "Blackfire," he snarled. "Talar and blackfire!"

  Mild oaths, but he seldom cursed at all-and almost never aloud. Commanders had no need to curse, and that was the image he'd chosen to armor himself in-especially among all of these sly, murderously ambitious Brothers in his Zhentarim.

  Murderous, yes. That's what it was time to be, now. For the greater glory of Bane and the greater exaltation of a certain Manshoon, too. He knew now what he had to do.

  Accordingly, he took the side way out of the next grand chamber, turning in the echoing darkness to head for a certain vault.

  It was not a short journey. Keeping his face impassive, he strode past guardpost after guardpost, crisply answering challenge after challenge.

  Ahead, beyond yet more guarded doors, was a table. It stood alone in a dark room, four straight legs and a smooth top upon which rested an open-ended wooden cradle. On that cradle lay the greatest magical treasure he'd managed to craft thus far: a Staff of Doom.

  Not quite a match for the doomstaves of old yet. In fact, something of a one-joke jester's act. Aside from allowing a wielder to fall slowly from a cliff or high place, and altering light in a small area about itself, it could do just one thing: emit death tyrants. That is, its globular ends, upon command, became portals that spat out an undead beholder each from a stasis-space he'd filled with four-and-ten undead beholders thus far.