by Ed Greenwood
SEVENTEEN
FOR ATHALANTAR
In the name of a kingdom
many fell things are done.
In the name of a love
fairer things are won.
HALINDAR DROUN, BARD OF BEREGOST
ROM THE BALLAD TEARS NEVER CEASE
YEAR OF THE MARCHING MOON
The magelord’s words made Tassabra bite her lip. She froze, listening, her fingers only inches away from the glowing armlet.
“I have her with me,” the Magelord Alarashan went on almost jovially as he leered at the trembling Nanatha, “and she insists the woman revealed herself as the mage royal—and Undarl even waved farewell to her before he left, taking the other one with him.”
“That hardly seems possible.” The sour old voice coming from the scrying crystal grew stronger “Bring her to me.”
Alarashan bowed his head. “Of course, Old One,” he said, taking hold of Nanatha’s wrist. “It shall be done.”
He touched the crystal, murmured a word, and they both vanished. Tassabra risked a peek around the edge of the table to stare at the empty air where they’d both been a moment before.
She was alone. She sighed and then shrugged, swept the armlet and a scepter she’d been eyeing earlier into her sack, turned away—and then turned back, gave the scrying crystal an impish grin, and tipped it into the sack too.
“All done here,” she said gaily and felt the tingling of a spell flood through hen as her elven shadow brought her home.…
The last failing rays of moonlight were falling into the cobbled courtyard as Hathan strode across it, toward the tower where his spell chamber waited. Those useless idiots of apprentices had better be standing ready at their places around the circle when he got there.… Farjump spells always held risk, even without three ambitious young wild-wands and their clever little plots in—Hathan stiffened in midstride and came to a sudden halt.
His face paled, and then he spun around and stared up at the highest tower of Hornkeep, frowning in concentration. He’d never heard the Old One sound so insistent before; something bad had happened.
In a dark chamber high in that tower, glowing water splashed. Its reflections danced across the intent face of Undarl Dragonrider, mage royal of Athalantar.
The griffons struggled in the water, fighting his spells. If he could ever get them to mate in this vat of enspelled giant crab fluids, a few simple spells afterward should give him what he was after. The offspring would be flying armor-plated killers ruled by his will … and he’d have taken his first step beyond what the most powerful sorcerers of his family had ever achieved. The gods above knew he was growing weary of waiting, though. Undarl sighed and sat back in his chair, listening to the water surge up over the edge of the vat, the overflow slapping against the wall beyond.
He dare not waste many more days here with that lizard-kisser Seldinor and the others so hungry for his high seat, and … Undarl froze as Hathan’s mindsend stung him. It was loud because his senior apprentice was only in the courtyard below, and high with excitement and a little fear. He’d have a headache for sure. The mage royal listened, curtly bid Hathan return to his own affairs, and broke the contact.
Forgotten, the creatures splashed and gurgled in the tank behind him as he strode out. Undarl hastened down a dark passage to a certain spot where he laid one hand on the bare wall and murmured a word. The wall swung open with the faintest of rumbles; he reached into the revealed darkness, felt the iron lid, and laid his hand on it. It glowed briefly, tracing his hand, and then swung open, its interior glowing with a faint radiance of its own. Undarl took four wands from it, thrust them into his belt, and reached into a pocket on the lid of the chest. He plucked out the handful of gems he felt there, closed the chest and closet with two quick gestures and a word, and went on down the passage.
One of his junior apprentices looked up, startled, from the scroll he was copying. “Lord Master?” he asked uncertainly.
Undarl strode past him without a word and stepped around a motionless four-armed gargoyle squatting on its block, to mount the stairs beyond. They rose to a dusty, seldom-used balcony, where a bare stone pedestal stood among strange hanging things of wire and curved metal and winking glass. Undarl halted before the pedestal, laid his handful of gems on it, traced a certain sign around them with a finger that left a glowing trail behind, and murmured a long, complicated incantation under his breath.
The apprentice half-rose in his seat to get a better took at what Undarl was doing, and stiffened in that awkward pose, swaying, as the spell took hold.
Undarl smiled tightly and left the chamber. Three rooms away he found another apprentice sprawled on the floor, a key he wasn’t supposed to have had fallen from his hand, the other clutching a scroll he’d been forbidden to read. Much good might it do him now.
The spell that brought down the sleep of ages would hold until Undarl ended it, the pedestal broke or crumbled away to break the sigil, or the magic consumed the gems—and that would take a good thousand winters or more. Anyone save Undarl himself who entered the Dragonrider’s Tower would fall into enspelled stasis, a sleep that held them unchanged as the world aged around them.
Perhaps he’d leave them all that long and stay away from his tower for a time to see if Seldinor or other ambitious rivals would be tempted into entering it and be caught in his trap. It would be a simple matter to arrange things so that the spell that broke the stasis also slew them before they could arrange any defenses.
Musing, Undarl strode down the winding stone stair and out into the courtyard, the floating, empty suits of armor raising their balberds to let him pass through the door. “Anglathammaroth!” he called. “To me!”
A step later, he was gone. When the huge shadow fell over the courtyard two breaths later, all it found were a few dwindling motes of light. It beat its wings once, the sound of a thunderclap breaking over the Horn Hills, climbed toward the stars, turned, and soared southeast.
The warm, sweet smell of bread rolled out over the armsmen. They sniffed appreciatively and hauled open the door of the bake shop, striding straight over to Shandathe, who was bent over pans of cooling loaves. One grabbed her arm; she looked up and screamed.
Her husband stepped through the door from the kitchens. He took two quick, furious steps toward his struggling wife, and was brought up short by two blades at his throat.
“Keep back, you!” one of the armsmen at the other end of those weapons ordered.
“What’re y—”
“Silence! Keep back!” another armsman snarled, snatching up a loaf of bread from the nearest pan. “We’ll have this too.”
“Shandathe!” the baker roared, as the two jabbing sword tips forced him back a step.
“Keep back, love!” she sobbed as she was dragged roughly toward the door “Back, or they’ll slay you!”
“Why are you doing this?” Hannibur snarled in bewilderment.
“The king has seen your wife and fancies her. Be honored,” one of the armsmen said with cruel humor. Another armsman backhanded the baker’s head from behind with a heavy, gauntleted fist. Hannibur opened his mouth in a last, trailing snarl, and crashed headlong to the floor.…
“Get used to it,” Farl said with a grin. “The sewers are the only way under the castle walls.”
“Don’t you know about the secret passages?” Helm rumbled, glaring around at the dripping walls. Scum floated past his chin; he wrinkled his nose as one of the other knights, to the rear, started to retch.
“Yes,” Farl said sweetly, “but I fear the magelords do too. Folk who try to use them always end up in the wizard’s spell chambers as part of some fatal magical experiment or other. We lost a lot of competitors that way.”
“I don’t doubt it, clever-tongue,” Helm said sourly, trying to keep his sword dry. Filth swirled and rolled past him as he forged ahead in the chest-high waters, wondering why it was that the elves, who could have pushed back the waters, had chosen to hide nearb
y, and do their cloaking from their hideaway … which was somewhere drier.
“Here’s the place,” Farl said, pointing up into the darkness. “There’re handholds cut into this shaft, because at its top is a chamber where six glory holes meet and things sludge up; it all has to be raked clear every spring. Now remember, Anauviir: the Magelord Briost’s chambers can be reached up either of the glory holes off to the left … that’s this hand …”
“Thank you, thief,” Anauviir growled. “I do know right from left, you know.”
“Well, you are knights,” Farl said merrily “And if the nobles of Hastarl are anything to go by …”
“Where do the other holes up there lead to?” Anauviir interrupted. Helm grinned at his fellow knight’s expression.
“Two rooms used by apprentices,” Farl said, “but it’s morning; they’ll be up preparing morningfest and baths for their masters … and the last hole runs to a sort of reading chamber, which should be empty.… Helm and I will go on to the next shaft, which leads to Magelord Alarashan’s rooms; and Prince Elminster’s promised to show himself if the castle is roused, to draw the magelords into attacking him—and not attacking us.… Any questions?”
“Aye,” one of the knights said, spitting into the water. “How do thieves ever steal anything in Hastarl? Do they only rob deaf folk?”
The apprentice let out a little shriek. Alarashan frowned. He preferred willing wenches, but Undarl had forced this one idiot male youth on him … doubtless a spy, and the man was hopeless at magic. When he wasn’t breaking things, he was busily miscasting spells all over the place, and …
The magelord looked into the jakes. Ortran was slumped over on the seat, trousers around his ankles, and …
Alarashan stiffened. His apprentice was being thrust aside, by something—someone!—underneath. He strode forward, snatching a wand from his belt, as Ortran’s body fell against the wall and the bloody blade that had slain him withdrew down the privy hole.
Alarashan aimed the wand, then stopped. What was to stop someone thrusting a blade into his face, if he showed himself over the hole? No, let them emerge, and slay them as they appear.… He crouched low, waiting.
And part of the wall behind him slid smoothly aside. Alarashan had time to whirl around and gape at the secret panel he’d never known about, before the cudgel came down on his shoulder with numbing force, and his wand fell from nerveless, burning fingers.
Briost didn’t waste any time being shocked when the man in filthy armor burst out of his garderobe, sword raised. He lifted a hand, triggered his ring, and stepped smoothly aside to give the dying man room to fall.
The second attacker brought a surprised look onto the magelord’s face, but his ring winked a second time. Something flashed over the falling man’s shoulder, though—gods! The hurled dagger nearly took out Briost’s eye. He ducked aside and felt a numbing blow on his cheek. The dagger spun on, and as he straightened to meet the men now pouring out of the jakes, he felt wetness on his face.
He’d put his hand up to feel, and brought it away with the fingertips crimson with his own blood, when he realized he hadn’t time for such luxuries.…
And by then, as the blades came at him from all sides, it was much too late.
The scrying crystal flashed. Ithboltar looked over at it and waved an imperious finger at the thoroughly frightened apprentice, bidding her sit. Nanatha sat in hasty silence as the Old One, one-time tutor of most of the magelords, got up and glared at his crystal.
Obligingly, it flashed again. “Either … no …” Ithboltar growled and leaned forward to touch something Nanatha could not see, on the underside of his desk. He uttered one soft word, and the room rocked under the sudden tolling of a great bell.
“We’re being attacked,” the Old One hissed fiercely as a chorus of bells echoed and boomed all over the castle. “Briost? Briost, answer me!” He leaned forward over the crystal, muttering—and then his eyes widened at what he saw in its depths, and he thrust a hand into the breast of his robes, tearing them open in his frantic haste. Nanatha saw white grizzled hair on a sunken chest as Ithboltar found what he was seeking—some sort of gem-adorned skullcap—and pulled it onto his head, hair sticking out wildly in all directions. At another time the apprentice might have giggled inwardly at the old archwizard’s ridiculous appearance—but not now. She was too terrified … of whatever might put such fear into the Old One, mightiest of all magelords.
Ithboltar fumbled speedily through the gestures of a spell he’d hoped he’d never have to use, and the room whirled amid the ringing sounds of shattering crystals. Nanatha gasped.
Ithboltar’s chamber was suddenly full of five startled magelords.
“What did y—?”
“How did you brin—?”
“Why—?”
Ithboltar held up a hand to quell them all. “Together, we stand a chance against this threat. Alone, we are doomed.”
The bells boomed again, and the armsmen rose with a chorus of curses. “This never happens,” Riol protested, his boots scattering dice underfoot as he skidded past the table and raced for the stair.
“Well, it’s happening now,” First Sword Sauvar growled, from right behind him. “And you can bet that anything that can scare a dozen or more magelords is going to be something we should be scared about, too!”
Riol opened his mouth to answer, but someone reached out of a dark side passage and put a sword into it. The blade glistened as it came out of the back of Riol’s head; Sauvar ran right into it before he could stop, and reeled back with a startled oath.
“Who in all the—?” he started to ask.
“Tharl Bloodbar, knight of Athalantar,” came the crisp reply from a wild-bearded old man whose armor seemed to be made of cast-off, flapping remnants scavenged from a dozen battlefields, which is what in truth it was. “Sir Tharl to you.”
The bright blade in the old knight’s hand skirted against Sauvar’s own steel and then leaped over it—and the First Sword joined his fellow armsman on the passage floor. The thunder of hurrying boots coming up the stairs slowed, and the old man grinned fiercely down into the gloom and snarled, “Right then—which one o’ you heroes is most eager to die?”
Jansibal Otharr sighed in perfumed exasperation. “Why, in the name of all the gods, does this have to happen now?”
He finished at the chamberpot, turned with his elaborate codpiece dangling to look longingly at the woman waiting on the bed, and then sighed and reached down to buckle himself up. He knew what the penalty would be if one of the magelords discovered he’d ignored their precious warning bell for a little rutting.
“Stay,” he ordered, “but avail yourself not over heavily of the wine, Chlasa. I’ll be back soon.” Snatching up his bejeweled blade, he strode out.
The torchlit passage beyond, in the part of the castle reserved for noble visitors, was usually deserted except for the occasional scurrying servant. Right now it was crowded with hurrying bodyguards in livery, an envoy in full Athalantan tabard, and Thelorn Selemban, his hated rival. Thelorn was striding along toward him, his slim-filigreed blade drawn.
Jansibal’s face darkened, and he struggled to belt on his own blade and get it out into his hand before Selemban reached him—in such chaos, “accidents” could all too easily happen.
Thelorn’s eyes were dancing with amusement as he bore down on Jansibal. “Fair even, lover mine,” he said tightly, knowing his reference to that little embarrassment in the Kissing Wench would enrage the only scion of the noble house of Otharr.
Jansibal snarled and jerked his blade free—but Thelorn was past him with a mocking laugh, and hurrying down a broad flight of stairs toward the guard room below. A twisted, sneering smile slid onto Jansibal’s face, and the perfumed dandy hurried after his rival. Accidents could happen, yes, especially from behind …
“What befalls?” Nanue Trumpettower set down her glass, real alarm in her eyes. Ah, thought Darrigo delightedly, the lass is such a delicate lit
tle flower … wasted on young Peeryst, come to think of it …
The old farmer stumped to his feet. “Well, now,” he growled, “them’s the alarm bells, calling out the guard. I’ll just have a—”
“No, uncle,” Peeryst interrupted grandly, drawing his blade with a flourish. “I’ve brought my steel with me … I’ll go and look. Guard Nanue until I return!”
He shouldered past Darrigo without waiting for a reply, jaw set and eyes bright. Aye, trust him to leap on any chance to show off before his wife, Darrigo thought, and reached out to keep the door from banging into a table the magelords might be rather fond of, as Peeryst flung it wide.
Almost immediately, he gave a startled cry. Darrigo saw a rushing armsman crash into the youth, reel, and keep on running. Peeryst wasn’t so lucky; he hit the wall nose-first and groaned.
Darrigo groaned. Of course blood was leaking from the idiot’s over-delicate beak when he got up … and of course, little Nanue would have to get up and rush out to see what had befallen her light-o’-love.… On cue, Nanue rushed past him, skirts rustling, and shrieked in earnest.
Darrigo peered out in time to see a well-dressed noble shove Nanue off his blade, snarling, “Step aside, wench! Can’t you hear the alarm?” Nanue felt back against the doorway with a sob of fear. The man’s blade had gashed her arm, and blood was running freely down her skirts. That was enough for Darrigo.
Two strides took him to Peeryst. With one hand he snatched the dainty little blade out of his nephew’s hand. With the other, he shoved the young hope of the Trumpettowers at his wife. “Bind her wounds,” he snarled, setting off down the passage after the hurrying noble.
