by Ed Greenwood
Florin shrugged. “There’s mold on it-see? — so it’s been here some time. If a wizard or cleric turned it to stone, I can’t believe they’re still standing guard somewhere beyond the door. If ’twas a curse magic left waiting here-on the doorway, say-then did it exhaust itself doing that to the goblin… or does it lie in wait still?”
“One way to find out,” Agannor drawled, stepping over the goblin, shoving the door wide, and striding through it. Pennae’s snarl of helpless anger followed him, as she started around the table like a storm wind-then stopped, shaking her fists in futility.
Agannor stuck his head back in the door and grinned at her. “ ’S’all quiet here, little battlemaster. No beasties, just a jakes.”
Pennae shook her head, still seething. “One day your luck will run out, Agannor! Tymora will shake her head and let Beshaba have you!”
“One day soon,” Islif echoed, also shaking her head.
Agannor shrugged and waved his hand airily behind him. “Call of nature, anyone?”
Pennae strode to the door and examined it and its frame very closely, ignoring Agannor.
Then she stepped into the passage beyond, Islif right behind her. They pushed past a grinning Agannor, and peered along the passage. It ran a few paces and then turned sharp west, to end at a wooden-seat-over-pit privy, that smelled very faintly of “Wait,” Pennae said flatly. “It doesn’t end there. Look, off to the left: there’s been a roof-fall, or they stopped digging. ’Tis all tumbled stones.”
Florin, Agannor, and Islif walked with her, Jhessail staying behind in the doorway of the bunkroom.
In the beam of Pennae’s lantern, the place where tool-marks ended in the solid stone overhead could clearly be seen. No collapse, then, but an end to delving through solid stone.
Pennae turned back to the privy, aiming her lantern upward. “A shaft-up as well as down. Islif, I need your blade here.” She pointed. “Thrust it up, hard, as I duck in here under you and look down. I’d prefer not to have some biting beastie pounce on my head.”
Islif nodded, and as soon as Pennae had slid in front of her, hunched low, the warrior woman brought her blade up, from knees to straight out over her head, in a hard, fast upward lunge.
The steel struck something solid, and Islif cried a warning as she felt her sword bite deep into it-as it moved.
She hadn’t even formed the first word when a flood of iridescent gold and purple liquid showered down on Pennae’s head.
The thief ducked blindly back, spitting, as something that squalled and scrabbled against the shaft walls in a frenzy descended, black fangs-if that’s what they were-chattering in agony. Florin hurled himself over a rolling, snarling Pennae to add his steel to Islif’s, driving his sword hilt deep into A spider the size of a Purple Dragon’s shield, sagging into view with faltering legs, purple gold shimmering fluids streaming out of it as it died.
The thing was surprisingly heavy, and slammed into the privy-seat with force enough to break that lone board. Dying spider and splintered wood fell together into the privy-pit with a wet, solid crash.
Pennae had plucked her waterskin from her belt, and was sluicing spider juices out of her hair and off her face. “It stings,” she gasped. “Make sure there’re no little spiders higher up the shaft.”
She thrust her lantern in Florin’s direction. Agannor slid past the forester, hip to hip, to put his own blade up the shaft beside Islif’s sticky, empurpled steel, and grunted, “Florin, shine the light along my arm-this shaft might be a way up to somewhere…”
It proved not to be, rough natural stone drawing together a tall man’s height overhead, and the Swords retreated to the bunkroom to get a good look at Pennae. Her skin was bright red in two places, but the fluids seemed not to have harmed her otherwise. She pronounced herself, “Just fine.”
“Back the other way,” Florin said, relief bright in his voice, “to rejoin our rearguard, and go on north together. I’m thinking now that splitting up was more foolish than guarding our way out. If either group meets a strong foe, ’tis darker days than if we’d stood together.”
They hastened, shining their lanterns on themselves and waving. The four Swords at the passage-moot waved back.
“What happened to you?” Semoor asked as the Swords drew together. He was peering curiously at Pennae’s gold and purple hair.
“A tale for later,” she said tersely, just as fresh lightnings hummed and crackled between the two bronzen statues. Pennae gave the crawling, stabbing bolts a disbelieving look. “Still?”
“Oh, yes,” Doust told her. “They’ve been doing that, betimes, ever since you left us.”
“Myself,” Martess put in, “I wonder why they never veer to the doors. Everywhere else, yes, but all that metal standing there so broad and high, and the lightnings never go that way.”
“I know,” Pennae said sarcastically, holding up a finger in a mockery of delighted discovery. “ ’Tis magic!”
“Gods,” Jhessail muttered under her breath, just loud enough for everyone to hear, “another Semoor Wolftooth! Truly, the gods weave in mysterious ways!”
Islif chuckled, tapping Florin’s arm to warn him to say nothing, and waved them on. Rolling her eyes, Pennae led the way.
The north end of the passage was a room with a westward archway and a slantwise passage back to the room of the barred gates that was a mirror image of the south end-except that the inner, westerly room lacked all furniture, damaged or otherwise, and had two doors in its walls, both firmly closed.
Pennae played her lantern-beam around the room and down at its floor, then up at its ceiling-which glistened.
Her eyes barely had time to narrow before something very small fell from that ceiling, to star across the floor with a wet splat.
She trained her lantern on it, seeing a leaf green color that darkened to bright emerald where her beam of light was. Deliberately, she sprang into the air and came down hard, stamping with both feet.
Splat, splat.
“Nobody get any closer to this,” Pennae warned the Swords behind her, her voice like iron-even as she disobeyed herself, sidling sideways from the doorway as she stepped cautiously closer to it. “That means you, too, Agannor, unless you want to die right here and now.”
“What is it?” Florin asked, as more drips fell from the ceiling to spatter the floor. Their lanterns were all trained on that floor, now-until Florin told Bey to swing around, and Jhessail with him, to watch their rear-and they could see the green, glistening wetness moving across the floor, creeping slowly but tirelessly toward the walls.
“Green slime is its name, bless all bards,” Pennae told him, without taking her gaze from it for an instant. “Its touch dooms you. It turns you into itself, and eats through… many things. Our lights and our footfalls are making it fall.”
She stepped back. “We dare not enter yon room, unless we can build a fire out here large enough to scorch the ceiling, and push it in there, and keep on moving it carefully around, so as to get it all-and I don’t want to be trying to breathe in here while a fire of that size is raging. See it moving? Every droplet that falls will spend almost a day-or more-oozing to the walls and up them, to rejoin the rest of the slime it fell from.”
“Charming,” Martess commented.
“I don’t like the look of this,” Doust said.
Just then Agannor pushed past him, gave Pennae a disdainful glare, and told the halls around him, “I don’t heed warnings and I don’t cringe and creep through life like an old farmwife a-quiver over ghosts. And I’m not going to start now!”
His first stride into the room brought a small rain of falling slime. His second caused fist- and head-sized pieces to plummet, spraying the room.
“You fool! ” Pennae snarled. “Get out of there!”
Agannor whirled and leaped back through the door.
“Grab him!” Pennae snapped, snatching a candle out of a belt pouch and thrusting it into her lantern. “Hold him-he’s got some of it
on him!”
The Swords tussled with a cursing Agannor. The moment her candle was properly alight, Pennae thrust it at the warrior’s arm then low on his breeches, holding the flame to the glistening spots there until the leathers started to smoke.
The reek was unbelievable-and very different from burning leather. It smelled of swamps and earthy decay and… eels. Martess and Jhessail gagged in unison.
Slime was falling like slapping rain beyond the doorway now. In unspoken accord the Swords drew away from it, gathering at the east wall of the passage room, at the mouth of the slantwise passage.
“So one way ends,” Semoor began. “The grand ‘way onward’ bids fair to fry us with lightning bolts, and this route looks to be a deathtrap, too. The only road that seems relatively safe is the way we came in. Any opinions? Have we done enough brave foraying to satisfy the king? Or Lord Winter, anyhail?”
“Hah!” Bey’s laugh was more of a bark than anything else. “My bet is he’s looking for us to scour out these halls completely, so he can use them for a Stonelands stronghold. He’ll be satisfied if we do that-or die trying!”
“And holy Tymora would want us to take chances,” Doust put in, spreading his hands.
“By doctrine, yes,” Martess said, “but have you prayed to her for a sign?”
There sounded the tiniest of distant gratings from behind them, then a sharp crack that Florin knew all too well.
And Doust received his sign.
The crossbow bolt that hummed through the Swords caught him solidly in the shoulder, spinning him around like a child’s whirl-top as he gasped in astonished pain.
Agannor was the first to move, and Bey was but a half-step behind him.
“There!” the most impetuous of the Swords roared, charging down the slantwise passage. The door at its end was ajar, and someone was standing in it. Someone helmed, armored, and holding a fired crossbow.
As the two men raced along, their swords flashing in their fists, that distant someone stepped aside-and someone else whose face was hidden behind a helm and whose body was battle-armored took a stance in the doorway, hefting a loaded crossbow.
Agannor and Bey pelted on, bellowing war cries.
The crossbow cracked.
There was a solid, meaty thunk, Bey grunted, and Agannor was suddenly running alone.
“The Crowned One’s getting anxious. Scrying them yet?”
Laspeera gave Vangerdahast a withering look. “You know very well we can’t scry into the Halls. How long have you had Narbridle and Rortaebur working on unraveling that webwork of spells? And it’s not as if I have nothing else to do but keep watch on His Majesty’s pet adventurers for him! Lord Goldfeather’s secret little meeting in Marsember should be starting very soon, and-”
Vangerdahast winked, chuckled, and strode on. “I have every confidence in you, Wizard of War Laspeera Naerinth. When you’re furious with everyone, all the time, you’ll have reached where I am now-and my long hunt for a successor will be done.”
Laspeera stared at the royal magician’s dwindling, departing back, her face going pale and her mouth hanging open.
Nothing came out, so after a time she closed it.
Beyard Freemantle looked down at the bolt quivering in his gut. It had pierced his armor neatly, going into him about the length of his forefinger.
So I’m dead, he thought, as he doubled up around it, feeling wet looseness rather than pain. That was fast.
His legs seemed to be bending under him like storm-wet flowers. Then he found himself bouncing on very hard stone, his arms and legs loose and flopping and his sword clanging away somewhere.
Then the pain hit.
Bey struggled to find breath enough to scream… and struggled…
He couldn’t even writhe. He was lying on his side, probably looking very dead-and fervently wishing he was dead. Anything to take away this stabbing, burning agony.
Tymora and Tempus, be with me now… gods, the pain!
Irlgar Delbossan was red-faced and sweating, hay still trailing down over his head from the tines of his fork, but his smile held genuine pleasure. “Very good, milord. I’ll-”
Then the horsemaster’s face changed. Lord Hezom turned to follow his gaze.
Behind him, the War Wizard Marsteel had stepped soundlessly into this inner room of the stables, face as unreadable as ever and clad in the same black robes he always wore. “King’s Lord,” he said proudly, “I’ve news.”
“Yes?”
Marsteel kept silent, shifting his gaze meaningfully to Delbossan.
Hezom swallowed a sigh and asked, “Concerning?”
“Matters of state, Lord.”
“Involving any or all of the Swords of Eveningstar, Lord Tessaril Winter, or Lady Narantha Crownsilver?”
“Yes,” the wizard said.
“Then speak freely,” Lord Hezom said. “Master Delbossan has every right to know whatever you desire to share with me. The Wizards of War have entirely too many vital secrets of the realm to keep, to fall carelessly into the habit of trying to make everything a secret. Have you by means of magic heard from Tessaril? Has she detained Narantha, to keep her from getting killed in the Halls alongside the Swords?”
Marsteel flushed. “I-yes, Lord Hezom, that is the heart of my news. We have and she has.”
“Good to hear,” Delbossan blurted. “I was fair worried over that. The lass-ah, from what young Florin said, she was… far from ready to taste adventure. If ye know what I mean.”
“Yes,” the war wizard said gravely, “I do know what you mean. The Lady Crownsilver is now in residence in Tessaril’s Tower, with several Wizards of War watching to see she remains there. Her father rides north to Eveningstar right now to reclaim her. I know not if he still intends to bring her here to you, Lord Hezom; when last we spoke with him, his temper was less than serene.”
Delbossan chuckled. “I’d love to hear that moot at Lord Winter’s tower. From safe hiding, of course. The Haunted Halls are probably the safest place in the realm for the Swords, about now.”
“I hardly think,” Marsteel said, “that it would be proper to eavesdrop on such a reunion, and in any event-”
“The Wizards of War are going to do it anyway,” Lord Hezom said. “I stand with Master Delbossan in this, Marsteel: I’d like to listen in on that meeting, too. You can arrange that for both of us, can’t you?”
The war wizard flushed again, opening his mouth to snap a firm denial.
Then the voice of the herald from Espar, from right behind his ear, startled him: “Of course he can-and should, so the king’s Lord of Espar and the king’s Herald of Espar can best administer local Crown affairs. Lord Crownsilver’s conduct and state of mind are vital knowledge. Horsemaster Delbossan may as well hear things firsthand, too; after all, his will be the task of rushing a mounted escort across the realm if the need arises. Shall I speak to Vangey about it for you?”
War Wizard Elgaskur Marsteel’s face was a deep crimson, now, and his mouth was opening and closing like that of a gasping fish. He looked, in fact, distinctly ill-and as he instinctively stepped away down the stables so as to bring the faces of all three men into view, he was terribly afraid he’d find them all smirking at him. “ ‘Vangey’? Mystra and Azuth be with me,” he muttered to himself. “For if I displease Royal Magician Vangerdahast, I’ll need all the favor and protection of the both of you.”
“Bey!” Agannor roared, running full tilt down the passage. Ahead, the door was closing.
He ran hard, his boots pounding and his own breath roaring in his ears. “Don’t you die on me, you motherless bastard! Don’t you-”
The door was seven running strides away, then six, and not quite closed yet. He bent his free arm in front of him to bring that shoulder up, to crash into the door and drive it wide The door swung wide open, leaving him stumbling onward as he looked right into his own death.
His shout going wordless, Agannor Wildsilver sprang, his sword flashing.
Chapter 15
DEATH ALWAYS SO CLOSE TO US
It is wise to remember always that no matter how grand our realms rise to be, how plentiful our coins, and how exalted our station, death is always so close to us that it can reach out a bony hand to our throat and drag us down in an instant. The trick is to fill our lives with splendid instants, so that when death does come, we’ll at least be enjoying ourselves.
Dhammaster Dauntinghorn
The Young Stag: Memoirs of the Splendid Years of One Noble published in the Year of the Behir
T he helmed, armored warrior standing just inside the door had a long sword in his hand, held low. He was ready to lunge up and under Agannor’s gorget, belt, or cod for a gutting thrust-and he had two fellows flanking him, the sharp points of their blades glittering.
As Agannor burst through the door, something large and dark smashed into the side of his head-a hurled crossbow, rattling as it crashed home and sent him reeling.
He’d barely begun that stagger when the first blade slid into his guts like an icicle, deep and very cold. Agannor grunted, waving his sword vainly.
The second blade sliced him like fire, riding up under his breastplate, and in. He sobbed as it lifted him off his feet-then somehow fell back and away and off it again, blind and breathless in his agony.
Agannor was dimly aware of falling back through the door and bouncing on stones, retching blood. His world exploded into roiling red mist, and he had no idea at all that the three warriors had snatched up the crossbow and fled, or that he was lying with his boots across the threshold, kicking wildly and feebly in his agony.
Horaundoon sat on the edge of his bed in the Tankard, sniffling through the part of the hargaunt that shaped his bulbous nose. Anger was burning dark and slow at the back of his mind to match the prickling sensation in the gorget hidden under more of the hargaunt-the prickling that told him that some busynose of a war wizard was still scrying him.
