by Ed Greenwood
“As to that,” Agannor growled, “we won’t be the only ones getting hurt. The watch is little loved in most taverns, and here in Arabel even less. Were I you, ornrion, I’d go back to my barracks and think on a politer, safer way to get law-abiding adventurers to visit the palace. A written invitation, perhaps?”
Ornrion Dauntless let his lip curl, and Agannor’s face darkened.
“Well?” he asked, looking at the silent tables all around. “What say, folk of Arabel? Do we let watch jacks swagger in and just take away this man or that, on what might be their personal whim? Or do we show them what broken pates feel like, and send them packing?”
A scar-faced man sitting not far away looked at him sourly, and said, “Man, I know not where ye come from, but in this city the watch is to be obeyed.”
“Aye,” a burly carter said, turning to face Agannor. “For the good of all.”
“Obedience, not defiance,” a gray-haired, worn-faced woman agreed. “The law and its fair keeping is all we have to keep all here from boiling up into swordfeuds-so we all help to keep it. Draw steel, you Swords, and we’ll aid the watch against you, not raise hand against them. The Dragons are the hard hands we know; you could be anything.”
“Well,” Doust said, “that’s clear enough. We obey these officers, quietly and without giving them trouble. Unless they’re foolish enough to hamper the holy devotions of Semoor or myself-and I believe no Purple Dragon truly loyal to the Crown would do that.”
“You believe rightly,” Dauntless said, and pointed-once, twice, and thrice. “You,” he said to Florin, “seem to lead, or at least give commands to some of your fellows. You will come with me.” He turned his head to Pennae. “You, we’ve had reports of, so you’ll come with me and not slip away, or your companions will pay for it.” He looked to Jhessail. “And you’ve been reported to cast spells, wherefore the war wizards desire to speak with you-or should do. You also will come with us, and work no magic on the way or in the presence of the lady lord.”
“Our charter-” Florin began, but Dauntless raised a quelling hand.
“I know what Crown charters usually say,” he growled. “You were about to say that no such restrictions are placed on this lady mage?” When Florin nodded, Dauntless added, “I’m asking her to agree to this behavior, here and now. If she refuses, she’ll be brought into the presence of the lady lord bound, gagged, hobbled, and blindfolded.”
Semoor stirred, growing a smile-but Martess lifted her boot deftly under the table, and in sudden, gasping agony the novice of Lathander bent his head and said nothing.
“I agree to this,” Florin said, “but can speak only for myself. Pennae? Jhessail?”
“I agree to this,” both women echoed, finished their drinks, and rose. Around them, chatter started up again, and the air of confrontation faded away with the silence that had heralded it.
The Purple Dragons converged warily on Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail as the three walked with Dauntless to the door. Florin nodded to the tavernmaster as if he were royalty rather than under arrest, plucked a gold coin from his purse, and tossed it to the man.
At his next stride, his gaze happened to fall on a table along the wall beside the door, where a weary-looking woman-a shopkeeper, by her garb-was drinking alone. Their eyes met, and Florin blinked.
He’d have sworn he’d never laid eyes on this woman before, yet her face looked somehow familiar.
No, not her face-her eyes. Dark blue, wise, knowing. Yes, he’d looked into those eyes before! Recently, of course… in a tavern?
Dark blue depths… that flared silver, just for an instant An instant that left Florin remembering nothing of them at all, and trudging out of the Lion with Dragons before him and behind him.
“We can’t find Greenmantle,” a young war wizard snapped, striding past. “She seems to have disappeared completely.”
Laspeera sighed, took Godal by the shoulder, and steered him through a door into a robing room. “Put something on, and let’s talk.”
The tall, aging war wizard nodded and went to the row of wardrobes. Laspeera brewed thornapple tea, and had a steaming goblet of it waiting for him when he sat down with her, smiled, and waved at her to begin.
Laspeera hesitated not a moment. “Why didn’t you go into Lady Yellander’s mind when she first made her advances? ’Twasn’t as if she usually treated you so familiarly. You must have been suspicious.”
“Lady,” Godal said, inhaling the scent of the too-hot tea, “ I have scruples.”
“Fiddlebats, Az! You went into her head fast enough, later!”
Godal cupped his hands around his goblet, looked into its depths, and said, “I didn’t want to know if she had… dark motives. After all these years, just once, I wanted it to be real.”
“Oh, Azimander,” Laspeera said softly, leaning across the table to put her arms around him.
Godal set his tea down with a trembling hand and hugged her tightly. After a breath or two, he started to cry.
“By the blood of Alathan,” Semoor cursed, giving Martess a dark look for her kick to his cods, “ now what?”
“I’d like to feed that ornrion his own sw-”
“Agannor,” Islif said in a low voice that rang with hard steel to match the glare she gave him, “still thy tongue. Right now. There could be watch spies sitting at every table around us. Just belt up-and listen.”
“We’re listening,” Bey said, elbowing his friend.
Agannor scowled but nodded, as Islif leaned forward over the table and said, “I’d like the two of you to remain here in the Lion to meet Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail when they return. Depart for our rooms at Rhalseer’s if they don’t appear by closing time, or if any sort of brawl erupts or anyone tries to make trouble for you-and for the love of all the watching gods, don’t get drunk and don’t pick any fights yourselves!”
Bey nodded, and Islif reached across the table to take Agannor’s hand and mutter, eyes fixed on his, “Agannor, you have a temper. Conquer it, and ride it well, for all our sakes. Our healing quaffs are back at Rhalseer’s, remember?”
With a sigh, she added, “Martess, I hate to ask this of you, but I need one of us, right now, to get out there and trail the watch to see where they take Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail, and you’re the least noticeable of us all-”
“You needn’t ask,” Martess said, springing to her feet, “for I’m glad to do so. I’m gone!”
And she was, ducking and darting among the tables. “All of you,” Islif said, “watch to see if anyone follows her out of here. Doust and Semoor, come with me. Our first task will be to stop anyone who follows Martess, and our second to find new lodgings. I think our time at Rhalseer’s is just about over.”
“I think you’re right about that,” Doust agreed.
“And I,” Agannor said darkly, “am afraid you’re right about that.”
Horaundoon smiled down at his scrying orb.
“Well, now,” he said, setting down what little was left of his haunch of roast boar, “Islif certainly seems like a proper war commander. I wonder if she’s been the real leader-her and bright little Pennae-all along?”
The hargaunt’s trill told him it certainly thought so.
He wondered briefly how much hargaunts learned of humans, then shrugged, gnawed one last time on his boar, washed his hands in the bowl of petal-water, and hurried from his spellchamber.
A floor down, he rapped on the door of the rooms shared by two busy and popular lowcoin lasses. Kestra and Taeriana were rather slow to open their door, for neither of them was alone, and a hurried customer is a poorly paying customer-but when they did open to him, the men they’d been entertaining departing by the door that opened out onto the end stairs, he smiled into their eyes, mastered their minds easily with the magic he had ready-and sent them into a whirlwind of donning cloaks and boots over their daring silks, and hurrying out to the Lion.
The robing room door opened. Arms still around Godal, Laspeera looked up to
see who was there. Just for a moment, she looked astonished.
Then she glared.
Lady Rharaundra Yellander, an ill-fitting war wizard robe draped around her shoulders, was closing the door behind her.
Laspeera said not a word, letting her silent glare speak for her.
The noblewoman stared back at her, looking miserable, and said quaveringly, “Vangerdahast is going to do something to my mind.”
“And so?”
“And so,” Lady Yellander whispered fiercely, stepping forward, “before I forget everything of who I am and what I’ve done, there’s something I find I want to do, first. Vangerdahast has given me permission-if Azimander will.”
She reached out her hand almost beseechingly to Azimander Godal.
Slowly uncurling from where he was huddled against Laspeera, the old war wizard looked up at her. Then, slowly, he reached out and took the noblewoman’s hand.
She drew him to his feet and into her embrace, asking Laspeera, “Do you have a bed anywhere around here? Or a table someone’s not using?”
Lord Maniol Crownsilver stared, blinked, and stared again.
However, the purposefully striding dark-robed figures didn’t go away. In fact, they came swiftly closer, hurrying down his grandest passage straight at him.
“What by all the Nine Hells — ? ” he snarled, reaching for the intricate hilt of his ornamented sword.
There came no reply, though the somber gaze of the good-looking woman who walked at their fore measured him. Coolly.
“Just who by the Dungfaced Dragon do you think you are,” he addressed her, “bursting into my home like this?”
The intruders slowed not a whit, and an infuriated Lord Crownsilver spread his hands and awakened all the rings, bracers, and wristlets on them to glowing, menacing life. “Come one step nearer-!”
The woman gestured, and the air around Maniol Crownsilver seemed to freeze-an icy grip that settled around his heart and throat and left him gasping.
“If by ‘Dungfaced Dragon’ you mean the king,” she said coldly, “you can unsay those words right now, Lord Crownsilver. We are Wizards of War, here on Crown business. If your wife hadn’t spellguarded her chambers-and when did she master such Art without a word to anyone, Lord? — we’d have teleported there and you’d never even have seen us. I am Tsantress of the Wizards of War, ‘bursting into’ here, as you put it, on the explicit orders of the Lord Vangerdahast, to apprehend a traitor to the realm.”
“A trait- Jalassa? ” Maniol Crownsilver was incredulous, and looked it.
In that moment, Tsantress believed he knew nothing at all about his wife’s dark doings, but allowed herself no shred of pity. He was noble, and the head of one of the oldest, proudest houses of Cormyr to boot; he would bluster He did. “And you think you can just march in here, like the rutting king himself, and-”
“Treason, Lord Crownsilver,” Tsantress said sweetly, making a gesture that turned the icy force holding Maniol Crownsilver so cold he couldn’t breathe. “That’s what those words you’ve just uttered are: clear treason. Spoken before many witnesses, too. And the penalty for treason is…”
She waved her hand, and her magic was gone, dropping Lord Crownsilver with a crash onto his face, breathless and barely able to moan. Death.
The war wizards hurried past him, and up the grand stair.
He was vaguely aware of one war wizard calling, “It’s this one, here!” and another saying, “Stand ye back, all!”
Then there came a loud crackling, laced with cries of alarm-and something that looked like a leisurely, many-forked bolt of lightning spat out from the floor above, writhing and spitting across the empty air high above him almost hesitantly.
Maniol Crownsilver was on his feet before it faded, staggering up the stairs on suddenly weak legs, hauling on the rails with his hands to drag himself up the long flight as more bolts erupted from the floor above.
“ ’Tis spellguarded, all right!” a war wizard shouted, reeling back against the balustrade beside the stairs.
“Enough attempts to grandly impress,” the voice of Tsantress rose, firm and calm. “Cast together, at my command, thus…”
As Lord Crownsilver reached the top of the stair, white light flared blinding-bright, war wizards cried out in dismay-and the radiance faded and the door of his wife’s retiring room sighed open, tiny cracklings and glows playing about its edges.
The room beyond was as femininely opulent as he remembered-save for the blackened area at its heart, where forlorn, still-smoldering ashes outlined the shape of a sprawled, spreadeagled human body.
A stocky young war wizard cast a swift spell, waited with arms spread and eyes closed, then reported, “No one. No one alive.”
Silently the other war wizards stepped into the room, spreading out to either side of it to form an arc along the wall, rather than advancing. At its center, Tsantress turned to the unmoving mage. “Lorbryn?”
He shook his head, hands still splayed out into the air. “No one on this level, clear out to… there’s a turret, that way, that’s shielded against me.”
“End it,” was the curt response.
“What’re you saying?” Lord Crownsilver demanded, as the man opened his eyes and brought his arms down. “Jalassa? Where’s my Jalassa?”
Tsantress turned to face him, face unreadable. “Stay here,” she said. “Come no closer to yon chamber.” She looked meaningfully at Lorbryn, who stepped in front of Crownsilver, blocking his way on.
Over Lorbryn’s shoulder, the lord saw Tsantress turn back into the room and murmur orders. Arms lifted in castings, the air glowed an eerie blue-white, and then… something ruby, orange, and sudden roared up from the ashes, whirling around the room in a shrieking, scouring cloud that left war wizards staggering or on their knees, clutching their eyes or covering their noses and mouths with desperate hands.
Then, quite suddenly, the roaring and roiling were gone, and Maniol Crownsilver was peering into a room that seemed to be full of dust-and dust-caked, coughing and choking war wizards, moving dazedly through the drifting clouds.
“Tsantress?” Lorbryn called urgently, over his shoulder. “Art well?”
“I’ve been better,” came the glum reply, from a soot-faced, barely recognizable apparition that came out of the dust to stand with him. “That was a trap-spell left on her ashes, to mix them with our own sweat and hairs, and make necromantic interrogation impossible.”
Maniol gaped at her. “Necro…? My Jalassa-is she-?”
Tsantress nodded.
“ Nooo! No, she can’t be! My-my-not my Jalassa!”
Tsantress thrust Lorbryn gently aside and stepped forward, a soot-caked scarecrow, to put comforting arms around the sagging, weeping lord.
“Lord Crownsilver,” she said, “I’m afraid Lady Crownsilver is no more.”
“Jalassa! Jalassa! ” the man in her arms sobbed, clawing at her, trying to get past her. War wizards coming out of the room stared at him grimly.
“Bring her back!” Lord Crownsilver howled at them. “You’ve magic, you can do that! Bring her back to me! ”
Tsantress shook her head sadly, her blackened face almost touching his.
“Please,” he sobbed, shaking her. “Please!”
“Lord Crownsilver, your wife was working with an enemy of the Crown of Cormyr. That traitor is unknown to us, thus far-but that traitor murdered Lady Crownsilver to keep us or anyone else learning of them from her. Murdered her, spellguarded the room her ashes were in against scrying and translocations, spell-sealed its doors, and left trap magics waiting for anyone who came to investigate. Take whatever comfort you can from knowing the Wizards of War will leave no hint or trail unfollowed until that traitor is found-and destroyed.”
Maniol Crownsilver threw back his head to gulp in air, still crying, and after a few shuddering breaths managed to gasp, “No comfort at all!”
Tsantress kept firm arms around him. “Would you like to accompany us to the palace
? Or have some of us remain here with you? You should not be alone-”
“No,” Crownsilver sobbed, “I don’t want war wizards standing around me speaking empty soothings. I want them at my side, casting every spell they have, to find me my daughter!”
“Your daughter?”
“My Narantha! I must find her. She’s all I have left of my beautiful Jalassa, now.”
Each group of guards searched the three with stony disregard for modesty or gender, removing all the weapons they could find. It took a long time to reach the innermost chamber.
“State your name, each of you,” Dauntless growled then. After Florin, Jhessail, and Pennae had done that, he nodded, raised his hand to indicate the unsmiling woman in worn, unadorned battle-leathers standing behind the map-strewn table, and said, “Swords of Eveningstar, this is Myrmeen Lhal, the Lady Lord of Arabel. In this city, her word is law-and you stand here at her pleasure.”
Florin bowed low. “Lady, we are loyal to the king. What would you, with us?”
The lady lord said, “Produce your charter. Now.”
Florin bowed again, stepped back, and turned his back. Dauntless was at his side in a moment, sword half-drawn, to watch suspiciously as Florin unbuckled his codpiece and flipped it up, to undo a lacing inside, and pluck forth-a much-folded, tiny square of parchment.
Jhessail covered her eyes in disgust, but Pennae, Dauntless, and the guards behind Dauntless were all grinning as Florin tucked his codpiece back into place, spun around, and triumphantly unfolded the royal charter.
Myrmeen Lhal’s wry amusement gleamed in her eyes, but had completely failed to reach the rest of her face. She took the parchment from Florin almost reverently, read it, and handed it back.
“Your charter is in order,” she announced, “wherefore ’tis my duty only to give you fair warning. Swords, your activities within Arabel’s walls haven’t gone unnoticed, and further thievery will not go unpunished. Pennae, you could very easily find yourself imprisoned for a long time, with some of your nimble fingers broken so they’ll heal with rather less deftness than they’ve displayed thus far.”
