by Ed Greenwood
He did find time to scream as it struck, fangs biting deep-and the mindworms surged forward, to burrow in.
He went on screaming, reeling blindly around the room, clawing at the snake as the mindworms gnawed and devoured, sinking deeper.
He could feel the hargaunt fleeing from him, but was too lost in agony to care, raking at the snake until scales flew-and he finally tore it free, much of his cheeks and brow going with it, to dash it again and again against a wall, clubbing it into soft ruin.
Dropping it dazedly, he felt for the potions he knew were there. Six healing quaffs, and the others that were useless to him now…
Horaundoon gulped them frantically, feeling the hot wetness deeper and deeper in his brain as the mindworms gnawed on. Mystra have mercy, eight of them…
He was still blind, could in fact feel one of them gnawing behind his eyes, and vainly tried-with hands that trembled treacherously-to work spells on himself.
No. No.
“Not the doom I’m… looking for,” he gasped aloud, clawing his clattering way across the table again, sending useless potions flying. Ha! He had it!
Snatching up the scepter he’d been seeking, Horaundoon turned it on himself and gasped out the word that awakened it.
A glow he could no longer see warmed his face. He writhed, shuddering helplessly, but locked his fingers in his lap, cradling the scepter, and nursed the beam that ravaged him, even as he curled up around it in pain.
He was, he knew, glowing and pulsing…
Between each pulse of his scepter, Horaundoon of the Zhentarim looked increasingly wraithlike. He was translucent now… Looking down into the crystal ball that held the Zhent’s image, Amanthan cursed softly, fists clenched. “ Die, hrast you,” he whispered. “As I did.”
The husk of a body fell in on itself. With a ragged cry of despair and revulsion, a roiling glow burst up out of it.
Weeping and wailing, Horaundoon swirled around his rooms-then out of them, howling.
A fat, unshaven carter was tying up horses in the street below. Horaundoon plunged down through the man, savagely trying to slay.
The carter staggered, wheezed, stared at the street with wild, bewildered eyes-and fell on his face and lay still, his horses snorting and trying to back away.
It was that easy. That hideously easy.
And what comfort was that to him?
Howling anew, Horaundoon raced down the street, a pale and shapeless arrow, to slay again. And again. Purple Dragons, shopkeepers, alley drunks…
A lush-bodied woman in an upper window, preening before a mirror. He soared into the room and spiraled around her, not wanting to slay so much as touch… touch what he could no longer touch!
She screamed once then trembled, too fearful to breathe, tottering… He tried to hold her as she fell, but managed only to sink into her, passing not through her body but into her mind.
Which was both darker and more shallow than he’d expected, and faintly disgusted him, but which he found he could coerce… thus… and shape the thoughts of… thus. So he had no body, but could-yes! — live in the bodies of others.
Her mind was a small and cringing thing, flinching from him. Horaundoon lashed it scornfully even as he forced it to do this, then that.
She clawed her way stiffly back up from the floor, the gown she’d been trying on hanging half-off her, and went to the stairs, lurching and stumbling.
By the time she reached the street, she was walking more or less upright-stiffly, foaming at the mouth as her eyes rolled wildly. Horaundoon was still learning control.
“Ever the unsubtle, bumbling idiot,” Old Ghost sneered through Amanthan’s lips, as he scried the clumsy progress of the woman Horaundoon was mind-riding. “And as you stumble about, your schemes do the same-as clumsily as you do.”
Yet they were now two of a kind, he and the Zhent. Possessing, mind-riding spirits.
Horaundoon just didn’t realize, yet, what a great victory he’d achieved.
“Bitter laughter and applause,” Old Ghost murmured. “For us both, I suppose.”
The hargaunt was wriggling as fast as it could, flowing along the cold stone floor of a dark passage.
The flying gauntlets that pounced upon it, lifted it into the air, and expanded around it into a spherical prison were quite a surprise-but ignored its most belligerent chimings.
“You, little flowing menace, are going to come in quite useful to this war wizard traitor,” the wielder of the gauntlets purred gloatingly, toying with a ring that bore a handsome, oversized carved unicorn head. “Yes, quite useful. When my time comes.”
The war wizards had been gentle, even respectful in their questionings, and had left her some privacy to recover herself while they fetched her a meal.
That was why Narantha Crownsilver was sitting alone in a pleasantly furnished chamber somewhere in the palace in Suzail when horror burst open in her mind, unfolding with such awfulness that she could only whimper.
There was something called a mindworm in her head, linking her to this wizard-a Zhentarim! — the murderer of her Uncle Lorneth!
Who’d cold-bloodedly taken her uncle’s face and voice to deceive her, using her to spread mindworms to Florin and others… so many others… nobles all across the realm!
“Gods deliver me,” she gasped, when she could find words. “What have I done? ”
This revelation was due to this Horaundoon’s own misfortune. She watched the monster suffer under his own snake and mindworms, and she felt his sick pain-a dull echo of it, at least, as her own mind staggered…
And even as he shuddered and shrieked and wallowed in agony, her dazed mind stumbled through his dark plans, laid bare to her at last.
“No,” she whispered. “Oh no.”
He would survive this.
He would control her again, through the mindworm in her head-and through her, all she’d subverted.
“Gods!” she whispered, “so many! ”
She must do something. Right now…
So this is what real fear tastes like. Fear for all Cormyr.
Weeping and trembling, she left the room and hurried through the palace.
“Failure, Lady Lord,” Dauntless said bitterly. “Complete failure. The fugitives got clean away. I stand deserving of any punishment you see fit.”
Myrmeen Lhal’s eyes bored into his as if she were reading something written small on the inside back of his skull, but she said nothing.
And went on saying nothing as a curtain parted behind her, and the Warden of the Eastern Marches came into the room, stepped aside, and handed in an unfamiliar woman as if she outranked him. She was tall and muscular, her hair a long fall of silver-not silver as old folk go silver, but the shining silver of polished metal-and she wore green leathers, with the crescent moon badge of the Harpers at belt buckle and throat.
Baron Thomdor gave Dauntless a smile. “Well met this day, Ornrion Dahauntul. Be also well met with Dove Silverhand, of the Harpers.”
Dove inclined her head in greeting. “Myrmeen, Dauntless: you share no failure. The fugitives you’ve been chasing have just been knighted by Queen Filfaeril, and are riding in triumph into Suzail right now.”
Two jaws dropped in unison. Almost tenderly, Dove added, “When they pass through Arabel again, in a tenday or so, ’twould be best if they were made welcome, not hounded or imprisoned.”
Stunned disbelief was clear on the newly restored ornrion’s face. “And-and how can you know this?” he sputtered. “Forgive me, Lady, but words are easily said-yet more slowly trusted. Why, I’ve never even seen you before!”
“Ah, but you have, gallant Dauntless. That night at the Leaping Hart, when you danced on the tables, remember? And loudly admired the behind of a certain lass?” Dove turned and struck a pose. “Have your fingers forgotten this backside so swiftly?”
Dauntless reddened as words failed him again, and Myrmeen and Thomdor exploded into laughter.
Dove grinned and patted the orn
rion’s arm. “Ne’er mind. ‘Bold to face the foe,’ remember?”
The Horngate loomed high and impressive overhead. “Lady Queen,” Florin murmured over his shoulder, “you should ride at the fore, and we behind you. ’Tis not right that-”
“Ride on,” Filfaeril commanded, in a voice of sudden iron that sounded muffled. “Just as we are.”
Florin turned his head and discovered that the Dragon Queen had cast a mantle over her head, and ducked low in her saddle.
He exchanged looks with Islif, they both shrugged-and an ornrion was stepping into their path, his hand raised imperiously.
“Hold hard, there!” he said sternly. “So large a company, and under arms? Who are you, who seek to ride right into Suzail?”
“We are knights of Cormyr, and chartered adventurers besides, and so are doubly allowed to bear war-steel into this fair city,” Florin replied, as they reined in their mounts.
“Knights and chartered adventurers? On mounts bearing the royal crest on their harness?” The officer’s voice was hard and incredulous. “Down from your saddle, sir, and furnish me with your charter-if you have one.”
Purple Dragons behind him, in the arch of the Horngate, had already taken up cocked and loaded crossbows and were aiming them, their faces suspicious.
“I think not, ” Queen Filfaeril’s voice rang out. “Stand aside, loyal Dragons!” She urged her horse past Florin, mantle thrown back, and raised her hand in a wave that set folk to astonished chatter-and sent the gate guards to their knees, their bows hurriedly pointed elsewhere.
“Diligently done, ornrion. Thy vigilance has our royal favor,” the Dragon Queen said crisply as she spurred past the officer, leading the knights forward onto the Promenade.
Word seemed to spread like fire racing in a gale, and folk streamed out of shops and sidestreets to gawk at the passing riders.
“I wonder how many enemies she’s making us?” Pennae whispered uneasily, as ragged cheers arose, the queen waved, and folk-so many folk-stared, faces upon hundreds of faces. “I mislike being seen so prominently in public.”
“Get used to it,” Alaphondar murmured. “And keep smiling. Every hamlet and realm, and all the folk in it, need their goats and heroes.”
“Ah,” Semoor asked wryly, as the tall iron gates of the Royal Court opened before them, “and which are we, I wonder?”
Alaphondar’s smile was thin. “Learning how to find a way out of goatskins is the true mark of a hero.”
As they rode across the broad and muddy courtyard, bright horns began to sound.
Epilogue
There was only one way to defend Cormyr.
Only one way to restore the honor of House Crownsilver.
Every god there is, give me strength to do this.
To do what must be done.
Rethendarr was the war wizard who’d been most angry in questioning her-the youngest, most eager and restless. To Rethendarr she would go.
After she made one necessary stop.
“I am the Lady Narantha Crownsilver,” she told the startled Purple Dragon at the guardroom. “And I have need of-ah. This one will do.”
Her sliced thumb told her the slender long sword was very sharp. Carrying it like a walking stick, she marched off before the guard could think of a pretext to stop her.
“Two things,” she murmured to herself, “all the realm knows. The Wizards of War stand ever-ready to defend the realm-not the king or Obarskyrs or palaces, but Cormyr itself-and right now every last spellhurler among them has one peril uppermost in mind: the Arcrown, that can easily slay any mage from afar. They search for it day and night.”
She stood before the door to Rethendarr’s study for a long time, trembling, before she mustered courage enough to open it and step inside.
There had been a chair… and that high marble-topped table.
There still were. The table was too heavy for anyone to shift alone-good-but the chair Narantha dragged to where she needed it-and wedged the sword hilt in its back cushions, the blade angled up over the table.
Ah, he had a glowstone. Even better. She put it on the marble, just beside the sword with its jutting point.
Now, where did the wizard keep his wine?
Ah.
She chose the best, and his largest goblet, and it was good. She had a second goblet.
Yet found herself still trembling.
“Lorneth,” she whispered, “guide me.”
And she flung the goblet with all the force in her arm, at the closed door Rethendarr must be on the other side of.
He was, by the startled curse she heard through it.
In a moment he’d wrench it open, and she must be ready. Standing up straight and proud, she tossed her head, trembling so hard that she thought she’d fall over, and cried in as triumphant a voice as she could manage, “Ha! Face me if you dare, Rethendarr, for I wear the Arcrown-and I want to see your face as I slay you! You, and all who stand between me and the Dragon Throne!”
There was a moment of silence, then a swift incantation.
The glowstone on the table winked out-and several other things around the room changed, too.
“My, antimagic fields are wonderful things,” she commented aloud, talking to keep her courage up.
The door crashed open-and Narantha hurled herself onto the sword.
Rethendarr’s face was furious, his hands raised, but the jaunty greeting she’d meant to give him was lost in the sob of pain that burst from her.
The steel was so cold. So cold…
She slid down it, gasping. Blood was running from her lips like a waterfall, it was through her and must be thrust out through her back by now, dark and wet…
So this is what it’s like, to die.
In a room far away in Arabel, Dove Silverhand’s head came up sharply.
“What is it?” Myrmeen Lhal snapped.
“Something… bad,” Dove said softly. “Oh, Mystra.”
The knights burst into the study, a frantic Florin at their head, and ran right over the war wizard in their way.
Narantha Crownsilver was impaled on a sword, dying. “Highly overrated,” she gasped, not seeming to see them, and her face twisted as she tried to laugh… and found she couldn’t.
As Florin flung himself across the room, clawing at his belt for a potion, Narantha spat blood and turned to look at him, her face still twisted in agony. “It’s in my head, ” she sobbed. “Don’t heal me, or it’ll get out!”
“What, Nantha?” Florin cried, flinging his sword down and reaching for her.
Narantha drooled blood all over his hands as she shuddered, and let her head fall back onto his shoulder. “This,” she whispered. “ This is what it means to love Cormyr.”
“What’ve you done?” he cried. “Why-why?”
The Lady Narantha Crownsilver peered up at him pleadingly through her mask of blood and tears to gasp, “Oh, Florin, I had to do it. You see that, don’t you?”
And then she died.
Here ends Book 1 of the tales of the Knights of Myth Drannor.
Their adventures are continued in Swords of Dragonfire.
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