Swords of Dragonfire

They were crowded elbow to elbow in Baerauble’s Back Bower-which despite its name, was a lofty-vaulted chamber of state whose soaring dark-paneled walls were crowded with old pikes, outthrust banners, and painted portraits of hunting and warring kings taller than most commoners’ cottages. Hot, no longer desperately hungry or thirsty, for deft legions of platter-bearing servants had seen to that, they were not yet revelers, and increasingly unhappy about it.

“Well, I’ve heard that Anglond’s Great Hall is clear across the Palace from here,” a glass merchant brayed. “When are they going to let us in, I want to know?”

“And if they say there’s too many of us,” a sea captain splendid in swashbuckling green shimmerwave grunted, “and turn us away without so much as a look at the Silvaeren, who rises against them, hey? Will you be with me, then?”

The well-dressed horse-trader tossed her glossy fall of hair and snorted, “Outlanders! This always happens with outlanders! They take so long to bathe and dress, I doubt we’ll be in there before nightfall!”

“I care not, so long as they keep these cheeses coming. And the cakes too! Huh; almost makes up for this cellar-swill they’re serving us! Do they think shopkeepers of Suzail know nothing about wine?”

Some guests had discovered the sculpted delights of Blackhakret’s Chamber, next door, and accordingly a little space opened up on the Bower’s magnificent carpet, allowing guests to mill about.

That milling happened to bring a young and excitedly breathless jeweler’s model-spectacular in a night blue gown that both supported and displayed the two magnificent reasons old Raskro the Jeweler employed her to display his best pectorals-face to face with a grandly monacled and bewhiskered man whose sash of intricately scrolled badges, each denoting a hamlet or farm annually taxed for a thousand golden lions or more, proclaimed him some sort of noble.

“Well met, Lord!” she said with shining eyes.

“Well met, lass,” the grand personage replied kindly. “Enjoying the evening, thus far?”

“Oh, yes! I’ve met so many exciting people, and learned so much about the kingdom! Folk are so interesting, so knowledgeable!”

“Folk here? In this room? Child, if this is what passes for informed converse, the realm totters,” the crusty old noble growled, glaring momentarily at a merchant in a fur-trimmed greatcloak before turning his fond smile once more upon the shop-lass. “What I hear around me, to my great chagrin, is but an admixture of floridly vapid discourse, mere furbelows-or, dare I jest, ‘fur-bellows,’ ah ha ha-uttered by fools so charmed by the unaccustomed sound of their own wits working that they-”

The deafening chatter all around them fell into a hush in an instant, the old lord among the silenced, as a young woman in a bloodied gown burst into the room, running like a hurrying wind across its carpet with Purple Dragons in hot pursuit.

Her gown was down around her waist, leaving her bare above; she wore no dethma. As she ran she cried, “Take your hands off me, you beasts! I don’t care how heroic you’ve been, battling for the realm! Nor how magnificent and rampant Purple Dragons are, either! Nothing gives you the right to-”

All over the room, nobles flung down goblets and started striding forward, growling.

The shop-lass stared open-mouthed as the man she’d been speaking with stepped right into the path of the foremost Purple Dragons.

And drew his ornamented sword.

“I am Lord Cormelryn,” he announced, in a deep roar that rang off the vaulting overhead, “and for fifty-two summers I rode with the Purple Dragons. No man under my command would ever treat a lady so-or even a lass who is decidely not a lady. Stand and explain yourselves!”

The soldiers skidded to a stop to avoid being spitted on that needlelike blade, and sought to duck around its wielder, for their hard-breathing quarry was clear across the room by now and fast on her way to disappearing.

Only to find their way barred by a taller, thinner, and slightly younger, but just as furious noble, who snapped, “Lord Rustryn Staglance am I, Dragons, and I stand champion for the fair damsel. You would despoil her before our very eyes, sirrahs? What have Purple Dragons come to, these days?”

Then half a dozen nobles were coldly barring the Dragons’ way and disputing passage with them. At the far wall of the chamber, Pennae put her hand on the pull-ring of the door she most liked the look of; narrow and unmarked, it probably gave onto a servants’ passage. The wrinkled old noble who’d been leaning against it to give his arms a rest from taking all his weight on two canes gave her a grin and shuffled aside, winking.

Pennae winked back, paused for a moment with hand on hip to give him a good look-and slipped through the door.

Good, she’d judged a-right, and was back in passages that might just lead her closer to the royal family or Vangerdahast.

She pulled her gown back up into place-it looked a ruin, and no wonder, but there was no helping it now-and then started to hurry.

On an impulse, she tapped the little inlaid eye in Yassandra’s belt buckle, and whistled softly in appreciation when it shed a glow in front of her, like a glowstone. She tapped it again, and the glow went away.

By the noise, grand chambers of state full of guests were all around her, now. The center of this floor of the Palace should be this way, and surely she should soon find stairs up, to take her closer to the royal apartments, or at least meet with someone she might be able to trust. Perhaps this way, where the doors were most numerous.

She rounded a corner and found herself looking into a decidedly wolfish smile.

It was adorning the face she’d seen in Arabel, of the man talking treason, the man who had the “crystals trap.” The man who now stood barring her way with arms folded across his confident chest.

“Who are you?” she asked, in the manner of a dazzled young lass.

“I am War Wizard Ghoruld Applethorn,” he replied politely. “And you?”

“They call me Pennae.”

“Well met,” he said pleasantly, “you little scampering bitch. Prepare-as they say-to die.”

Pennae rolled her eyes. “I always am,” she told him, snatching open a door and plunging into another ballroom full of guests. “Can you say the same?”

“I am getting so sick of these endless passages,” Islif muttered. “How big is this Palace, hey?”

“I heard some of the servants talking,” Semoor offered, “and they said these cellars run for miles-out under the gardens, and in that direction under the courtyard, to link up with the cellars of the Royal Court across the way, and then even out across the Promenade!”

“ Thank you, Anointed of Lathander. Such cheery aid you render.”

“Always happy to be of assistance,” Semoor responded.

Jhessail was wrinkling her nose. “If it goes out under the city, how do they keep everyone who’s digging out a bigger cellar from accidentally or deliberately breaking into it, and then wandering around looting the Palace?”

“Guardians,” Semoor said. “Lots of them. Magic guardians; striding suits of armor with swords, statues of stone, skeletons with weapons… that sort of thing.”

“Thanks,” Doust muttered, peering around a little nervously. “You lift my spirits so, that you do.”

“But of course,” Semoor said airily. “Think nothing of it. We faithful of Lathander delight in new opportunities, in the happiness of-”

“Belting up when told to,” Islif snapped, reaching for Semoor’s throat.

He gave her a startled look. “Have I done something wrong?”

“ ‘Thing’? No. Many things? Yes. Right now, however, you can tell me more about these striding suits of armor you were just gabbling about.”

“Aye?”

“What do they look like, exactly?”

Semoor blinked. “Well, I’ve not seen one; I just heard the servants… why?”

Islif pointed down the passage. In the distance, a helm atop armored shoulders was turning silently to regard them. It was dark and empty, with no head inside it.

“That’s why,” she said.

“Oh, tluin, ” Semoor said with fervor.

Ghoruld Applethorn murmured an incantation, clung in his mind to the noble lordling look he desired-tall, tip-of-the-chin white beard and bristling brows to match, flame-hued silk doublet, cods, and hose, yes — and waited for the tingling to die away.

Damn that hargaunt for disappearing when it had. He knew it was still in the Palace, slithering around somewhere nearby-but hrast him if he had the time to go seeking it now, what with Knights of Myth Drannor running all over the Palace, Vangerdahast roused and roaring, and dozens of Zhents and Red Wizards and worse in the rooms of state all around him, wearing their little disguises and pursuing their little schemes.

There was only one little scheme that mattered-and must prevail.

The tingling ended. “Behold another grandly dressed noble lord,” he murmured. “Suzail, are you ready?”

Opening the door Pennae had disappeared through, he stepped boldly into the Hall of Archdragons, looking around for a lass in a bloodstained, wrinkled gown-or anyone trying to hide behind someone else.

There was a couple standing right in his way, a red-faced merchant with goblet in one hand and an armful of begowned good-woman in the other. “And Kaylea-may I call you Kaylea? — the worst of it, these days, comes from all these Sembian traders with far more coins than good sense! Whenever they’ve made or imported more gewgaws than even Sembians will buy, they try to flood our markets their leftovers-from mock-dragonfeet footstools to glowfire doorknobs!”

“Oh?” Goodwoman Kaylea asked, looking up into his face with every indication of attentive interest. “Yet try to flood, you said. So who rises against them?”

Ghoruld Applethorn sidestepped, seeking to get around the two-and at that moment Pennae came whirling out from behind the obliviously chatting couple, caught hold of the wrist of his trailing hand in astonishingly strong fingers, thrust his hand back against the doorframe-and drove a dagger through it, pinning it solidly to the wood.

Agony stabbed through him, and Ghoruld Applethorn had to fight for breath enough to howl in pain. As he struggled, gasping for air, Pennae blew him a kiss and slipped back out into the passage, slamming him against the doorframe with her hip on the way past.

Even before he roared with pain, guests were staring and murmuring. He was in tears before he mastered his discomfort enough to tug out the dagger and free himself-and by the time he’d finished staggering and moaning, Applethorn knew she was long gone.

Hurrying along the passage, Pennae snatched open the first door she saw.

A laundry chute-but a big one, large enough to hurl a linen basket thrice her girth down. She shrugged, tapped her belt buckle to win the light she needed, stepped inside, pulled the door closed behind her, and let go of its ring.

Her fall was so swift, the shaft bending only a trifle, that she couldn’t hold on to the ring of the door a level down. She stung her fingers trying, then threw her elbows wide and got them bruised against the sides of the shaft-but in doing so slowed herself enough to catch firm hold of the next door.

Clinging to it, Pennae grimly hauled herself up to its level, braced herself on the elbow-hold she knew would be there, and kicked it open, plunging out into the cellars again.

With a sigh, she spun around and carefully closed the chute door. Hopefully Applethorn was too busy with his treason to chase her any longer. Now all she had to do was find another way up into the Palace from this second cellar level down.

If there was one.

She set out at a trot, plunging through a doorframe that looked like it’d been missing its door for a long time.

Pennae went on past other doors, some of them huge, but all of them closed and rusting and looking as if they hadn’t been opened in years. None of them looked in the slightest like a way up.

She had to keep hurrying. It was taking forever for this revel to begin, yes, but “forever” would come if she spent too much time.

When she rounded a corner and saw what awaited her, Pennae felt like crying.

An all-too-familar iron barrier, its massive wall blocking her way on. As before, she could see no way past, no winch to raise it… nothing. All that striving, just to end up right where she’d started.

Well, if the king and queen and Vangerdahast wanted to be rescued by the Knights of Myth Drannor, it seemed there’d be a lot of waiting involved, and they’d have to be very patient.

Shaking her head at that thought, she turned around to retrace her steps and seek another way, and found herself staring up at a man whose head brushed the ceiling, and whose bulk loomed over her like a mountain.

Huge muscled arms hefted an axe more than half as tall as she was, and a short, broad, horn-tipped sword. The giant wore a patchwork coat of battered, bolted-together armor plates and ragged hides, and a helm on his head that-brightening now, as she watched-threw a glow out before it like Yassandra’s belt was doing, for her.

“Who by all the Watching Gods are you?” Pennae gasped.

“They call me,” the man-mountain rumbled, spreading his weapons to block her way past him as he shouldered ponderously forward, “the Dread Doorwarden. Or the Stalking Doom. Which do you prefer, little doomed lass?”

Mystra and Loviatar, it hurt! Cursing, and wondering if his disguise was wavering, Applethorn wrenched the dagger out of the doorframe, shouting at the pain.

He was free, sobbing uncontrollably and wringing his hand, blood spattering on his boots.

Other boots-lots of them-were pounding nearer in the passage, now. He managed to turn, clutching his hand but keeping hold of the dagger, as Purple Dragons came pounding up.

“ There you are!” he blazed at them. “She’s gone. Search the passage! Open every door!”

The Dragons frowned, and the swordcaptain leading them barked, “Surrender, saer! Drop that weapon!”

“ I gave you an order! ” Applethorn snarled. “Be about it!”

“Surrender,” the lionar roared, drawing his sword. He jerked his head, and his men trotted out into a wide ring, as guests shrieked and shouted and hurriedly melted away into the back corners of the room, and drew their swords too.

“Will you listen? ” Applethorn spat angrily, wringing his bleeding hand. The Dragons stared flatly at him as they stalked carefully forward, closing in.

With a snarl of exasperation the alarphon flung the dagger into the lionar’s face, and managed to teleport away.

Pennae pulled down the front of her well-traveled gown. “I don’t suppose,” she asked hopefully, looking up at the hulking Doorwarden, “that you’d be interested in these?”

The monstrous echoing sound that answered her started like a chuckle, but sounded like a snort by the time the man-mountain was done.

“No,” she sighed, “I rather thought not.” Pulling up the sagging, bloodstained gown again, she drew two of her daggers, eyed that cleaving axe, and wondered how many breaths of life she had left.

An axe striking stone hard makes an unmistakable ring. Florin heard it twice, and then a roar, echoing faintly just ahead of him. Someone was fighting the Doorwarden.

He frowned and went to the nearest door to listen-in time to hear a faint cry of, “Never!”

He stiffened; had that been Pennae’s voice? Florin flung the door open and found himself staring at a laundry chute. Of course.

The sounds were louder now; another ring of steel and the Doorwarden rumbling, “Stop running, little she-viper!”

Florin looked at the inside of the door he’d just opened. Aye, it had a pull-ring; the long-ago builders had obviously made all the doors the same. Which meant…

Holding his sword out in one hand and Pennae’s blood-soaked jack in the other to slow himself against the sides of the shaft-it looked wide enough to take a large laundry basket, not just a person-he turned to face the doorway and stepped back into the shaft, stabbing out at its iron sheathing immediately.

His sword made a terrible squealing that made him wince at what he must be doing to it, but his shuddering shoulders met the challenge. He reached the door below moving slowly enough to grab at it with his jack-wrapped hand and cling.

It took him several tries to swing hard enough to thrust the door open into the passage with him hanging from it, but he managed it at last, rolling out and to his feet with the sounds of battle much louder and nearer, now.

Cones of light, like two flaring lantern-beams, were flashing and crossing yonder. Florin headed for them, hefting his sword. All Pennae could hope to do was run and run to avoid getting trapped, and to try to slip past the Doom, and he would know very well what she was trying. If the huge guardian got in just one solid strike…

Then he was upon them, the great axe coming into view on a backswing, and Florin bellowed, “Doorwarden! Turn and fight me! ”

The great shoulders started to turn. Florin yelled, “Pennae! Get past-and keep running! There’s a narrow place; get beyond it!” and launched himself at the guardian’s gigantic legs, seeking to move in behind the Doom as the man-mountain turned.

“Florin!” Pennae almost shrieked. “Where have you been? ”

“Touring the Palace,” he shouted back, and then had no more breath for shouting. The Doorwarden knew what he was doing; he kicked his great boot sideways as he turned, smashing into Florin’s hastily raised sword and flinging the ranger helplessly through the air.

Where was Pennae? She wasn’t running past! Where The Doorwarden loomed up, sword and axe slicing down, one after the other, so that wherever he scrambled to avoid the first attack would be where the second weapon went hunting.

Florin launched himself forward, right at the Doom, seeking to get in between his legs where his own bulk would keep the Doom from seeing him properly to hack and slice.

The Doom backed away hastily, sword and axe swinging wildly to aid its balance-and Florin’s mouth went dry as he caught sight of Pennae, rushing up the many seams and plates of the huge guardian’s crudely cobbled-together boots to reach the back of his right knee, and thrust her dagger in under the plate there.

The guardian felt her presence, as she tried to saw at straps she could not see, and growled, bringing his sword fist down to slam into her. Pennae swung around right behind the knee, dangling.

“Run!” Florin yelled at her, from where he was right in front of the Doom. “Just drop and run! ”

Pennae swung, kicked her legs high into the air like a juggler swinging from an overhead pole, and at the top of her swing let go.

Florin stopped watching; if he was to live, he had to get between the Doom’s legs right now, and He managed it, fetching up on the inside of the guardian’s left boot. There was a tempting split there in the overlapping hides and metal plates covering those huge feet, so he drove his sword into it, twisted, and then plucked the blade back out and kept running.

It was well he did. The Doorwarden roared in pain, deafening echoes rebounding off the ceiling and rolling up and down the passage, and stumbled, hopping awkwardly sideways, two huge boots moving through the spot where the ranger had been moments before.

Behind the Doorwarden, and with the way clear before him and Pennae watching anxiously from the distance, Florin put down his head and ran. If the Doom fell over…

“Run!” he yelled, the moment he had breath to do so. “Keep running!”

Pennae stood where she was, waiting for him.

“Run, hrast you!” Florin bellowed at her.

She started to move, backing so she could keep watching him and the stumbling Doorwarden-who’d gotten himself turned now, and was coming after them, shaking the passage in his angry haste.

“Pennae!” Florin roared in exasperation, as he came up to her.

She grinned. “I never was very good at taking orders,” she said. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed a time or two.”

“Just run! ” he snapped as he pounded past, whacking her backside with the flat of his sword.

“Ah-such a greeting you give a lass!” She laughed, breaking into a run that kept her at his elbow.

Winded, Florin only nodded-and then, as she darted ahead, plunged thankfully through the doorframe after her and slowed, stumbling.

Pennae looked back as the Doorwarden roared his frustration at them, and then put out an arm and clung to Florin as he bent over, panting.

When he had his breath back, he straightened and held out her jack. It was blood-soaked, cold, and wet, but Pennae’s eyes shone as if he’d been proffering the greatest treasure in all Cormyr.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling widely, and tore the gown off over her head. Flinging it down, she took her jack and slipped it on, shivering at its clamminess.

“Come on!” Florin told her, clapping her arm. “I’ve uncovered another plot. Someone named Blacksilver is wandering the Palace, and-”

Pennae put firm fingers over his mouth to silence him, and then took them away a moment later to kiss him.

He blinked at her.

She smiled wryly. “Well, I had to shut you up somehow. Now listen and heed, O mighty and valiant Falconhand!”

Florin nodded, gave her a rueful half-smile, and waved at her to “say on.” “Nothing,” Pennae told him, her eyes large and serious, “ nothing at all, in all the Realms, is more important than finding our fellow Knights. Kingdom rise or kingdom fall, we’re going through this together. I am sick unto death-or hrasted nearly was-of running around in these stlarning cellars, lost and alone! We find Jhess and Islif and our two chucklehead holynoses, too, and we stand together. Then we all go and seek out the king, the queen, and the hrasted Royal Magician Vangerdahast! Any disputes, faithful dog of a ranger?”

“None,” Florin replied, his eyes shining. “None at all.” Then he put a firm arm around her, and kissed her with fervor. And not a little valiant might too.