Swords of Dragonfire

"Ghoruld,” Vangerdahast growled, letting Lord Crownsilver’s head slip from between his hands. The noble’s eyes rolled up in his head as he slid bonelessly to the floor, forgotten. “I might have known. Knights, come with me. It seems I can’t trust a single war wizard just now. We’ve treason to slay this night!”

Treason, the whisper began around him, leaping from one excited Cormyrean to another, a murmur that spread outward, racing across the hall as swiftly as a shot from the bow of an expert archer.

Vangerdahast strode to an apparently solid painting on a wall-and stepped right through it as if was but empty air, the Knights of Myth Drannor hard on his heels.

Guests, guards, and servants alike gawked in startled silence. Then everyone spoke at once, rumor rising in a great wave of excited chatter.

In a deep stone chamber stood a ring of black stone plinths, each topped with a dark, lifeless crystal ball. Those squared fingers of stone stood waist-high, each in its own chalked circle on the stone floor, and each circle was linked by a chalk line to an empty central circle. One circle held no plinth, only a crystal ball on the floor-and that crystal was glowing, shapes and colors moving and flickering in its depths.

Ghoruld Applethorn stood over that sphere, watching and listening to what was unfolding in its depths. He saw Crownsilver slip to the floor, and the great secret growled aloud by Vangerdahast.

Applethorn chuckled then, and in his satisfied mirth spoke words to the crystal that he knew the Royal Magician could not hear.

“Crownsilver was about as competent as I expected, Vangey-and so are you. It doesn’t matter why you come striding for me. Just so long as you come.”

There came a pattern of tapping on a certain door deep in the gloom of one back corner of Anglond’s Great Hall. The servant who’d been expecting this hailing eased the door open, making a swift gesture in mimicry of three fingers plucking harp strings.

That gesture was matched with a smile, and the servant opened the door wide. Resplendent in dark finery, Dalonder Ree slipped through. “Sorry I’m late,” he hissed. “The hrasted countryside’s changing! My favorite stream to follow through the King’s Forest is gone! Clean gone! ”

The servant gave the Harper ranger an incredulous look, but murmured, “No harm done. The king hasn’t rolled in, yet, so you’ve missed nothing! The envoy’s just entering now, yonder, and I doubt overmuch harm will come to her. See her maid, following at her hip? Well, in truth, her maid’s deep in spell-sleep back in her guest chambers. That’s Dove, wearing her shape.”

“ Dove? Well, I am unnecessary, then!”

“Oh, I’d not say that. They always need a lot of help mopping up all the blood, after.”

“The princesses are safely with Beldos Margaster,” Vangerdahast growled to the Knights, as they hastened into an empty room together. “So it’s the king and queen we most have to worry about.”

Ushering them in, he closed the door firmly and pointed at it. “Guard that,” he ordered Islif, who wordlessly hefted her sword and took up a stance facing it.

Vangey nodded and pointed Doust at a taller-than-a-man painting on another wall, and Semoor at a wardrobe on a third. “Those are doors, too. Guard them. If any war wizard-or anyone else, even the king himself-tries to come in, shout out and try to stop them.”

Returning the center of the room, he beckoned Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail to stand with him, and spread his hands on high, as if to dramatically commence spellcasting.

“Right,” he barked. “No scrying crystals. Let’s go hunting war wizard traitors. Applethorn, where are you?”

“Ah, so prudence at last takes hold of our Royal Magician,” Ghoruld Applethorn purred, “despite the overconfidence that dooms him. Just who will protect you, Vangey? Your own oh-so-puissant spells? A handful of backcountry blunder-neck adventurers?”

Shaking his head, Applethorn unhurriedly worked a spell that turned him into the likeness of a plinth like all the others-a plinth with a hand that carefully lifted the glowing crystal atop itself and did something that made that sphere go dark like the rest.

Around that resting crystal, fingertips sank into the top of the plinth, as Applethorn’s voice spoke mockingly from it. “So-behold-I hide me. Can you find me? In time? Before what Margaster unleashes finds you? ”

“Careless, Ghoruld, careless,” Margaster murmured, turning away from his scrying whorl. “Don’t announce me and what I’m doing to all listening Cormyr! You’re becoming expendable.”

Kneeling on the stone floor, he flipped back a corner of the carpet to reveal a row of nine words chalked on the flagstones. Touching each in turn, he said it aloud with firm, grave precision.

Then he rubbed them all away.

In a dark, dusty secret passage elsewhere in the Royal Palace of Cormyr, each of Margaster’s words sounded out of the empty air-one at a time, in turn-above a row of nine skulls resting on little stands along a shelf.

Each skull wore an old warrior’s helm and each was connected by a trail of dried blood-a deliberately drawn line of blood-down from its stand to the shelf, and from the shelf all the way down the wall, and a little way across the floor to an unscabbarded sword lying on the flagstones.

As each word was spoken, the skull linked to it rocked, glowed briefly, then rose into the dusty air and melted away, leaving an empty helm floating in the air.

Dust swirled and coalesced, until it would have been clear to anyone watching-if there had been anyone alive to watch in that dark and deserted passage-that shadowy, wraithlike shoulders connected each empty helm to arms that seemed but more shadows, yet were able to lift, hold, and wield a sword.

Nine solid, real swords were plucked up from the floor, to be hefted and swung in eerie silence. The shadows trailed away raggedly below each set of shoulders; none of the nine shadow-things had a torso or legs. They were little more than ragged wraiths.

Nine helms turned this way and that, as if the emptinesses within them were looking at each other, and conferring.

Then, with one accord, nine bladewraiths flew down the passage.

Amid the inevitable fanfare, the King and Queen of Cormyr entered Anglond’s Great Hall arm in arm, giving the guests and courtiers serene smiles and nods.

Not letting his broad smile slip in the slightest, Azoun muttered to Filfaeril, “This has all the makings of a disaster.”

“Now, Az,” she murmured back fondly, “like most things, it’s only a disaster if you act like it’s a disaster.” She patted his hand. “So don’t. Seduce someone instead.”

Azoun growled faintly, to let her know her teasing had been heard, and they proceeded smoothly on, pretending not to hear the whispers of “treason” that were loudly racing around the hall and raging along the balconies.

Filfaeril smiled up at the folk there, as she always did, then turned to look back over her shoulder at the balconies behind, to make sure no one felt ignored. She nudged their linked arms to signal her royal husband to do the same. Cheers rang out, from here and there across the hall, and were taken up by servants and Purple Dragons until the hall was a-roar.

Up on the balconies, merchants and their wives crowded the rails. Impassive, full-armored Purple Dragons stood among them, at intervals. Each held a cocked crossbow, pointed straight up at the ceiling, and was vigilantly surveying the crowd below.

Amid the hubbub, the royal couple glided across the miraculously clearing floor of the hall-that “miracle” caused by war wizard suggestion magics-to meet the envoy of Silverymoon.

She responded, moving forward at the same pace, as her tall, elegantly beautiful aides and maids fell away from around her-and Cormyreans all over Anglond’s Great Hall gasped at the revealed beauty of the Lady Aerilee Hastorna Summerwood.

She was as tall as Azoun, and strikingly beautiful. Slender in dusk blue shimmerweave, as fluidly graceful as a wave riding across fair seas, she was a half-elf with dark, arched eyebrows, pale high cheekbones, a lush and kindly smiling mouth, and eyes like two great, deep sapphires. She was barefoot, and the shifting clingings of her ankle-length gown left little doubt to any eye that she was bare beneath it.

She greeted the King of Cormyr with a herald’s respectful bow and fair words, but turned without pause to embrace Queen Filfaeril and give her a deep kiss, almost as if they were lovers. A long, tender kiss that left Azoun blinking in pleased surprise, and the hall buzzing with murmured comment.

“Oh, joy, ” Dove and Dalonder Ree sighed in unison, from about sixty feet apart. “It begins.”

“This,” Dalonder added, as he watched the Lady Summerwood extend a long arm almost as an afterthought to gather the king into a three-way embrace, “is going to be an interesting evening.”

Vangerdahast murmured something, and a tiny coffer appeared in midair in front of him.

He reached for it, opened it, and told Jhessail, “Touch only the unicorn-headed ring. Take it out, but don’t put it on, or allow even the smallest part of any of your fingers to pass into its circle. Just hold it up in front of me.”

She nodded and did so. A swift flick of Vangey’s hand made the coffer go away again, and he carefully worked a spell on the ring.

A red glow rose from it, and began to pulse. Jhessail’s face tightened in pain and she started to tremble. “Keep hold of it!” the Royal Magician snapped.

The lady Knight nodded grimly, as a scene slowly built in the air between them, of a deserted stone room lit by a single scrying crystal that was pulsing and glowing with the same red hue as the ring she was holding. In the depths of that crystal, the Knights could see a tiny image of themselves standing with Vangerdahast, in the room they were now in.

The crystal sat on a plinth of dark stone, one of a ring of identical plinths; the others all had dark, inactive crystal balls atop them. Every plinth was circled in chalk, and those circles were linked by raylike lines to a central, empty circle.

Peering hard at the plinths, Vangerdahast snapped, “See you the plinth under the glowing crystal, Florin? Look at the chalk drawn around it, at the slight variations in circle and line from what’s been drawn around the other plinths. If the crystal went dark, could you tell that one plinth from the others?”

“I… yes,” Florin said firmly. “Yes, I could.”

“Good. That plinth is in truth a war wizard, a traitor to the realm. Go and slay him with steel, striking as fast as you can and keeping low, for he can with a word cause all those crystals to burst and spray deadly shards everywhere. Go out through the wardrobe, turn left, and run like a storm wind; my voice will guide you thereafter.”

Without another word Florin raced across the room, drawn sword in hand, plunged through the wardrobe, and turned left.

“Faster!” Laspeera snapped, as yet another guardpost of Purple Dragons moved to bar their way, uncertain frowns on their faces.

Tathanter Doarmund thrust his warshield spell forward like a battering ram, but on its flanks Dauntless in his tatters and most of the dozen other Purple Dragons were already plunging ahead. The ornrion bellowed, “Make way! Aside! Get out of the tluining way! ”

When one palace guard stopped uncertainly, halberd raised, Dauntless smashed it aside with his fists and slammed the soldier into the passage wall. When the guard snarled a curse and reached for a dagger, a Purple Dragon rushing along behind Dauntless punched him hard in the throat, leaving him to reel and fall in the wake of the hurrying throng.

Tathanter, Malvert Lulleer, Laspeera, and the Dragons had already pounded along too many Palace corridors, striking aside servants and guards who hadn’t gotten out of the way fast enough-but there were the doors to Anglond’s Great Hall at last!

The door-guards took one look at them and flung the doors wide; Laspeera’s band burst into the Great Hall, panting for breath but running hard.

As shrieking fine-gowned merchants’ wives went sprawling, Dauntless and his dozen Dragons spread out, each racing through the thronged guests, sword out and looking for trouble.

Trouble, as in the Knights of Myth Drannor.

Pages, scribes, and courtiers from Silverymoon shouted in alarm and ran to surround and protect their lady. The envoy’s maid raced to Lady Summerwood’s side, eyes blazing with sudden silver flames.

A voice erupted then from the breastplate of every Purple Dragon in the hall: “Laspeera am I, of the Wizards of War of Cormyr. Loyal Dragons and citizens, strike not at me, or those running with me! We serve the realm!”

“No sign of them!” one of those running Dragons bellowed from the far end of the hall, gasping for breath.

“None here!” another called. Other shouts followed, all announcing an utter lack of Knights of Myth Drannor from one end of the hall to the other.

Laspeera frowned, worked a swift spell-and Dauntless and his dozen, from wherever they were all across Anglond’s Great Hall, were lofted into the air, rising upright to soar up onto the balconies. They promptly commenced to rage along those levels, peering and running.

The hall was in an uproar, but it died down when Dauntless thrust his way to the rail of the lowest balcony to wave at Laspeera and then spread his hands in a helpless “They’re not here!” signal.

Grimly Laspeera turned to her king and queen, to tender her apologies-and stopped, her mouth hanging open in astonishment, as King Azoun gave her a broad, genuine smile ere turning to the Lady Summerwood and saying grandly, “Aerilee, at many of our revels we celebrate the vigilance of our war wizards and Purple Dragons with a mock chase, such this one you have just witnessed, to both entertain the citizenry and to remind them that the finest folk in all our realm watch over them constantly and vigorously! May I present Laspeera Naerinth, one of our foremost and most capable war wizards?”

Still dumbfounded, Laspeera found herself swept into the warm embrace of Silverymoon’s envoy, whose enthusiastic kiss at first made her stiffen, then shrug, and then engage in as an equal partner in a warring of tongues.

“I’ll bet you give great backrubs,” she murmured, when at last their lips parted.

Airilee grinned impishly. “Oh, I do. Do you rub feet?”

Laspeera grinned back, and shrugged. “I’m willing to try.”

Up on the balcony, watching all the kissing, Dauntless slammed a fist down on the rail and growled, “Hrast! That could be me, down there!”

The nearest balcony guard looked him up and down, and shook his head. “Nay. You’ve not the legs for it.”

Nearby Purple Dragons started to snicker, as Dauntless gave the guard a choice glare.

Semoor Wolftooth squeaked in surprise as the wardrobe doors in front of him crashed open in a great splintering of wood. Two dark, helmed shadow-things had just burst through them.

Barely half a breath later, five more shadow-things shredded the tall painting on the east wall to ribbons by arrowing through it, sword points first.

At the same time, the door the Knights had come in by crashed open under the onslaught of two more of Margaster’s bladewraiths-who were met by Islif’s snarling fury. Her swift-swung blade shattered a helm almost instantly, causing that bladewraith to fall into drifting dust, its sword clattering to the floor.

The other bladewraith raced past her shoulder, heading for the Royal Magician of Cormyr.

Vangerdahast spat out a word that boomed and rolled in all ears-and shattered three wraith-blades in midair, felling the shadow-thing racing for him and two that had burst in through the painting.

Jhessail shrieked and ducked away from a wraith that chased her, blade foremost. Pennae sprang into the air to catch hold of the candle-wheel lamp hanging from the ceiling. A wraith-blade laid open her back as she did, causing her to shout in pain.

Doust was proud of his grand technique when casting shields of faith, but threw it aside to stammer out the magic faster than he’d ever done. Jhessail had only just begun to shimmer in its protection when he shouted at her, “Right, do something to these!”

A moment later, a wraith-blade plunged through his guts, and he doubled up around it as it burst wetly out of his back, vomiting his blood all over Jhessail as he plunged face-first to the floor, kicking and writhing.

Semoor’s sanctuary magic formed just in time, bladewraiths circling over him like flying angry eels but not striking. Overhead, Pennae kicked a wraith-blade away, swung hard on the lamp, and used its momentum to hurl herself feet-first down and across the room. She landed smoothly, bouncing to pluck up the fallen sword of the shadow-thing Islif had destroyed at the door.

Her pursuing bladewraith plunged down at her from behind, and would have spitted her as surely as it had served Doust, if its sword hadn’t been slashed viciously aside by Islif, on her way to backhand another bladewraith away from Jhessail.

The mage of the Knights sat on the floor, her face a-drip with Doust’s blood, frantically casting a spell. Across the room, Vangerdahast was chanting something too.

On hands and knees, Semoor scuttled across the room, trying to reach Doust. He saw the shimmering around Jhessail flicker violently as a shadow-thing hacked at it-twice, thrice, and then the magic winked out.

The wraith-blade thrust down again-and Semoor flung up his hands to ward it away from Jhessail’s unprotected head. It sliced through his magic and then him, almost severing one of his hands.

The Anointed of Lathander stared in horror at the ruin dangling from his wrist, and started to scream.

Which was when Jhessail’s battlestrike finally took effect, its bright leaping bolt sending the bladewraith wavering aside that had been circling to finish Semoor.

An instant later, Vangerdahast’s chanting ended with the calm words “undeath to death”-and all five remaining wraiths collapsed in a clattering of falling swords and whirlwinds of corpse-dust.

“Islif,” the Royal Magician snapped, without pause, “pry off that side of the doorframe. In a space behind you’ll find a coffer of healing potions. Use what you need. Now, disturb me not!”

Pulling himself stiffly upright, he closed his eyes and hurled his will across the Palace, praying to Azuth that he’d be in time.

“I’m in time! Turn right!” Vangerdahast’s voice murmured abruptly, sounding as if the Royal Magician were standing where he could speak right into Florin’s ear.

The ranger almost jumped, but obediently hurled himself around the turn, still racing along in darkness relieved only by the tiny glows that marked spyhole-swivel coverings.

“Slow down so you won’t miss this turn- right turn,” Vangey said, and Florin obeyed.

“Keep going past the first opening, turn left here, up the steps… along… down the steps, and turn right on the first landing… aye… now, see the glowing line? That’s the edge of a panel-slide it hard away from you and go through, turning left immediately and moving fast and low!”

Panting, the ranger-Knight did just as he was bid, seeing the plinths as he plunged out and around them. There was the false one, as he ran on, past it. Vangey said not a word… ah, of course; the wizard could hear him, too!

Twisting back around the next plinth, Florin struck out backhand with the very tip of his blade at the false plinth-and felt his blade slice cloth, and flesh beneath.

There was a hoarse shriek, and the ranger flung himself at the floor and then bounced up off it, slamming into the unseen wizard before the man could say or do anything. If he could ruin any spellcasting They hit the floor together, Florin punching and kneeing, then stabbing and-being stabbed, that unseen dagger like icy flame punching into him, again and again.

“Down, Florin!” Vangerdahast roared. “Cover yourself!”

Trembling, sobbing in pain, Florin stabbed back at his foe, then clawed hold of unseen and blood-sticky cloth and hurled himself sideways, hitting the floor bruisingly hard but dragging the unseen, writhing man over on top of him. As he closed his eyes, a singing shriek heralded the shattering of all the crystals.

“Keep rolling!” Vangerdahast bellowed, right in Florin’s ear. “Away, to the wall, and then make for the door! Let go of the carrion!”

The ranger obeyed, scrambling faster than he’d ever moved in his life before, and through a red haze of pain was dimly aware of the shards racing across the room with eerie slowness, drifting-drifting “Don’t watch them, you backwoods thickneck idiot! Get out of there! ”

Vangerdahast sounded angrier than Florin had ever heard him be before, so the ranger did as he was told.

The aftermath of Ghoruld Applethorn’s last spell tore into him like a lightning storm, stabbing into his head and leaving his mind afire.

Vangerdahast went to his knees, gasping and clutching feebly at his skull-and was startled as firm hands pushed him upright and forced a potion vial to his lips.

Islif gave him a wry smile as he choked and coughed it down. Then she kissed him. “Thanks for saving our lives,” she said. “And the realm. Again.”

“Wench, have done!” Vangerdahast replied testily, trying to wave her away. “I’ve a spell to work!”

Islif rocked back on her heels to give him room, and the Royal Magician hastily worked an intricate magic that brought a blue haze down on the room.

When it lifted, long breaths later, he and the Knights were all lying or kneeling just as they had been-but in the center of Anglond’s Great Hall, with a blood-spattered, wild-eyed Florin in front of them and something bloody, butchered, and in robes lying sprawled beside him.

A collective gasp of horror rose across Anglond’s Great Hall. In the moment of awed silence that followed, the voice of the envoy of Silverymoon asked merrily, “And what does this celebrate?”