Swords of Eveningstar

Chapter 15

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.

That scrutiny had latched onto him on his first lurching climb of the inn stairs, and hadn’t let up since.

He was so tempted to lash out with a spell that would snuff out the spy’s mind in an instant.

Yet he dared not. That sort of death would bring a mustering of war wizards, and draw the attention of Vangerdahast himself. Too many even for Horaundoon of the Crawling Doom to spellblast. In such a battle he might manage to slay many, but the inevitable death would be his own.

So here he sat, twiddling his thumbs and feigning weary boredom. With every breath he took, that attitude became less and less an act.

Stlarning war wizards.

Islif Lurelake ran like the wind, her armored coat clanging and clashing, with Florin and Pennae right at her heels. South down the cross-passage, to come at the crossbowmen from another way.

She skidded to a stop at the passage-moot, expecting to eat a volley of crossbow bolts when she turned the corner. Gasping for breath, she balanced herself-then ducked around the corner, just as quickly dancing back.

A crossbow cracked. Its bolt hummed past, shattering against one of the statues amid a burst of lightnings.

Their foes were ready and waiting.

She traded glances with Florin, trying to think what best to do next-and Pennae hissed in the forester’s ear: “Stand still and let me climb you.”

“Yes,” Florin replied, tensing.

Islif watched the thief swarm up Florin to his shoulders. Pennae crouched there for a moment, froglike, the passage ceiling close overhead-then launched herself forward in a great springing leap that sent Florin staggering back but hurled Pennae high across the passage-mouth, to strike the floor in a forward roll.

Two crossbow bolts sought her life. The first hummed past well in her wake, to crash into the old crossbow on its tripod-and send it toppling from its mount to clatter harmlessly on the floor.

The second missed her heels by a fingerwidth and raced on, collecting crackling lightnings as it passed between the statues. It shivered noisily against the bronzen doors, fragments pattering to the floor.

Pennae landed, rolled, and ran on into the darkness.

Islif and Florin were already moving, ducking around the corner again, trusting that not even the swiftest windlass-cranker could have wound up a crossbow to fire again, so soon after five shots. They were trusting their lives, of course, on the hope that there wasn’t a sixth crossbowman, or more.

They’d trusted well, it seemed.

No bolts came humming at them, and they could see no foe in the light of Islif’s bouncing lantern. The room beyond the rusty bars held no foes.

Panting from their sprint, they ducked through the bars-and almost hacked at Pennae, who burst through the open door from the southern slant passage.

“Where’d you-?” Islif gasped, waving her sword.

“The stone goblin. I tried to pick it up to be a shield, but-too heavy. Much too heavy,” Pennae gasped back. “Hoped to catch our attackers here.”

“Whoever they are, they’ll be waiting for us outside,” Florin said. “With their bows ready.”

“So we find shields,” Islif told him, “somewhere in here, before we try to come out.”

“And let Doust, Agannor, and Bey die? ”

“And just how many of us d’you want to join them in their graves?” the warrior woman snapped. “If we go out there while they’re waiting, bows aimed at the d-”

“Be still! ” Pennae snarled fiercely, clutching and shaking them both ere flinging out one arm to point. “Look! ‘The rest are hidden in the door,’ remember?”

They looked where she was pointing. Agannor’s feet were still kicking feebly across the threshold, keeping the thick door open-and in the exposed doorframe they could see a tall, narrow slot of darkness.

Islif swung her lantern. It was a niche, running back into the wall, with something dark in it that looked like wood. Pennae pounced.

“Watch for foes!” she snapped, waving at the distant entry doors. Florin spun around obediently, but Islif watched as Pennae, on her knees, held her dagger ready in one hand and with the other drew forth… a flat wooden box, dark with damp.

The thief’s arm started to spasm and shudder. She looked up at Islif, a tense frown on her face.

“There’s a spell on this,” she breathed. “I can feel the tingling clear up my arm! Let’s take it yonder. Get Agannor back so we can close the door.”

Islif and Florin sprang to do so, dragging the white-faced Agannor a little way into the slant passage. He was gasping blood and moaning when they started-but he’d fainted by the time they’d finished.

“Stand guard over him and the door,” Pennae ordered. “Throw his sword and dagger at anyone who opens it, whether they have a crossbow or not.”

Then she clutched the box to her breast and ran down the slant passage, past the silent, huddled heap that was Bey, to the clustered lanterns of the rest of the Swords.

Their weapons were drawn and their faces were grim-and Doust lay in their midst, pillowed on Semoor’s leather jack, looking weak and pale. On the floor behind them was a dark and sticky lake that hadn’t been there before: Doust’s blood, the crossbow bolt Semoor had drawn forth lying at its heart.

“Martess! Jhessail!” Pennae hissed. “There’s magic on this. Strong magic.”

Jhessail spread her hands helplessly, but she and Martess knelt on the other side of the box from Pennae as the thief carefully set it on the floor.

Drawing in a deep breath, Pennae looked up into the intent gazes of the rest of the Swords, then down again at the box. Its lid was a slab of wood that slid along two grooves carved into the inside of its side walls, with a thumb-dimple handle. Pennae used the point of her dagger rather than her thumb to gingerly slide it open.

And nothing happened.

Everyone waited, barely breathing, but still nothing happened. Quietly. Martess laid her fingers on the box, flinched, and then asked, “Preservative spell, or some sort of message magic? We’re feeling it because it’s collapsing, perhaps?”

“ ‘Perhaps’ just about anything is happening,” Pennae agreed wryly. “But this is good to see.” She pointed down at what the box held: a row of nine metal vials.

“Fine steel, completely free of rust, cork-stoppered and wax sealed… and all of them bear this same symbol.”

She pointed at the nearest mark, a tiny red-painted character that looked more or less like a human right hand.

Atop the vials lay a scrap of parchment bearing the words: “Rivior, these are the last. With these, my debt is discharged. Look to see me no more.” The message was signed with an elaborate rune.

“Never seen it before,” Jhessail said, “but it takes no learning to know ’tis a wizard’s sigil.” Martess nodded.

“So these are-or were-potions,” Pennae said. “Magic quaffs.”

“But drinking them does what?” Martess asked.

“And are they all the same,” Jhessail put in, “or is that mark the mage who made them?”

“Or the smith who made the vials,” Pennae pointed out.

The three women stared at each other. There were shrugs ere they turned with one accord to look at Doust.

“He’s dying,” Semoor said bleakly, on his knees beside his wounded friend, “so pour one of those down his throat. You can’t hurt him more.”

Pennae took up a vial, sliced the wax with her dagger, teased forth the cork stopper, and sniffed the open top. Then she cradled Doust’s head and put the vial to his lips, her thumb ready to become a stopper if he choked or spat.

Doust swallowed it down and his eyes flickered. Then he looked up at them, brightening visibly. “Pain going,” he gasped. “Just like that.”

Pennae nodded. “Clear, colorless, and no stink to it that I could smell. Sparkled, going into him.” Doust was looking stronger, and his face was less pale. “Taste?” she asked him.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he jested feebly. “Cool, tingling… hard to find words… like swallowing a cool breeze.”

“Good,” Pennae said, letting his head fall back onto the jack. She looked at Semoor. “Watch him. If anything goes bad-he starts to turn to stone or grow scales or something-shout out quick!”

Sliding the case shut, she took it up and hurried back down the passage to Bey, Jhessail and Martess right behind her.

The warrior looked dead, but his mouth was open. She sat on his stomach and poured the potion down his throat, slapping her hand over his face to keep the potion inside him if he coughed-and he did-then pulled the crossbow bolt out of his innards.

He bucked and tried to roar, under her, but Pennae rode him firmly back to sprawled ease, then left him to race on to the last fallen Sword.

Agannor’s slow, feeble spasms became a convulsive heave upward when the potion slid down his throat-then his twisted face smoothed out and he looked at her.

“Healing quaff,” he said happily. “You never forget the taste. A priest of Tempus fed me one, once; cost me all the coins I had.” He relaxed with a gusty sigh. “My thanks!”

“Six left,” Pennae said, rising. She thrust the case into Jhessail’s arms. “These’d cost us hundreds of lions each at a temple. So don’t drop it.”

The flame-haired mageling looked down at Agannor. “So they’re all going to be… all right again?”

Pennae spread her hands. “If the gods will.”

“Ah,” Semoor muttered, helping Doust to sit up, “but what if the gods won’t?”

Halfway down the passage, Bey was already reeling to his feet, leaning on the wall and managing a smile.

Florin said, “I think we’ve done enough strolling around the Halls this day.”

Bey gave him a twisted grin. “I’ve certainly lost the stomach for it!”

“You,” Pennae said severely, “can be wounded again, know you!”

“Indeed,” Islif agreed, then said to Florin, “We all want to get outside again, but not to swallow crossbow bolts doing it.” She looked at the mages. “Remind me what spells you have.”

“A magic missile and something that helps me strike true,” Martess replied.

“Batt-ah, a magic missile,” Jhessail added.

“So you can do harm to quite a few crossbowmen, but you have to be able to see them-and they’ll take one look at either of you, waving your hands and chanting, and know just where to send their bolts.”

There were nods all around as Florin started to usher them back down the passage, to bring them all together. Doust was on his feet again, walking almost normally, and the Swords grinned at each other. Through the open doorway, unheeded, green slime dripped dismally.

“We need shields. Shields that can stop crossbow bolts at close range,” Islif said. “Those strongchests, back in the bunkroom?”

Pennae shook her head. “Far too rotten. Those bolts can go right through good armor-” She waved at Bey, who gave her a rueful grin “-so wood that crumbles when I touch it isn’t going to stop them much more than a tightframe of stretched silk would.”

“Well, that’s cheerful to hear,” Semoor said. “So are we going to crawl out on our bellies after dark and hope they can’t hit what they can’t see?”

Islif gave him a thoughtful look. “Chancy-but our best chance, I think. Sometimes, Stoop, you do seem to have wits. For a few moments, once or twice a tenday.”

“They’re out there, somewhere, braving danger-tasting adventure! While I-whom the king- the king! — wanted to accompany them-sit here, chafing in idleness!”

Narantha slammed down her tallglass with such force that the stem burst right up through the bowl, leaving her holding only shards amid a flood of fine wine.

Tessaril Winter set down her own glass and made a swift gesture-and the shards were gone from Narantha’s bloodied fingertips, whisked away through the air trailed by droplets of blood and wine. “ ’Tis a good thing I put out the second best glasses, I see.”

Narantha Crownsilver glared at her. “You’re enjoying this! You’re chuckling up your sleeve, like all the other wizards in this realm! Delighted to deny nobles their rights, hiding behind royal orders you refuse to share with us-orders that in this instance I know are false! I heard the Dragon’s reply to me! I know what was in his eyes, his voice! He’ll not be pleased when I tell him of this-that his own Lady Lord of Eveningstar defies his royal will to play Vangerdahast’s little games, one more time! I am a Crownsilver, and far from the least regarded of those who bear that proud name-”

“True,” Tessaril agreed, her face unreadable.

Narantha seethed, raising her hands into claws, but swept on. “And as such have every right to ride where I will, do as I will, and consort with whomever I will, so long as I do no treason and break not the decrees of the king! Not of Vangerdahast, not of you or any other jumped-up courtier! You have no right to hold me, you have no right to arrest me if I march right out of here now-as I’ve done no treason and intend none, and His Majesty knows it-and-and-”

“I’m afraid I do have that right,” Tessaril replied, “and that duty. Please calm yourself and hear me, Narantha-”

“Calm myself? Calm myself? Why should I? How can I calm myself when my freedom is snatched from me unlawfully, my rights of birth are denied and dismissed, my-”

“Good manners quite desert you.” Tessaril rose, in a shifting of skirts-and this was the first time Narantha had seen her in anything but breeches and boots topped by more mens’ garb-and crossed the room in two smooth strides.

Face paling with rage, Narantha darted her hand to the tiny dagger at her belt, but Tessaril deftly captured her wrists and stood over her, saying as gently as before, “Lass, lass, don’t you see how much I want to give in to you? I, too, have known love-”

“Love? Think you I’m in love with that forester? That my heart and loins rule me? Wench, you try me sorely!” Narantha spat. “ ’Tis of my needs I speak! My hunger for adventure, my first chance to do anything in my life that strays in the slightest from my father’s firm hand and my mother’s constant spiteful spying! My-my-”

Words failed her, and she burst into tears of rage, struggling against Tessaril’s strength with snarls and sobs and finally wild tugs and kicks.

Tessaril avoided her sallies with deft ease, saying flatly, “Don’t make me spell-sleep you, Narantha. I will if I must. Yet know this: I will not budge. Save your curses and kicks for a time when they’ll achieve something-if ever you find such a time, in all your hopefully long life. I cannot give in to my whims, for I long ago swore an oath to the Dragon, and I will keep it, or my life is nothing. I have specific orders regarding you, from the king’s own lips.”

“More lies,” Narantha hissed furiously at her, between sobbing breaths. “You’ve had no time to speak with the king! I’ve watched you, every instant since my rising-just as you have watched me! I doubt very much that the Dragon crystal-chats with his lordlings in the heart of the night; I should think the queen would have something to say about that!”

Still holding her wrists, Tessaril said, “Your doubts, I fear, are unfounded. The king himself was here last night.”

“Oh, I suppose he just stepped out of the heart of a spell, sat on the side of your bed, and discussed affairs of state, yes?”

“I don’t recall him sitting,” Tessaril replied, “but we talked, yes. About you, among many, many other things. His Majesty anticipated your displeasure.”

She let go of Narantha, stepped back, and drew something out of her bodice, proferring it between two fingers: a finger of much-folded parchment.

Narantha stared up at the Lady Lord of Eveningstar, then at the parchment-and snatched it, unfolding it with hands that trembled in haste.

Dearest Narantha, Lady Crownsilver:

Life is a series of hardships and hard choices for us all. This is one of yours. Every Cormyrean, noble or common-born, owes absolute loyalty to the Dragon Throne. You are to obey Lord Tessaril Winter as if she were me. Your spirit does you credit, but every noble must learn that obedience is worth far more to the realm and to its people, as well as to its sovereign. I pray you make me proud.

It was signed “Azoun, Fourth of that Name.”

Narantha bit her lip.

“You know what it says?”

Tessaril nodded. “I watched him write it.”

Narantha read it again, holding it almost tenderly in one hand while her other balled into a trembling fist. Then she smote the arm of her chair, again and again, weeping.

This time, when Tessaril’s arms went around her, she buried herself in that warm, soft comfort, and clung to it.

“Not much longer now,” Florin said.

“Good,” Jhessail sighed. “I’m tired, and I’m cold, and sitting here in the dark watching lightning bolts that snap just often enough to keep me from dozing off doesn’t strike me as glorious adventure.”

“You’re not sitting in the dark,” Pennae said. “One lantern’s enough. The gods don’t pour lamp oil down out of the skies, know you.”

“Hrast! There goes my seventeenth scheme for riches,” Semoor said. “Seen any ghosts yet, anyone? They call it ‘the Haunted Halls,’ look you!”

“Cleric-to-be of Lathander,” Martess said, “still your tongue. Or I’ll do so for you.”

“That should be fun.”

“Oho,” Islif told the ceiling, “Semoor Wolftooth is about to have an adventure. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Narantha read the royal letter for the thirty-sixth time. This time, when she refolded it carefully, slipped it back into her bodice, and raised her eyes to the ever-watchful Tessaril, she found amusement in the Lady Lord of Eveningstar’s gaze.

“There are no hidden words there, I fear,” Tessaril said, “and no lurking spell. It won’t change what it says, no matter how often you read it.”

Narantha sighed, then shook her head as if she could wish away all lords, towers, wizards, and commanding kings. “I… I just want to ride free,” she said mournfully. “To burst out of this kind confinement. To ride with the Swords, and see adventures-”

“From a safe distance?”

“I-yes, from a safe distance, though that’s cowardly of me, I suppose, and unworthy. I-hrast it, Lady Lord Tessaril, I am weary up to here with sitting cooped up in a lord’s tower, surrounded by an everpresent escort of Purple Dragons and war wizards!”

“Of course. Have some more of this superb cheese-and the zzar? — and look into the fire.”

The flames of the hearthfire danced strangely, shaping themselves into a scene of armed and armored horsemen riding along a road, a purposeful line of men all garbed alike, who rode under banners that swirled and flapped just like the Crownsilver banners did, when her father rode out to “Those are your family banners,” Tessaril said.

Narantha’s head jerked up. “You’re reading my mind? ”

“I don’t have to, when your face softens so, remembering. No, the cleverness of my spell is confined to shaping flames.”

“So just how is it that you managed to show me my father riding somewhere, if you plucked it not from my mind?”

“I saw it in my scrying crystal, when you last sought yon garderobe,” Tessaril replied. “Your father is a-riding with all his men-at-arms, right now.”

“Riding under arms? Where?”

“Here. Straight up to Eveningstar-rather angrily, I fear-to bring you home. Though even if he rides right through the night, he won’t be here until well after the sun rises again.”

Narantha stared at the Lady Lord of Eveningstar, aghast-then launched herself out of her chair with a snarl, storming across the room with her hands out like claws.

Tessaril sat unmoved, only the slightest trace of a smile twitching the corner of her lips. She went on smiling as her magic caught her seething captive steps away from her, spanked Narantha Crownsilver soundly with unseen hands, and hurled the sobbingly furious young noblewoman off to bed.

The Lady Lord of Eveningstar went on sitting in her chair, listening to the crashes of things being broken on the far side of that closed and spellbound door, and her smile turned sad.

“Gods above, child,” she murmured. “You are so much as I was, when your age, that I almost want to defy Azoun. Almost.”

As they squeezed through the rusty bars, there was a fair amount of crowding, and Semoor’s boot brushed one edge of the heaped weapons.

Whereupon a mouth appeared on the battered and bare metal shield atop the pile, and said in a flat, deep voice like a Purple Dragon giving stern orders: “Beware! These were carried in by those who will never carry them out again!”

Standing tense in the silence that followed those ringing words, the Swords watched the mouth fade away again. And waited.

And waited.

Nothing else happened, as their held breaths stretched. It was Semoor who first grinned, shrugged, and asked, “So, can I take yon shield now? And go through the weapons for whatever I like the look of?”

“No,” Pennae snapped. “You don’t really need them, and you could be spreading some fell curse or other. If Agannor or Bey-they’ve the best armor-wants to use the shield as we go out, to stand like a wall while the rest of us go past in a crouch, fine, but I’d throw it right back in here after, if ’twere me. I trust none of it.”

The Swords of Eveningstar were giving each other grim looks.

“I might have laughed at that warning, when we came in here,” Agannor said, “but not now.”

They moved on, Pennae tarrying to sprinkle a fingerwidth line of sand across the passage, from the third of four identical sacks tied to her belt.

“I saw you doing that earlier,” Doust said with a frown. “Why?”

The thief finished her pouring. “To show us, on our next visit, if anything has come slithering around these passages since we left. To check on our intrusions, say.”

Doust made a face. “Ah.”

Blowing out the lone lantern, the Swords went out into Starwater Gorge, low and fast and as quietly as possible.

Truly, the gods were smiling this night.

No crossbow bolts greeted them.

There was a time when Alura Durshavin had helped her mother sprinkle precise, slender lines of decorative powders atop cakes, and her hand had grown steadier and more confident since then.

As a result, her thin lines of sand were as straight as a sword blade, every one of them.

Until something large and serpentine, that moved with velvet silence for all its bulk, slithered across one after another of them, as it quested after the intruders who smelled so intriguing. And edible.