Swords of Eveningstar

Chapter 17

There’s not a scheme that’s been schemed that won’t afford some entertainment to its conspirators, when they gather to whisper and ponder strategies and second guesses. However, when the scheme nears its end, for good or for ill-ah, that’s when the real entertainment begins.

Ortharryn Khantlow, Scribe Royal

Thirty Years Behind The Dragon Throne published in the Year of the Stag

I t was hot and airless under the trees along the sides of Starwater Gorge, after highsun on the fifth day since the Swords had first set boot in the Haunted Halls.

The morning had been spent trading many of their fast-dwindling handfuls of coins to Evenor shopkeepers and farmers for food and lamp oil. Prayers added to such chores took Doust and Semoor longer than some of their fellows, so they were the last to arrive at the moot.

And knew it. They were sweating hard by the time they dumped their heavy packs under the broad leaves of a clump of starrach larger than some cottages in Eveningstar, and hastened through the thicket beyond.

Praise Tymora and Lathander, the path was right where they’d expected it to be, and they swiftly-if precariously-ascended the side of the gorge to the huge, lichen-speckled jutting rock they’d dubbed “the Snout.”

Islif Lurelake was standing sentinel atop it, in her homemade armor, looking as alert as ever.

Semoor squinted up at her. “Anyone watching? Following?”

She shook her head, murmuring unnecessarily, “And you’re the last.”

The two friends nodded and ducked down into a small, dark hole under the Snout. Overhead, they knew, Islif would be taking a few steps back to stand over the crack that would carry their voices up to her, so she could listen in without leaving off her scrutiny of the gorge. Those mysterious bowmen-and, folk in Eveningstar insisted, outlaws by the score, trolls beyond numbering, and modest armies of orcs and goblins, to say nothing of fell hooded wizards, wyverns, and worse beasties-were still out here, somewhere. Somewhere near.

The crawl hole opened out into a dank little bowl of a cave that had been choked with windblown leaves, old dung, and older bones when the Swords had first found it. Now it held only them, standing all crowded together around a rough table of four felled saplings lashed together like a raft, wedged across the cave, and anointed with a lit lantern.

Its flickering glow fell on no less than six crudely drawn maps of the Haunted Halls. Semoor’s faith let him buy parchment from the House of the Morning at a few copper thumbs less than the ruinous prices they charged everyone else, and he’d made good use of that favor.

“We got it all,” Pennae was reassuring the other Swords. “At least, all the green slime in that room, and there was none in the privy here or the passage here that has the ambush elbow. Its smoke cleared fast enough that we know plenty of air gets down into the western halls somewhere-probably several somewheres-from above. This must be so, because with the front doors as open as they are now, everything blows out into the gorge.”

“I care not a whit where the breezes blow,” Agannor grunted, “so long as some gold coins flow into my hands from somewhere. Soon.”

“All the tales say the Haunted Halls stretch on for room after room after passage-dozens at least, with feast halls and big chambers with pillars, too. I don’t think we’ve found a twentieth of it, yet,” Martess said firmly. “There must be some hidden ways on that we’ve missed thus far. Look you at this doubling-back hall, here: surely there’s a room in this angle that we can’t get to yet. Unless we break through the wall.”

Bey gave her a look. “You want us to start digging in there? Mining? Lass, have you ever tried to break apart stones? We’d be dead-dragon-tired in a trice, and making noise and shudderings enough to draw every monster that’s anywhere in the place! So there we’d be, choking on rock dust and knee-deep in stumble-making rubble, too weary to lift weapons-and finding ourselves facing down a slug the size of two warhorses, or something that’s all tentacles with fangs on the ends of them! Can your spells save us then? Hey?”

Martess reddened, her lips going thin.

Florin hastened to draw the converse elsewhere. “I think Martess is right about that room-there might well be one just here, too-but I don’t think we’ve come to digging, yet. After all, we have this grand way on, that has doors as tall as two of us, and two statues pointing it out to us!”

“Aye, and it also features a death trap, unless you know some way to outrun lightning!” Agannor was frowning. “Or do our spell-hurling lasses know a way to undo that magic?”

Jhessail and Martess both shook their heads.

Agannor looked at Doust and Semoor. “Holy men? Anyone?”

More heads were shaken. Agannor sighed and sat back, growling, “Well, someone had better think of some thing, or ’tis going to be a long and hungry winter for us, and off to Sembia in spring to sell our charter, split up, and look for drudge-toil under the tongues of grasping merchants, for all of us.”

Pennae sighed. “Such bright cheer you proffer, Agannor. Myself, I think there’s much treasure to be found in the Haunted Halls- if we don’t run afoul of whoever set up this guardroom, here.”

“ ’Twas empty when we came along,” Bey growled. “Why worry you?”

“The new strike-gong on the wall, and the just-as-new wire running from behind it through a hole in the north wall to we-know-not-where. I’ll wager all the gold in Sembia that wire runs to another gong, so striking one causes the other to echo. Who dwells where that other gong is? And when will they notice us? The place doesn’t feel deserted, nor yet abandoned and roamed by beasts: it feels like someone lives there.”

Agannor and Florin both nodded, and Jhessail murmured, “I have that feeling, too.”

“I begin to see,” Doust said, “why so many folk fell in yon Halls-and the rest fled to spread tales of it.”

“Agannor’s right,” Semoor said sourly. “We’d better find something worth good coin to sell soon. We two holynoses resold that peddler’s horse just now, to the next caravan through Eveningstar-”

Pennae looked up. “A caravan came through Eveningstar? And we missed it? I can scarce begin to believe-”

“Oh, all right: a merchant with five wagons, look you? Anyhail, he bought the pack-nag, and we made-hear this-all of three thumbs on the deal. That’s not going to see us through winter, unless…”

Semoor looked meaningfully at Pennae, who gave him a flat stare and the flatter reply: “This is far too small a place to steal things, Wolftooth. You expect our necks to last long if I vanish one man’s best shovel and try to sell it to his neighbor?”

Semoor nodded, shrugged, smiled, and turned his knowing look on Martess, who leaned past the lantern and said icily, “Not-so-holy-man, hear this well: I’m not going to dance in taverns or suffer the gropings of a lot of hard-breathing, gnarly handed farmers again… nor train Jhess here to do so, either!”

“ ’Tis not such a bad fate as all that,” Pennae told her map, as Semoor rolled his eyes up to regard the ceiling with an air of holy innocence.

“Semoor,” Florin said, “such suggestions are more harmful than useful-and unworthy of a man of Lathander, to my way of thinking. Where’s the bright new beginning in asking fellow Swords to fall back on shady work they’ve done before?”

“I was but trying to be helpful,” Semoor replied, with an edge to his voice none of them had heard before. “If we’re talking about coins enough to live, we should talk freely, raising all matters, yes?”

“Yes,” Bey agreed, at the same time as Martess and Jhessail both said, “No.”

A moment of uncomfortable silence followed, until Doust said, “Well, then, we’d best manage a right swift success of this getting rich, hey?”

Pennae waved her hands as if to banish all discord, then put a finger on a certain chamber drawn on the most extensive and detailed of the maps; her own. “ ’Tis my belief,” she said, “there’s another level of rooms hidden below this, here, that we’ve already scoured… probably here, beneath the undercrypt, and heading back this way…”

Semoor waved his hand. “So we go looking there next. Yes?”

He lifted his gaze to look at the lamplit faces all around. They were nodding.

Florin reached out to touch another place on the map. “And if we find no way down, let’s try here. I’ve a hunch there are more rooms this way. The rock is softer, for one thing.” More nods.

“Then let’s go,” Agannor said briskly. “Holy men, lead us out of this hole, into a brighter future.”

“Do this, and I’ll be well pleased with you,” Lorneth Crownsilver said with a smile, turning back to his eager niece with a small, rather plain coffer in his hands. “This service to the Crown can only bring you the high regard of the king.”

“Rellond Blacksilver is expecting me?”

Her uncle nodded. “For the usual reasons.” He laid the coffer in Narantha’s hands. “Put this in your chatelaine, and let no one take it from you until you are alone with the young gallant. Put it-or what it holds-directly into his bare hands.”

Once she’d slipped the coffer into her girdle-purse, he clasped her shoulders.

Narantha had seen noble fathers hold their sons thus, when pleased and uttering orders that could only bring glory upon their houses.

“Don’t drop the coffer,” her uncle told her, “and don’t open it until you’re alone with him. Alone, mind: no trusted servants, no war wizards. Act like you want to flirt with him, and get him to send them all away.”

Narantha’s lip curled. “Dally with Rellond the Roughshod? ”

“Come, now. You’ve feigned much you did not feel, and put on many a false face, down the years; ’tis what we nobles do. Shame all bards with your subtle, artfully done hints and sidelong glances. I called Rellond a ‘gallant’ now so sneeringly because in his case it means ‘handsome, arrogant lady-chaser.’ Think of this as a first step in teaching Rellond Blacksilver a lesson he should have learned long ago.”

Narantha smiled, nodding slowly. “Put that way, Uncle, ’twill be a pleasure. In this Year of the Spur, Cormyr holds far too many nobles who are very far indeed from being truly ‘noble.’ I fear that I was very recently one of them. But now…”

She lifted her hands to clasp his, still at her shoulders, and gave them a firm squeeze. Then Narantha bowed her head to him as if she were his respectful son leaving for battle, stepped back and away, and hurried from the room.

Behind the hargaunt mask that gave him the likeness of Lorneth Crownsilver, Horaundoon of the Zhentarim smiled as he watched her go.

Afire with enthusiasm, that one. If ever she balked or disobeyed, he could of course use the mindworm within her to compel her-but right now, at least, such ruthlessnesses were very far from being necessary.

Narantha believed in him, and had been happily spreading mindworms to nobles of his choosing far faster than Horaundoon could ever have ah, wormed his way into their towers, mansions, and the shapes of their most trusted servants or mistresses.

Creth, Huntinghorn, Ammaeth, and now Blacksilver-this was almost too easy.

The stink of rotting fish was sickening.

Lord Crownsilver thrust the lantern forward to almost touch the worn, much-pitted stone. The paint was both faint and flaking, but in the lanternlight they could clearly see the curl-tailed hippogriff sigil.

“This is the place,” he grunted. Passing the lantern to the cloaked and hooded figure who stood in the midst of their three hulking bodyguards, he nodded curtly to the nearest boldblade.

That brute was a bald and much-scarred warrior whose name Maniol had forgotten for the moment. A head taller than his lord and master, he strode silently forward, his plain black war-harness bristling with blades, spikes, and skull-shatter knobs, and thrust the closed door open.

His two fellows had already stepped swiftly in front of their noble charges, but nothing erupted out of the revealed darkness beyond the door, or fell or fired at the boldblade who’d opened it.

Lord and Lady Crownsilver would have chosen safer and more pleasant surroundings than the Scaletail Door-if they’d had any say in the choosing. Swallowing, Maniol Crownsilver reclaimed the lantern and trudged reluctantly forward, seeing stone walls slick with wet slime ahead. The way was narrow, and after a few paces ended in worn steps descending into dripping, noisome darkness with crude handholds scooped out of the rock.

“You will wait for us,” Lady Crownsilver reminded the boldblades icily, “until dawn. Then one of you will remain to watch this door, and the other two bring back all of our house blades to forthwith go down yon stair and find us, slaying everyone who stands in your way. Everyone. ”

She glared at them until she’d collected slow nods from all three, and only then stepped forward into the passage, unhooding as she went.

“I am less than pleased with this, Maniol,” she hissed.

Her lord stood waiting at the head of the stairs, hand on sword hilt. “The slayer’s of your choosing,” he muttered. “Blame me not for this place of his choosing.”

“Take your hand off your sword,” Jalassa Crownsilver snapped, the bite in her voice warning him to say no more about choices of her making. “ ’Tis useless in so close-confined a way. Draw your dagger.”

Her husband obeyed with an angry flourish and set off cautiously down the stair. “Take care, wife,” he commented. Maniol only dared address her thus when he was too angry-or afraid-to care about consequences. “The way is wet.”

Seething in silence, Lady Crownsilver followed her lord, down into unknown cellars, somewhere in Marsember. With every step the air grew colder and the smell of dead fish faded, being replaced by a strange seaweed smell: a smell of living weed rather than the rotting shore-tang she was familiar with. With every reluctant step, Jalassa liked her decision less and less.

Indar Crauldreth might be the best assassin in Marsember, and might have lived to acquire that reputation by such one-sided precautions, but she hated to be groping in the unknown, bodyguards and magic left behind her. Crauldreth insisted on much. Why could he not deal with a Crownsilver agent? After all, lawful or not, this was still business…

The narrow stair ended in a much larger, many-pillared place, everything black-green and glistening. An old storage cellar, that flooded too often for anyone sensible to use it for storage.

The rusty ends of many ladders protruded down into it, here and there, descending through narrow chutes from unseen buildings above. There were ends of pipes, too, dozens of them, gaping ovals like so many hungry maws of eels.

Lord Crownsilver came to an uneasy halt. “I see no red shield.”

“The floor, Maniol, shine the lantern on the floor. D’you expect it to be hanging from a pillar in front of your nose?”

Her husband let out an angry hiss and took a few reluctant steps off to his right, then returned to head left about the same distance. Then, with a shrug that set the lantern swinging crazily, he forged on ahead another dozen paces or so and repeated his side forays. This time, they ended in a bark of: “Aha!”

Lady Crownsilver hurried to stand with him, and gazed down at a red shield, about the size of her smallest personal carriage, painted on the floor. Someone had washed the slime and mold away from it, to leave its worn paint standing forth clearly from the surrounding “Put the lantern on the floor,” a cold voice came to them, sounding as if it came from right at their elbows; both Crownsilvers jumped. “And put your dagger away, Maniol Crownsilver. I don’t want you to cut yourself and bleed to death before you can pay my fee.”

Lord Crownsilver fumbled to obey, almost dropping the lantern. His lady went cold as she realized that if darkness descended, she had no way of finding the steps back up. She whirled around, found them, and planted herself facing them, hissing, “Get well back from the lantern, Maniol.”

“I’m a busy man,” the voice told them. “So who am I to kill for you?”

It could be coming down any of these pipes-which weren’t for water or pouring grain at all, Lady Crownsilver realized: they were speaking tubes that had once carried orders from the buildings above down into this place, where cargo was stored.

“One Florin Falconhand, of the Swords of Eveningstar chartered company.” Lord Crownsilver, to his lady’s disgust, was unable to keep a quaver of fear out of his voice.

“An adventurer,” the unseen assassin said. “This will be expensive.”

“How much, Crauldreth?” Lady Crownsilver snapped.

“About three times as much as I’d accept for killing either of you, ” came the cold reply.

Lord Maniol Crownsilver went pale and started to shake.

Lady Jalassa caught sight of his movements as he started to peer this way and that, darting swift and futile glances into the gloom all around.

Without turning her head to look at her husband, Lady Jalassa slapped him and snapped crisply, “Stop that.”

Then she lifted her head and asked the unseen Crauldreth, “How much?”

Sarhthor of the Zhentarim hadn’t lived this long by being stupid. He often walked the Stonelands north of Starwater Gorge to choose spots to teleport to in future-and he brought himself to one of those locales now, rather than to the chamber where the most successful of his underlings should be waiting for him.

Whisper was becoming just a bit too ambitious to be trusted. In the slightest.

Standing on the flat rock he’d remembered, surrounded on three sides by a natural rampart of taller boulders, Sarhthor gazed south into Cormyr.

Not far away, under the sharp-edged rock ridges in front of him, lay the ancient and undead-haunted burial catacombs long known as Whisper’s Crypt; the wizard Whisper had taken his Zhentarim name from them, rather than what was now his lair being named after him.

Whisper was an energetic sort. He’d done far more than taming a part of the perilous crypt to be his abode. He’d found some of the ancient automatons, constructs, and colossi in those tombs and other Netherese crypts of the Stonelands, and awakened them to walk, fly, and slay at his bidding.

Yes, Whisper was becoming formidable, with schemes of his own and an increasing ability to enact them.

Sarhthor took the time to cast not one but two snatch-fetch spells to shimmer and spin about himself before teleporting himself into the crypt. Any metal seeking to pierce or fall through those fields would be vaporized, and almost any spell striking it would be twisted into making the fields stronger. Moreover, either snatch-fetch could be commanded to snatch Sarhthor back from the crypt to this rock.

Sarhthor carefully wedged a vial between two of the great rampart rocks, covering it with a small stone shard. If he should need healing in a hurry…

He cast the teleport, knew the usual eerie moment of falling through endless vivid blue mists, and found himself standing in the spot he’d chosen last time: at the head of three shallow steps, in the passage Whisper liked to use to descend into his spellcasting chamber.

Whisper’s back was just ahead of him, and Sarhthor permitted himself a tight smile as he padded down the passage in his underling’s wake. He let Whisper take one stride out into the spellcasting chamber and look toward the cleared area where Sarhthor of the Zhentarim was supposed to appear-an area, he noted, where Whisper seemed to have set up a lingering, almost invisible spell of some sort-then said curtly, “ Report, Whisper.”

Whisper did not-quite-jump three feet into the air. He did, however, flinch violently and stiffen into immobility, perhaps fearing the worst.

Sarhthor didn’t intend to give it to him. Yet. However, there was no need to begin by reassuring Whisper on that matter.

“I’m waiting,” he said. “I see I must inform you that extremely busy senior mages of the Zhentarim dislike being kept waiting.”

Whisper controlled himself rigidly. His turn to face Sarhthor was slow and almost casual.

“Honored superior,” he said, wearing a tight smile, “I have little to tell. Matters in the vicinity of Eveningstar have been very quiet. I continue to work slowly and subtly to increase our influence without the local crop-muckers hearing the name ‘Zhentarim’ overmuch. At the same time, using spells to assume a variety of guises so no war wizard can trace things here or to me, I’m recruiting suitable knaves as agents.”

“ ‘Knaves’? Just men?”

“No. Aging women, past their years of looking good and enjoying the good regard of fellow Evenor, are my best eyes and ears. Capable and vengeful-and already experienced at peering and gossiping, and known in the village for doing so, hence unsuspicious.”

“What are the local war wizards up to during this oh-so-quiet time?”

“Scrying Arabel, seeking petty lawbreakers among the merchants there.”

“Come now! Whilst the war wizards of Arabel do what?”

“The same task. It seems they’ve one of those pushes to cleanse Arabel; they start one every five or six summers.”

Sarhthor shook his head in disbelief. “Cleansing Arabel I can well believe. Leaving Eveningstar unwatched, I cannot. Watch sharp, or you’ll be caught. This ‘attentiveness elsewhere’ of the war wizards known to you means some of Vangey’s other spell-vultures are scrying Eveningstar-rotation of duties to lull you, catch you unguarded, and train fresh eyes in the detection of Eveningstar’s little troubles. Such as you.”

“No one can scry me unnoticed,” Whisper said, “and I’ve found no hint of anyone trying. Vangey’s skulkers are busy elsewhere, I tell you. Most of them in and around Arabel, and others gathering at High Horn-I know not what for, but I’m trying to find out.”

“Huh. Next you’ll be telling me the Purple Dragon has returned, or someone with spellfire’s been found striding around the Dales. Be careful, Whisper, or your blind overconfidence may soon be the death of you.”

“Thank you, honored superior,” Whisper replied tonelessly.

“Dismiss my advice not, mageling-to do so brings you near to death from two directions, and I doubt you’re a good enough dancer to dodge both the war wizards and the Zhentarim. So take my warning to heart. In the meantime, keep in mind two things: that ‘caravans quietly through’ remains our policy, and that there’s much infighting going on at Zhentil Keep right now; we must all be very careful to obey orders diligently and in every detail.”

Whisper nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes, Sarhthor. I hear and will obey. You may count on me.”

As he spoke, a ruby-red radiance flared into being far down the room. Part of a map graven into the top of a massive stone table was glowing balefully.

Sarhthor’s eyes narrowed. “What intrusion does yon spell warn of?”

“Several persons wearing garments marked by my agents have entered a part of the subterranean stronghold known as the Haunted Halls. Specifically, a part where I may well be able to slay them with relative ease, given the traps I’ve crafted there and the layout of the rooms and passages.”

“And your agents marked these ‘several persons’ because?”

“Because I was suspicious of them. These individuals are the Swords of Eveningstar, members of a newly chartered adventuring band, just arrived in Eveningstar. Mere restless younglings out of Espar, who saved the life of the king of Cormyr and claimed a charter as their reward-but bumbling and soon-slain as adventurers may be, they can still draw unwanted attention and unwittingly harm many schemes and proceedings in their blunderings.”

Sarhthor nodded. “Agreed. Deal with them.” And with those blunt words still hanging in the air, he was gone, leaving Whisper gazing across his empty spellcasting chamber at that distant ruby glow.

“Deal with them, indeed,” he murmured, and waved a hand to awaken a nearby scrying crystal.

It floated obediently nearer, quickening into brightness: the glows of no less than four bobbing, approaching lanterns. The Swords of Eveningstar, shining-eyed with the excitement of having found no less than two secret doors, and through them a huge labyrinth of rooms and corridors running in seemingly all directions, were coming along a passage into what had once been a throne room-and was now home to one of Whisper’s most cunning traps.

Whisper smiled as he strode forward to peer closely into the Haunted Halls-or at least, what little could be seen of them in the depths of the crystal. ’Twas enough, though. ’Twas enough. This should be good.

“I mislike the look of this,” Martess hissed. “There’s magic everywhere in the room ahead of us.”

Agannor and Bey were almost leaning through the open doorway, holding their lamps high. A heap of splintered, gilded ruin lay right in front of their boots: the remnants of fallen, once-grand double doors that had echoed in wood the size and grandeur of the bronze doors guarded by the lightning-spitting statues, somewhere back behind the Swords.

Only, these doors had been adorned with magnificent relief carvings of knights riding leaping war-horses, and from their saddles hewing down orcs, sinister helmed men whose arms seemed to be long tentacles, and what looked like wyverns and wingless dragons. It was hard to tell what all of the monstrous foes were, because the blows of a hard-driven axe had long ago cleft and marred many of the carvings, and time and the damp had caused the edges of those wounds to crumble.

“Looks like a throne room,” Agannor grunted. “A fair place to look for treasure, wouldn’t you say?”

“I say again,” Martess murmured, still on her knees. “Magic-some of it very strong-is everywhere in yon chamber.”

“Hah! Couldn’t some of the treasure we seek be magical? Hey? Like the healing flasks Pennae found?”

“Agannor,” Pennae told him, “we are not alone in these halls. If someone-or something — that speaks Common and understands us is lurking in the darkness anywhere near, you’re loudly telling them everything we’re doing and so telling them exactly when and how to best harm us. So still your tongue. Please.”

Agannor bared his teeth in anger at the slender thief-who shrugged, smiled, and murmured to Martess, “Take all the time you need to be sure, Tess. I want to know exactly where the magic is before I put one toe into the room. And so help me, Agannor, if you lose patience with our caution and go striding in there: I’ve got some concoctions that can make the bites of my knives very interesting-and you’ll feel those bites, if you go on endangering the rest of us by playing the reckless fool here and in any more rooms.”

“Sabruin,” Agannor spat at her. “Just sabruin! ”

“After you do, dearest,” Pennae replied lightly. “After you!”

He growled and waved disgusted dismissal at her-but stayed out of the throne chamber. It was Bey who gave Pennae a hard look and asked, “So, Sharptongue, where would you head from here? What would you do, that’s so much better than just walking into yon room? Hey?”

“Well,” Pennae said, “the first thing I’d explore, before I moved on into that throne room and so left the thing behind me-and between me and the sunlight! — is this niche here in the wall. Small, but placed just where a hand can easily reach into it, and graven with these two symbols. Anyone seen them before? Anyone know what they mean?”

The Swords took turns shuffling forward to peer, and one after another shook their heads in open, obviously sincere denial.

“Well,” Pennae said, when they were done, “I can see something at the back there that I want to probe with my dagger. See the carving of the castle rampart? I wonder why-”

Something cold and blue flashed around her extended dagger-and the passage in front of the throne room was suddenly empty of all trace of Alura Durshavin.