Swords of Eveningstar

Ah, I’m afraid you’ve been sadly misled, Lady Greenmantle,” the elderly war wizard said. “These aren’t spell scrolls at all.”

He looked up from them, genuine sorrow in his eyes. Bleys Delaeyn was a kindly man, and it distressed him to think that someone had caused any upset to one of the kindest and most beautiful noblewomen he’d ever met. Still more that she’d been duped out of coins, and might well be angry with him for telling her so.

She’ll think I’ll rush back to my fellow Wizards of War to have a good laugh about her.

Lady Greenmantle was, indeed, looking upset. Her lower lip trembled, and what looked alarmingly like tears glimmered in her large emerald eyes.

“Lady,” Delaeyn said, “rest assured that this shall remain a secret between us, not shared with anyone else-even Lord Vangerdahast himself. I’m afraid you’ve been duped by a clever charlatan. If you’d like me to try to recover your coins by hunting him down with some of the best Crown agents Cormyr can muster, I’ll be happy to do so, but if my silence is what you prefer, I-”

Lady Greenmantle had somehow found her way around to his side of the table, and was plucking the offending sheets of parchment from his hand. As he stared at her, open-mouthed, she flung them over her shoulder, heedless of where they might fall, and faced him, their knees touching.

“Lord Wizard Delaeyn,” she whispered, “I care not a whit about spell scrolls or false scrolls, so long as you call me Amdranna, and bide here with me for a time. There is something I very much need you to do.”

Bleys Delaeyn blinked at her. “Uh, Lady, uh-”

“Amdranna,” she whispered, leaning forward to say the word almost into his mouth. Her bosom brushed against him, and Delaeyn was suddenly very much aware of her nearness, the spiced scent of her perfume, her softness, gliding against him…

“Uh, La- Amdranna, ” he almost wailed, leaning back from her, “what… what’re you doing? ”

“Seducing you,” she murmured, licking his throat and the edge of his jaw and leaving Delaeyn trembling with unaccustomed excitement-and the realization that his aging back wouldn’t bow away from her any farther. “If you’ll let me. For years I’ve admired you, Lord Delaeyn-”

“Uh, ah, I’m not actually a ‘lord’ of any s-sort, Lady-”

“Amdranna,” she told him sternly, crawling up him like an affectionate tressym until he was on his back, draped over the flaring arm of the bench, with her avid face poised above his. She reached up, nostrils flaring, and tore her gown with sudden ferocity.

“Amdranna, I-this is so sudden! I-”

“Don’t you want me?” she asked, sudden tears on her cheeks. “After I’ve dreamed of you so long?”

She ground herself against him, and a shuddering Bleys Delaeyn knew that he wanted her very much, and-and Her hands were at his belt and the lacings of his breeches, and he moaned a wordless protest and tried to throw her off, thrusting upward with his hips.

With a smile that was pure tressym she caught hold of his belt buckle and sat back up, pulling him with her. The buckle proved unequal to the strain, and came open-and in a trice Bleys Delaeyn found himself being towed across the room to a low couch right at the edge of the open stair that descended to the entryhall.

“Lady!” he hissed. “What if one of your servants sees-”

“Hush,” she said, and covered his mouth with hers as she dragged him down.

He shouldn’t be doing this, Delaeyn told himself, he was a long way from nineteen winters old, and an even longer way from Memories that faded like morning mist before her warm yielding, her hot kisses, her She was under him no longer, but above him, hair a wild tangle about her bare shoulders, eyes afire, bending down to him, falling sideways Oh, no, they were Amdranna Greenmantle rolled, tucking herself down tight beside the couch, shoulders slamming hard onto the stone floor. Her hands held the old mage’s sagging, hairy chest like claws, her knee came up into his crotch as she let go of him, and she twisted And with a startled, despairing cry, Wizard of War Bleys Delaeyn was hurled over the unguarded edge of the old stone stair.

The steps were of old, smooth-worn stone, some sixty feet down, and he greeted them headfirst. Lady Greenmantle listened to bone shatter and teeth spray, and then calmly rose and went to hide her torn gown-it was best kept, rather than tossed down a garderobe, in case she needed it to prove her claim of the old wizard going mad with lust and trying to force himself on her-and wash and redo her hair.

It had been so long since she’d seen to her tresses without the maids-like all the other servants, banished for the day-that she’d almost forgotten how. Almost.

The precious cigar was almost done. Taltar Dahauntul tasted its smoke and leaned back in his chair, in the heart of the aromatic blue cloud, with a contented sigh.

Narooran’s Finest were halfling-crafted, somewhere in Sembia-seemingly everything was crafted somewhere in Sembia-and all too rare. He hoarded his dwindling supply like the precious things they were. Even on an ornrion’s coins, they were dear, and the extra lions now falling into his lap for being Acting Captain of His Majesty’s Loyal Watch of Arabel wouldn’t last forever. Nothing did.

Aye, if there was one lesson long service as a Purple Dragon taught, to those who cared to learn, it was that nothing lasted. Things change.

Perhaps, one day, things would change for the better. Perhaps, though it was so hrastingly easy to put a foot wrong these days. Yet even those who disliked him respected him for being capable. The men called him “Dauntless,” and that was far better than “Old Ironbreeches” or “Idiot Screechtongue” or “Lord Stonehead the Sixth,” which is what they referred to his three immediate superiors as, among themselves.

“Lord Dauntless”? Nay, not for him. Lords were arrogant, fat-bellied idiots with monocles, foolish notions, and casual rudenesses, who deserved all the contempt they were held in.

Sir Dauntless, now… a man had to earn a knighthood. He stared at the shield in his lap through the last of the thinning smoke. Its blazon was an unfinished chaos of chalk, because Dauntless wasn’t much of a limner and because he hadn’t quite settled on what he wanted-wings and a lion, yes, yet a lion with wings was a manticore: a stupid, evil, nuisance beast-but he could copy out ornamented characters with the best of them. His motto, framed by a flowing scroll, blazed forth from the shield proudly: “Bold to face the foe.”

Well, so he was. Someday, perhaps, Cormyr would say so.

Reluctantly stubbing out the butt before it burned his knuckles, Dauntless slid the shield safely back into its hiding place in the lid of his locker, between the real top and the false top he’d constructed so long ago, folded down the edge-flap over the slot between them, and carefully adjusted the pins that secured it, sprinkling a pinch of pepper over them to look like dust. If the wrong person found this, it would mean utter disaster.

The distant bell tolled, right on time. Sighing, Dauntless stood, put the cigar butt on the usual tray on its high shelf, jammed his helm onto his head, and strode out of his quarters, every inch a stern, erect, on-duty ornrion.

It was time for this particular gruff, cigar-smoking veteran of burly build, shrewd sense, and a huge mustache to flog Purple Dragons into shape once more.

And by Helm and Torm both, they took a lot of flogging.

“We-that is, all house wizards-are under orders to investigate any accidental death of any noble, knight, mage, or priest, Lady,” Treth Ohmalghar said. “Moreover, both your lord husband and myself find your orders to all Greenmantle servants to depart the hall for the day… interesting.”

Lady Greenmantle’s face was white with anger. “You dare-? ”

“Lady,” Ohmalghar said gently, “I do, and must. Please bear in mind that Lord Greenmantle and myself have taken care that I speak with you in private, to spare you even the slightest stain to your reputation. Just as you consulted with Bleys Delaeyn in private.”

“Very well,” the noblewoman said, still obviously furious. “Ask your questions.”

The Greenmantle house wizard inclined his head to her politely, spread his hands, and murmured an incantation too quiet for Lady Greenmantle to hear.

“Mage, what are you doing? ”

“To save us both much time and ill-feeling, I’m seeking answers in your mind,” Ohmalghar explained. “Innocent folk have nothing to fear from such a proced-” He stiffened, his eyes going sharp.

Lady Greenmantle gave a little cry, like a dismayed bird, one hand going to her mouth. Her eyes darted to the bell that would bring servants on the run, then to the two doors out of the room… and all her rage seemed to drain away from her, leaving only fear, when she realized the house wizard-who suddenly seemed an above-himself servant no longer, but something far more menacing-had deftly placed her so that he stood between her and both the bell and the doors.

There was a wand in his hand, and it was pointed at her.

“Lady Greenmantle,” he said, the snap of command in his voice, “sit down. In the chair just behind you. Now. ”

Amdranna Greenmantle sat.

Eyes never leaving hers, Ohmalghar cast another spell and spoke softly to the empty air. “Treth Ohmalghar for Ghoruld Applethorn. Urgent.”

The noblewoman sat staring at him, trembling, her white face gone almost yellow.

“Yes, Treth?” The voice spoke from nothingness.

“Greenmantle Hall, Twohelm Chamber. I’m with Lady Amdranna Greenmantle, and from her mind have just learned that she murdered Wizard of War Bleys Delaeyn. As her part in a plot to murder senior war wizards, unfolded to her by the Lady Jalassa Crownsilver, and also involving the noble ladies Muscalian and Yellander! We must inform Lord Vangerdahast at once!”

“Indeed. Knows she any other intended victims?”

“I… think not. I lack the spells to truly probe.”

“I’m coming through.”

Lady Greenmantle whimpered, the air between her and the house wizard shimmered, and then there was a tall, impressive-looking man in rich robes standing on her dapple-dyed ghost-rothe rug.

Wizard of War Ghoruld Applethorn’s hair was white at the temples and he had a face as handsome as it was commanding. There were rings on his hands-one of them adorned with a large, strikingly carved unicorn head finer than anything in her own coffers. He gave her a hard look, turned slowly on his heel to look all around the room, nodding to Ohmalghar, and ended up with his back to the house wizard. Amdranna Greenmantle saw him cup one hand against his chest as if holding an invisible bowl, murmur something into it, then turn. Smiling at the house wizard, he stepped forward-and slapped that hand against Ohmalghar’s face.

The house wizard staggered, gasping, and fell to the rug, tiny wisps of smoke streaming from his eyes.

“Dedication, Ohmalghar,” Applethorn said almost jovially, “gets you only one thing: killed. Who’d have known Delaeyn was such a devious traitor that he’d cast a backlash on Lady Greenmantle to mindblast anyone probing her, burning out his brain and leaving him forever a drooling idiot?”

Giving Amdranna Greenmantle a soft smile, Applethorn cast another spell.

The air shimmered again, and a creature that Lady Greenmantle had only seen depicted in one of her husband’s hidden books appeared beside the war wizard. It was a gray-skinned, gaunt echo of a man, with huge eyes set in a larger head, and had long, spidery talon-fingers but no nose, mouth, nor privates.

“Your time has come at last,” Applethorn told the doppelganger-and pointed at Lady Greenmantle.

“Much thanksss,” it hissed, with lips that swam into being and gained shape even as it spoke. It was looking straight at her… and becoming shapely and feminine, its eyes going emerald green, an ample bosom form Great Gods Above! ’Twas becoming her! Herself, the Lady Greenmantle she gazed at in her dressing-glass of mornings!

As Amdranna Greenmantle stared at it in horror, her own voice issued from its lips: “Applethorn, try not to destroy the garments this time. I’d rather not stalk naked around this house trying to find the right wardrobes and upsetting the maids.”

As the wizard nodded and started to murmur a spell, the-the thing wearing her shape started purposefully toward her.

Amdranna Greenmantle opened her mouth to scream, rising to flee she knew not where, dashing wildly across the room.

Calmly, Ghoruld Applethorn blasted her down.

Dauntless swung open the battered door of the ready room-and stiffened, frowning.

Lionar Almarr Toliphur was sitting in his chair. A lionar sitting in his chair!

“What’s this?” he barked.

Rather than leaping upright and stammering excuses and apologies, Toliphur favored his superior with an easy grin, and held out the duty scroll. “I have to sit here and growl at the stalwarts as if I were you, because you have to report in to the She-Dragon herself.”

Dauntless sighed, smote his forehead, and growled, “I clean forgot. These ‘Swords of Eveningstar,’ right?”

“Right,” the lionar confirmed happily.

Dauntless plucked the scroll from Toliphur’s grasp, turned on his heel, and marched out. The scroll rattled in his hand as it trailed behind him in the wind of his haste.

He rolled it up without slowing, striding hard and fast toward the She-Dragon’s lair.

The Lady Lord of Arabel knew very well what the watch called her, just as well as the folk of Arabel knew it.

And just as Arabellans chose to overlook the slight on their loyalty represented by the Crown making every officer of the watch a Purple Dragon of experience and standing, Myrmeen Lhal chose to ignore the fact that those men-and most of the city, echoing them-called her “the She-Dragon.”

She’d even been heard, when someone bellowed it at her in an unfriendly fashion across a busy street, to remark that it was a rather more catchy name than “King’s Lady Lord of Arabel.”

Yet Myrmeen was called the She-Dragon for good reason. She slept less, worked longer, ran harder, fenced better, and thought faster than almost all who served under her. She was the only woman in all Arabel that Dauntless feared.

That was why his “Acting Captain Dahauntul, to see the Lady Lord of Arabel on official duty” was respectful as well as gruff, and the first two gateguards stepped aside with alacrity.

The second pair demanded the password. Dauntless, who’d chosen it and given it to them himself, along with their orders, just after dawn, said it to them now rather coldly. They kept their faces expressionless as they handed him on to the third set of guards-four, this time, bolstered by a war wizard young in years and Art, who watched him stop and stand on the glyph that would show them his true shape and likeness, then the glyph that would cause any magic at work on him to blaze forth like pink fire.

Neither showed them anything suspicious, of course, and they escorted him into a room where a woman in worn and plain battle-leathers, with a sword scabbarded at her hip, was leaning on her long arms over a table spread with maps, conferring with several scared-looking city courtiers.

“ I haven’t forgotten giving orders that these sewers were to be checked by a patrol every sixth day, Bluthskas-why have you?” she was saying sharply, tapping two many-branched lines on the largest map.

“Lady, I-”

“Lady Lord, I-” Another courtier corrected, before Myrmeen could.

She nodded, let them both see her rolling eyes, and said, “Get out of here, both of you, to think up whatever excuse you want to offer me. Make it good; I’m in need of entertainment.” She turned her head. “Dauntless! Good to see you. More cheery news?”

Ornrion Dahauntul saluted. “Lady Lord, I’ve not judged its cheeriness, one way or another. It has one virtue I have noted: ’tis short.”

Myrmeen gave him both a nod and a snort of appreciation, and gestured for him to deliver his report.

Dauntless plunged right in. “Two tendays ago, or a few days less, a band of adventurers arrived in the city. Interestingly, they do not appear in any of the gateguard reports. They took rooms at the Falcon’s Rest, but moved on to Rhalseer’s rooming house after only two nights. They have been guests of Rhalseer’s ever since, and do most of their drinking at the Black Barrel. Despite staying at one of the lesser rooming houses of the city, they seem to have plenty of coin to invest, and some shrewd idea of where to place it. They have avoided weapons-outs and brawls, but are suspected of having been involved in a double slaying: that of the professional slayer Indar Crauldreth, late of Marsember, and an accomplice.”

Myrmeen’s eyebrows lofted. “They must have really upset someone-or upset someone truly wealthy. And they took him down, too! What else have they been up to?”

Dauntless shrugged. “Much thievery, we suspect, but can prove nothing. None of their victims have seen fit to talk to us.” He and Myrmeen shared wry knowing grins.

“There are two holy men amongst these adventurers, and probably two minor wizards. They show no signs of preparing for travel to elsewhere.”

“Are they chartered?” the Lady Lord of Arabel asked.

Dauntless spread his hands. “I know not, Lady Lord.”

Myrmeen’s lips thinned. “Bring their leader, if they have one, here to me,” she commanded, “and we’ll put a little scare into them.”

Azimander Godal was very tall. His beard was long, thin, pointed, and gray-white with age, and his brown-mottled head was bald for the same reason. Yet his eyes were bright with alert wisdom, his manner impeccably dignified, and his robes splendid and cut to echo the latest fashion.

Just now, he was giving the Lady Rharaundra Yellander a very direct look. “Forgive me, Lady Yell-”

“Rhar,” she purred, reaching out one long-nailed hand to stroke his cheek. “Call me Rhar. Please.”

“Very well, Lady Rhar. I cannot help but observe-and I pray you forgive the bluntness of this-that you have hithero spoken to me as if I were a barely tolerated annoyance, and called me to my face a lowborn simpleton unfit to share air with you, at that.”

He had to admit that the Lady Rharaundra Yellander looked sleekly elegant at all times, and breathtakingly beautiful, to boot-and just now, with her long jet hair loosed to tumble around her shoulders, and her strikingly cut shimmerweave gown, she looked stunning.

She’d have looked stunning even if she weren’t thrusting herself at him, lips parted and tongue licking them hungrily, eyes fixed on his with longing.

“I said much to goad you to anger,” she whispered, “so you’d remember me and think of me. And I would have good reason to apologize to you and… submit to you. I–I need to be humbled, by a man who awes me-as you do, more than any other I’ve met.”

“Me, Lady?”

“Rhar, please, Azimander. I desire not to be a ‘lady’ with you, but… a woman who deserves to be called something considerably more wanton.”

The elderly war wizard blinked at her. “You must admit this is sudden, Rhar.”

“My husband and our everpresent spy, the house wizard, haven’t both been apart from me for more than two seasons, Az. This is my chance.” She crossed her wrists, one over the other, and held them out to him.

“I beg you, Azimander,” she whispered. “Take me.”

Wizard of War Azimander Godal got up from the bench unhurriedly, straightening to his full looming height. The Lady Rharaundra was a tall woman, but even if she’d gone up on tiptoes, she could not have matched his stature. He looked down at her, face expressionless.

Rharaundra looked back up at him, rolling over onto her back, wrists still held crossed, and wriggled forward onto the part of the bench where he’d just been sitting. Her movements dragged her gown down, baring skin.

Godal took two swift steps back from her, waved at her to stay where she was, and half-closed his eyes. She heard him muttering a spell and lifting one hand to make an intricate gesture and point at the air. He kept on pointing as he turned himself, slowly, all around-then let his hand fall, nodded, and said, “We are truly alone. I must admit I feared some treachery on your part, La-Rhar.”

Rharaundra gave him a reproachful look as she crawled languidly off the bench. Standing, she shook out her hair with her fingers so he could see nothing was concealed in it, turned slowly around under his gaze, and murmured, “Treachery how, Az? This is all I have, and am. I would prefer to be more moonlit, mysterious, and teasing, but I am mindful of how careful war wizards must be. Behold this bench, yonder.”

She went to it. “Bare. Simple. Nothing beneath or behind, here against the railing. Nothing on it but”-she gave him a wink and smile, and sat herself upon it provocatively-“me. Safe enough?”

Slowly-very slowly-Azimander Godal smiled. And nodded.

He walked forward unhurriedly, undoing his sash. It fell away and took his overrobe with it, revealing a belted underrobe with its open seam down one leg rather than centered as the overrobe had been.

“May I?” Rharaundra breathed, reaching for the underrobe. Godal shrugged and spread his hands wide in invitation.

She took it.

“Leave your boots on,” she whispered, as the bench creaked under their weight.

It was some time later that she turned around, giggling and slapping, beneath him, and Godal found himself on his knees over her, his back to the railing-and it was then that she rose up under him, with a catlike growl of triumph, to drive him upright, chest to chest.

“Farewell, Az,” she whispered, a flash of triumph in her eyes-and plucked something up from behind him even as she shoved hard on his stomach, pushing herself back onto the bench And hurling him the other way.

Over backward, the railing she’d just unspiked falling away as his back struck it, leaving him to plunge head first, down into the dark and shadowed great hall beneath the balcony they’d been dallying on.

Azimander Godal bit his lip in sadness as the ring on his finger winked into life, slowing his fall to the gentlest of downward driftings.

“Just for a moment,” he said softly, “I believed you, Rharaundra. I let myself hope.”

Then his boots touched the tiles, and he cast another spell.

Up above him, on the balcony, the softly cursing Lady Yellander started to scream in terror. “Wizard! What’re you doing? Get out of my mind! ”

“Az,” he told her. “Call me ‘Az.’ And I’m not going to turn you into a bat or a frog or a mewling idiot: I’m just reading what I can of your thoughts and memories.”

Rharaundra sprang from the bench and fled into the darkness, a door banging in her wake.

The elderly war wizard stood motionless, eyes half-closed, walking among the dark-with-rage murk of her thoughts.

Then he broke off his spell and cast another in haste, to snap, “Vangerdahast! Hear me!”

Godal saw as well as felt Vangerdahast stop in mid-word in a conference, and turn his head. Their eyes met, across miles of intervening Cormyr, and in flashing thoughts the two conversed-a few breaths of lightning-swift, silent speech that ended when Vangerdahast snarled, “Tsantress-find the Lady Jalassa Crownsilver! Mindshroud her and bring her here to me at once. ’Ware her magic; she’s been collecting baubles! Luthdal! To Greenmantle Hall, to serve Lady Amdranna Greenmantle in the same way. Murtrym! Do the same to Lady Imruae Muscalian, who may have all sorts of tricks to welcome you with. All of you, take any Wizards of War you deem needful with you; none of you are to go alone. Accept no delay nor authority to delay or gainsay you. Have those women here as fast as you can do it. You, too, Azimander!”

The link was severed so abruptly it left the elderly Godal reeling. He smiled, shook his head, and started up the stair, spinning a swift spell to find Rharaundra’s mind.

She hadn’t gone far.

The door was locked, and had furniture heaped against it, and some sort of magic waiting to sting him beyond that, too-so Azimander walked several rooms away, found the panel he was looking for, slid it open, and stole through the secret passages Rharaundra thought she alone knew about.

When he emerged in her bedchamber behind her and spoke her name, she whirled around, real fear in her face, and whispered, “What are you going to do to me?”

“Take you to Lord Vangerdahast. What he sees in your mind will determine your fate.”

Rharaundra trembled, her fists clenched so tight that blood dripped down along her knuckles from her own nails piercing her flesh. “Kill me, Azimander,” she pleaded. “Kill me now, that I need not face him.”

“No,” he said. “Come with me quietly, Rharaundra, and I’ll plead for mercy for you.”

She peered at him. “You? You’ll plead for me? You mean that?”

He nodded.

“Why?”

Azimander Godal stretched out a hand and stroked her cheek, very gently. She flinched, but then deliberately moved her head to let him touch her more easily. Her teeth were chattering.

“You may have done what you did to bring about my death,” he murmured, “but you did it. You could have just shoved me through the railing right away, but you gave me pleasure first.”

He put his arms around Rharaundra Yellander and hugged her. “And no one has done that for a very long time.”

Her sobs started even as the light around them changed, and they were standing in a room crowded with war wizards, Vangerdahast among them.

The royal magician regarded them, smiled, and said in a dry voice, “That’s certainly one way to fetch a noble lady of the realm. Remind me to try it some time.”