The Sword Never Sleeps

Chapter 13

The war wizard who was no war wizard at all scuttled quietly along a back passage in one of the dustier wings of the sprawling Royal Court, looking thoughtful. His identity was counterfeit, but his "thinking hard" mien was all too real.

Boarblade had spent some time practicing the real Torst Khalaeto's scuttling gait, the pitch of the timid war wizard's voice, and Khalaeto's favorite phrases, because he needed to fool quire a few people. Not so much nobles, who were apt to be uncaring, barely noticing anything that wasn't all about them, but folk who knew Khalaeto. War wizards and courtiers he might well meet in these very halls and chambers.

Thankfully, this dangerous little imposture seemed about done. A few drinks with Torst in Khalaeto's favorite tavern and the skill of the hargaunt had given Boarblade a perfect copy of the face of timid, bespectacled War Wizard Torst Khalaeto, and fate-in the form of a land ownership dispute between two old families of Immersea-had promptly taken the real Khalaeto off into some of the dustiest chambers of Crown records for some days. When Boarblade thought of war wizards, he never pictured anything like a hesitant, peering-at-life, fussy old clerk, but… well, as the old saying put it, the gods daily taught a noticing man something new.

Khalaeto with his recording scroll, scrollboard, and little collection of quills had been the perfect questioner ro leave nobility unsuspicious. He went to several of the noble families in whose sons the Lady Narantha Crownsilver had planted mindworms, to ask them just which war wizard had later visited them.

Their, answers had all been the same: either Royal Magician Vangerdahast or Wizard of War Lorbryn Deltalon.

Telgarth Boarblade may have been many things, but fool was not one of them. Wherefore he knew better than to try to speak with Vangerdahast. Yet there might well be a way to, ah, worm the secrets out of the lesser war wizard of using mindworms to control those nobles.

So he'd gone seeking Lorbryn Deltalon, only to discover that the man seemed to have gone absent from the Palace.

What was making Boarblade so worried was the "why" of that disappearance and its implications. He quickened his scuttling pace, wanting to be out of this disguise-and the Royal Court, too-as quickly as possible.

Without coming face to false face with the wizard Vangerdahast.

Wizard of War Maraertha Dalewood knew very well that Royal Magician Vangerdahast keenly scrutinized every word of the house wizards' reports. Even so, he was in the habit of oh-so-casually asking anyone bringing him such a report if there was anything of "importance" his attention should be drawn to. She also knew that Old Thunderspells asked such questions far more as a test of her and rhe other report-runners than out of any concern over missing a fact, hint, or nuance.

Wherefore-as someone young, quiet, and fairly plain of looks, but ambirious-she'd taken care to pay close attention to the reports coming in from noble houses across the realm, to be ready for Vangey's questions.

She took care to keep the slightest hint of triumph or pride out of her voice, "I believe so, Lord Vangerdahast, though I fully understand I may merely be unaware of orders you've given to others. I have noticed a pattern in the reports. Many house wizards say War Wizard Torst Khalaeto visited the noble households, unheralded, to ask if their heirs had recently been visited by a war wizard. He further inquired as to the identity of the visitor."

Vangerdahast looked up at her sharply and frowned. "And do the reports mention what answer they gave?"

Maraertha's heart started to thud. Unless Old Thunderspells was a better actor than she gave him credit for, this was important.

"Every one," she said carefully, "stresses that Khalaeto was told the truth. That the visitor had been either yourself or Wizard of War Lorbryn Deltalon."

"Good, good," Vangerdahast replied almost absently, rising and striding for the door. "Leave the reports there on my desk, lass-and say nothing of this to anyone. If anyone should ask you about this, remember well for me who they are."

"Yes, Lord," Maraertha said to his dwindling back.

The Royal Magician raised his hand in a curt wave of acknowledgment ere he vanished down the passage outside.

Very carefully, squaring the papers just so, she set the reports on his desk, taking great care not to so much as glance at anything else on it.

Lord Manshoon of Zhentil Keep smiled to himself, out of long habit taking care that no trace of his mood reached his face.

These Knights might ably serve his currenr purposes.

He dare not work the Unbinding himself. Certain parts of the ritual would be fatal to those performing them, so he needed several capable persons, working together, who would press on with the Unbinding even after more than one of them died rather than abandoning it out of fear or grief.

In short, he needed adventurers. Adventurers such as these, eager to serve Cormyr and take pride in doing so, despite the apparent disapproval and suspicions of Royal Magician Vangerdahast and the usual generous supply of malicious, noble rabble.

That in turn would make the irony all the more delicious, when the Unbinding freed all the mad liches in the Lost Palace and poured them in a murderous, capering flood into the heart of the Royal Palace in Suzail, dooming most in that city to the proverbial "horrible magical deaths." Working the Unbinding would be seen as an act of treachery few would forget, even centuries hence. A fitting reward for zealous loyalty to the Purple Dragon, and a warning to all meddlesome adventuters.

Yes, my simple dupes. You will serve Cormyr very well.

Vangerdahast strode through the Royal Court, his robes billowing behind him. Where was Deltalon, anyhail, and why was Khalaeto-Khalaeto, who never concerned himself with anything that wasn't a document-seeking him?

His spell-summons to Lorbryn Deltalon, whose mind he read lightly but often these last few seasons, and whose loyalty he'd never once suspected, were met with only silence. Torst Khalaeto, however, responded instantly, from near at hand in another wing of the Royal Court.

Vangerdahast stopped, ignoring several impassive doorjacks standing stiffly at attention at their posts. He bore down into Khalaeto's mind more harshly than was his wont.

He found honest bewilderment and blossoming apprehension- not for Torst himself, because the timid mage truly knew of nothing wrong, evil, or disloyal on his own part, but for some unknown calamity facing the realm. Vangerdahast also found a turmoil of facts and mental "must check this, then that" notes about a certain lost, centuries-old, Crown-to-commoner-family property agreement.

Mindspeaking to Khalaeto with an apology for the intrusion, and even adding warm thanks for the assistance, Vangerdahast ended his magic and stood shaking his head.

That visitor to the nobles had not been Khalaeto but someone wearing his shape. Which meant it could be every last damned shapeshifter or spellhurler in Faerun. That left Deltalon as his only lead in trying ro find out what was going on.

"Suspicions aroused," Vangerdahast muttered, then gave the nearest doorjack a baleful "You listening to someone?" glare and strode away, heading he knew not where.

He had to find Lorbryn Deltalon and get a good long look into his mind. Was this something small and pranksome or another conspiracy within the ranks of his war wizards?

"Lady," Telsword Bareskar of the Palace Guard asked unhappily, as he peered cautiously into the gloom of the ruined mansion, "what is-er, was this place?"

"Once it was part of the country mansion of the Staghearts, who were stripped of their nobility and exiled long ago," Highknight Lady Ismra Targrael replied. "This was their hunting lodge. The mansion proper stood yonder, where all those trees are now. Duar had it razed. They knew the right way to handle things in those days. Mercy is the besetting weakness of kings."

"Uh, yes, Lady Tar-"

"My name," the Highknight reminded him icily, the point of her sword at his throat, "is not to be used."

"S-s-sorry, Lady, uh, Sir, uh…" Telsword Bareskar was a long way from the Royal Palace of Suzail and less than happy about being so. He liked shifts of mundane boredom, filled with simple, clear-cut rules and a lack of any need to think. To say nothing of being relatively free of danger, not" Yes, take the stair down," Targrael said in his ear, "and as a special favor to me, try not to sound as if you're a charger in full barding, stumbling down steps in the dark."

"Y-yes," Bareskar replied, starting down the stair with his sword held out in front of him, feeling his way along an unseen railing and fervently wishing he had a lantern.

He'd gone down six steps into what smelled and felt like a' damp stone cellar when Targrael said from behind him, "Stop. There's no one here. They've gone. So back up and out around the back. We'll have to do what I was hoping to avoid. Look behind every stlarned rree in the forest."

When Bareskar got to the top of the stairs again, Targrael was standing and staring thoughtfully down at the great hole in the floor that presumably opened into the cellar from which he'd just come up. Without looking at him, she pointed with her sword at the square of light where there had once been a pair of back doors, and Bareskar obediently went where he was directed, peering cautiously out into the forest and seeing nothing but trees, trees, gloom, and more trees.

He stepped outside, looking right and left, and on an impulse chose the left and stalked along the back wall so as to peer around" Now!" someone commanded from the forest to his right, and that was the last thing Telsword Bareskar ever heard.

The circling hawk didn't even have time to blink, let alone squawk or shriek in alarm.

The sword, faster than any arrow, was simply there one moment- and gone the next, streaking through the air, point-first and glittering. South and west, from Zhentil Keep to a spot in the forest just north off the Moonsea Ride, where of old the Stagheart banner had flapped.

Just as the hawk was flapping now, dazed in the wake of that streaking blade.

Lord Crownsilver rolled his eyes. "Yes, I ordered you to blast him! No, I did not order you to destroy that corner of the building!"

"What does it matter?" The three Sembian mages-for-hire were conscious again bur none too happy. Their healing potions had done their work, but such quaffs were expensive and not easily replaced out here in this wilderland. "It's a ruin."

"It matters because this land swarms with nosy war wizards, and they can hardly help but notice a spellblasted building! Nor can any other Knights who might be lurking all around us!"

The Sembian who'd hurled the spell shrugged. "You think they'll dare do anything aftep-"

The knife that spun through the air to sprout in his throat forever prevented him from finishing his question.

It was the shocked noble who muttered, "That?"

The other two wizards turned in the direction the blade had come from and hurled their best spells. "Time to fell some firewood," one of them snarled, watching full-sized trees hurtle and tumble.

"Never liked forests," the other agreed, watching a racing wave of crackling flame die away into the blackened distance.

Lord Crownsilver blinked in awe and then winced. All that good, coin-worthy timbet…

Manshoon was certain his spellwork was perfect. It wouldn't be his looks that might betray him.

His acting would have to be perfect, too. Not that he was worried.

By Bane and by Symgharyl's waiting, willing body, this was going to be fun.

Targrael's lip curled. Idiot wizards. They'd not last long at home in Sembia if they blasted buildings like that. Even if that fool Crownsilver had mistaken Bareskar for one of the Knights, the thing to do would have been to enthrall him and so lure the rest of rhe adventurers within reach, not blast and burn everything in sight.

As it was, she was safely behind the Stagheart ruin, short one knife-for now-and itching to exact a higher price for Bareskar's death. Surely he was worth at least three foolheaded Sembian wizards.

Woodsmoke drifted past her face. She would have to set about stalking them with a little care, given that these madwits could fell generous stands of trees in an instant, but if Beshaba didn't best Tymora in the next few breaths, she had no doubt she could slay the two surviving wizards. Leaving her with one noble lord ro cow into doing whatever she wanted him to do. For the good of Cormyr, of course.

"Back inside," Lord Crownsilver said. "Being as your fellow left a little of the place standing!"

The two surviving Sembians exchanged glances. Crownsilver's irritation was overwhelming his usual caution, it seemed.

The lord srrode back into the ruined hunting lodge. "They obviously got out somehow. Or one of them did. We must look properly down their end of the cellar, this time, to see how many of them are lying dead there. Then come back up, when all the fire's died, and see how many you cooked yonder. I like to know how many enemies are after me."

The Sembians traded glances again. They needed no words to make it clear to each other that they both thought their employer was mad, gone well beyond reason in his hunger to slay Knights of Myth Drannor-all Knights of Myth Dtannor, everywhere! — but…

The mages traded elaborate shrugs. He was paying…

They followed the seething nobleman, not even bothering to look back.

So they never saw the black leather-clad Highknight retrieve her knife from the throat of the wizard she'd slain, wipe it clean on his robes, and close in behind them.

They tramped down the stairs, preceded by complaints about the lack of a mage to cast any magical light where it was neededOnly to come to an abrupt halt, in common astonishment, to gaze upon Crownsilver's complaints suddenly answered.

An upright oval of glowing air, a portal if they'd ever seen one, appeared in the dark cellar of the ruin. Right at the spot where, in rhe wake of their wandfire, when that end of the cellar ceiling had come down, the Knights of Myth Drannor had been standing.

"Vangerdahast!" Jhessail spat. All of the Knights stared.

The bearded, paunchy old mage in robes stood alone where the passages met. Facing them, he wore an expression they were used to seeing, too-grimly haughty distaste or displeasure as he regarded them. He shook his head and said, "I might have known."

"What is this place?" Semoor said, "And what in all the Nine Hells are you doing here?"

"Kindly speak more quietly, Wolftooth," the Royal Magician replied sourly. "Unless you have some means of besting liches that I lack. We're standing in the Lost Palace of Esparin, and I am here because I was trapped here by a Zhent impostor who means ill for the realm. Whereas you are here because, I suppose, you are adventurers who will do anything other than depart the realm of Cormyr as you were ordered to do."

Pennae gave him a cold look. "So we're somewhere in Cormyr?"

Ignoring her, Vangerdahast asked, "So how did you get here?"

"So we're somewhere in Cormyr?" Islif echoed Pennae.

"Somewhere underground, near Cormyr. Probably north of the realm proper." The wizard turned to cast glances down passages in all directions and then strode toward the Knights. He put his back to a wall. "My turn, I believe. Again, how did you reach this place?"

"Magic!" Pennae said. "Not outs. Something done by Lord Crownsilver or rather his three hired, wand-waving, Sembian mages. In the woods just north off the Ride east of Halfhap, in an old roofless ruin behind a caravan camp. A place I'm sure you can name."

"No doubt," Vangerdahast said. "So-"

"That was not," the thief snapped, "merely an observation. I can tell all too well by your temper and your hesitancy that you're going to ask for our aid, Vangey, so pray do us the little courtesy of telling us what we want to know."

The Royal Magician's bushy eyebrows rose in unison, and he looked straight at Florin. "Haven't learned the cost of overly smart tongues yet? Adventurers usually have quite enough trouble without needlessly borrowing more."

Florin regarded Vangerdahast calmly. "I don't recall our charter saying anything at all about obeying the Royal Magician of Cormyr-nor the Court Wizard, or for that matter any war wizard. I thank you for the advice. In return, here's some for you: Politely answer the lady. You'll live longer that way."

"Growing fangs, Falconhand? Tell me, O Wise Advisor, is this a wise time to do so?" The Royal Magician sighed, moved his hand as if to wave his own words away with the back of it, and said, "Forgive me, Knights. I… am under some strain at the moment. I very much need ro get myself out of here in some haste. Alive, too, and as you see me now, not turned into a bird or boor or some such. I do indeed find myself in need of your assistance just now."

"Does your neediness extend to an appropriate reward?" Pennae said.

"And of what, specifically?" Semoor added.

Vangerdahast smiled wryly, just for an instant. "Ennoblement for you all. Which would mean titles, a small gift of Crown funds, and the removal of any requirement upon you to depart the realm. Moreover, if you do continue to Shadowdale and settle there, I can promise much funding, military aid, and war wizard assistance- under your authority-in securing and transforming the dale into what you want it to be. We can even make it part of Cormyr. Ah, only if that's what you want, of course."

Pennae crooked an eyebrow. "My, you are desperate, aren't you?"

Jhessail frowned. "What assistance do you have in mind?"

"And how do we know you are Vangerdahast," Pennae added, "and not a mad lich playing a little game with us?"

The wizard sighed and waved a hand at Doust and Semoor. "Are there not holy men among you? Simple magics on their part will reveal my undeath-or would, if I happened to be undead. Now, as for aiding me, I need you to do something the spells laid upon me here prevent me from doing myself, of course. It's called the Unbinding, and-I'll not lie to you-there is danger in it."

"As in fatal danger," Pennae said. "Care to be more specific?"

Vangerdahast gave her a dark look. "If you work arcane spells, they can twist into quite different magics and be unleashed without warning to harm yourself and others. This occurs only in the wake of your working a particular unbinding, in the long sequence that makes up the ritual."

"So this Unbinding is a series of little steps?" Pennae asked. "Destructive ones, I presume?"

"Yes, and I must warn you rhat powerful enchanted items on your persons can be affected just as powerful spells can. Minor magics of either sort should do no harm, though their presence may give you something of a headache."

The Royal Magician pointed along the wall across from the one he was leaning against. "There are many carved panels among the wood sheathing of these walls. Some are actually thin, worked stone, painted and treated to look like wood. At my direcrion, you Knights must shatter a particular stone panel, and then go and do the same thing to whichever nearby panel winks with sudden light when you shatter the first. The Unbinding is simply a series of such breakings."

"Which will do what?" Islif and Florin asked, in perfect unison.

"Deliver all of us from this place. The liches will fall apart. The bindings are all that is keeping them from doing so right now. You'll know the Unbinding has worked because now-sleeping portals hidden all over this palace will awaken and reach out to suck us through, snatching us all to one place: the robing room behind the Throne Chamber in the Royal Palace in Suzail."

"And then?" Semoor asked. "We'll be blasted down by some waiting guard of war wizards?"

"No, bur I'd take it kindly if you fought at my side as I seek out the false Vangerdahasr. We'll have ro move swiftly and- regrettably-deal with any war wizards we meet who try to stop us, because the impostor will undoubtedly seek to reach the royal family, probably to slay one of them and take that shape or ro try to hold them hostage in return for his own safe escape."

Vangerdahast fell silent then and turned his head to give all of them the closest thing to a beseeching look that any of the Knights had ever seen on his usually imperious face.

The Knights stared at him, then eyed each other.

There were several unhappy sighs before Florin said slowly, "We must confer and decide together."

"Aye," Pennae agreed. "Let's talk."

Targrael sank down onto the stairs, melting against them. She dared not count on these three dolts being such utter fools as never to look back her way.

After all, they might well turn back from the portal right now, and" One of you in front of me and one behind," Lord Crownsilver said. "Come! The longer we give them to get ahead of us…"

Warily, one of the Sembians walked up to and through the portal, vanishing in a silent instant. Breathing something that might have been a prayer or a curse, the nobleman followed. The second Sembian peered for a moment at the rubble behind the portal, where beams and the ceiling had crashed down in a now-frozen torrent of sagging collapse, sighed loudly, and strode after them.

Still flattened on the stairs, Highknight Ismta Targrael waited in cautious silence for some time ere she rose in smooth, catlike' silence and stalked to the portal. Turning smoothly in a complete rotation to look everywhere behind her, she stepped into its embrace, drawn sword first.

In silence it swallowed her, and that silence stretched for several long breaths before something else moved in the darkened cellar, rising from behind a particularly large heap of rubble.

It was a man-a man known to a diminishing number of living Cormyreans as Brorn Hallomond, personal bodyguard in the service of the Lord Prester Yellander, and more widely tetmed a lord's "bullyblade"-and he hefted his sword in his hand as he stared at the portal he'd just seen four people pass through.

Would it be the folly of a reckless fool to go after them? Or his road to riches enough to settle down somewhere safe in the Forest Kingdom and live like a lord the rest of his days?

A short way down the passage, beyond the moot, a door opened, and a lich clad in robes of rich purple strode out, clutching a rod that winked with magical lights up and down its dark length.

"Aha!" it cried. "More thieves! Come to despoil the royal vaults of fair Cormyr! Can'r turn my back and lose myself in a spell for half a candle without another scurrying infestation of you creeping in behind me to-"

Running out of words, it growled in rage and charged forward, waving the staff.

Vangerdahast calmly worked a swift and intricate spell, a casting unlike any Jhessail had ever seen before-and a strange red mist appeared, swept along the passage, snatched the lich off its feet, and bundled it back through the door, rod and all. The mists melted fingerbones, robes, and the feet off the lich as it struggled.

Then the mists slammed the door and roiled in front of it, sealing it off.

"That much," the Royal Magician turned and told the Knights a little sadly, "I can still do." He seemed on the verge of saying more, then hesitated before adding, "I quite understand and respect your need to take some time over deciding to aid me or not. I have waited decades for certain things to befall Cormyr, worked for years to bring many of those things about. I have mastered waiting. I shall withdraw yonder"-he pointed down the passage, a little way beyond the door where his spell was raging-"and let you debate without my interference."

Pennae nodded and held up a hand to silence the rest of the Knights as they watched Vangerdahast walk away. "Doust," she said softly, "watch him as if you're a hungry hawk. Speak if you see him do anything that might be spellcasting."

"Understood," Doust said.

"We're lost here, and these liches seem real enough to me," Islif said without waiting for anyone else to speak. "Which means we'll die, sooner or later, if one comes blundering up to us like the one we just saw-whether he staged that or not. We may need him as much as he needs us."

Florin nodded. "Yet before we plunge into talking tactics-"

"Arguing tactics," Pennae interrupted with a grin, never turning her head from watching Vangerdahast.

"Arguing tactics," Florin granted, "I think we must decide how far we can trust Vangerdahast. Is he speaking truth to us now?"

Doust shrugged and pointed at Semoor. "If I pray-if either or both of us priests prays properly-we can be granted the power to know falsehoods when uttered. We can do this and put specific questions to Vangey-questions vIe should frame carefully. The spells have strict limits, but we will know if this tale of Unbinding and an impostor and our ennoblement is truth."

"Let's do that," Islif said.

"Agreed," Pennae said, "but remember this: Vangey will be standing listening to everything we say. Let's decide some things, quickly, while we have this much privacy."

Manshoon had half-turned away from the Knights, feigning what he fancied might be the dignity-or perhaps pomposity would be a better word-of Vangerdahast. They were walking slowly toward him now, all of them, so he turned back to face them.

Florin walked at their fore, face stern. "Very well, Lord Vangerdahast," he said formally, stopping a few paces away. "We'll do it. And may the curses of all the gods of Faerun drown and dismember you if you've deceived us."

"You probably got it all," Dauntless said. "One can't tell from the smoke. That's apt to go on for some time. Yet I'm not expecting the forest to flare up around us." He shrugged. "We'll have Dragon patrols here, regardless. The smoke'll do that much."

"I didn't want to use any magic," Tsantress said grimly, "but…" She shook her head in exasperation and went back to staring through the thicket in which they were crouching at the roofless ruin that half the population of eastern Cormyr seemed to have vanished inside, now.

Watching Gods Above, it can't be that big inside. If they weren't falling down some pit or other, they must be heaped up like… like…

"Oh, gods," she whispered, "are they all dead, d'you think?"

"Now, lady wizard, thinking always gets us Purple Dragons in trouble-as the Royal Magician is all too fond of reminding us," Dauntless said. "If you're asking me if I'm anxious to draw sword and step in there, the answer is no. Not at this time."

Tsantress grinned at his mimicry of one of Alaphondar's favorite Court phrases. She stiffened and tapped a warning finger across her lips. When Dauntless stared a silent question at her, she used that same finger to point through the brush in another direction. She crouched down even lower.

Another man had come into view, walking warily and holding a wand out before him as if it were a sword. He seemed unfamiliar with the terrain and almost to be feeling-no, sensing-his way forward.

"What's Lorbryn doing here?" Tsantress breathed, more to herself than Dauntless. "What's going on? Is Vangerdahast sending watchers to watch his watchers?"