The Sword Never Sleeps

Chapter 4

The tapestry had barely fallen back into place behind the departing Lady Targrael when Laspeera slipped into the room from behind another one. "That one is on the proverbial sword edge," she said.

Vangerdahast shrugged. "Send one problem after another. If they destroy each other, that's two fewer we must deal with."

"IfT Laspeera said doubtfully. "No Wizard of War riding with Dauntless, hey? So is it to be the belt-buckle method?"

The Royal Magician shook his head. "Rumors about that are finally beginning to drift from Dragon to Dragon. No, I want the spells cast on items no Purple Dragon will leave behind: his codpiece and boots. Belts they can-and will-contrive to change, so cast something swift and worthless over those, to fool them. Their cods, and both boots, mind, are to be enchanted so that I-and you and Tathanter-can listen through them at will. See to it."

Laspeera nodded. "Wouldn't it be easier to just-?"

"Send a Wizard of War riding along with them? And have Dauntless blind and foil us at a time of his choosing by arranging matters so 'something happens' to our mage? I think not. Our loyal ornrion is proving to have… surprising depths."

Laspeera nodded again and smiled. "I'll see to it." Bowing her head, she turned and departed the way she'd come, the tapestry swirling gently in her wake.

She was careful not to sigh until she was no less than three closed panels away from her irascible superior.

Like almost every mage of the Brotherhood, Mauliykhus of the Zhentarim was ambitious. Wherefore he was going to dare this casting, risky though it was.

He had locked and barred two sets of iron-bound doors between himself and the common passage in Zhentil Keep, and there was nothing suspicious in that.

He had his orders from Lord Manshoon, spell-workings that were both dangerous and would yield results that should be kept secrer from stray eyes. Wherefore the shielding scepter was resting in its holder, in the heart of the flickering yellow-green flame of the brazier to which he'd so carefully added powders, and no one but the most powerful archmage should be able to spy on what he did next.

Which was a good thing, because he intended to disobey both the leader of the Zhentarim and one of its most powerful and mysterious mages.

Manshoon had given him a working to perform:-just such a task as he needed for an excuse to raise a shielding-and Mauliykhus was going to do something else instead.

And that "something else" was a casting that Hesperdan had just specifically ordered him not, under any circumstances, to attempt.

No fell creature of the Abyss was to be contacted, for any reason, until he received explicit orders otherwise from either Hesperdan or Manshoon himself.

Mauliykhus had no idea if Hesperdan suspected what he planned and was trying to prevent him-or goad him into doing it in all haste, for that mattet-by forbidding him to seek out a demon… or if all Zhentarim were forbidden from demonic contact, forthwith. It soundedlike the latter, but Hesperdan was very good at imparting impressions without actually saying what you thought he'd said. Hrast him.

Mauliykhus smiled, shrugged, raised both hands dramatically above the black table upon which he'd arranged everything he would need-and began the incantation. Sealing One's Own Doom, some of the older grimoires tauntingly entitled the words he was now reading.

It took only half a dozen of the deep, harsh-sounding words for the room to darken, all of the braziers flickering at once, and chill shadows to start to glide and swoop out of the darkness.

He spoke on. The dark, cruising wisps seemed sentient, yet he'd been told many a time they weren't. They merely sought life and light and warmth, stuff of what made up worlds and that which lay between worlds.

A way started to open between his locked and barred stone chamber in Zhentil Keep and somewhere in the Abyss.

Mauliykhus brought his hands down, watched fire that was not fire form between them and circle from thumb to thumb and smallest finger to smallest finger to shape a silent hole in the air…

The way began to open, and he was through and doomed.

Darker shadows of malicious-and gleeful-awareness streaked into him out of the yawning, howling darkness. Into his ears they plunged, before he could say a word to stop them, lashing into his mind like burning ice.

Fury drove them, fury and exultation. Harsh, ruthless, and insane they were, and they knew themselves as Old Ghost and Horaundoon as they reveled in ravaging his mind.

What had been Mauliykhus quailed and cowered, unable to even mew in his terror; one of the terrible spirits in his head had already slashed control of his mouth and hands. They leered into his silently shrieking self, leaned in, and took big, greedy bites… and Mauliykhus knew no more.

The body of the ambitious Zhentarim wizard stumbled around the locked room, toppling a brazier onto the stones, its coals spilling harmlessly amid hissing smoke. His head sank in slightly, literally beginning to melt from within as both angry wraiths, snarling their Abyssal madness ar each other, roiled around behind his eyes.

Mauliykhus lurched upright and staggered to tug at the bars of the innermost iron-bound doors. Mad Old Ghost and Horaundoon might be, but their cunning was stronger than their raving, and they knew very well what they both most wanted.

Mauliykhus of the Zhentarim clawed the doors open and hastened to the next set of doors.

Vangerdahast favored the tapestry that had fallen back into place behind his loyal Laspeera with a faint smile. He knew very well she'd be sighing and rolling her eyes about now.

"Such a task will nettle you as it always does," he said, "but you'll do it, darling Lasp, as you always do." Then the Royal Magician sighed and turned away. "If you knew just a little less about what I've had to do… and I were a whole lot younger…"

He sighed again, went to one of the magnificently paneled walls of the ready chamber-the only one where tapestries and broad doors were both lacking-and put a finger onto a particular piece of carved trim on the glossy dark phandar wood. It obediently swiveled into the wall, undoing an unseen catch, and the ornate panel just below it smoothly folded down from the wall to become a seat, revealing a shallow drawer set into the wall behind it.

Vangerdahast sat on the seat and pulled open the drawer to reveal a dressed leather desk surface complete with quills, an inkwell, and a small heap of parchments. He plucked up the topmost, set it aside with a snort, took up the one that had been beneath it, nodded, stroked his chin, and settled down to read and hopefully-if the scribes hadn't been too creative-sign this heap of decrees he'd ordered drafted earlier.

There was always much to be done and never enough time to do it.

When, some six parchments later, the faint but approaching din of a raging princess fell upon his ears, echoing down passages and rooms and through several closed doors, he allowed himself the faintest of smiles.

Royal Magician of Suzail was an office that afforded him so little real entertainment, but he was going to enjoy some now.

"Farewell, Halfhap," Semoor said mockingly. "Deathtrap inns, dragonfire swords, and all. I wonder where our faithful Purple Dragon shadows are, this time."

Florin shrugged.."Using a war wizard to scry us so they can stay out of sight, but I'll wager Dauntless is leading them and that they came from yon gate towers on this side of Halfhap. So they got a good look at us when we rode around Halfhap and past them. They'll be somewhere behind us all the way to wherever along the Ride they usually turn back."

"I'm not complaining," Pennae said. "I can still feel that arrow." She shuddered, shook her head, and then asked, "They're still out there, aren't they? The ones who attacked us, I mean."

"Yes," Doust said quietly. "Six at least got away. I heard the Dragons talking. They took one alive and questioned him. Our foes were-are-Lord Yellander's bullyblades."

Pennae cursed and added, "That's not good."

No one argued with her.

"I'd rather talk about Shadowdale," Doust said. "I've heard 'tis all trees and farms, with the Old Skull landmark along the Ride in its midst. Oh, and the beautiful lady bard Srorm Silverhand that they tell so many tales about dwells there. Yet what's befalling there now, that the queen wants us there with such urgency?"

Semoor snorted. "The urgency is to get us out of Cormyr, out of the royal hair-"

"Vangerdahast's hair!" Pennae corrected sharply.

"— not any urgency in and about sleepy Shadowdale, I'll wager."

"Vangerdahast paid us to get out of the realm, that's what he did," Jhessail said darkly.

"And this bothers you?" Semoor gave her an incredulous look. "More coin each than we'd probably have made in a summer of hard work, if all of us had been striving together?"

The stare the fire-haired mage gave him back was grim. "And what if we don't live to reach the border? Vangerdahast is a powerful wizard, remember? Who rules an army of wizards who can watch every step we take and whisk themselves to stand in our path with blasting wands ready, whenever they choose. I suspect Old Thunderspells has every intention of retrieving these gold coins from what's left of us- when we're well away from where the citizens of Suzail can see our smoking bones and mutter unpleasant comments about what happens to heroes of the realm when Vangey gets his hands on them."

Doust held up a hand and then waved at the trees along the road, beside them and ahead of them as far as the eye could see. "We're well away from where the citizens of Suzail can see anything now."

"But not yet where the traders in Halfhap and travelers between Halfhap and Tilver's Gap can't see what happens to us," Islif said.

"And you think Vangey-or the nearest Purple Dragon or anyone else in all the fair Forest Kingdom, for that matter, gives an altar-warming damn about our fates?" Jhessail's voice was bitter. "Other than how entertaining the tale of our fall is when told at taverns? Or reassurance that one more dangerous irritant has been removed from their lives?"

"Our little lady hath found armor at last," Doust murmured. "Stout, strong, gleaming-and very properly called cynicism."

Jhessail shot him a searing look, then accompanied it with a certain gesture.

Florin raised his eyebrows at the sight of that rude signal. Semoor and Islif chuckled.

Pennae murmured, "Teeth at last. I knew she had some…"

"Are you going to be this gloomy all the way to Shadowdale?" Semoor asked Jhessail, his innocent manner a blatant fraud.

"Not much to look forward to, is it?" Pennae teased.

"Neither is my blade up your backside," Islif said. "Which is what certain folk riding here are risking by goading our Jhess."

"Oooh, the threat direct!" Pennae gave Islif a rather disapproving look. "Haven't learned much subtlety yet, have you, Longface?"

"I have not," Islif replied flatly. "Slyhips."

"Ah," Semoor told the sky loudly, dusting his hands in evident glee. "This should be good."

"Enough" Florin said heavily. "Semoor, stop goading-hrast it, that goes fot all of us. We'll all die if more outlaws attack us and we're busy tongue-lashing each other and scheming to do worse. We're supposed to be one-a fellowship, a shieldwall!"

Slowing her mount to a walk, Pennae turned in her saddle to fix him with a level look. "Agreed. Yet when you say that, you really mean, All of you must do as I say, for I stand here, and the shieldwall must form to me, thus.' So I then have a question for you, tall and handsome ranger: Are we always fated to be your slaves? When will the shieldwall form where and when I say?"

Florin frowned in a sudden tense silence. Everyone had slowed their horses. "I never asked to lead this company," he said, "and am less than experienced, but-"

"But someone has to? So I ask again: Why you? I've years of adventuring under my belt, and-"

"And you're a thief," Jhessail said, "and known for it. Riding under your command would make us targets for all, where otherwise our knighthoods might see us past some folk without bloodshed. And we all know each othet from growing up together in Espar, and we look to Florin. We chose him; he didn't name himself. He won the charter, yes, but once we're in our saddles and out from under the noses of everyone-except the war wizard spies who are undoubtedly listening to every word of this now and having a good grin-only we know who truly leads. And I like to be led by a man who is my trusted friend and who doesn't want to lead or think himself good at it. Overconfident and glib 'I can handle this' sorts are buffoons. Dangerous buffoons."

"Hearken for Pennae's answer," Semoor told Doust lightly. "Will she admit to being a dangerous buffoon?"

Pennae turned again to Florin and asked calmly, "Commander, have I your permission to smite yon priest?"

"Only gently. And using nothing that is edged or pointed. Or poisoned."

"Except your tongue," Semoor added brightly. "I'd rather enjoy-"

"I'm death-steel certain you would," Pennae told him sweetly, bringing her horse no closer to him. "So, Sir Florin, if you govern how fast we go and how we conduct ourselves along the way, what are your orders? Ride fast and steady, and get ourselves out of Cormyr as fast as we can?"

Florin shrugged. "I know not. Steady, yes. No thieving or acting like lawless adventurers. No raiding anyone who looks villainous and threatening, just because we happen to see them. No pilfering from orchards."

"No thieving? After the way we've been treated by Vangerdahast, why not?"

Several of the Knights tried to answer her at once, all of them sternly, but it was Jhessail's voice that overrode those of her companions: "Because he can turn us into toads or blast us to dust, along with whatever mountain we're hiding behind, that's why!"

Pennae sighed in mock dismay. "Oh, dear. Too late."

"Oh? What does that mean?" Islif snarled. "What clever theft have you managed now? Does it involve the Royal Magician of Cormyr directly?"

Pennae shrugged. "Once, there was a thief who was also a Knight of Myth Drannor. Let's call her 'Pennae.' And being a woman and therefore vain about her appearance, she owned a mirror. A little oval of bright-burnished metal. Now, not being quite that vain after all, there were days on end during which she never took up or even looked at the mirror. Yet she knew its heft and looks and tiny nicks and scratches well enough-and one night, in the Royal Palace of Suzail, this particular wench got a little surprise. Her carefully packed mirror was gone, and another, very similar-but lighter and with different scrarches and nicks-mirror was just as carefully packed in its place."

"War wizards," Semoor murmured. "Vangerdahast."

Pennae inclined her head in firm agreement. "Indeed. Some war wizard stole my mirror and introduced a substitute. Obviously on Vangerdahast's orders, and almost certainly so he could spy on us all and trace me with ease. Such trust abounds in fair Cormyr." Islif frowned. "So because of this you intend to steal-" Pennae threw up a hand sharply to indicate she wasn't done. "So I dropped that new mirror down the guard tower garderobe last night.

However, I considered Vangey's little ploy ample justification for a theft of my own."

Islif sighed. "Of course."

Pennae shrugged. "If wolves force me to run with them, may I not take an occasional bite, too?"

"A moral stance that gets debated often by we who serve Tymora," Doust said, "and-"

"Holynose," Islif said pleasantly, "shut up."

Pennae nodded thanks at the Lady Knight, inspected the back of her left hand, and told it, "The Palace is a large and fascinating place, just made for wandering. It's astonishing what one can overhear from time to time on such meanderings, if one escapes notice. Among many other fascinating things-remind me to relate some amusing details of the sexual preferences of some high ladies of the Court, should we ever need, say, a tenday of verbal diversions-I overheard one Wizard of War proudly explaining the powets of a row of gems he'd just finished crafting for the use of Vangey's little army of spell-hurlers, on the Royal Magician's orders, of course. Tracer-gems, they are, and I have one of them with me now."

"Tracer gems? As in, you're making it easier for the war wizards to trace us right now?"

Pennae shook her head, did something to het leathers on the inside of her left elbow, and held up what she'd slid out of them: a small, dull, almond-shaped stone. "This works for just two beings, possibly only humans. If you can get blood, tears, or spittle from them to smear on it, one person per side of the gem."

"Works how, exactly?" Florin asked, glancing alertly at the trees and hills around them, as if he expected arrow-loosing armies to rise up out of concealment at any moment and chatge down on the Knights.

"There's a word graven around the edge, here. When it's spoken, the side of the gem that's uncovered or uppermost is the side that works, telling the bearer the direction and distance away the one it can trace is at that moment."

"So use it," Semoor urged-and then frowned. "Wait! Who are the two people?"

Pennae gave him a tight smile. "Well, I managed to get some of Vangerdahast's spittle when he was snarling at us."

Florin rolled his eyes. "And the other?"

"Dauntless," Pennae told him. "Gained the same way, at rather closer range."

"Use it," Semoor repeated.

Pennae raised her palm out before her and set the gem into it, pinning it in place with her forefinger. "Who first?"

"Can you use it whenever you want?" Doust asked "Seeking one person doesn't delay you in looking for the other?"

"Yes. And no, it doesn't."

"Vangerdahast," Florin and Islif said in unison.

Pennae shrugged, murmured a word the other Knights couldn't catch, closed her eyes briefly, and then announced, "Back in Suzail, so far as I can tell."

"Dauntless?"

Pennae turned the gem over, pronounced the word, and promptly acquired a wry smile. "Right behind us."

"So Vangey wants us safely out of the realm-just a stride or two will do-where the laws of Cormyr won't apply," Semoor said, "before his personal band of oh-so-loyal Dragons sink their swords into our backs. And those bastards'll do it, too!"

"They're not butchers, man!" Islif snapped, as Pennae put the gem away. "They're good and loyal folk; stalwarts doing the best they can, following the orders of the king and laws of the country, just trying to get by."

Semoor matched her glare with one of his own. "Aye. And so are all the good folk rhey kill, too."

"Before we really get going at snarling at each other," Pennae interrupted, "I suggest we settle one thing in our minds: Whether or not Dauntless really is following us-and ir certainly looks that way, doesn't it? — or by a very long and supple arm of coincidence, is merely following orders that have nothing to do with us at all, that just happen to take him along the same road."

Doust's smile was as wryly crooked as it was sudden. "And we're going to establish the truth with certainty on this matter how, exactly? Turn around and ask him? When his reply may well be arrows or spears down our throats?"

Pennae gave him a mocking smile and waggled all the curled fingers of her left hand, back outermost, in Doust's direction, in the latest fashionable rude gesture that meant, to state its message most politely, "Right back at you, stonehead!"

"It may astonish you to learn, Holiest Ornament of Tymora," she replied, "that one or perhaps two personages of Faerun have, in the days before this one, given some thought to situations similar to this one. It may even stagger you to learn that some of them have proposed solutions-and bids fair to stun you into mutely blinking insensibility to grasp that I have heard of, and myself understood, their proposals. To whit: I hereby suggest that all of us turn norrh off the Ride, the moment we're not seeing thick forest beside us, into the wild countryside."

Semoor frowned. "Right into the jaws of the waiting wolves, outlaws-or worse."

Pennae arched a brow in his direction. "I thought we were adventurers," she said, in a precise imitation of his voice at its most mocking.

"He's the priest of Tymora, not me!" Semoor snapped, jerking a thumb at Doust.

"Enough," Islif said. "Florin?"

The ranger stared back at his fellow Knights thoughtfully. Then his eyes flashed in a decision made, and he nodded at the trees flanking the north side of the Ride.

"Pennae's right," he said. "We look for the first way into the wilds that won't lame our horses, and take it. Seeking a place where we can hide and watch the road. I'd like a word or three with Ornrion Dahauntul, with whatever magic we can mount that tells us when he's speaking truth and when he's not. I think we need to know why we're being followed."

"Who's using us this time, and why?" Pennae murmured.

Florin's answering word and nod were equally grim. "Precisely."

"I believe that's a break in the trees, ahead there," Semoor said, pointing.

"So who's waiting there to feather us with arrows, d'you think?" Doust asked, crouching a little lower in his saddle.

Islif shook her head. "There may be archers hereabouts, but not there. I've been watching birds fly in and out of it. Unconcernedly lighring on a branch, soft-calling their kind, then hopping to the next."

Pennae, in the lead, nodded agreement. "Yon's an old road, by the looks of it. Overgrown but wide enough for wagons, for all the tall weeds, and-"

She held up a hand to signal a halt, swung down from her saddle as smoothly and swiftly as any stream eel ever eluded a snatching hand, and stalked forward, crouching low.

Florin pointed at Jhessail and then at Pennae, indicating she should watch over the thief's advance. Islif was already waving at the priests to keep eyes out east and south, as she swung around to peer back along the Ride behind them.

Pennae turned and came back to them. "A very old road but used recently by lots of horses, some oxen, and wagons. Mules, before that. Doust, get down off that beast, and come with me."

The quietest of the Knights blinked at her and then looked at Florin, who nodded.

Doust sighed. "Tymora be with me," he muttered and swung himself awkwardly down, almost falling from his horse.

Wincing at the stiffness riding had given his thighs, he stumbled after Pennae, who shot out a hand to catch hold of his nearest elbow, dragged him to a halt, and with a glare and some wordless miming, indicated he should try to move as stealthily as she was.

Doust rolled his eyes, kissed the holy symbol of Tymora he wore around his neck, grinned at her, and attempted stealth. The result made Pennae roll her eyes.

"Follow about a dozen strides behind me," she whispered. "Quiet is better than haste, but keep me in sight. If I'm attacked, yell for everyone to come running."

Without another word or looking for his nod, she turned away, sank down into a wary crouch, and set off through the tall grass with no more sound than faint whispers.

Doust watched her go, thinking she looked remarkably like just another tree-shadow. She very soon became hard to see, blending into the dark trunks of stunted trees and the gloomy shadows under leafy boughs. Without thinking overmuch, just trying to keep the curvaceous thief in sight, he followed her.

Grass and dead, brittle-dry shrub branches crackled under his boots, and he was startled by something dark rising up right beside his face.

Before Doust could turn his head, whatever it was bit the lobe of his ear gently-and then caught hold of his wrist when he instinctively flung up his hand to strike whatever was biting him away.

"Stay right here," Pennae breathed into the ear she'd nipped. "Don't move at all. Not at all. Until I come back for you."

Eyes fixed on his, she sank down to her knees, vanishing into the tall grass as if the ground were swallowing her, and… was gone. The priest of Tymora stood alone, staring around uncertainly, with the faintest of breezes ghosting past his throbbing ear.

Until Pennae rose up out of the grass again right in front of him, looming up dark and sinuous and sending him stumbling back on his heels with a startled "Eeep!" that made her grin like a satisfied vixen.

Without a word she stepped around Doust and back out into the road to rejoin the rest of the Knights, leaving the priest to scramble after her.

He did so, murmuring a heartfelt prayer to Tymora to keep all of their skins intact in the days ahead. Ears included.