Such as now, for example.
The rain was slackening, and the mansion was boarded up as tightly as ever. Good; she wasn’t in the mood to fight a street gang-or the servants of a new owner, for that matter.
She climbed up a doorpost, along the ornate stone cornice to a corner, then onto a wide stone windowsill adorned with a fresh duskfeathers nest. The bird sitting on it cheeped once in its sleep as Pennae’s foot came down softly beside it. From there, a long, aching stretch led to the lip of the roof-carving. She dug in fingers like claws, because everything was wet and it could be a killing fall from here.
Up and over, and there was the vent cover.
It slid off as readily as ever, and Pennae lowered herself cautiously down and in. Along the attic air-vent to the moot of six vents, down Hand on a precious vial, she froze. Murmurings. Voices. Mens’ voices. Crownserpent Towers, it seemed, was empty no longer.
Chapter 8
No fight nor foe of Cormyr ever angered me.
I had no wrath to spare, for it was twice or thrice daily provoked by all the confounded scheming.
Thrusting the precious vial she’d come for into her seldom-used throat pouch, Pennae crept along the vent-passage as stealthily as she knew how, until she was peering down through a grating at a sudden glow in a bedchamber that should have held only darkness, cobwebs, and mold.
It was a cold radiance, bright blue and glimmering. Magic.
A glow that came from an orb on a neck-chain, held on high by the robed and hooded figure that was wearing it.
A second, similarly garbed man held up a second orb, clearly in response to the first. “With both of these at work,” he said, his voice sounding male, Cormyrean, and old, “not even Vangey’s magic can see or hear us. Well met.”
A man who also sounded like a native of Cormyr, but slightly younger, echoed that dry greeting even more sarcastically, and then asked, “Is the time to strike come at last?”
“Not yet. Soon.”
“When?”
“When all the alarphons are dead-that is, they believe you to be dead-and Laspeera’s dust, and Vangerdahast is weakened or preoccupied, or both. I’ll write ‘Leak here’ on the wall at the bend in the Long Passage, to let you know when the time is right. If anyone sees it, they’ll dismiss it as a steward’s message to the Palace masons.”
Pennae frowned. The alarphons were the internal investigators among the war wizards, the watchers who kept all war wizards honest. Or supposedly upheld honesty, by the sounds of this.
In the bedchamber below, the first man lowered his orb. “And then?”
“Set the traps on the crystals. When ready, you write the same phrase on the opposite wall of the passage, facing mine, and I’ll know to send word to Vangey that the princesses are imperiled.”
“And he’ll come running, and-blam! What then?”
“The same lure should work just as well on Azoun. Mind you rig something physical-stone, falling from above, perhaps-to disable him in case his shields are strong enough to defeat your spells.”
“Yes. I’d not want to end up facing him blade to blade.”
“Indeed. Kill him, but keep the head. We may need it.”
“We must all get a head in this world.”
“Ha. Ha. We’ll arrest Filfaeril for treason, accusing her of Azoun’s murder-we can say we found the head wedged down the shaft of her private garderobe. Tana we marry off to our puppet, Alusair we keep in hiding as our backblade, in spell-thrall-and then, regrettably, the traitor Filfaeril is killed by our spells while trying to escape.”
“Not smooth, but-”
“It doesn’t have to be. Many grumble about us, day in and day out, but how many dare to denounce or even challenge their war wizards? Remember: ‘Leak here.’ ”
“ ‘Leak here.’ And if someone tries to check on the princesses before we’re ready?”
“Leave that to me.”
The two men exchanged deep, dry chuckles, and then parted. As one-the one who sounded a little younger-turned away, Pennae caught sight of his face in the light of his orb.
It was not one she’d seen before, but she’d know it again. White hair at the temples, framing a handsome, commanding face. Imperious nose, hard eyes.
Pennae remained absolutely still until the other man, his hood still hiding his face, was quite gone. And then she crawled back the way she’d come, not even daring to whisper a curse.
“You’d think all this rain would’ve washed enough of the smell of blood off us,” Semoor complained, tugging on the reins that his snorting, head-tossing horse was threatening to drag right out of his hands.
The other three Knights of Myth Drannor were all too busy to reply. The rest of the horses were just as agitated. It had been some time since the four had seen a living Zhent, but Florin had been missing just as long, though Pennae-who kept vanishing and reappearing, a flitting shadow in the night-insisted his body was nowhere to be found in or near the stables.
She was gone right now, leaving just four Knights struggling in the deepening, still-raining night with horses enough for everyone, plus two remounts Pennae had insisted in taking from the stables “because the queen would want to see us properly equipped.”
The four were bruised, soaked, and cold. They were too tired to be scared any longer, but they were very nervous, and growing ever more so-expecting more misfortune at any moment. Either another Zhent attack, or the arrival of Dauntless and dozens of grim, armed-to-the-teeth Purple Dragons, to arrest them.
It was Doust who sighed and said, “I remember a day rather less damp than this one, and a herald proclaiming our names and the thanks of King Azoun, as the crowds cheered and-”
“Sounds nice. Wish I’d been there,” Pennae said laconically, from just behind him. She grinned as a startled “Eeep!” burst out of the priest of Tymora, as he jumped a little, hands shaking, and then whirled around.
“Pennae, if you ever do that again-”
“You’ll make that same charming sound? I await it with fond anticipation,” the thief said smoothly, patting his arm. She set down a sack almost as large as she was, with the clangor of many things made of metal shifting inside it. “Daggers,” she explained. “I’ve been plundering Zhents too dead to resist me.”
“A habit learned in festhalls?” Semoor asked; the darkness hid the rude gesture she made in reply, but he saw enough of the shift of her shoulders to know she was making it. “You wound me,” he said.
“Not yet, Light of Lathander,” she murmured, her voice heavy with promise. “Not yet.”
Then she spun around, hand streaking to a sheathed dagger. A sword glimmered suddenly, its flat coming down on that hand in a gentle slap.
“Please don’t,” Florin said wearily, from the other end of that sword. “I’m growing a little tired of facing sharp war-steel this night.”
Pennae nodded. “ That’s not your sword. What befell you, and where have you been?”
“Aye, I wish I still had my own blade. This one’s old, good steel-and so it should be; I had it from a princess! — but badly balanced, too small for me, and heavier than it should be.”
“Oho! A princess, hey?” Semoor asked. “What else ‘had you’ from this fair royal flower? Or are we speaking of a festhall ‘princess’?”
“We are not,” Florin said. “We are speaking of the Princess Alusair Nacacia, whom I met with on the roof of yon temple, by merest chance. A Zhent almost slew her, but I was able to defend her-until too many Purple Dragons appeared for me to dare tarry. Unfortunately, neither did the princess, who used some sort of magic to vanish rather abruptly. I doubt those Dragons are all that pleased with me, just now.”