Florin looked at her, wondering what to say. If he told truth, that stripped away the defense against her that Narantha had just given. Yet if he lied, he risked Mielikki’s wrath, and who knew what darkness that might bring. Oh, hrast. He would have to choose his words very carefully, to lead astray and thus deceive without actually uttering falsehood.
And he’d better begin with a prayer to the goddess, just in case. “Oh, Lady of the Forest,” he murmured, “forgive me…”
The Dragon Queen of Cormyr shut the garderobe door behind her and drew its bolt. That bolt-old, ornate, and heavy enough to stop a dozen Purple Dragons for a snarling breath or two-was one of the reasons this cold, gloomy, marble-lined garderobe was the queen’s favorite, of all such facilities in this wing of the palace. Not that she discussed her preferences with anyone.
In truth, she hated the garderobe’s tall, spider-haunted ceiling and hard seat. However, she really liked the other reason this room was her favored place of relief: the secret door in the wall right beside the seat, that opened right through the thick stone outer wall of the palace, into the rear of a tiny litter-yard hidden in the high-hedged depths of the Royal Gardens. A place where the cracked and leaning statues and urns of yesteryear stood crowded together, leaning against the palace walls for the birds to bespatter and the dead leaves of a hundred seasons to blow through. A labyrinth of discarded stone seats and bird-baths, all hidden away behind the oldest, most ruinous growhouse. In all the years Filfaeril had been visiting it, she’d never seen so much as an undergardener. She’d heard their voices from several growhouses away or on the far side of tall, impenetrable hedges, but none of them disturbed their queen here, or even knew of her presence.
And if she could trust the Blackstaff about the powers of the necklace she’d slid from an inner pocket and donned before slipping out the secret door, neither did Vangerdahast, or any other war wizard. She was temporarily invisible to all their spells and scryings.
She strode a few soft paces to a particular cracked stone seat, settled herself on it in a graceful shifting of skirts, and laid her hand on the head of a reclining stone lion that flanked the seat, half-lost to view in weeds.
Almost immediately Filfaeril felt a familiar stirring tingling under her hand, and from half Faerun away Khelben Arunsun’s voice spoke in her mind.
Yes, Lady of Cormyr?
“Word has come to me of two wizards in the north of the realm I’d fain know more about. Who is Amanthan of Arabel?”
A good man. One of my apprentices, not so long ago. Too shy and kind to ever be a leader, or have much to do with power or politics around him. He’ll keep behind his high walls and work on spells for as long as Faerun lets him.
“Right. Who’s Whisper?”
A Zhentarim who dwells in hiding underground, in the Stonelands. He has wits, ambition, and malice, but his Art is middling at best. He’s charged with overseeing Zhent-controlled trade through your realm and past it to the north, through the Stonelands and Anauroch. Vangerdahast is aware of him, and your Wizards of War keep rather inattentive watch over him. He bears watching, of course.
“Of course. As do we all.”
Indeed, Lady. As do we all.
Horaundoon had wasted most of the morning waiting for a wagon-merchant in a sufficient hurry to get to Arabel that he’d not stay over in Waymoot, nor turn at Dhedluk down to Immersea, and buck flatter and safer country but much heavier traffic to take Calantar’s Way from there to Immersea.
However, one had come at last, in the person of Peraegh Omliskur, dealer in scents and sundries. It seemed a new fragrance was all the rage among wealthy would-be-noble ladies in Cormyr, and the matriarchs of Arabel wanted to be as enraged as everyone else. More than that: no lady can ever have enough silk scanties, facepaints, and nailbright, and Omliskur had been waiting for a valuable cargo to pay the costs of running another wagon or two of such luxuries-pardon, necessities-north. That was why he was here now, his great dray-horses breathless and blown, enriching the horsebreeder Tirin by selling his drays at a loss and paying top coin for twice as many, so as to make lighter, swifter work of a fast haul through Eveningstar.
Not that the Zhentarim had waited in idleness. With the help of the hargaunt, Horaundoon had spent the morning in the shape of a wrinkled old man, quaveringly seeking a means of getting to Arabel “by way of the House of the Morning in Eveningstar, where I must pray at the grave of my grandmother, the Morninglord keep her!” He offered coins enough to more than make up what the wagon-merchant Omliskur had lost on the horses, so that wheezing worthy was delighted to take him as far as Eveningstar-and give him privacy in a crowded-with-coffers, rocking and pitching wagon, besides.
Horaundoon was crouched among strongchests and carry-coffers, hunched over to avoid having his skull split by the high stacks as their tiedown straps groaned and stretched at every bump and yaw, casting the only sort of scrying spell he dared try with the war wizards doubtless peering at the Swords constantly with their own spells.
Rather than try to find and watch the adventurers, riding on the road ahead of him, he’d set about watching a spot on the road he knew, waiting for them to reach it.
And here they were now, riding right into his view! He Around them, rainbow hues swirled.
Horaundoon cursed and banished his spell in an instant. Someone was watching the Swords from afar, and someone else was using magic to watch for anyone trying to scry them. That someone had become aware of Horaundoon’s scrutiny, but hopefully had lacked the time to trace it or identify him.
Hopefully.
“To Eveningstar,” he growled. Restlessly, the hargaunt shifted across his face, literally making his skin crawl.
Horaundoon sighed and settled down to, ahem, enjoy the long, bumpy ride to Dhedluk. Then on to Eveningstar, without using a trace of magic along the way.
And as usual, the hargaunt was starting to itch.
The sun was starting to lower in the west, near the end of a day later, when the Swords of Eveningstar reached the little bridge that marked the edge of Eveningstar, where a lone roadguard stood under a lantern, challenging all travelers.
“Swords of Eveningstar?” that Purple Dragon asked, peering up past the noseguard of his old-fashioned helm at the riders in the road. “Is this all of you?”
Bey Freemantle, who happened to be closest, was a man of few words, but Agannor smilingly bowed in his saddle and assured the guard that before him were indeed all the Swords of Eveningstar Faerun had ever held.
“Right,” the guard replied. “Go you right along this road, and tie your mounts up at Tessaril’s tower. Stone building, big porch along the front, rises to the closest thing to a tower Eveningstar has-until you get to the temple, that is. The tower’s two buildings this side of the Tankard, that’s the Lonesome Tankard Inn, standing in the corner where this road meets, and ends at, the High Road ’twixt Tyrluk and Arabel. Go nowhere else, for the Lady Lord of Eveningstar has pronounced summons on you.”
Agannor blinked. “Pronounced what?”
“Under Crown law, you must go straight to see her, tarrying not and turning aside nowhere else.”
“Right,” Agannor mimicked him, and rode on, the rest of the Swords following.
Two guards awaited them on the tower porch. They took the saddle-weary Swords’ reins and pointed them inside with the words: “Audience room. Now. Expected.”
Inside, yet another Purple Dragon stood facing them, at the back of the entry hall. There was an open door beside him, and he was pointing at it. The Swords tramped forward.
“I feel like I’m being herded,” Jhessail muttered to Martess, as they went through that door-and found a lone woman sitting behind a desk. She stood up to greet them with a smile, ash-blonde hair falling free over her shoulders, and proved to be as tall as Islif, though more slender of build. She dominated the room just as the king had dominated the inn when they’d dined with him.