Sarhthor nodded. “Agreed. Deal with them.” And with those blunt words still hanging in the air, he was gone, leaving Whisper gazing across his empty spellcasting chamber at that distant ruby glow.
“Deal with them, indeed,” he murmured, and waved a hand to awaken a nearby scrying crystal.
It floated obediently nearer, quickening into brightness: the glows of no less than four bobbing, approaching lanterns. The Swords of Eveningstar, shining-eyed with the excitement of having found no less than two secret doors, and through them a huge labyrinth of rooms and corridors running in seemingly all directions, were coming along a passage into what had once been a throne room-and was now home to one of Whisper’s most cunning traps.
Whisper smiled as he strode forward to peer closely into the Haunted Halls-or at least, what little could be seen of them in the depths of the crystal. ’Twas enough, though. ’Twas enough. This should be good.
“I mislike the look of this,” Martess hissed. “There’s magic everywhere in the room ahead of us.”
Agannor and Bey were almost leaning through the open doorway, holding their lamps high. A heap of splintered, gilded ruin lay right in front of their boots: the remnants of fallen, once-grand double doors that had echoed in wood the size and grandeur of the bronze doors guarded by the lightning-spitting statues, somewhere back behind the Swords.
Only, these doors had been adorned with magnificent relief carvings of knights riding leaping war-horses, and from their saddles hewing down orcs, sinister helmed men whose arms seemed to be long tentacles, and what looked like wyverns and wingless dragons. It was hard to tell what all of the monstrous foes were, because the blows of a hard-driven axe had long ago cleft and marred many of the carvings, and time and the damp had caused the edges of those wounds to crumble.
“Looks like a throne room,” Agannor grunted. “A fair place to look for treasure, wouldn’t you say?”
“I say again,” Martess murmured, still on her knees. “Magic-some of it very strong-is everywhere in yon chamber.”
“Hah! Couldn’t some of the treasure we seek be magical? Hey? Like the healing flasks Pennae found?”
“Agannor,” Pennae told him, “we are not alone in these halls. If someone-or something — that speaks Common and understands us is lurking in the darkness anywhere near, you’re loudly telling them everything we’re doing and so telling them exactly when and how to best harm us. So still your tongue. Please.”
Agannor bared his teeth in anger at the slender thief-who shrugged, smiled, and murmured to Martess, “Take all the time you need to be sure, Tess. I want to know exactly where the magic is before I put one toe into the room. And so help me, Agannor, if you lose patience with our caution and go striding in there: I’ve got some concoctions that can make the bites of my knives very interesting-and you’ll feel those bites, if you go on endangering the rest of us by playing the reckless fool here and in any more rooms.”
“Sabruin,” Agannor spat at her. “Just sabruin! ”
“After you do, dearest,” Pennae replied lightly. “After you!”
He growled and waved disgusted dismissal at her-but stayed out of the throne chamber. It was Bey who gave Pennae a hard look and asked, “So, Sharptongue, where would you head from here? What would you do, that’s so much better than just walking into yon room? Hey?”
“Well,” Pennae said, “the first thing I’d explore, before I moved on into that throne room and so left the thing behind me-and between me and the sunlight! — is this niche here in the wall. Small, but placed just where a hand can easily reach into it, and graven with these two symbols. Anyone seen them before? Anyone know what they mean?”
The Swords took turns shuffling forward to peer, and one after another shook their heads in open, obviously sincere denial.
“Well,” Pennae said, when they were done, “I can see something at the back there that I want to probe with my dagger. See the carving of the castle rampart? I wonder why-”
Something cold and blue flashed around her extended dagger-and the passage in front of the throne room was suddenly empty of all trace of Alura Durshavin.
Chapter 18
Daggers are drawn
Look, one man is down fading his eyes fallen his crown
Wizards rush in
Wizards rush forth
Dragons swoop down
To eat towers out
Priests run screaming
Temple domes fall
Orc hordes are coming
And plague will take all
But one thing I know,
And I know it full well
’Tis just another night in Arabel
As full night fell over Filfaeril’s private garden, the servants lit the last of the lamps to keep its darkness softly at bay and fled in soft-skirted haste, unspeaking. All in the palace knew how much the queen loved her privacy.
In twilight and the early night, when affairs of state permitted such leisure, the Dragon Queen liked to walk alone, or sit quietly in a bower seat and think. Save for the rare occasions when she shared this time with her husband the king or the even rarer occasions when she was accompanied by someone else, she preferred tranquility and solitude, free from all prying. She had famously insisted on this in discussions with the royal magician, disputations that culminated in an argument Filfaeril had ended with a punch to Vangerdahast’s jaw.
Whereupon (once the reeling wizard had fallen, regained his feet, and collected his stammering wits) she had won matters her way, and now walked her gardens very much alone. Powerful wards prevented anyone from stealing up on her through the thick forests and rolling lawns of the royal park, and trios of war wizards and highknights guarded all access between the palace and her small, exquisite garden, their attention carefully turned away from the queen, toward the palace itself.
This still and surprisingly cool evening, Filfaeril lingered not as long among the opening, faintly glowing night-blossoms as she usually did. Instead she strode soft-slippered, in plain skirts and with a half-cloak about her shoulders against the chill, to the darkest back corner of her nine linked bowers, under the tree-shade where the moonlight would take some time yet to reach.
Hooking her fingers through the wide belt she wore around her slender hips, Filfaeril on a whim broke into a few dance steps and kicks, then spun around to stare back at the palace.
Only one balcony overlooked her here, and it was empty. The battlements high above it bore no trace of staring Purple Dragon heads. The garrison was up there, she knew, but had their orders not to look down into the garden and, she knew from covertly testing them in the past, were diligently obedient in this regard.
Stretching as luxuriously as any idly purring cat, the Queen of Cormyr went to her favorite bower seat, settled herself gracefully, and idly sang a snatch of a well-known ballad: “Are you there listening, pretty nightbird? Pretty nightbird?”
“Yes,” came the soft whisper beside her ear, “but so is a highknight spy, behind yonder statue. Send him away.”
Filfaeril did not have to feign her anger. Springing to her feet, she marched across the velvety sward to the whitestone statue of Azoun Triumphant-the only statue in her garden-and snapped, “Come out, man!”
The only reply was silence. Mouth tightening, the Dragon Queen sprang up two artfully placed stones among the plantings and embraced the statue, swinging around it to confront-a black-garbed man crouching behind it.
“Highknight,” she snarled, “who ordered you to this duty? Tell me!”