His words ended, and silence returned.
“I mean no disrespect, great Blackstaff, but I’m still waiting to hear the catch,” Pennae said.
Khelben arched an imperious eyebrow. “Life,” he replied, “is the catch. Life unfolding has a way of tangling and tripping up the best schemes… the brightest dreams. The gods play with us all-and I am no god, to have any skill at such games. So expect many catches, but be the bold adventurers you’ve been thus far, and they will fall before you.”
The pendant glittered.
“Yon bauble,” the Blackstaff added, “bears only magics that preserve it from time. It does no ill to him who touches it. Florin, will you take it?”
Florin shook his head. “I am a ranger. I want to walk the forests and be free, not sit on a stone throne. I need to feel the wind, see dawns and dusks standing under an open sky. I’d be happy enough to ride hither and yon, bearing Shadowdale’s banner. Yet, Lord Wizard, my fellow Swords are all worthy folk. All of them would probably make good Lords of Shadowdale.”
“The throne holds only one backside at a time,” Khelben said dryly. “Choose among yourselves, then.” All around him, the light started to fade.
Hesitantly the Swords eyed each other then bent their heads together.
“He can slay us just like that, ” Pennae whispered. “I’m thinking taking this lordship is the only way we’ll leave this place alive.”
“Agreed,” Semoor hissed sourly. “So: who gets to be Lord High And Mighty?”
“Why not Islif?” Jhessail whispered. “Must it be a ‘Lord’?”
“No,” Islif said savagely, “I’ll not take it. I might make a good tyrant, but I’d be a bad lord-and I’d hate myself so fiercely as to welcome death, even as I lorded it. I will not do this.”
“Pennae?” Jhessail asked.
The thief grinned. “I’m too restless, and much too corrupt.” She poked Doust in the chest. “How about you? Feeling lucky?”
Doust groaned, and Florin nodded. “The best lord is a reluctant lord.”
“Yes,” Pennae agreed. “Well?”
“He’s got my vote,” Semoor said.
“And mine,” Jhessail added.
“Hold,” Islif said. “Doust, how do you feel?”
The novice of Tymora shook his head, sighed, and said, “Well, if none of you want it, I’ll do it, but don’t blame me if-”
“We won’t,” Islif said, whirling him around by the shoulders and calling, “Lord Arunsun? We have our lord.”
She shoved Doust a few unwilling steps forward.
The Lord Mage of Waterdeep looked amused. “Eager?”
Doust sighed. “Lord, I am-we are all-less than easy about this. We hold a charter from Cormyr, and some promises yet unfulfilled. We are nothing better than outlaws if we break our word.”
Then he flinched, startled, as the pendant vanished from where it floated in the air-and reappeared, solid and heavy, in his hands.
The Blackstaff smiled. “I begin to think you are that wonder of wonders. Your coming was not unexpected-though you found your own way here and were not herded; I daresay Arabel is being turned upside down for traces of you right now. How’s young Amanthan getting on, anyhail? He was one of my more promising app-but let us speak of him later; suffice it to say that your arrival was anticipated. Wherefore, as Alaise delayed you on my steps, I did what was needful. Step through yon door.”
An archway silently appeared, outlined in soft radiance, beyond Khelben.
Hesitantly, the Swords went to it. The room behind them went dark, Khelben vanishing with it, even as the one ahead began to brighten.
By the kindling light that came from no source they could see, the Swords beheld a throne with a regal-looking crowned woman sitting on it, and a half-moon table beside it where a wise-looking man sat, writing furiously.
He looked up, set down his quill, and stood. “Kneel before your queen. Adventurers, behold Queen Filfaeril of Cormyr.”
The Swords gaped at the smiling woman on the throne, and then hastily went to their knees.
Filfaeril waved her hand. “Rise, and be at ease,” she said. “Enough of that nonsense, Alaphondar. Swords of Eveningstar, I propose a trade. I need a task performed, and in return I believe I can amend your charter. Cormyr would dearly like to have friends we can trust in Shadowdale, as a bright light on the road that brings so much Moonsea metal and coin to us, and sends our food and horseflesh thither. So turn thy back and open thy codpiece, Florin; the charter is needed.”
Smiling at their startled looks, the queen said serenely, “Cormyr has many watchful eyes. Some of them make me quite confident the knighthoods I am now going to bestow are fully deserved. Florin, for example, made such fine work of the Lady Narantha that several scores of nobleborn mothers desire to send her daughters to him, forthwith.”
“My, my,” Islif murmured at the ceiling, “won’t that prove diverting?”
In a room whose midair glowed with a life-sized, moving duplicate of the room where Filfaeril was now busily granting knighthoods, Dove Silverhand threw back her head and laughed aloud. “Ah, Islif,” she murmured, “we might be sisters!”
Then she lost her mirth and murmured, “Not that I’d ever wish such a doom upon you.”
Alaphondar had been busy writing the proclamations, it seemed-for he now spread them out on the table before the dumbfounded Swords.
“Knighthoods always come with a grant of lands,” Queen Filfaeril added, “or a keep, or coins-gems, actually; ’tis hard to carry twenty thousand lions in one’s hands-in lieu. Alaphondar, pay them.”
The sage hesitated. “Your Majesty, one heraldic necessity must be seen to, first.”
“Well?”
“They must be named knights of somewhere.”
“Well, of Shadowdale, man!”
“Nay, good Queen, it must be the name of their granted lands in Cormyr-or, failing that, a legendary place.”
“A legendary place?”
“Aye, such as ‘of the Forest Eternal,’ or ‘of the Castle Unseen.’ A place not of mere invention, but one known to heralds and loremasters, that’s either lost or ruined.”
“Well, pick one!”
“Nay, Highness — they must choose one.”
Filfaeril shrugged and turned to the Swords, spreading her hands in an unspoken question.
The adventurers stared at her and then at each other.
“Uh…” Doust began, then ran out of words and fell silent. Pennae shrugged, and Florin and Islif stared at each other blankly.
High in the tallest tower of his mansion in Arabel, the wizard Amanthan smiled over a tiny crystal ball that held the room in Blackstaff Tower in its glowing depths, and cast a quick, deft spell.
A bell tolled warningly in Blackstaff Tower, the light in the room shivering in its booming echoes.
Khelben appeared behind Filfaeril’s throne, eyes narrowed above a deepening frown… and something made Jhessail and Florin say together, “Let us be Knights of… Myth Drannor.”
“Ah,” Alaphondar said in satisfaction, dipping his quill in the floral-shaped metal inkwell before him. “Perfect.”
The Blackstaff regarded the Swords thoughtfully as Filfaeril fished something on a fine chain out of her cleavage: a signet. Rocking it in an oval ink-dish Alaphondar held out to her, she applied it to all six parchments in turn, scribbled her signature in an oval around each signet-mark, and announced, “Done. The gems, Alaphondar.”
The sage trailing behind her, the queen walked to the Swords, drew her dainty belt dagger, nicked each of them, leaving the tiniest of pricks on the backs of their hands, and said, “I dub thee all Knights of Myth Drannor. And now the task.”
The newly made Knights held their breath, expecting the worst.
Filfaeril smiled.
“After being torn so precipitously from my husband’s side, I’d prefer to return to Suzail with rather more dignity-with, in fact, a knightly escort. There’s a royal remount stables on the Way of the Dragon nigh Zundle, and an easy ride home from there. If you’re agreeable, my knights?”