The Knights scrambled after her. "I told you not to mention arrows," Doust told Semoor, "and now look-"
"Luckiest of Holynoses," Pennae said over her shoulder, "please accept my thanks for healing me, and forthwith shut up. Are you unaware rhat a bowman can loose at where he hears our voices coming from?"
Doust shut up.
Pennae beckoned them again, crouching low. Bent over and scuttling through the underbrush, she led them up through thickly standing trees, in more branch-snapping hasre rhan stealth, and into the hollow.
The mansion loomed before them, low and dark in the gloomy shade of the trees that had grown up through it and flung out boughs to overhang it. Its scorched and empty doorway yawned like an open, waiting mouth, the air still sharp with the smell of the fire that had recently raged in it, but Pennae hurried past, keeping low. Ducking around a corner, she plunged without pause through a dark, gaping opening that had once held a window.
The other Knights hesitated, listening. All of them half-expected flames to roar up or to be near-deafened by the sudden snarl of some fearsome beast, followed by Pennae's raw scream.
They heard only silence. They had all traded doubrful glances.
Florin shrugged, put his hands in the exact same places on the lip of the window opening that Pennae had touched, and vaulted through it into unknown darkness. They heard the light thumps of his boots landing on what sounded like wood.
A moment later, he reappeared at the window, a warning finger to his lips. He beckoned them, wordlessly gesturing that they should each move to one side once they landed inside the window.
Jhessail stepped forward, waving at Doust to give her a boost, and went over and in-unexpectedly aided by Semoor's uninvited hand under her trim behind.
One by one, the other Knights followed to find themselves standing in near darkness, the only light filtering in through the shadowed window.
They could hear each other breathing but nothing more. Until one of them took a cautious stride forward.
As if that had been a signal, they heard a sudden roar and crackle of flame in the distance, from the far end of the mansion-a toat that was promprly joined by a scream.
An unknown someone had triggered another fire trap.
"Pennae?" Florin whispered. "You're still here, right?"
"Idiot," she teplied, even more quietly. "Now you've done it."
And it seemed he had.
They heard the sound of a rope groaning as it stretched, then a squealing of wood sliding on wood-and the floor fell away under the boots of Doust and Semoor as if it were a door swinging open, pitching them down into unseen depths.
They landed hard on smooth, flat stone, yells dying as they clashed teeth, bit their tongues-and were driven flat and breathless under the sudden weights of their fellow Knights tumbling down on top of them.
Small squeaking things fled in all directions, Florin rolled off a squirming Semoor, and Jhessail muttered, "Well, at least the cellar wasn't too far down."
"Jhess?" Islif called softly from above them. "Is everyone-?"
"We're fine," Semoor said sourly. "Just fine. Flatter than we were a moment ago, mind you, but-hold! Where are you?"
"Up here. I'm holding onto the window, inside the house. My boots dangling into nothing."
"I'm getting out of the way," Semoor told her, rolling and groaning as he did so. "Just give me a moment!"
The hum of something approaching very swifrly filled the air. Before Islif recognized it for what it was, a crossbow quarrel came scudding through the trees straight into her arm, punching through armor and hurling her away from the window to crash down atop someone.
"Sorry," she gasped, and then she sobbed at the sickening pain her movements dealt to her arm.
"Islif?" Florin said nearby, concern in his voice. "Are you hurt?"
"Am I ever anything else?" she asked wearily, rolling off the unseen body and hearing it groan. Her landing bumped the end of the quarrel on the floor, leaving her gasping and shuddering in pain. "Gods!" she hissed. "Where are you, priests?"
"I'm over here," Semoor told her, from her left. "Trying to remember a prayer for calling up some holy light. As for Doust, you're probably sitting on him. Or whatever's left of him."
"Doust?" Islif asked doubtfully, before she lowered her voice and muttered a few more curses to herself..
The reply was some panting, and then the weak words, "Pray to… Tymora for me… someone? No breath to do it… m'self."
"I can still manage a glow," Jhessail said. "I think."
"Don't think," Semoor told her. "We're adventurers. Things always get worse when we think."
Someone snorted, not all that far away.
"Florin?" Jhessail asked. "Is that you?"
"Does anyone know what this place is?" Doust asked, his voice a little stronger.
"Yes," a cold voice answered out of the darkness.
"Hoy," one door guard whispered. "Whirlwind, come a-reaping!"
He and his fellow guard snapped to rigid attention. Old Myarlin Handaerback, the grandly uniformed doorjack standing between them, stepped smartly away from the door and then spun to open it for the swift-striding younger Princess of Cormyr. He stood ready to announce her.
Princess Alusair darted at that doorjack so swiftly that one guard snatched at his sword out of sheer habit. The princess took a firm hold of the elbow of Myarlin's gaudily trimmed jacket and dragged him bodily back from the door to stagger awkwardly to a halt beside her simmering gaze.
"Thank you," she told Myarlin, "but I do not wish to be announced. Bide you here, saer. Close the door behind me, and kindly refrain from trying to listen through the keyhole. For once."
Myarlin blinked and then bowed in acknowledgment. The other door guard snorted, but he was a veteran-as were all the sentinels in the royal wing of the Palace-and managed to keep his face as straight as that of the nearest statue.
The young princess gave him a warning look, opened the door, and slipped inside.
There were fresh furs down on the floor of the Helmed Lady's Room, and someone had cast rose petals into the lamp sconces to pleasantly scent the dimly lit chamber. From around the polished black bulk of the Helmed Lady statue that shielded Alusair's view of much of the chamber came a familiar voice. It made Alusair check her furious stride for a moment-and then shrug and hasten on.
Tana or no haughty Tana, this could not wait.
Chapter 8
Doors, Disputes, and sudden Downfalls
I do my work and preen my pretty head Caring nothing for curses and catcalls But listen right well for, and deeply dread, Doors, disputes, and sudden downfalls.
So you see, Royal Mother," Tanalasta was saying smoothly, "I find the time I spend seeking to master the lute to be largely wasted, and I would prefer to-"
"Sire!" Alusair burst out, rounding the statue and looking to her father. "Pray pardon for the interruption, but I-"
"Luse, darling," Queen Filfaeril said firmly, "you are 'storming angrily' Again. Is the realm being invaded?"
"No, but-" Alusair looked helplessly at her father, but he merely gestured that she should attend her mother. "Is the palace on fire?" "No, Mother, but-"
"If, as I suspect, your concern is primarily with a slight done to you," the Dragon Queen said calmly, "then you need not interrupt our private converse with Tanalasta quite so precipitously."
"Mother, I can speak with you later," Crown Princess Tanalasta put in smoothly, giving her younger sister a look of cold scorn. "I have learned a lirtle patience."
"Stay," the queen said softly, bending her gaze ro meet Alusair's blazing eyes. "Your matter is not trivial. Perhaps what Alusair is bursting to tell us is not, either. Daughter?"