down from the wagon to have his things carried into the Tankard, feigning being far stouter and shorter of breath than he truly was, his gaze fell upon a slender, black-haired man striding along the road toward him with a satchel on his shoulder. The satchel was probably full of vials, being as its bottom was something rare in satchels: a wooden box.
So this would be Maglor the apothecary, Whisper’s spy and obedient fingers-in-the-dark in Eveningstar.
Their eyes met, and Horaundoon gave Maglor the disinterested stare of a total stranger and turned away. If he needed this darkjack in times ahead, he’d doubtless be wearing a different guise when they met.
The apothecary made a wide birth around the caravan wagons, and Horaundoon trudged up onto the inn porch. It looked a nice enough place.
’Twas almost a pity he was going to have to kill or mindmaim most of the folk here, before he was done.
“Scream if you must,” Florin told his fellow Swords, as they peered around the room, “but no yelling or making loud noises. I’d rather we surprise whatever lurks here, rather than the other way around.”
“Yes, O King,” Agannor muttered.
“None of that,” Islif told him sharply. “Florin’s valor won us this charter, and he bears the favor of the goddess Mielikki. If he desires to lead us, he leads us.”
“ I have no problem with that,” Pennae said, looking at Florin in clear invitation. “So whither now, Falconhand?”
The room they stood in held only a puddle of water and a heap of weapons, surmounted by a shield. Pennae had already warned everyone fiercely not to so much as approach the pile, let alone touch it. The passage that had brought them to the room continued out its other side, west into the solid rock underlying the high sheep pasture- the southern edge of the wild, dreaded Stonelands-that was somewhere above their heads.
The air was cool, and gently moving. It smelled of damp stone and earth. When Florin waved his hands for silence, the Swords could hear nothing but their own breathing.
A pair of rust-orange metal gates, firmly chained together, barred the way on, where the passage opened out of the center of the innermost wall. Through those close-spaced vertical bars, their lanterns showed that the passage ran straight on into the rock, intersecting with a cross-passage and continuing, to open out into a larger chamber or cavern. Partway down the farther run stood a wooden tripod surmounted with a crossbow too large for most men to lift.
It was loaded and ready-and pointed along the passage right at the Swords.
Florin borrowed Pennae’s lantern (the only one they had that shone a beam, rather than illuminating blindingly in all directions) to peer at the crossbow. “It doesn’t look in good shape,” he murmured.
“Neither do these gates,” Islif put in. “Why don’t Agannor, Bey, and I try to break or bend just one bar, off to the side here, while everyone else clears right over to that side wall? Then, if it fires…”
“ ’Tis only us who’ll embrace sudden ventilation,” Agannor growled-then grinned. “Let’s do it.”
“Should I hook at it, first?” Pennae offered. “It looks solid, but that mass of chain might collapse into dust. I doubt it, but ’tis worth a try-and if the crossbow fires, we’ll learn how it’s aimed, and if its firing brings someone to reload it.”
“Or something to reload it,” Semoor remarked.
“Yes,” Florin said firmly. “Pennae’s hook-and-pole first, then work on the bars.”
Semoor sighed loudly. “I feel swindled by the gods! Thus far, ‘adventure’ seems to be almost all ‘work.’ When does the fun start?”
Islif hefted her sword. “When the first monsters find us.”
“They’re inside the Haunted Halls,” Laspeera said, pointing at the scrying crystal.
Vangerdahast clapped her on the shoulder. “Thanks. Watch them closely until I return. It shouldn’t take me all that long to have a mere merchants’ delegation wetting themsel-”
A deep chime sounded in the next room.
Laspeera looked at the royal magician, and the royal magician looked back at Laspeera and told her, “Stay right here and keep scrying. The merchants will wait; I’ll see what His Majesty wants first.”
He strode out and down the passage, taking the swiftest route to the Chamber of Charts. For anything less than royalty, Gordrar would have sent a junior war wizard to fetch him; the chime meant the presence of Azoun himself, in anger or at least impatience-or Azoun was dead and another Obarskyr was standing there very upset about it.
Now, that would be dark disaster indeed for the Forest Kingdom. And he’d had quite enough dark disas Passing through a curtain, Vangerdahast opened a door into a tiny cubicle where the air sang with mighty magic. There he pulled the door firmly closed before he opened the door on its far side, bustled through that door and down a thickly carpeted ramp into the back of a wardrobe, thrust its well-oiled doors open, slipped out, and closed it again. He peered quickly around the deserted Chamber of Treaties to make sure it truly was deserted, crossed to its far wall, and went through a concealed door there into the servants’ passage that ran behind the Chamber of Charts.
A bare breath later, he was smiling at Azoun and making the deft little gesture that told Gordrar he was to withdraw. “Yes, my king?”
“Vangey! My new adventurers-how fare they? Where are they, and what are they up to?”
The royal magician put on his best mildly puzzled face. “Adven-ah, yes, I recall. The ‘Swords of Eveningstar.’ I must confess I’ve spent neither spell nor time watching them, thus far. Yet if you deem it needful-”
“Nay, nay. When you’ve time will do. I was merely… curious.”
“Ah.” Vangerdahast looked up at the king in the manner of a kindly but disapproving tutor. “You were merely… curious. A flaw, I fear; rulers should-”
“Leave such character failings to their wizards?” Azoun’s voice was dry. “Pray tell me, Vangey, which particular flaws do you think I should cultivate?”
Oh, naed.
Naed, naed, naed, naed, naed.
“Your Majesty,” Vangerdahast began, in his most cajolingly hurt voice, “I hope you believe not for a moment that…”
The gates proved to be fused solid, the Swords heard no alarm raised, the crossbow didn’t fire-and the assault on the gates began.
Rust fell in flakes, specks, and a fine dust that had Islif, Agannor, and Bey swearing, ducking away, and shaking their heads to try to get it out of their eyes. Finally, a snarling, sweating Islif, tendons standing out on her neck like the edges of daggers, managed to force her shoulder between two bars. She pulled with all her gasping, growling might.
When she fell back, panting and shuddering, two of the bars were bowed visibly apart-and the rest of the Swords were regarding her with new respect, Agannor and Bey gaping in disbelief. They looked at each other, nodded, and strode forward to the two bent bars, hauling and tugging on them with growls of effort and hissed oaths.
Agannor’s bar bent visibly, but Bey’s suddenly broke free of its frame at the top, and leaned out a handwidth. He threw himself shoulder-first against it, groaning at the bone-numbing impact, but managed to shift it only a fingerwidth or so more.
“Break off,” Florin told the three, “and catch your wind.” When they did, gasping and shaking their numbed hands, Florin waved Doust and Semoor forward.
Their struggles made no appreciable difference to the positions of the bars, but when they retreated, wincing and wringing their hands, they took most of the rest of the scaly rust with them, and the Swords could clearly see there was now an oval opening in the gates that someone tall, or someone who hopped in just the right manner, could traverse sideways.
“Behold,” Semoor gasped, waving his hand at it. “Valiant victory.”
“Our first,” Jhessail agreed wryly. “Indeed, yon gates fought hard.”
“I’m growing older, ” Agannor complained, striding to the bent bars with Doust’s lantern in his hand.
“Wait,” Pennae snapped, but he waved dismissively and shouldered his way through the gap in the barrier, into the passage beyond.
Going straight to its south wall, Agannor strode briskly along it to where he could shine lanternlight along the
