how exalted our station, death is always so close to us that it can reach out a bony hand to our throat and drag us down in an instant. The trick is to fill our lives with splendid instants, so that when death does come, we’ll at least be enjoying ourselves.
Dhammaster Dauntinghorn
The Young Stag: Memoirs of the Splendid Years of One Noble published in the Year of the Behir
T he helmed, armored warrior standing just inside the door had a long sword in his hand, held low. He was ready to lunge up and under Agannor’s gorget, belt, or cod for a gutting thrust-and he had two fellows flanking him, the sharp points of their blades glittering.
As Agannor burst through the door, something large and dark smashed into the side of his head-a hurled crossbow, rattling as it crashed home and sent him reeling.
He’d barely begun that stagger when the first blade slid into his guts like an icicle, deep and very cold. Agannor grunted, waving his sword vainly.
The second blade sliced him like fire, riding up under his breastplate, and in. He sobbed as it lifted him off his feet-then somehow fell back and away and off it again, blind and breathless in his agony.
Agannor was dimly aware of falling back through the door and bouncing on stones, retching blood. His world exploded into roiling red mist, and he had no idea at all that the three warriors had snatched up the crossbow and fled, or that he was lying with his boots across the threshold, kicking wildly and feebly in his agony.
Horaundoon sat on the edge of his bed in the Tankard, sniffling through the part of the hargaunt that shaped his bulbous nose. Anger was burning dark and slow at the back of his mind to match the prickling sensation in the gorget hidden under more of the hargaunt-the prickling that told him that some busynose of a war wizard was still scrying him.
That scrutiny had latched onto him on his first lurching climb of the inn stairs, and hadn’t let up since.
He was so tempted to lash out with a spell that would snuff out the spy’s mind in an instant.
Yet he dared not. That sort of death would bring a mustering of war wizards, and draw the attention of Vangerdahast himself. Too many even for Horaundoon of the Crawling Doom to spellblast. In such a battle he might manage to slay many, but the inevitable death would be his own.
So here he sat, twiddling his thumbs and feigning weary boredom. With every breath he took, that attitude became less and less an act.
Stlarning war wizards.
Islif Lurelake ran like the wind, her armored coat clanging and clashing, with Florin and Pennae right at her heels. South down the cross-passage, to come at the crossbowmen from another way.
She skidded to a stop at the passage-moot, expecting to eat a volley of crossbow bolts when she turned the corner. Gasping for breath, she balanced herself-then ducked around the corner, just as quickly dancing back.
A crossbow cracked. Its bolt hummed past, shattering against one of the statues amid a burst of lightnings.
Their foes were ready and waiting.
She traded glances with Florin, trying to think what best to do next-and Pennae hissed in the forester’s ear: “Stand still and let me climb you.”
“Yes,” Florin replied, tensing.
Islif watched the thief swarm up Florin to his shoulders. Pennae crouched there for a moment, froglike, the passage ceiling close overhead-then launched herself forward in a great springing leap that sent Florin staggering back but hurled Pennae high across the passage-mouth, to strike the floor in a forward roll.
Two crossbow bolts sought her life. The first hummed past well in her wake, to crash into the old crossbow on its tripod-and send it toppling from its mount to clatter harmlessly on the floor.
The second missed her heels by a fingerwidth and raced on, collecting crackling lightnings as it passed between the statues. It shivered noisily against the bronzen doors, fragments pattering to the floor.
Pennae landed, rolled, and ran on into the darkness.
Islif and Florin were already moving, ducking around the corner again, trusting that not even the swiftest windlass-cranker could have wound up a crossbow to fire again, so soon after five shots. They were trusting their lives, of course, on the hope that there wasn’t a sixth crossbowman, or more.
They’d trusted well, it seemed.
No bolts came humming at them, and they could see no foe in the light of Islif’s bouncing lantern. The room beyond the rusty bars held no foes.
Panting from their sprint, they ducked through the bars-and almost hacked at Pennae, who burst through the open door from the southern slant passage.
“Where’d you-?” Islif gasped, waving her sword.
“The stone goblin. I tried to pick it up to be a shield, but-too heavy. Much too heavy,” Pennae gasped back. “Hoped to catch our attackers here.”
“Whoever they are, they’ll be waiting for us outside,” Florin said. “With their bows ready.”
“So we find shields,” Islif told him, “somewhere in here, before we try to come out.”
“And let Doust, Agannor, and Bey die? ”
“And just how many of us d’you want to join them in their graves?” the warrior woman snapped. “If we go out there while they’re waiting, bows aimed at the d-”
“Be still! ” Pennae snarled fiercely, clutching and shaking them both ere flinging out one arm to point. “Look! ‘The rest are hidden in the door,’ remember?”
They looked where she was pointing. Agannor’s feet were still kicking feebly across the threshold, keeping the thick door open-and in the exposed doorframe they could see a tall, narrow slot of darkness.
Islif swung her lantern. It was a niche, running back into the wall, with something dark in it that looked like wood. Pennae pounced.
“Watch for foes!” she snapped, waving at the distant entry doors. Florin spun around obediently, but Islif watched as Pennae, on her knees, held her dagger ready in one hand and with the other drew forth… a flat wooden box, dark with damp.
The thief’s arm started to spasm and shudder. She looked up at Islif, a tense frown on her face.
“There’s a spell on this,” she breathed. “I can feel the tingling clear up my arm! Let’s take it yonder. Get Agannor back so we can close the door.”
Islif and Florin sprang to do so, dragging the white-faced Agannor a little way into the slant passage. He was gasping blood and moaning when they started-but he’d fainted by the time they’d finished.
“Stand guard over him and the door,” Pennae ordered. “Throw his sword and dagger at anyone who opens it, whether they have a crossbow or not.”
Then she clutched the box to her breast and ran down the slant passage, past the silent, huddled heap that was Bey, to the clustered lanterns of the rest of the Swords.
Their weapons were drawn and their faces were grim-and Doust lay in their midst, pillowed on Semoor’s leather jack, looking weak and pale. On the floor behind them was a dark and sticky lake that hadn’t been there before: Doust’s blood, the crossbow bolt Semoor had drawn forth lying at its heart.
“Martess! Jhessail!” Pennae hissed. “There’s magic on this. Strong magic.”
Jhessail spread her hands helplessly, but she and Martess knelt on the other side of the box from Pennae as the thief carefully set it on the floor.
Drawing in a deep breath, Pennae looked up into the intent gazes of the rest of the Swords, then down again at the box. Its lid was a slab of wood that slid along two grooves carved into the inside of its side walls, with a thumb-dimple handle. Pennae used the point of her dagger rather than her thumb to gingerly slide it open.
And nothing happened.
Everyone waited, barely breathing, but still nothing happened. Quietly. Martess laid her fingers on the box, flinched, and then asked, “Preservative spell, or some sort of message magic? We’re feeling it because it’s collapsing, perhaps?”
“ ‘Perhaps’ just about anything is happening,” Pennae agreed wryly. “But this is good to see.” She pointed down at what the box held: a row of nine metal vials.
“Fine steel, completely free of rust, cork-stoppered and wax sealed… and all of them bear this same symbol.”
She pointed at the nearest mark, a tiny red-painted character that looked more or less like a human right
