here-only to help her escape, to keep the imposture from being discovered, when she got news that your father was on the way here.”
“So he truly is coming hither,” Narantha breathed, buckling her belt. Her mouth tightened. “Tluining bitch.”
“Ready?” her uncle asked, turning to face her. Narantha tapped her dagger hilts to make sure they were in their sheaths where they should be, and nodded.
Lorneth smiled again, raised a hand-and blue-green fire blossomed in the air, a flickering line that curved purposefully into an upright whorl. With his other hand, in the grandly courteous manner employed by obsequious innkeepers, he waved for her to step into it.
Narantha didn’t hesitate for a moment.
The bed curtains parted, and her Azoun was there.
The Dragon Queen smiled sleepily up at him. “I was beginning to think you’d quite forsaken me.” She threw back the shimmerweave bedcloaks to reach up for him with long and shapely arms.
Azoun smiled. Shrugging his open nightrobe off his shoulders, he let her draw him down to her waiting warmth.
“Ah, Fee… Fee…” he murmured, settling into her familiar curves. “Never will I forget my queen. Passing time, I fear, does slip away from me unnoticed, when Vangerdahast-and Alaphondar, and a dozen scribes after him-come to talk to me, the scribes crowding in urgently when Vangey’s finally done, with their ‘sign this’ and ‘decree that-oh, but not in those words, Your Majesty, lest thus and so, far better to use these words I just happen to have penned for you.’ ”
“And talk to you,” Filfaeril murmured, stretching restlessly under him. “Talk… talk… and more talk.”
“Exactly,” Azoun said, before his mouth claimed hers.
When he surfaced for breath, a long time later, it was to add in satisfaction, “You do understand.”
“Always, my Azoun,” his queen said. “I understand you always.”
A gentle, steady breeze was sweeping down Starwater Gorge out of the Stonelands. In the moonlight, those perilous lands looked like so many frozen rolling waves breaking over jagged giants’ teeth.
Or so Florin fancied as he sat on the grassy height above the rock overhang, high up on the east side of the gorge, where his fellow exhausted Swords were sleeping. Someone had to keep watch, and the cold metal of the sword across his knees at least kept him from falling asleep.
He looked north again. Whoever had attacked them in the Haunted Halls was out here somewhere, and everyone knew outlaws-and crawling beasts, from trolls to dragons that could tear apart castle keeps with their talons-lurked in yon Stonelands. Such fabled perils were why the king had sent them all here: to hack and harry and be seen, to curb boldness and make fell things think Cormyr was alert and well defended against their creepings.
Not that the Swords of Eveningstar had made a glorious start of it.
And Florin Falconhand, the valiant hero of the Battle of Hunter’s Hollow? Even less.
Three of his companions had almost died, and Florin had done nothing to save them-and even less to keep them from blundering into danger in the first place.
He was no brave battle leader. He didn’t know how.
Oh, he could be fearless enough, but fearlessness gets folk killed. He could be decisive and forceful, too-when leading only himself.
Yet in yon Halls, dark and unfamiliar places where scores of men had died, he’d hemmed and hawed, tramping those rooms and passages unsure of where to go and even how best to array the Swords for battle. If it hadn’t been for Pennae-and how was it that she came to know all she did, about delving into dungeons and being ready for monster attacks and all? He must Florin stiffened. What was that?
Something moved in the night behind him. Something dark and wary, seeking to keep silent. Something creeping He sprang to his feet, took two swift steps to his right where the rock was, and in its lee spun around, sword flashing up, then lunged back around the rock, thrusting There was a little gasp, almost a shriek, and whoever it was fell back, whispering, “Florin?”
He sprang to see, blade held high and aside. A stride ahead, the land fell away into a little dell full of tall grass and bright moonlight, and a woman was lying in it, her boots right in front of him.
A moment later, he was crouched above her, beset with recognition-and astonishment.
“Narantha!”
The Lady Narantha Crownsilver gave him a crooked smile. “My hero,” she whispered, staring up at him with eyes that outshone the moonlight. “You are a great adventurer.”
Florin winced. “Nay, I’m very far from that. I’m-”
“Florin,” Narantha whispered. “Kiss me. Please.”
Florin looked down at her, then back over his shoulder to where the Swords slept unseen-but not unheard, thanks to the breeze that was now carrying faint snores to him. Then he sighed, carefully sheathed his sword, and leaned close to murmur, “Lady, I’m standing watch. I can’t be-”
Narantha smiled catlike, and suddenly thrust her arms wide, taking Florin’s hard-planted arm out from under him.
His face crashed down into rounded softness, smelling faintly of exquisite perfume, and he felt more than heard Narantha’s warm murmur: “Oh, yes, you can, lord of my love.”
Then he felt her hands, stroking his cheek and throat. “Lord Florin,” she whispered, “must I beg you? Please!” Her hands were at his buckles, now, tugging and Florin bent his head and tried to pray to Mielikki. He was still struggling to think of the right words when warm, hungry lips found his. And conquered him.
The man who was not Lorneth Crownsilver sat as still as stone in the shadowed lee of a moonlit pinnacle not all that far up Starwater Gorge from the tender tryst he was spell-seeing. He smiled much as the real Lorneth would have done.
Little Narantha was a natural, not that the ranger lad was all that unwilling-and so smitten with the moment was he, just now, that the second mindworm had flowed off the end of her tongue and into him without him noticing at all.
Horaundoon smiled up at the moon in quiet triumph. Deftly done, and a good night’s work. The first of many such nights to come, as she obeyed his bidding through the first mindworm coiled within her head, and so slipped more and more under his command.
Ah, with the right spells in his hands, a patient man could rule the world… one seduction at a time.
“Right, King Azoun?” he asked the unhearing moon gleefully.
Dawn had been bright, and the morning moreso. Now, within sight of highsun, the sun beat down as mercilessly as a moneylender’s smile.
Yet it seemed gentle indeed compared to the icily sneering grimace of a grin Lord Maniol Crownsilver gave to the guards he was spattering mud all over as he reined in his mount in front of Tessaril’s Tower.
“Where’s Tessaril?” he barked at them, throwing his reins in the face of the man who stepped to the head of his mount.
“Crave you an audience?” came a level question in answer. Lord Crownsilver swung himself down with a grunt, not deigning to reply. He had swords enough in livery with him to deal with a few tower guards-and if his men had remembered his orders, several hand dartbows would be aimed at each of these helmheads right now.
Lurching from the stiffness of more time spent in the saddle than he was used to these days, he mounted the porch steps. Two Purple Dragons and two knights of the realm barred his way, but he neither slowed nor hesitated-and they drew smoothly aside moments before his striding would have brought him crashing into them.
“You are expected, Lord Crownsilver. Go right up,” one said, as the doors magically opened themselves, taking Maniol’s wordless grunt of reply with him as he stamped to the stairs.
Behind him, he heard his senior guards coldly insisting that they accompanied him everywhere-and gasps as something was revealed that stopped their blustering in mid-word. Not caring whether they slaughtered the tower guards in the street or were all turned to frogs by some war wizard spell or other, he ascended, finding the landing populated with highknights.
“Where’s Tessaril?” he growled at them. They gave him identical looks of disdain and silently lifted their
