And with those words, Pennae turned to lead the way to the nearest portals: a pair flickering in what had probably been Whisper’s storage cellar.
Everyone followed, without a word.
“Mine,” Florin said, stepping into the waiting glow.
And through it, to stand frowning on its far side, still in the cellar. He stepped through it again in the other direction, toward the rest of the Swords-and found himself standing facing them, as if he’d been walking through nothing but empty air.
“Jhess,” Pennae said, “doff your belt and try. Perhaps ’tis the metal that keeps it from working; I’ve heard of portals like that.”
Jhessail handed over her belt and stepped through the first gate. Like Florin, she simply ended up on its far side, still in the cellar. She stepped through it again, in the other direction. Still in the cellar. With a shrug, she went to the second gate and tried it. With the same result.
“Could be we’re lacking a password,” Islif suggested. Pennae nodded.
Semoor sighed. “Well, Whisper’s just a little too dead to ask, now, isn’t he? Come on; let’s try them all.”
Much trudging and fruitless stepping through glows ensued, until they were back in the room of now-empty paintings and sprawled, dead monsters. Whisper still lay as he’d fallen, under the ettin. Rats scattered from the carrion as the Swords came down the steps and stopped in front of the glowing oval.
“Think it’ll work for us, back to Arabel?” Semoor asked.
“Or will it take us somewhere else, I wonder?” Doust put in.
“ Thank you, cheerful holynoses,” Pennae said with a grin. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
Florin hefted his sword and strode forward. “Mine. Again.”
Silently, the glow swallowed him.
“ Quick, now,” Islif snapped, trotting forward. “And keep those wands ready!”
The Swords hurried.
A spell cast long ago, that showed the watchful apprentices on duty who stepped through particular portals, flickered once more into life.
The master of those apprentices, crossing the room behind their desks, stopped in mid-stride to see who was departing Whisper’s Crypt for Arabel. He nodded, saying nothing, as a succession of images flowed across that part of the wall.
“The Swords of Eveningstar,” one of the apprentices reported excitedly.
“I am unsurprised, Alaise,” her master replied. “Please take over doorguard from Thander now. You may soon be seeing the Swords in person.”
He walked on, his mind already on scores of larger matters.
Not that the Swords lacked interest. Indeed, to an archmage who talked often with Dove Silverhand and betimes with Hawkstone the ranger, and at other times eavesdropped undetected on the minds of the herald from Espar, Lord Elvarr Spurbright, and Dauntless of the Purple Dragons-to name but three-these fledgling adventurers were interesting indeed.
Not just for who they were and what they were doing, but for who was trying to manipulate them.
The wizard ascended a winding stone stair to a higher level of his tower, passing many storage niches let into the walls. His gaze fell on a curious twisted pendant hanging in one niche, behind the warding that would sear all hands but his to the bone, and the Swords came back into his thoughts.
He had plans for the Swords of Eveningstar. Oh, yes, indeed.
Florin stepped out into-grain shifting underfoot, in a familiar warehouse that was now brightly lit indeed. Forty Purple Dragons, or more, were staring impassively at him over leveled spears, in a wall that extended around him in-yes-a ring.
A ring of Dragons at least two deep, that was broken in only one place: right ahead of him, where an officer stood with a drawn sword in his hand, looking both weary and profoundly unamused.
“Take them,” Lionar Dahauntul ordered flatly, as the Swords emerged to stand with Florin.
“Alive?” a veteran Dragon asked.
“Take them,” Dauntless repeated grimly.
Chapter 26
In life there are three real treasures: loving partners, true friends, and your brightest dreams. The trick is to avoid losing them along the way.
'No,” Horaundoon murmured, “I dare not use a mind-link now. Not when one of these fools is so likely to get slain while our minds are touching.” He sat back with a sigh to watch what unfolded in the scrying orb.
If the gods smiled, he might not lose all of his tools this day.
If.
The orb glowed brighter, rising. In its depths, the Zhentarim saw Florin snap, “Jhess, behind me! Pennae, behind Islif! If they throw those spears-”
A spear sailed through the air, and his sword smashed it up and aside. Another flew, as the Dragons started striding forward.
“The wands!” Jhessail cried, reaching around Florin to aim the one she held. “Use them- now! ”
More spears flew, Swords chanted strange words-and fire, lightning, ice, and dark tentacled shadows exploded outward. The gate’s silent whirling built into a roar that towered over everything.
The air itself seemed to boil, Purple Dragons were flung in all directions like rag dolls, and Semoor screamed as his wand exploded, taking most of his hand with it. Doust’s wand started to spit sparks and glow, and he flung it away and ducked, reaching out an arm to take Semoor to the ground with him.
The wand exploded against the nearest warehouse wall with a fury that sent everyone flying, timbers creaking and groaning, and grain and dust whirling up into a blinding cloud.
Horaundoon peered vainly at the dark roilings for a time, then shrugged. He could, after all, trace Florin at any time through the mindworm.
If, that is, the noble foolhead of a forester was still alive.
In a dark, chill chamber far underground, a lich turned in surprise as its crystal ball glowed into sudden life. How Something that glowed palely darted past its moldering workbench, darting among grimoires that had been old when the lich yet lived, and raced up into the lich’s bony face before it could lift one withered hand.
The lich stood abruptly, overturning its highbacked chair, and flung out its arms wildly, bony limbs flopping and clashing together like the arms of a doll shaken hard by an angry child. It shuddered, bending over sharply and then arching back, and hastened across the chamber, babbling half-words that spilled over each other, sometimes rising into shouts. Parts of its body grew fur, or scales, or bulging muscles, and lost them again just as swiftly.
Then it shook itself all over, as a moose reaching a riverbank shakes off water, and stood still, an almost- skeletal lich once more.
The crystal ball, its aging cloth cover fallen away, showed a tumbling cloud of dust and debris. The lich waved a hand, and the cloud seemed to move, showing dark heaps-bodies-and a brightness with ragged edges. A hole in a wall that folk were stumbling through.
Folk who’d have been strangers to the lich, but whom Old Ghost, now master of what had been the lich, knew. He watched the one called Semoor swig a vial as he ran, fling it away, and hold out a ruined hand to watch it heal.
