Dragons. Who came here looking for the Knights of Myth Drannor, with intent to take you. ”
“I’d say Laspeera didn’t overlook your little theft,” Jhessail snapped at Pennae. “I’d say she kept it as a reason to go after us, after we were safely out of lands where they have to keep to Azoun’s law. Or is there something else you did, that you perhaps forgot to tell us?”
“ ‘Take’ us?” Pennae asked the master of Oldcoats, ignoring Jhessail.
“Arrest you. ‘Take’ is what they always call it. As you can tell, we thwarted them.”
Islif patiently made a circling gesture with her hand, urging him to say more. Maelrin nodded to her and added, “We lured them back out of the inn by saying you’d all gathered in the stables to do something you wouldn’t tell us about, except that we were to stay away. Of course they couldn’t resist all dashing off to the stables- whereupon we activated the Dragonfire magic to keep them out of Oldcoats proper. Er, that is to say, this building we’re standing in.”
“And what,” Semoor and Jhessail asked, almost as one, “is the ‘Dragonfire magic’?”
“ Later, ” Pennae snapped. “I’m sure all the arcane details are fascinating, but first tell us, Master Maelrin, what’s befalling now. I don’t care so much-yet-what this Dragonfire is, so much as what it does. ”
The innkeeper looked at the stablemaster. “Druskin?”
Stablemaster Druskin looked from the lady Knights to the men and back again, sighed, and said, “I used to keep the Dragons’ stables, here in Halfhap. I know how they work. I can’t see through the magic, but I’m as certain as if I could that Oldcoats is surrounded by Dragons right now, while they wait for the war wizards they’ve called for to get here. The Dragonfire magics are like a huge wall all around this building-and just this building-to keep everyone out.”
Islif frowned. “And us in. ”
“Can we get away over the rooftops?” Pennae asked quickly. “Or the cellars? I suppose you’d better tell us a little more about this Dragonfire magic.”
“The rooftops, no,” Ondal Maelrin replied. “Not unless you can live happily with a dozen-some Purple Dragon war-quarrels through you.” He hesitated. “The cellars, yes, but there’s a little problem.”
He fell silent, looking less than happy. Islif stepped forward until she was towering over him, so close they were almost touching, and said firmly, “That you’re going to tell us all about. All about.”
Maelrin sighed again. “Where to begin? Well… our cellars flood. From the stable side, and not often, but-we need more dry cellar space. So we started digging on the other side, toward the front of the inn, and soon enough we found a cellar wall that was only one stone deep; a false wall thrown up across the end of a larger cellar.”
“Long ago, to hide treasure,” Pennae added. It was not a question.
The innkeeper nodded. “So we believe, though we haven’t dared go near it. We can see it, and an old tunnel that leads into the cellars of other shops along this street is supposed to be just the other side of it, but…”
He waved his hands in exasperation. “There’s this legend, here in Halfhap. Years ago, a famous mage dwelt hereabouts; a lady called Emmaera Dragonfire. After she died, no one ever found her magic. Well, we have-at least, we can see wands and chests and thick books with runes on them, a big heap of it all. The tales all say she guarded herself with flying swords that flew at her command, and that she left them guarding her treasure. A ring of flying swords that strike at all who venture near. Well, the ring of swords are down there right now-and right enough, they strike at anyone who goes too close!”
Pennae’s eyes gleamed. “Which way to the cellars?”
Jhessail rolled her eyes. “Can I put some clothes on and eat, first?”
Yassandra Durstable was by far the best-looking war wizard ever to wear the unicorn-headed ring of the alarphons. Tall, shapely, and possessed of a tumbling fall of glossy black hair and eyes that were both large and dark, she had devastated many with her frowns-and many more with her crooked, catlike smiles. She was frowning now, but Laspeera Naerinth was unimpressed.
“No,” the alarphon answered, “I know nothing at all of where Melandar, Orzil, Voril, and Ghoruld Applethorn are, or what they’re up to.”
“Really?” Laspeera’s tone of voice and raised eyebrow made her disbelief clear.
Yassandra’s frown deepened, and she deliberately slid off her unicorn ring before replying, “Really.” Receiving only Laspeera’s reluctant nod by way of reply, she asked, “Why? What’s this all about?”
“All four men are missing,” Laspeera told her, “and now you know as much as I do. You have your battlebook with you? And spells at the ready?”
Yassandra’s frown abated not a whit. “Yes, and yes.”
“Good. Come.” Laspeera strode right at the solid wall beside her, and vanished through it without disturbing it in the slightest.
The alarphon followed unhesitatingly, and found herself in a spell chamber she’d visited only once before-a dark, bare, dirty chamber with a lofty ceiling lost in cobwebs, several thick candles burning, each on its own head- high wooden stand, a large circle chalked on the flagstone floor, and more than a dozen war wizards standing and shuffling tensely from boot to boot. Yassandra knew all of them: Brors, Taeroch, and old Larlammitur well; Alsketh from Marsember and Cordorve of High Horn slightly, from working with them twice or thrice; and the rest merely as veteran war wizards, faces and names no alarphon had yet seen need to know better.
“I’ve chosen you all for a little task that is very likely to involve both danger and spell-battle, I’m afraid,” Laspeera said, without greeting or delay. “Please enter the circle.”
Everyone stepped inside the chalk, Laspeera included, and three more war wizards promptly appeared, stepping through another stretch of apparently solid wall. This elderly, white-whiskered trio received Laspeera’s nod, nodded back to her expressionlessly, and began casting a mass teleport in perfect unison.
The spell was crafted without incident, everyone in the circle vanished, and the oldest war wizard gave a satisfied grunt, turned on his heel, and trudged back through the illusory wall he’d come in by.
The other two lingered. They were both very familiar with the kept-empty-for-this-very-purpose room, in the southwesternmost of the two gate-keeps of Halfhap, that they’d just sent all their colleagues to, but the youngest of the three elderly war wizards was very curious as to why Halfhap, just now. “What’s the grave emergency threatening the very survival of the realm this time?”
The other war wizard shrugged. “Laspeera’s getting like Vangey. ‘You’ve no need to know, so I’m not telling you.’ Something about exalted rank always takes their wits that way.”
“Hmm, yes,” the younger one agreed. “Yet, somehow… I’ve a grave feeling about this.”
“And so you should,” his fellow war wizard replied approvingly.
And blasted him to ashes before turning away.
Standing in the common room of the Oldcoats Inn, at the head of the cellar stairs, the Knights of Myth Drannor traded glances with each other.
“Ready?” Florin asked quietly, and started collecting nods. They were all rested, fed, watered, armed, and in armor. Everyone nodded.
“Right,” he said, and he started to head down into the cellars. Pennae sprang past him, turned on the stairs to give him a reproving look, and then led the way, lit lantern in hand.
The innkeeper watched them go. When they’d all descended and were clear of the cellar steps, Ondal Maelrin made a hand-signal to a maid upstairs, who darted to the door of a guestroom next to the one rented to the lady Knights, opened it, and repeated that signal.
At the open window of that room, a serving-jack nodded, waited for her to close the door again, and then leaned out the window and blew a hunting-horn.
A serving-jack walked softly across the common room to join Maelrin in peering down the cellar stairs. “Well?”
“Well, it’s worked thus far,” the innkeeper murmured, “and we herded them down into the cellars like starving men eager to swarm a feast. We’ll just have to see how long we can keep them believing in their horses gone, Purple Dragons surrounding the place, and all this Dragonfire nonsense.”
“Your acting was peerless,” said the serving-jack. “And they were trusting enough to not even try to go and check on their horses. They mustn’t have been adventurers for long.”
“Nor will they for much longer,” Ondal Maelrin said with a soft smile. “Gullible fools.”
“That’s more or less what Lord Yellander called them. Lord Eldroon just laughed.”
“It will be as well for us,” the innkeeper muttered, “if he goes on laughing.”
Folk all across Halfhap lifted their heads and frowned as a hornblast that was quite different from the war-
