with a ringing clang that numbed his arm right up to the shoulder, but moved the halberd not a whit, that he could see. “A little obedience is all I expect!”
He swung again as he spat, “And is that too much to expect, in the Cormyr of here and now?”
Another ringing clang and another, the halberds moving smoothly to catch and deflect his strongest blows.
Panting, the noble used his favorite trick: thrusting at one expressionless face and then swooping his blade down viciously at the flaring top edge of that guard’s codpiece-only to have the other guard do something blurringly fast with his own sword, that sent Crownsilver’s halberd back over his head to clang off the passage ceiling and clatter somewhere behind him.
Lord Crownsilver stared at the two guards in speechless disbelief. He’d been disarmed with casual ease, and lo, they were back in their statuelike poses again as if he weren’t there at all!
He whirled away, seething, and spat out the worst insults he could think of, one after another, as he clawed at the floor with numbed fingers for his blade.
Recovering it, he spun around in case one of the guards was considering his backside a suitable target for a kick, snarling, “And your stone-faced insolence betrays a lawlessness that bodes the realm ill, in its brazen disregard for rightful rank! You may think yourselves clever, you lowborn pizzle-heads, but no statue of a sentinel is revered by pigeons, and I’ve half a mind to down my breeches and serve the both of you the same-”
Which was when he noticed that the study door behind the two impassive guards had quietly opened, and the King of All Cormyr was standing in the doorway not quite succeeding in keeping a smile off his face, as he silently beckoned his visitor in.
And Maniol Crownsilver suddenly ran out of words to say.
“Fool! You bear the wasting curse that now afflicts all of you Knights of Myth Drannor! You shall all soon be as I am, if you tarry west of the Thunder Peaks! Doom reaches for you, Semoor Wolftooth! Doom!” intoned the mage, ending his spell with a flourish that made the unicorn-headed ring on his fingers flash in the lamplight.
In his mind, he watched the skeletal wench melt to nothing in the distant-and astonished-Semoor Wolftooth’s arms. The Knight’s fearful flight, an instant later, made him chuckle.
“Alluring flesh to bones to terrifying nothing! A night or two more of this,” the War Wizard Ghoruld Applethorn told himself gleefully, “and they’ll bolt for the swiftest road out of the realm no matter what Vangey threatens them with! Hah!”
He strode to the door, and began making the complicated passes and murmurings that would part ward after ward-the same wards that kept Vangerdahast himself from spying on what Applethorn or anyone else did in this secret chamber.
Only Vangerdahast was supposed to know of this room-but the Royal Magician was so busy, and had so many secret chambers all over the realm, and so many distractions to keep him from noticing from when someone who knew how slipped into one and used it for a breath or two.
“Yes,” Applethorn gloated. “Let them off to the Dales to dance at the Blackstaff’s bidding among the hayheads and hairy lasses, out of my way but handy if I need them to wear blame.” He chuckled. “Hah! Talking to myself again! Ah, well, as long as I don’t fall to arguing with myself. Or worse yet, losing those arguments!”
He snorted mirthfully at that thought, parted the last ward, opened the now-unlocked door, and hurried off. Vangey so hated to be kept waiting.
Mortification had left Maniol dumbstruck, but his still-flaming rage and the king’s kindly manner gave him a boldness that would have surprised him if he hadn’t been so angry.
“Azoun-Majesty-don’t make me plead!” he snarled. “I must have the throats of these villainous Knights of Myth Drannor! Here, in these hands, I must have them!”
He shook his hands, like two upturned claws, under the nose of the seated king. “My wife they’ve taken from me, and now my daughter!” Then he whirled away, pacing down the room to cry, “I demand justice! Give them to me, for me to butcher fittingly while all the realm watches. All will see what it means to dare to slay a Crownsilver!”
“No, Maniol,” the king said, and his voice was stern. “They did not take your wife from you. Nor your daughter. Foul magic did that; foul magic your wife nurtured and was part of! She forged the doom that slew her, and it infected your daughter. More than that, it infected the some of Knights, and those who have not followed your Narantha into the arms of the gods may well soon!”
Crownsilver stared at him, mouth working, a dreadful hope openly warring with grief and disappointment on his face.
“Demand not justice too loudly,” Azoun told him, trying not to let any trace of the disgust he felt at Crownsilver’s reaction show in his face or voice. “For when you loose it, who knows whom it’ll strike down?”
The noble took a few unsteady steps nearer, whimpering.
“Fear not,” Azoun said. “The Wizards of War are at work on the Knights right now. Any who may yet live when our mages are done with them will no longer be welcome in Cormyr.”
Lord Crownsilver stared at his king with widening eyes-and then burst into sudden tears, staggering forward almost blindly. Azoun rose from the chair swiftly enough to embrace and comfort him, crouching to enfold the shorter man to his chest.
Maniol Crownsilver buried his nose in a royal armpit and cried like a baby.
Chapter 2
I daresay there’s not an adventurer alive
West of the Plains of Purple Dust
And north of the hot southern seas
Who hasn’t had to make a hasty departure or two.
Those who tell you differently are lying
Or undead, and talking from beyond the grave
Because they left off leaving until it was too late.
When’s that? Well, when her father thrusts her
Bedchamber door open, and bare and hasty as you are,
You discover you can’t fit through the window.
'Knights,” the old steward Orthund said gravely, “pray enter, and fall on your knees before Her Most Gracious Highness, Filfaeril Obarskyr, Queen of Cormyr!”
He stood aside from the door he’d just opened, revealing a familiar regal figure standing in flowing robes in the center of the room beyond.
Florin felt as weak and pale as he looked. He lurched through the doorway a little unsteadily. Islif moved like lightning to take his arm and lower him gracefully to his knees, descending with him.
Behind them, Jhessail and Pennae entered and knelt too, leaving Doust and Semoor to bring up the rear and going down on one knee only, as all priests did.
“Rise,” Queen Filfaeril said, “and take your ease. Orthund, leave us and pull the doors to. We are not to be disturbed by any less a personage than the king himself.”
Obediently, the Knights rose. The steward deftly drew the doors together behind them. The room, somewhere deep in the royal apartments, was richly paneled and carpeted, but sparsely furnished: it held only a chair and two polished, magnificently carved doors, both closed. The Dragon Queen occupied the chair, flanked by
