wordlessly pointed with the glowstone. They were standing at the junction of six dark, apparently identical passages.
“So, which way?” Florin asked.
Pennae frowned, raised her hands to indicate two adjacent passages that angled off slightly to her right, seeming to diverge only a little from each other, then shrugged and dropped one hand, to leave the other pointing. “That one. The Chambers must be a fair distance on, yet.”
“Huh,” Semoor said, as they started to trot again, on into the darkness. “Just like the treasure that was supposed to start showering down on our heads, never to stop, when we gained our charter.”
“You,” Islif told him, “can be replaced.”
“ Oh, no,” he replied, holding up both hands in mock dudgeon. “I don’t think so. An Anointed of Lathander willing to rush around the realm taking down Purple Dragons, fighting your many-gods-bedamned robed and belted wizards of your fabled Black Brotherhood of Zhentil sarking Keep, while inns tumble down around his ears and lady war wizards lecture them on ethics, to say nothing of being told what to do by their armed companions, many of whom seem like reckless dolts-I’m trying to be polite, here-would seem to me to be a rare breed. A very rare breed.”
“Behold, Watching Gods, our Wolftooth speaks truth,” Jhessail observed with a wry smile. “For once.”
“Just how blazing big is this Palace?” Doust asked, puffing along. “Or do its cellars and underways underlie a good bit of Suzail?”
“They do,” Pennae and Islif answered together-ere each giving the other a frown and asking in unison, “and just how is it that you know that?”
Semoor rolled his eyes. “Crazed-wits, all of them. And I’m trapped down here with them.”
“Florin,” Islif inquired, “would it be a breach of our agreement if I drove the toe of my boot forcefully into a certain Wolftooth backside?”
“Just one boot?” Florin replied. “No.”
Then he chuckled. A few running strides later, he chuckled again. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Almost immediately, Islif and Doust joined in.
And so it was that the Knights of Myth Drannor were laughing like madfolk as they came rushing out of the darkness at the next astonished Purple Dragons they were fated to meet, four full-armored soldiers standing deep in boredom around a painted Purple Dragon on the passage wall.
A guardpost. This one, thankfully, had no gong.
The younger Zhentarim was breathing hard as he came through the door.
“I got them all back here- just in time. There’re more Purple Dragons riding hard to Halfhap right now than I thought Cormyr could muster!”
“Local Dragon commanders shrieking about Lord Manshoon and the Blackstaff and Elminster blowing up an inn in town will do that,” the older Zhentarim said, rising from a desk littered with librams, grimoires and scrolls.
“Huh. Morelike old Vangerdahast got the scare of his life, ran home with his tail between his legs, and shrieked hard in his king’s ear. And Azoun was so awestruck at his oh-so-haughty Royal Magician babbling in fear that he called out all his armies!”
“Perhaps so, indeed. So we’re well out of it, and can thank Lord Manshoon for the continued good health of our necks.”
“You mean he got the same scare?”
“Careful, Mauliykhus, careful. One never knows what words he might hear, or how he might take them. ’Tis best not to speculate as to his thinking; he frowns on those who do. Deeply. All I know is, from now on, we’re to stay out.”
“Just that? ‘Stay out’? Aumrune, where did you hear those words?”
“Orders. From the top. I hear the Lord Manshoon doesn’t want any of us near when the envoy from Silverymoon is welcomed at Court with all the pomp and glitter Suzail can mount. It seems some of the sorceresses she travels with like to hunt we of the Brotherhood-and they have something that links them all together, and makes them far more deadly than a mere handful of nosy women with a taste for the Art, each working alone. If they sniff us, Manshoon said, Harpers will just flood into Cormyr and trammel us for years, hacking at our backsides whenever we turn around.”
Mauliykhus blinked. “Ah. Well. Put that way…”
“Exactly.” Aumrune reached for a decanter, pointed at two goblets in a silent command to Mauliykhus to fetch them, and sat down at his desk again, sweeping glowing written magic aside with a careless wave of one arm.
Turning a ring on his finger that awakened a singing in the air-a singing Mauliykhus had long suspected shielded against scrying-the older Zhentarim added in a lower, softer voice, “None of which forbids us to discuss points of interest in this matter that obviously had nothing at all to do with Lord Manshoon’s decision. Like the disappearance of one of his most trusted mages, Sarhthor. And a few treasonous nobles whose trade routes and dealings-when they’re soon jailed or beheaded-we may be able to make a little private use of. Oh, and talk of something called a hargaunt. And the wraithlike things seen plunging into and probably possessing too many loyal Zhentarim, to make them turn on fellows in the Brotherhood. Or the possibility that the Dragonfire magic, lo these many years passing, just might be more than mere illusion and minstrels’ fancies, after all.”
Mauliykhus smiled as he set the goblets down, and took a seat across from his superior in the Brotherhood. “Ah. Good. I’ve been struggling not to ask over-many questions about all those things, but they’ve been burning inside my head these last few days.”
“I’ve noticed,” Aumrune commented, his voice drier than Mauliykhus had ever heard it before. He poured until the goblets were full to the brim.
“Just make very sure that talking and watching is all you do, until we receive orders otherwise. For now, we stand back and let nobles doom themselves with their little treasons, and Ornrion Dahauntul snarl and roar like a boar in rut, and these Knights of Myth Drannor stumble around like the naive fools they are. If Bane smiles on us all, their blunders will reveal more to us of the true nature of those wraiths and what the Dragonfire magic really is, before…”
“Before we need to pounce on these Knights of Myth Drannor?”
“No. Before it’s too late.”
“ Peace, loyal Purple Dragons!” Florin cried, waving his open and empty hand. “We serve the king and queen, and bear their charter! We have no quarrel with you, but must in haste find the Dragondown Chambers!”
He broke off with a sigh. Faces hardening, the soldiers had already spread out, drawing their swords-and revealing a door behind them, out of which another four Dragons were hurrying, swords and maces in their hands.
“Peace? Parley?” Islif snapped.
“Surrender!” the oldest Dragon ordered, gesturing sharply at the passage floor with his drawn sword. “Down on your bellies, and toss your weapons aside!”
“ That’s the fastest way to the Dragondown Chambers?” Pennae asked impishly.
“Hoy, now!” one of the Dragons said in pleased surprise. “Some of ’em are women! ”
“Fancy that!” Jhessail said sarcastically, looking down at herself. “All these years I’d not noticed, until now.”
“Awake at last, Dragon?” Islif asked that Purple Dragon archly, smashing aside his sword with her own and twisting her blade to send his clanging and skirling from his hand.
The Dragon beside him thrust his blade at her throat, shouting, “ Surrend- ”
That was as far as he got ere Islif ducked past his sword point, and her free arm caught hold of his sword arm and tugged sharply. Her other hand, still gripping the hilt of her sword, crashed hard into his chin as he fell helplessly forward. He sighed, rolled his eyes up into his head, and crashed to the floor like a full, wet sack of grain.
Beside her, Pennae danced across in front of three of the Dragons, blowing them a kiss-and then flung herself at their ankles, rolling hard and sending them toppling forward over her. As they landed, amid startled curses, Doust leaned forward and carefully rapped each one on the back of the helm with his mace, counting like a child at play in the street, “ One Dragon. Two Dragon. Three Dragon!”
