side, and stark naked. “Behold the Dragonfire swords, lost for so many years!”
Amarauna smiled. “Or rather, your counterfeits, crafted this last tenday.”
“Indeed.” Terentane dusted his hands briskly. “So. The gods themselves granted that I was in Halfhap. Two dead war wizards I managed to get out of the ruin of that inn with my spells: Yassandra Durstable-that’s you-and Brors Tamleth-that’ll be me. They’re in that family vault you use for smuggling right now, where they should be just fine unless some misfortune strikes that house and they decide to trundle the dear departed all the way over the mountains to the vault-before the revel’s over.”
“Hardly likely,” Amarauna granted. “Yet something we should remember. Sembians with that much coin have their family vaults spell-shielded, but it is in Cormyr-and war wizards, like brigands, poke their long noses into everything.” She grinned, then, and added, “Hmm. Like some young prodigies-at-Art I could name.”
Terentane rolled his eyes. “So let them poke. They can hardly do so in time. My spells will make us look like Durstable and Tamleth, and we rush to the Palace to triumphantly show them to Vangey. We only now won free of the Oldcoats wreckage, but look what we have!”
“And our act should get us through the war wizards on guard duty?”
“Yes, because all the important and powerful ones will be in the hall that’s hosting the revel; by the time we get to them, we’ll be close enough that I can let the swords ‘go wild.’ I’ll drop our disguises when we’re out of sight somewhere, and start killing war wizards-just striking at anyone who launches a spell. I can do that by feel, sitting in some back room far from all the screaming and Purple Dragons running around shouting and waving their swords at nothing, trying to protect the royal family. I only want to kill war wizards-Vangerdahast, of course, and as many more as possible-and should soon be able to win a position in the war wizards, what with scores of them dead and because I’ll then stand forth dramatically and hurl a spell before all the gawping Court that will dramatically destroy these deadly blades, saving the realm for everyone to see!”
Amarauna Telfalcon reached out her arms. “Whereupon you’ll help me make Marsember slowly and softly more and more independent, and Cormyr’s rule there weaker and weaker, as the years pass?”
Terentane strode over into her arms and kissed her with a fierce, impatient tenderness. “Of course,” he said. “You have my word on it!”
Bravran Merendil snarled and waved his hand again, “Phaugh! That wizard’s well gone, but his stink remains! Why do Calish-”
“Bravran, that will do! His scent may not be all he left behind.”
“Yes, but-”
“Not a word!”
“But-”
“Not a word, Bravran!”
Lady Imbressa Merendil had indeed seen fivescore summers, but magical potions had held back much of the ravages of age. She looked like many a wealthy matron of sixty summers, painted here and there to cover the worst of the wrinkles that could no longer be held entirely at bay. Her eyes flashed dark fire, her wide mouth looked always eager to laugh, and even an observer seeing her but fleetingly and for the first time knew at a glance she was no fool. She cast a strong shielding spell with the same swift expertise that had so impressed the departed Calishite in working the magefire blood-bond. Elegantly frail she might be, but her Art was as strong as many a veteran war wizard’s.
Her fretting son tried to speak again when the shielding was done and singing in the air around them, but she put a sternly reproving finger to her lips and worked another spell, this one a scrying-ward that rose within the shielding to wall out the world in steel gray mists.
“ Now you can speak freely, my son. In the brief time left to you before you must cease to be Ostagus Haerrendar for a time, become Dorn Talask, and get yourself to the revel.”
Dorn Talask was a Palace courtier whom Bravran Merendil happened to closely resemble. He would, if Lady Merendil’s agents failed her not, very soon be taken and slain.
Bravran nodded impatiently, and then burst out, “Mother, what if Blacksilver stabs Azoun but doesn’t manage to kill him? The king’s known to be a great warrior!”
“A mere scratch will do. The dagger blade is poisoned.”
Her son did not look reassured. “But Azoun is protected against so many venoms, by spell and antidote and deliberate dosing exposures!”
Lady Merendil smiled. “Not this one. It’s a Chultan distillate my best poisoner devised for me before he died.” Her voice turned wistful. “Ah, Laerakkan.”
Bravran Merendil waved away those last words he didn’t want to hear, an expression of distaste on his face, and snapped, “What? But you didn’t tell me this!”
“Of course not. The Calishite would have read it in your mind. He was reading you like a bright unrolled scroll, all the time he was here. It was all I could do to deflect his probes away from what you know about me-see the sweat on my brow? We can’t let him know about the poison.”
“Why not?”
“For two reasons. First, he’ll want it enough to slay us both and take it, rather than taking part in our risky venture at all. He needs no revenge on the Obarskyrs, remember. To him, all of this seems ill-planned madness.”
“And the second reason?”
“The very same poison is going to be on your blade, and you are going to stab him with it. Calishites are blackmailing serpents, given a chance, and I’m not about to give this one anything.”
Chapter 20
In any land crammed with coin-hungry merchants
Wizards, and young fools seeking more power
Or social glory, there will be many
Only too eager to do Grand Things
To get noticed. And from Grand Things,
Every season, there springs with utter inevitability
The Grandest Disaster of the Season.
There came a sudden rumbling in the dimness. The rushing Knights slowed, peering this way and that-just as a wall of old, black, and massive iron came crashing down out of the ceiling right in front of Florin’s nose.
Which meant that “Pennae?” he bellowed. “ Pennae? ”
“I’m still alive,” the ranger heard her cry faintly, from the other side of the great barrier.
Florin slammed his fist against the wall. It was solid, all right.
“Lady in your Forest!” Florin implored. “Deliver me from this damned Palace with its damned neverending gods-be-DAMNED passages!”
As if in reply, there came another rumbling boom, this one laced with Islif crying out in sharp warning and Jhessail letting out a little shriek-as another wall slammed down behind him.
Leaving Florin standing alone in utter darkness, with no company but a sudden heavy grating of stone beside him, the cool, gentle caress of moving air, and a rough, very deep voice saying, “In the name of the king, intruder, lay down your arms and surrender. Or, of course, die.”
As he fought his way out of the crowds and past hard-eyed Purple Dragons to hasten through the servants’
