wrong passages in the darkness, and were diced and eaten raw under the Royal Palace in Suzail.
“I was told tales of you as a lad,” he said slowly, staring up at the hulking mountain of flesh, “but I never believed them.”
The Doorwarden grunted wearily as if he’d heard such words a thousand times before, and trudged ponderously forward. Florin moved hastily aside to avoid being trapped in a corner.
One great arm swung, and the ranger flung himself into a roll on the floor to get under those three horns. They sang slashing past overhead. He was barely up again before that axe crashed down, striking sparks on stone just behind his heels.
“You still are a lad,” that deep voice rumbled. “Believe in me now?”
Florin ducked and dodged again. This time those three blades passed so close he could feel them and hear the whistle of air along their blades.
“Yes,” he whispered, “but I don’t want to.” He ran to get behind the guardian and lashed out at one huge elbow with his own sword. If he could get to where he could hamstring No. The backs of the Doorwarden’s knees were protected with overlapping, flared arcs of armor. No wonder the man moved ponderously.
Florin flung himself to the floor again to avoid weapons slicing down at him from two directions-both of those massive arms, coming down from full stretch to converge-and then saw his only chance.
The Doorwarden knew this room well, and had never given him safe room to get past, and out the way the guardian had come in by. So Florin would have to take an unsafe way. He came to his feet running, as if to circle along the walls again, but as the Doorwarden turned and sidestepped to prevent him racing past, Florin changed direction and ran right at the man, hurling himself forward sword-first like a great dart-between those armored legs.
And then up and on, panting in frantic haste, ribs aching from the sideways kick the Doorwarden had managed to land while trying to close that gap. Florin darted through where he knew the opening was, sword up, fleeing blindly into the darkness.
“Fool,” a cold voice said out of the darkness right in front of him, as an unseen blade rang out of a scabbard.
The staff’s blast shattered a few of the blades, shards spinning away amid showering sparks. It flung the others aside, but slowed them not a whit. They swerved to converge once more upon the Royal Magician of Cormyr, who hurled down the staff to cast a swift and desperate magic.
Those racing points almost reached Vangerdahast, three of them looming up right before his eyes, before his spell erupted out from him in all directions, a blast of ravening force that shook him as it sprang from his skin, his mouth, and his very eyeballs, a horrible roaring that-ended as swiftly as it had begun, the Dragondown Chambers falling into a deathly silence broken only by the brief tinklings of broken swordblades finding the floor.
Vangerdahast gazed bleakly all around, turning slowly to view the devastation. He was alive and unscathed, but of the dozens of war wizards who’d been so busily rushing around, nothing was left but bloody smears on the walls and pools of gore on the floor. Whoever his blast hadn’t butchered had been felled by whirling, ricocheting blade-shards.
That was the problem with that spell; to rend enchanted weapons, it must needs destroy wards and shieldings. In saving himself, he’d doomed every other war wizard in the Chambers.
Not for the first time.
Vangerdahast felt sick. “Forgive me, Mystra,” he whispered, watching his ruined staff smouldering at his feet.
An excited voice suddenly blatted at him from the empty air in front of his nose. “Lord Vangerdahast! The guests are pouring into the Palace now, and among them we’ve-Jarlandan, Garen, Costarr, and me, that is- recognized the Calishite mage-for-hire Talan Yarl among the folk pouring into the Palace. He’s disguised as the Turmish envoy who was expected, and so may well have done something to that man. What should we do?”
Durward, of course. The fool couldn’t handle an open-yon-door assignment without asking for assistance.
“Royal Magician? Do you hear? This is Durward, and I ask again: what should we do?”
Vangerdahast threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’m coming! ” he snapped. Looking grimly around at the red slaughter once more, he growled, “No time to try to save any of them. No time! ” Then he marched out, face gray and old.
“I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered, striding hard along passages where Purple Dragons saluted hastily. He swept past, ignoring them.
“Florin!” Islif yelled. “Pennae?”
Her voice echoed back to her off unyielding black iron in front of her nose, and down the long, dark passage behind. If anyone answered, none of the Knights heard it.
After the silence had started to stretch, they all looked at each other and shrugged.
“Right,” Semoor said, “ now what?”
“We decide what to do,” Jhessail told him, “and do it.”
“Well, that’s simple enough,” Doust agreed sarcastically. “Glad you came along, Jhess. Without you, we’d have been lost!”
“We are lost, holynoses,” Islif snapped. “Try to think of useful things to say, while we-as Jhessail said-try to decide what to do.”
Doust shook his head. “All we really know is that Pennae told us there’s a war wizard conspiracy to slay Vangerdahast and the king and queen, and that we have to get to the Dragondown Chambers as quickly as we can. She didn’t even tell us why, though I’m guessing it was to find and tell Vangey. Only guess, mind. And now our way there is blocked, we’re lost under the Palace-and we’ve lost Florin and Pennae.” He looked up, spreading exasperated hands. “Have I missed anything?”
“Plenty,” Semoor told him, “but your aim is getting better.”
“Belt up!” Jhessail snapped. “Just… be still! You’re not funny, you’re not helping, and-and I’m trying to think. ”
“Yes, of course,” Semoor murmured. “I can see how hard that must be for you.”
Islif cuffed the Anointed Light of Lathander across the back of the head even before Jhessail snarled and kicked him in the shins. Semoor hastily withdrew into a protective ball, holding forth his holy symbol in front of him-and beside him, Doust threw up his hands in an “I’m innocent, pray strike me not!” gesture.
The two lady Knights disgustedly turned their backs on the priests, put their heads together, and after a few swift murmurings Islif turned and said briskly, “Right, we’ve decided. Doust, you’ll lead, with the glowstone out. I’ll be just behind you, sword at the ready, then Jhessail, then Semoor. Your job, Semoor, is to look behind us-all the time, mind, not once or twice and then forget about it. We’ll turn back from this barrier to the first cross-passage, take it, and at our first chance we turn back in the direction we were heading in this passage. Once we think we’ve gone far enough to outflank this barrier, we try to head back this way until we find the other side of this barrier, and search for Florin or Pennae.”
“Still with you,” Semoor murmured, his voice quiet and serious.
“Good. Now, if we don’t find them soon, we turn instead to seeking a way up, into the rooms of state, and try to find a high-ranking Purple Dragon who might believe us about the conspiracy. We can trust no war wizard except Vangey. Any questions? No? Right, let’s move!”
With Doust walking in the forefront with the glowstone, they turned their backs on the iron barrier, retraced their steps down the passage to the first cross-passage, finding it closer than they remembered, and turned along it.
Almost immediately, they saw a radiance in the distance, growing to sudden splendor as it rounded a corner and came out into the passage, then bobbing as it came rapidly toward them.
“Hide your glow,” Islif murmured in Doust’s ear, and then turned and hissed, “Over to the side, everyone, and right in behind me.”
The light came closer-a glowstone held by someone in a hurry. Hastening toward them came a frightened courtier, in a grand barrel-fronted jacket that looked a little torn and dusty. He saw them and hesitated in his anxious trot, stiffening for a moment, but then looked away and started to rush past.
Which was when Islif stepped away from the wall and took his arm, just above the elbow, in a grip of iron.
