going down.
For a moment he hesitated, thinking he should turn back, but there was light ahead, down there, and that probably meant a better chance of finding stairs and servants-and a way to reach Vangerdahast. As well as returning him to the same level of cellars where he’d been separated from Pennae and the others.
So he hurried down the steps. The light proved to come from oil lamps burning in a servants’ room that looked recently vacated-by many folk, no doubt bearing things the room had held up to rooms of state somewhere overhead-but not far beyond it Florin found other things.
First he came upon many bootprints, stark on the stone floor. Prints that had been made with fresh blood, and trailed back to a large pool of gore. Right beside it was…
Florin rushed forward and plucked it up, hoping he was wrong.
He wasn’t. He held Pennae’s leather jack-yes, there was the hooked slice in it that some foe’s dagger had made, long ago. This was hers-and it was soaked with blood.
Blood that still dripped from it in streams. No woman could lose that much blood and yet live.
“Oh, no,” Florin sobbed, there on his knees staring at what he was holding up-and watching Pennae’s blood drip to the floor. “No.”
“Pennae,” he whispered, as tears flooded up to choke and overwhelm him. “Pennae!”
He was dimly aware of shaking his head as he bowed it, trying to deny all of this. “Pennae… Narantha…”
He’d been holding black misery at bay for so long, and now was suddenly swallowed up, in the midst of it. Falling, falling with no hand to steady him, to comfort. “Martess… even Agannor and Bey, damn them!” The faces of the dead were swimming up to loom over him-laughing obliviously at least, not staring at him accusingly. He couldn’t have borne it if they’d been doing that.
It wasn’t glory and laughter and parading grandly across the lands, being bowed to by farmers and Purple Dragons alike. It wasn’t gold coins in heaps in one’s hands, or high titles. He’d known that, back in Espar, known that death lurked impatiently always, waiting…
Yet there was knowing and… knowing. By the gods, he hadn’t even the words to grieve properly!
“Mielikki,” he cried. “Lady, aid me!” For if ever I’ve needed my goddess, I need her now…”
He seemed to smell wet forest moss, then, and hear the rustle of leaves in a green, growing forest, see dark trunks and a glow of power behind them, a glow he was rushing toward… just around this tree… just…
Then he was around the tree, and the light was full and gloriously bright before him, and he stared at Islif, with her arm around Jhessail’s shoulders. Doust smiling at him in greeting, and Semoor giving him that familiar wry, sly grin too. His fellow Knights of Myth Drannor.
His Knights. Still alive, still his family, still needing him.
Always and ever worth fighting for.
Just like Cormyr.
Both needed his sword, and the little he could do to aid and save them. The fallen were the fallen, but the living…
“Are still mine,” he managed to croak. “My problem, my burden.”
He sprang to his feet, then bent down again to pluck up Pennae’s bloody jack from where it had fallen from his hands.
Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, he threw back his head and whispered, “ Thank you, my lady.”
He shifted the dripping garment into the hand that held the glowstone, hefted his sword, and went on.
“Lady of the Forest,” he murmured as he walked, “aid me ever.”
Once there was a kingdom, and it needed saving…
The moment of chill blue sparks faded and fell from them, leaving Terentane and Telfalcon standing together blinking at the familiar decay of the boathouse around them.
Amarauna drew in a deep breath. “Well. Safe back in Marsember, at least.”
“There’ll be another day, and another way,” Terentane told her. “Patience will keep both our heads on their shoulders.”
Then he turned, grabbed at her clothing, and started to tug it off.
“What’re you-?” she asked, laughing. “ Now? ”
“Well,” he replied calmly, his fingers busy on her laces, “we could both be dead tomorrow.”
“Hreldur, you’re so full of naed ’tis coming out of your mouth now, not just your ears!”
“No, I’m not lying, Drel! I swear! ”
“I swear, too, and my teeth gleam when I do! Now just away with it! There’re sneak-thieves and cutpurses by the hundreds all over the Palace right now, and half a hundred women I’d like to get a better look or three at, too, and most of ’em are wearing things that’ll let me get those looks I want, and more.” Drellusk waved an exasperated hand. “So my head’s full of all this, and you are spewing wild and wilder tales of some stlarning nude sorceress and expecting me to believe- ”
“Ho, Drellusk! Ho, Hreldur!”
“Ho, Lhaerak!” the two Purple Dragon telswords replied in chorus. Lhaerak was their lionar, and had come out of a side passage striding along even faster than they were. They started half-trotting to keep up.
“So, what’s all this I’m hearing about this sorceress?” he growled.
Drellusk waved a dismissive hand. “Just another of Hrel’s fancy-tales, mi-”
“Well if it is, Hrel’s managed to get himself clear out to the front gates of the Royal Court to tell the lads there all about it. Which is passing odd, because as I recall, the two of you were just now stationed at either end of the north Palace guardstands, yes?”
“Yes,” Hreldur replied. “See, Drel?”
Drellusk nodded. “I yield me, and offer sorrows.”
“Taken,” his friend replied with dignity, and then turned his head excitedly and told the lionar, “A nude sorceress, they’re saying! All alone, but her spells animate a dozen swords to fight for her! She’s butchered dozens of war wizards and a few of us soldier-lads, too, and is still on the loose in the cellars!”
His words had brought the hastened trio of Purple Dragons to the room they’d been seeking in such haste: Hawkinshield Hall. One of the older, shabbier rooms of state at the north end of the Palace, it was where Vangerdahast was now trying to rally the war wizards he had left, and re-establish some security, with thousands of guests already flooding into the Palace.
Hreldur fell abruptly silent as he became aware his words fell loudly into a tense silence, and men were glaring at him.
Many men, all of them war wizards and high-ranking Dragons, and all of them clustered in a great ring around the Royal Magician of Cormyr.
Who now turned his head to give them a severe look and confirmed, “There’re reports-as you’ve just heard from Telsword Hreldur Imglurward, here-of an unclad sorceress running around the Palace cellars. If you should happen to see this almost-certainly fanciful lass, take her alive and bring her to me. There’ll be a reward.”
He waited for the predictable chuckles to arise from the male war wizards in the room, and didn’t bother looking to see how the handful of females reacted. Paying overmuch heed to the feelings of others was a luxury neither the Court Wizard of Cormyr nor the Royal Magician of the Realm had much time for-and being both, Vangerdahast had even less.
“One thing more,” the wizard growled. “The revel also seems to have attracted thieves, hired slayers, and adventurers here to the Palace this night. If you should happen to meet with anyone desiring urgently to reach the king, the queen, or even me, treat them with great suspicion. Even weapons-out hostility would not be seen amiss. Better far to safeguard the living, than guard corpses at a royal funeral, hmm?”
Chapter 23
