flapping in her hand, Pennae plunged out into the passage, running hard.
Florin ducked low and sprinted along the step, leaning to snatch up the glowstone and Pennae’s jack.
The crossbow cracked, its quarrel shattering the glowstone into brightly cartwheeling shards, and Florin, staggering back a step with his fingers bleeding, heard the lionar curse and snap at the last Dragon, “Don’t stand gawping! Get the other bow!”
Florin turned and dashed down the steps, as fast as he could. Behind him he heard an alarm gong sound, the lionar curse again, and then the high-pitched whizzing creaks of a windlass being used with frantic speed to recock the fired crossbow.
Florin hurled himself for the same corner he’d so enthusiastically rounded, and was in the air when the second bow fired.
Its quarrel hummed past so close that the tip of his right ear caught sudden fire.
Wincing, Florin ran on, clapping Pennae’s jack to his ear and deciding it was his turn to curse.
Pennae pelted down the passage, buckling Yassandra’s belt around her as she ran. The Dragons were shouting and pounding along after her; not quite on her heels yet, but closing fast. It’d be only a matter of time before she raced right into another guardpost, or ran out of passage.
She passed many dark, closed doors, and the crowd-din grew. She needed a door with that noise just the other side of it…
This one!
Gasping for breath, Pennae yanked down the front of her gown, letting it fall to hang around her waist, snatched open the door, and plunged into the brightly lit hubbub beyond.
The high tower room lacked windows to look out over the roofs and towers of Zhentil Keep, but hardly needed them. The glossy surface of the round table that dominated the dimly lit chamber had been worked into a great map of the lands from Tunland to the Vast, and the Moonsea to Turmish, inlaid in polished stones of many hues.
Behind that table stood a great chair, tall and dark and ornately carved. In it reclined Lord Manshoon, smiling slightly.
The Shadowsil sat beside him, in a lesser chair, arms crossed over her breast, wearing her little “I’ll rend you” smile.
Sarhthor stood facing them, naked. His body was covered with dried blood and crisscrossed with great wounds. Some of his fingers, along most of his hair, were missing. His flesh had sprouted many clusters of little tentacles, but they hung lifelessly, looking very dead.
“You are very tardy in reporting back,” Manshoon observed quietly, those great dark eyes steady upon Sarhthor, “and present a rather different appearance from your usual. So, tell me: What happened at the Oldcoats Inn?”
“Zhentarim fighting Zhentarim,” Sarhthor replied calmly. “Not the usual betrayals, Lord. Something took hold of their minds and made puppets of them, burning the brains of some to ash, and working tyranny on all, forcing them to hurl spells at each other and at our Zhentilar. Eirhaun Sooundaeril was among them, Lord, and as affected as the rest. I saw no way to protect the Brotherhood but to cast them forth from Faerun, using the mightiest spell I know.”
“You sent them to the Abyss.”
“I did,” Sarhthor confirmed, unsurprised that Manshoon knew what his strongest-and hitherto most secret- spell was. “Eirhaun perceived it as an attack on himself, and worked a magic that dragged me along into the Abyss too. I encountered some difficulties, as my appearance should attest, in returning here.”
“Eirhaun?”
“Also returned, though much weakened, and in the care of the priests right now.”
“The others?”
“I slew most of them myself, seeking to eliminate the controlling presences I so feared.”
“And did you?”
Sarhthor shrugged. “I believe so-and know I have returned untainted.”
Manshoon raised an eyebrow. “And if I believe you not? And slay you now, in order to… protect the Brotherhood?”
“Do it, Lord, if you deem it needful,” Sarhthor answered, a little wearily. “I cannot resist you, and desire never to defy you. I have served the Brotherhood well.”
“What? No desperate flight? No plea for your life?”
“Lord, I never learned to beg. And if I go to my knees now, I fear I will fall on my face and never rise again.”
“I believe you,” Manshoon said quietly. “You may go, and see what the priests can do for you.”
“Thank you, Lord,” Sarhthor whispered. He bowed his head, turned to depart-and collapsed on his face.
“Symgharyl,” Manshoon murmured, “use your magic to convey him, with all the haste that gentle handling allows, to healing. I would rather not lose him.”
The Shadowsil crooked an eyebrow. “And may I… reward him?”
“Suitably? By all means. I want to know every last little thing in his mind.”
“Yes. He said nothing at all about the swords of Dragonfire.”
“Indeed. As it happens, I have that matter in hand. Yet it will be interesting to know his desires regarding them.”
“You soon shall. So, what shall we do about what unfolds in Cormyr?”
Manshoon smiled, waved a hand-and above many places on the tabletop, sudden blue lights in the air announced the arrival from otherwhere of as many floating, glowing scrying spheres. “We watch-only that-and enjoy the entertainment, as mayhem unfolds at the revel in the Palace of the Purple Dragon, and war wizard slaughters war wizard. I expect much armed dispute, and many frantic runnings-about.”
The Shadowsil smiled her catlike smile, and went out.
Manshoon stared silently after her lithe swayings, until the tapestry of many magics swirled closed behind her. Only then did he add calmly, “And while you pleasure loyal Sarhthor, I’ll ride your mind and know all you learn from him. Just as I know all of your little treacheries. And the punishments they deserve, that you enjoy so much. Such a twisted little mind.”
He shivered, just for a moment, and added in a whisper, “ ‘Tis why I love you so.”
Chapter 26
The last Dragon dead, the campfire gone out,
Hungry goblins down from mountains do pour.
Who rises against them, to make ghostly rout?
It’s the host of the fallen, again riding to war.
They were crowded elbow to elbow in Baerauble’s Back Bower-which despite its name, was a lofty-vaulted chamber of state whose soaring dark-paneled walls were crowded with old pikes, outthrust banners, and painted portraits of hunting and warring kings taller than most commoners’ cottages. Hot, no longer desperately hungry or thirsty, for deft legions of platter-bearing servants had seen to that, they were not yet revelers, and increasingly unhappy about it.
“Well, I’ve heard that Anglond’s Great Hall is clear across the Palace from here,” a glass merchant brayed.
