There was only one little scheme that mattered-and must prevail.
The tingling ended. “Behold another grandly dressed noble lord,” he murmured. “Suzail, are you ready?”
Opening the door Pennae had disappeared through, he stepped boldly into the Hall of Archdragons, looking around for a lass in a bloodstained, wrinkled gown-or anyone trying to hide behind someone else.
There was a couple standing right in his way, a red-faced merchant with goblet in one hand and an armful of begowned good-woman in the other. “And Kaylea-may I call you Kaylea? — the worst of it, these days, comes from all these Sembian traders with far more coins than good sense! Whenever they’ve made or imported more gewgaws than even Sembians will buy, they try to flood our markets their leftovers-from mock-dragonfeet footstools to glowfire doorknobs!”
“Oh?” Goodwoman Kaylea asked, looking up into his face with every indication of attentive interest. “Yet try to flood, you said. So who rises against them?”
Ghoruld Applethorn sidestepped, seeking to get around the two-and at that moment Pennae came whirling out from behind the obliviously chatting couple, caught hold of the wrist of his trailing hand in astonishingly strong fingers, thrust his hand back against the doorframe-and drove a dagger through it, pinning it solidly to the wood.
Agony stabbed through him, and Ghoruld Applethorn had to fight for breath enough to howl in pain. As he struggled, gasping for air, Pennae blew him a kiss and slipped back out into the passage, slamming him against the doorframe with her hip on the way past.
Even before he roared with pain, guests were staring and murmuring. He was in tears before he mastered his discomfort enough to tug out the dagger and free himself-and by the time he’d finished staggering and moaning, Applethorn knew she was long gone.
Hurrying along the passage, Pennae snatched open the first door she saw.
A laundry chute-but a big one, large enough to hurl a linen basket thrice her girth down. She shrugged, tapped her belt buckle to win the light she needed, stepped inside, pulled the door closed behind her, and let go of its ring.
Her fall was so swift, the shaft bending only a trifle, that she couldn’t hold on to the ring of the door a level down. She stung her fingers trying, then threw her elbows wide and got them bruised against the sides of the shaft-but in doing so slowed herself enough to catch firm hold of the next door.
Clinging to it, Pennae grimly hauled herself up to its level, braced herself on the elbow-hold she knew would be there, and kicked it open, plunging out into the cellars again.
With a sigh, she spun around and carefully closed the chute door. Hopefully Applethorn was too busy with his treason to chase her any longer. Now all she had to do was find another way up into the Palace from this second cellar level down.
If there was one.
She set out at a trot, plunging through a doorframe that looked like it’d been missing its door for a long time.
Pennae went on past other doors, some of them huge, but all of them closed and rusting and looking as if they hadn’t been opened in years. None of them looked in the slightest like a way up.
She had to keep hurrying. It was taking forever for this revel to begin, yes, but “forever” would come if she spent too much time.
When she rounded a corner and saw what awaited her, Pennae felt like crying.
An all-too-familar iron barrier, its massive wall blocking her way on. As before, she could see no way past, no winch to raise it… nothing. All that striving, just to end up right where she’d started.
Well, if the king and queen and Vangerdahast wanted to be rescued by the Knights of Myth Drannor, it seemed there’d be a lot of waiting involved, and they’d have to be very patient.
Shaking her head at that thought, she turned around to retrace her steps and seek another way, and found herself staring up at a man whose head brushed the ceiling, and whose bulk loomed over her like a mountain.
Huge muscled arms hefted an axe more than half as tall as she was, and a short, broad, horn-tipped sword. The giant wore a patchwork coat of battered, bolted-together armor plates and ragged hides, and a helm on his head that-brightening now, as she watched-threw a glow out before it like Yassandra’s belt was doing, for her.
“Who by all the Watching Gods are you?” Pennae gasped.
“They call me,” the man-mountain rumbled, spreading his weapons to block her way past him as he shouldered ponderously forward, “the Dread Doorwarden. Or the Stalking Doom. Which do you prefer, little doomed lass?”
Mystra and Loviatar, it hurt! Cursing, and wondering if his disguise was wavering, Applethorn wrenched the dagger out of the doorframe, shouting at the pain.
He was free, sobbing uncontrollably and wringing his hand, blood spattering on his boots.
Other boots-lots of them-were pounding nearer in the passage, now. He managed to turn, clutching his hand but keeping hold of the dagger, as Purple Dragons came pounding up.
“ There you are!” he blazed at them. “She’s gone. Search the passage! Open every door!”
The Dragons frowned, and the swordcaptain leading them barked, “Surrender, saer! Drop that weapon!”
“ I gave you an order! ” Applethorn snarled. “Be about it!”
“Surrender,” the lionar roared, drawing his sword. He jerked his head, and his men trotted out into a wide ring, as guests shrieked and shouted and hurriedly melted away into the back corners of the room, and drew their swords too.
“Will you listen? ” Applethorn spat angrily, wringing his bleeding hand. The Dragons stared flatly at him as they stalked carefully forward, closing in.
With a snarl of exasperation the alarphon flung the dagger into the lionar’s face, and managed to teleport away.
Pennae pulled down the front of her well-traveled gown. “I don’t suppose,” she asked hopefully, looking up at the hulking Doorwarden, “that you’d be interested in these?”
The monstrous echoing sound that answered her started like a chuckle, but sounded like a snort by the time the man-mountain was done.
“No,” she sighed, “I rather thought not.” Pulling up the sagging, bloodstained gown again, she drew two of her daggers, eyed that cleaving axe, and wondered how many breaths of life she had left.
An axe striking stone hard makes an unmistakable ring. Florin heard it twice, and then a roar, echoing faintly just ahead of him. Someone was fighting the Doorwarden.
He frowned and went to the nearest door to listen-in time to hear a faint cry of, “Never!”
He stiffened; had that been Pennae’s voice? Florin flung the door open and found himself staring at a laundry chute. Of course.
The sounds were louder now; another ring of steel and the Doorwarden rumbling, “Stop running, little she- viper!”
Florin looked at the inside of the door he’d just opened. Aye, it had a pull-ring; the long-ago builders had obviously made all the doors the same. Which meant…
Holding his sword out in one hand and Pennae’s blood-soaked jack in the other to slow himself against the sides of the shaft-it looked wide enough to take a large laundry basket, not just a person-he turned to face the doorway and stepped back into the shaft, stabbing out at its iron sheathing immediately.
His sword made a terrible squealing that made him wince at what he must be doing to it, but his shuddering shoulders met the challenge. He reached the door below moving slowly enough to grab at it with his jack-wrapped hand and cling.
It took him several tries to swing hard enough to thrust the door open into the passage with him hanging from it, but he managed it at last, rolling out and to his feet with the sounds of battle much louder and nearer, now.
Cones of light, like two flaring lantern-beams, were flashing and crossing yonder. Florin headed for them, hefting his sword. All Pennae could hope to do was run and run to avoid getting trapped, and to try to slip past the Doom, and he would know very well what she was trying. If the huge guardian got in just one solid strike…
Then he was upon them, the great axe coming into view on a backswing, and Florin bellowed, “Doorwarden! Turn and fight me! ”
