For the time is now come to make welcome fair Silverymoon.
'I‘ve had about enough of this,” Jhessail snapped, and raised her hands to cast a spell.
Pennae whirled around and caught hold of her arm. “ No. Try this, first. The firing-word’s on the butt.”
She snatched a wand from Yassandra’s belt and slapped it into Jhessail’s palm.
The red-haired mage looked at it, and then back up at Pennae. “Just which wizard is missing this?”
“One who’s also missing her life-not my doing-and so won’t be showing up to complain. I hope. Yet tarry a moment, before you start blasting.” She lifted her head and snapped, “Knights, a ring around us both, please.”
“Done,” Florin and Islif said in perfect unison, steering the two priests by their elbows to form as much of a ring as four people could manage.
“Steady,” the Highknight ordered the Purple Dragons all around them, from only a few strides away. “Continue to advance slowly and in formation. The man who charges will face my wrath.”
“And my blade,” Islif added mildly, earning herself a glare from the bearded Cormyrean.
Pennae had plucked something small from one of the pouches on Yassandra’s belt, and hefted it in her hand. Now she held it up between thumb and forefinger-and threw it, hard.
It was a small black bead, and when it struck the Highknight’s nose, there was a flash of blue light-and the passage was suddenly blocked off, blotted out by a black sphere of shimmering force that filled it, flickering wildly as it tried to expand farther than the distance between the passage floor and ceiling would allow. Purple Dragons cried out and struggled in its thrall, many of them fighting to back away-and were suddenly swallowed up in or behind the blackness, as the magic gave up trying to expand as a sphere, and flooded in both directions to seal off the passage entirely.
Pennae took Jhessail by the arm again, turned her around to face the other way, and gestured as grandly as any servant. “ Now you may blast, please.”
The Purple Dragons who’d crowded in behind the Knights were relatively few, perhaps two dozen in all. They backed warily away now, frowning, into a three-rank-deep living barrier across the passage, and more than one man turned to the ornrion among them and asked, “Permission to go and fetch our shields, sir?”
Whatever the ornrion might have decided was left unsaid, as Jhessail gave the massed Dragons a sweet smile and announced clearly, “ Clarrdathenta. ”
The wand in her hand quivered-and then spat bright blue-white bolts of magic like four battlestrikes all being cast at once.
The magical missiles sped home, just as she’d wanted them to, striking at every Dragon. Twice.
The Dragons reeled, and Jhessail fed them from the wand again.
Men went from staggering to falling, this time, and there were only a few weakly sliding down the walls when Florin said, “Come. Back through them, then start opening doors. Before all the gods, we are going to find those hrasted stairs up!”
The Knights charged, and the lone Purple Dragon to try to stand against them-the ornrion-fell on his face when Islif simply struck aside his sword and ran right over him, Jhessail and Doust right behind her.
Everyone started wrenching open doors.
“You’d not think it too much to ask, would you, to build a door that has stairs behind it?” Islif growled in rising exasperation.
Pennae grinned. “Was that your seven-and-tenth door?”
“No; score-and-sixth,” Islif snapped. “Not that I’m counting.”
“Praise Lathander!” Semoor crowed at that very moment. “Behold! Stairs ascending!”
Islif raced to the opened door that the Anointed of Lathander was so grandly indicating-and charged right up the stairs without pause, the rest of the Knights racing after her.
There was a dimly lit servants’ passage running across the top of the stairs, and four guard-Dragons were standing in it, resplendent in large Purple Dragon tabards. They turned to peer at the Knights, frowning.
Islif and Florin ignored them, going straight to the two nearest doors in the passage wall.
“Hey! Halt! Halt and down arms, in the name of the king!” a telsword bellowed, from among the four Dragons.
Islif turned and snapped, “What room’s on the other side of this door?”
“I said halt!” the soldier shouted, running up the passage and reaching for his sword.
Islif let him get it halfway out before taking hold of his wrist, ramming the weapon back down into its scabbard, closing her hand around the telsword’s throat, and plucking him off his feet to touch noses with him and ask gently, “What room, valiant Dragon, lies on the other side of this door?”
There was a grunt and a crash from behind her, as another Dragon decided to turn and run to an alarm gong-and Doust threw his mace between the soldier’s hurrying ankles to lay him out, stunned, on the passage floor.
The telsword stared into Islif’s eyes, and she stared right back into his, putting a slow smile on her face. It was not a nice smile.
“Uh-ah-urkh,” the Purple Dragon strangled, as she shook him gently. When she loosened her grip a trifle, he gasped quickly, “A-Anglond’s Great Hall! W-where the revel-”
“ Thank you,” Islif said, dropping him to the floor. “And Vangey-pardon, Royal Magician Vangerdahast-would he be in that hall?”
“Y-yes,” the telsword managed to croak, rubbing his bruised throat and wincing as a shrewd mace-blow from Semoor sent another of his fellow guards reeling and then slumping to the floor.
When he grabbed for his dagger, the tall, horse-faced woman slapped it away, clouted him across the side of the head on the backhand of her blow, and snatched his tabard up and over his head, blinding him.
“Tabards-good thought!” Florin snapped. “Collect them all!”
The moment she’d settled the tabard she’d taken over her head, Islif flung the door wide and strode through into the terrific din beyond, the rest of the Knights right behind her. Jhessail looked like a small girl wearing her father’s borrowed tabard, Pennae’s was more than a little wrinkled, and the two priests had none to wear, but Florin and Islif looked as stern and loyal as any Purple Dragon ever had. Florin waved the priests to the rear as the Knights strode after Islif.
So Semoor ended up being the last Knight in line. He swept a low bow to the groaning telsword as he stepped across the threshold.
The stricken Dragon took one last look at him and fainted.
The heat and din of the press in the heart of the crowded hall were on the verge of overwhelming Ildaergra Steelcastle. Looking not at all her customary bright, sharp, social-climbing self, she winced and looked around worriedly. “The envoy-is she coming at all, do you think?”
From beside her, Ramurra Hornmantle smiled dismissively. “Don’t fret so, Ildaergra. Envoys always turn up late. It’s the only way they have to show kings and queens that they do possess some power, albeit puny. Just relax, enjoy the sweets and smallbites-you see, if she’d been early, we wouldn’t have been served these, now would we? And look at those heaped platters. We can gorge, my dear! — and this chance to get a good look at Anglond’s Great Hall, and enjoy the evening. After all, you weren’t going to hurry off anywhere, were you?”
Ildaergra sipped her latest flagon of firewine, smiled ruefully, and replied, “Hardly.”
“Well, then,” Ramurra said. “Just enjoy the company and the converse-look, there’s the Royal Magician himself, not six paces from us!”
“Surrounded by a dozen-some barely begowned ladies all so feeble-brained as to be smitten with nasty old rogues of mages, I see,” Ildaergra sniffed.
“I can get you through them to meet Vangerdahast himself, if you’d like.”
“Oh, would you?”
“Our grand entrance,” Semoor commented, “and we emerge behind a pillar. How fitting.”
“Still the tongue, holywits,” Jhessail said. “There are four tiers of balconies above us; they have to hold them up with something.”
They stood in shadows beneath the balcony, amid many servants deftly gliding here and there with decanters
