She strode out, visibly gaining strength with every step, and everyone went with her except Beldos Margaster.
Alone again, the old war wizard smiled faintly. Then he shrugged, opened another cabinet, took a pile of dark cloth from it, and shook out the uppermost cloth; it was a hood. Working quickly, he hooded each crystal ball and put it into the cabinet. When they were all closed away, the cabinet firmly latched, he went to the other end of the room and worked a spell.
When the horizontal whirlpool occurred in midair, Margaster bent over to peer into it, and kept his intent gaze upon it as it started to spin, and his scrying began again.
“ ’Strordinary!” Lord Ildabray Indesm commented enthusiastically. “Hurled herself right at old Vangey, she did! Took him to the ground and rode him like a… like a…”
He suddenly became aware of his wife’s cold-eyed scrutiny, and harrumphed into red-faced silence.
“ I think,” Lord Bellarogar Rowanmantle said loudly, “That the realm needs bold adventurers of that sort, to shake our Royal Magician right out of his confidence every tenday or so. Not to mention the entertainment his comeuppance affords us all.”
Others standing near rolled their eyes. Lord Rowanmantle thought a lot of things, and all of them loudly.
“Now, now,” Lord Horntar Dauntinghorn said soothingly. “We must remember that aside from bruised dignity and a few wine-stained gowns for which the Crown will no doubt compensate handsomely, no one was harmed. Our Dragons are back at their posts, halberds in hand once more, with no trace of blood on the floor. Moreover, all the ruffians went off in the company of Lord Vangerdahast, who claims ever that his haste and highhandedness befalls only for the good of the realm. And they were hurrying, all of them, so perhaps-”
“The day that sword-swinging adventurers are dedicated to the good of the realm,” Lady Indesm said darkly, “is the day the madwits rise to rule and Cormyr as we know it shall be swept away. I pray to the gods that I not live to see that day!”
“ Really, ” Ramurra Hornmantle murmured disgustedly to her friend Ildaergra, in the silence that followed that dramatic declaration. “If I could do it and escape death for it, I’d borrow a Dragon’s dagger and answer her prayer for the gods forthwith! Whyever should she share in Cormyr’s brighter future?”
King Azoun IV of Cormyr, Dragon of Dragons, Conqueror Triumphant of Arabel and of Marsember, Lord of the Stormhorns and Thunder Peaks, and dozens of other titles he preferred to forget, looked down at the crown on the black velvet cushion with decided distaste. “Must I? Won’t a simple circlet do? Or nothing at all? ’Tisn’t as if the people don’t know me!”
“You can if you want to insult the envoy, dear,” Queen Filfaeril said reprovingly, taking up the crown to settle it expertly on his head, “but she does represent Silverymoon. And she is very beautiful.”
She glided around him, adjusting the crown ever-so-slightly ere stepping back to survey him critically, from crown-spires to booted toe. “And goodness me, but I know full well that lasses swoon for a man in a crown.”
Her impassively regal face marred only by a swift wink, she went to her knees in a smooth shifting of skirts, to plant a kiss on the flaring gold filigree of the ornate royal codpiece.
“ ‘Swooning’ isn’t exactly what I’d call it,” he chuckled, lifting her to her feet and towing her by her chin to his lips.
Their kiss was long and ardent, and they moved against each other and murmured wordless need before Filfaeril pulled gently back to whisper, “Later. After you’ve tasted what Silverymoon has to offer.”
“Fee,” Azoun said reproachfully, “I’d not betray-”
“Hush,” the Dragon Queen said softly, putting a finger across his lips. “I know you, Az. And you won’t be betraying me- if Sune and Sharess smile upon you, and the lady does too-because you have my full and loving agreement in this.”
She leaned in close again, to kiss one of his ears, and whispered into it, “Make Cormyr proud.”
Azoun blinked at her, then grinned, and finally shook his head in admiration and said huskily, “Gods, I love you, lass. Don’t ever change.”
His queen faced away from him, deftly hiked her ornate ankle-length gown up to her waist to show him she was bare beneath, stuck out her tongue at him ere she let it fall again, and said, “Now we’re more than fashionably late! Come! Anglond’s Great Hall is a fair hike from here, and I can’t roll along quickly in this! ”
Chapter 29
For who stands forth bold, the realm to save
And face the bloody traitors’ day?
We who loved the land, our lives we gave
Now rise from graves, treason to slay.
'Ghoruld,” Vangerdahast growled, letting Lord Crownsilver’s head slip from between his hands. The noble’s eyes rolled up in his head as he slid bonelessly to the floor, forgotten. “I might have known. Knights, come with me. It seems I can’t trust a single war wizard just now. We’ve treason to slay this night!”
Treason, the whisper began around him, leaping from one excited Cormyrean to another, a murmur that spread outward, racing across the hall as swiftly as a shot from the bow of an expert archer.
Vangerdahast strode to an apparently solid painting on a wall-and stepped right through it as if was but empty air, the Knights of Myth Drannor hard on his heels.
Guests, guards, and servants alike gawked in startled silence. Then everyone spoke at once, rumor rising in a great wave of excited chatter.
In a deep stone chamber stood a ring of black stone plinths, each topped with a dark, lifeless crystal ball. Those squared fingers of stone stood waist-high, each in its own chalked circle on the stone floor, and each circle was linked by a chalk line to an empty central circle. One circle held no plinth, only a crystal ball on the floor-and that crystal was glowing, shapes and colors moving and flickering in its depths.
Ghoruld Applethorn stood over that sphere, watching and listening to what was unfolding in its depths. He saw Crownsilver slip to the floor, and the great secret growled aloud by Vangerdahast.
Applethorn chuckled then, and in his satisfied mirth spoke words to the crystal that he knew the Royal Magician could not hear.
“Crownsilver was about as competent as I expected, Vangey-and so are you. It doesn’t matter why you come striding for me. Just so long as you come.”
There came a pattern of tapping on a certain door deep in the gloom of one back corner of Anglond’s Great Hall. The servant who’d been expecting this hailing eased the door open, making a swift gesture in mimicry of three fingers plucking harp strings.
That gesture was matched with a smile, and the servant opened the door wide. Resplendent in dark finery, Dalonder Ree slipped through. “Sorry I’m late,” he hissed. “The hrasted countryside’s changing! My favorite stream to follow through the King’s Forest is gone! Clean gone! ”
The servant gave the Harper ranger an incredulous look, but murmured, “No harm done. The king hasn’t rolled in, yet, so you’ve missed nothing! The envoy’s just entering now, yonder, and I doubt overmuch harm will come to her. See her maid, following at her hip? Well, in truth, her maid’s deep in spell-sleep back in her guest chambers. That’s Dove, wearing her shape.”
“ Dove? Well, I am unnecessary, then!”
“Oh, I’d not say that. They always need a lot of help mopping up all the blood, after.”
“The princesses are safely with Beldos Margaster,” Vangerdahast growled to the Knights, as they hastened
