Laspeera grinned. 'And are you?'
'Hardly, Lasp,' he growled. 'They think I've got her spellbound and stashed in a bedchamber somewhere and visit her every tenday or so for a night of wildly trying to sire a secret branch of the Obarskyrs to hold in reserve in case-'
He stiffened suddenly, lifted his head so abruptly they almost bumped noses together, and started cursing softly.
Laspeera raised an eyebrow in silent query.
'The Lost Palace,' the Royal Magician said. 'Someone's triggered one of my alarm spells. They're inside, somehow.'
Laspeera stood, went to a wall carving, did something to it with her fingers, and swung it forward from the wall as if it were a door. Its hollowed-out back sported a rack of sheathed wands. Deftly she started taking down sheaths and hooking them onto her belt.
'Nay, Lasp,' Vangerdahast said. 'This is my folly and my battle.'
'Lord Vangerdahast,' she replied, 'you can't be everywhere, and if the realm loses you on this sort of backchambet-'
'No! Take off those wands and sit down!' Vangerdahast roared, slamming down a fist on the table and startling her with his sudden fury. 'There are good reasons I alone should go there! Not the least of which being that all the defenses are keyed to me, and anyone else will have to battle them every few steps, not just our unknown intruder!'
Laspeera nodded and handed him wands.
Vangerdahast took them, crooked a finger to whisk another two particular wands across empty air from the panel into his hands, whirled away to the door, and hurried out.
He was out and down the passage beyond like a storm wind, his robes billowing out behind him, and didn't notice Wizard of War Lorbryn Deltalon step out of a doorway in his wake. Deltalon grimly watched him go.
The Knights found themselves cautiously exploring room after dark, thick-with-dust room. A seemingly endless labyrinth of deserted, interlinked chambers, all of them ornately paneled with soaring ceilings losrin the darkness beyond the reach of theit glowstones. A palace.
Perhaps an underground palace. They could find no sign of a window or sunlight or any way out-nor any sign of other life. The air smelled stale and long unmoving, the dust lay like an undisturbed blanket everywhere, and the only light, aside from rheir glowstones, came from the faint glows of old, decaying preservative magics on the magnificent wood paneling all around them.
A hallway larger and longer rhan most brought them to a cross-way of similar grandeur-and across it, only a few strides along a stub end of passage, a huge wooden door. As wide as Florin's shoulders three times over and more than twice as tall, it was carved with an oval badge of a unicorn's head thrusting forth to the dexter from between two curving trees: an oak and a maple.
'Esparin,' Jhessail said. 'This was a palace of Esparin-probably the palace of Esparin.'
Semoor, who was staring hard at the carved device, frowned without looking away from it. 'I didn't know you knew olden-days heraldry.'
'You've never asked me what I know,' Jhessail replied softly. Something in her voice made him look at her sharply.
'The Lost Palace of Esparin,' Doust murmured from behind them. 'There was something about this place. Something I read… that I should remember. Some interesting peril or other…'
Something half-skeletal shuffled into view around the corner where the crossway met the stub end of the passage.
It peered at them with eyes that were twin points of cold light in a face that was half falling off the skull beneath. It looked like what was left of a man, in what was left of once-grand robes.
'Oh, Tymora. Liches,' Doust whispered, as cold fear fell on all of the Knights like a heavy cloak, washing over them and leaving them trembling uncontrollably. 'I remember now! Th-th-this is where Vangerdahast's predecessors b-b-bound all the wizards who went mad!'
The lich took a slow step forward, raising its hands. As the Knights of Myth Drannor tried to curse and scatter, magic rings on those bony fingers winked into life.
Chapter 10
Tasks, Travels, and Life altering choices Tasks are given to us all Travels embraced or forced upon us All our daily choices alter our lives And shape also those of others So we must master tasks, travels, and choices Or lack precious time enough For love, friendship, and laughter.
The duskwood tree was old, large, and had been lightning-scarred long ago, leaving its loftier reaches with a sort of natural seat where its trunk split into three. Anyone sitting in that juncture could teadily lean his back against the eastward trunk, prop one booted foot against the rising northwestern trunk, and stare between it and the southern trunk to enjoy a good view southwest over Cormyr. Even as the thick canopy of leaves above gave him full shelter from the wind, weather, and all but the closest prying eyes.
A lone man sat in that lookout seat now, a heavy sack beside him, enjoying the view.
The Immerflow was just visible far off to the left, a glimmering silver ribbon in the sunlight with the unbroken dark green horizon of the Hullack Forest beyond. Rolling emerald hills rose to a few gentle peaks in the distance ahead, and the higher, broken Stonelands-all torturous cliffs and crags cloaked with scrub woods-thrust up to the right, with the Moonsea Ride arising over a succession of hillcrests between the peaks and the Stonelands to run right past the tree. Two distant dust clouds were moving along the road, but otherwise it seemed deserted.
That suited Totm fine, just now. He needed time to sit and think, and the bulging sack of stolen coins, gems, and small valuables sharing his perch was a large part of why he was pondering where to go and what to do next.
Things were getting rather hot for him in the Forest Kingdom, but he'd found he vastly preferred it, for all its laws and ever-nosy war wizards, to noisy, crowded Sembia, where hired spying and alarm and warding spells were becoming all too common, and rivals and foes both too numerous to count.
Abruprly he became aware that something was floating in midair right in front of him. Something that certainly hadn't been there- two arms-lengths away from his nose, blocking his view of the gentle peaks-a moment ago.
It was a curved pipe of a style favored by older and whiskered men or backcountry farmers. A thin wisp of smoke was arising from its bowl, as if someone invisible, who could somehow recline leisurely on empty air about sixty feet off the ground, was enjoying a relaxed smoke.
Torm was so astonished by this sudden apparition that he almost fell out of the tree, but he knew full well that he was staring at magic, and that magic in Cormyr meant war wizards, andHe snatched out a dagger.
Only to find his hand pinned against the tree trunk by a stone-strong force.
'Oh, stop that,' a man's voice drawled at him, apparently issuing from the pipe. 'As I see it, ye now have a choice, young Torm. One of those life-altering ones. Ye can accept the task I'm about to offer ye, or I'll dump ye into the hands of the war wizards-specifically, into a cell in the little prison they maintain in the Royal Court in Suzail. I'm feeling rather patient at the moment, so I'll give ye the space of six full breaths to decide which fate ye wish to embrace.'
'What sort of task?' Torm asked suspiciously.
'Stealing something.'
Torm brightened.
'Traitors, you cannot escape the vengeance of Cormyr!' The lich's voice seemed hollow and distant. Tiny
