Chosen of Mystra and the 'highly dangerous,' active-in-Cormyr Harper all war wizards were often warned about. But more than that, he believed she could-and would-do just what she was promising. To him.
'B-but, Lady,' he managed to protest, 'the Royal Magician! He looks into our minds and sees our memories! Even if I say nothing, he'll know of your, ah, demands.'
Dove's gentle smile widened. 'Yes, he will, won't he? Perhaps he'll even recognize them for the clear warning they are and take heed. For once.'
Eyes steady on his, she then gave a gentle toss of her head that was. clearly a directive to him to seek the door behind him and depart.
Baerent hastened to obey, discovering something else as he passed the still-motionless guard and stumbled back down the stair. He was shivering in fear.
Wizard of War Lorbryn Deltalon stood on the familiar high ledge, looking out over rhe forest. He shook his head.
'Well, well,' he told the wind. 'It seems I make a livelier Laspeera than I'd ever thought to be-certainly more flirtatious than she's ever likely to be. I think.'
Well, well, indeed. Yet it had worked, and that was the main thing.
He shook his head again, smiling ruefully. 'Whew.'
He hadn't had occasion to teleporr here often in recent seasons, but this crag in the forest often served the war wizards as a lookout. He wasn't all that far from the bullyblade he'd just left. He should really be getting back to Suzail, but… he'd always liked this spot.
It was probably his favorite place in all Faerun for just standing alone, thinking.
Lotbryn used it that way now, as his true form slowly melted back.
He was doing the right thing.
At long last, he was working for the best outcome for Cormyr.
Borh the Knights of Myth Drannor and the band of Purple Dragons led by the ornrion Dauntless were Vangerdahast's agents, he felt certain-and Vangey had sent them out here, along the Ride, to accomplish something.
Just what, he didn't know yet, but Brorn just might help him find out.
The bullyblade wasn't stupid. He might want to bury those coins swiftly to avoid being found with something Lorbryn could claim had been stolen. Yet he'd need a few coins in his purse right now, just to live on.
Six coins on top of each sack had tracer spells cast on them that would enable Lorbryn to know their whereabouts at will.
He smiled into the breeze as he readied himself to teleport back to the Royal Palace.
So this was how Vangerdahast felt, sitting like a spider at the center of an ever-expanding web of plots and little schemes.
Lorbryn's smile widened.
Wincing, Florin struggled to his knees. His skin raged with fire blisters of the like he'd not felt since his days at the forge back in Espar, and his body ached as if he'd been punched hard, all over, for most of a day.
His sword was lost somewhere under Jhessail-the real Jhessail, he reminded himself dazedly-and a half- empty water flask didn't seem that formidable a weapon to use on either a lich or someone who could shrug off that humbling spell.
The lich stood smiling down at the Knights, as the darkly handsome man was doing now. Florin caught sight of a ring on the man's finger, and he tried to fix the device on it-an M with a flaring left leg and a right leg that curled right around to form a ring-in his memory for later.
If there was a later.
'So much for my little jaunts here to explore and plunder this place,' the man drawled, still regarding the Knights with a sneer. 'I believe I've found almost everything, as it happens. Enjoy your deaths.'
He was suddenly not there.
The groaning, feebly crawling Knights faced the lich across a bare and empty expanse of floor.
The lich shuffled forward, grounding its staff from time to time in unhurried ease, to peer at the results of its spell. Faint rattling and rasping sounds arose as it hummed a merry tune-or tried to-and came forward, the rings on its bony fingers winking with bright and quickening glows.
Florin tried to rise, but he couldn't. He collapsed beside Islif. Wisps of smoke rose from her limbs. Jhessail lay sprawled and silent under Semoor's legs, but Pennae seemed to have been shielded from the green flames by the tumbling bodies of the two priests, and she was now rising unharmed from behind them, trying to tug them to their feet.
'Up, holynoses!' she said. 'Our time to save everyone's behinds!'
Semoor laughed, a little wildly. 'You want us to defeat that?'
'No, I want you to die trying!' Pennae snarled. 'Look at it this way: Lord Manshoon has gone, so you've just got one mad, gone-beyond-dead archwizard to deal with, not two of them!'
'M-Manshoon?' Doust stammered. 'As in Zhentil Keep?'
'Yes. Saw him once across a crowded street and remembered that voice and those looks. Now think of some spells!'
'Before you ask,' Semoor told her, 'no, we don't know how to teleport like Manshoon did.'
'Well then,' Pennae said, 'we won't be able to get out of this place that way.'
Florin and Islif were struggling to rise again, and behind them, Jhessail-reeling about unsteadily in a real daze-was on her feet.
Pennae gave them all a tight smile, whisked her dagger behind her back, and strolled forward to meet the lich.
'I don't suppose,' she asked, 'you could direcr us poor lost travelers out of this palace, Lord?'
In reply, the lich threw back its skull-head and cackled, then pointed with a finger that flared with ruby radiance as the ring on it unleashed its power. Florin shrank down into something brown and hairy and snorting.
Or rather, snoting. A fat, hairy boar, or boar piglet, or whatever young boars were called. Pennae knew she should have been trying to leap at the lich or at least get past it and try to flee, but she couldn't help staring.
Florin had a long snout and was lying contentedly on the floor, loudly asleep. He was about the size of a small hunting dog that had somehow swallowed a handkeg of ale whole.
As Pennae stared, Islif fought her way to her feet… only to shrink right down again, sprouting a snout and long, brown hair and snores of her own.
'Dung and tluining doom!' Pennae whispered, realizing her peril. She whirled to run just as the ruby glow flared again.
Then she was trying to run but was somehow heavy and wet and weak and collapsing into helpless sliding softness, too, and the world went dim. Her attempts to shriek came out as squalling, snorting squalling that… that… that sent all Faerun and its cackling liches away.
The lich tapped its staff on the floor in a way that seemed somehow satisfied, then shuffled forward again.
Straight for Jhessail. It reached out a long and skeletal arm toward her. 'My lady,' it said, 'it has been so long. It seems years since I felt your warm and yielding eagerness, your ardent mouth upon mine. Come to me now! Come.'
The red-haired mage backed away in horror.
Silent in their own terror, hardly daring to move, Doust and Semoor exchanged helpless glances.
Jhessail's shoulders met the wall. She had nowhere left to go.
The lich advanced.
