The sixteenth panel fell in shards, and lightning flooded forth, a blue-white tide that dashed all the Knights to the floor. Only the Royal Magician stood unmoved. He waited patiently as any statue amid the feeble groaning at his feet.
It was some time before anyone could rise. Pennae managed it first, crawling grimly to where the two priests lay heaped upon each other. She clawed her way up that heap until she could sit on it. Sliding her feet out to the floor, she shoved at the entangled ptiests behind her, thrusting herself upright to stand unsteadily. Taking a few trembling steps, she reached down, almost falling on her face, to haul Jhessail to her feet.
The two of them clung together, leaning breast to breast for support. When they found the strength to break apart again and stand free, most of the other Knights had made it at least as far as theit knees.
Islif was the first to manage normal strides-and when she did, lightning crackled in the air before her at her every step. The air seemed thicker, as if she were wading in stiffening mud or trying to bathe in some of her aunt's hardloaf dough.
Not far away from her, Florin bit back a curse.
'You, too?' Islif asked. 'When you walk… the air seems thick?'
The ranger nodded and gave Vangerdahast a long look.
The Royal Magician spread his hands, looking-or trying to look-innocent. 'I can guess what's befalling you, but a guess is all 'twill be. No one's ever made it this far in the Unbinding before.'. 'You fail to surprise me,' Jhessail said from beside his elbow. 'Point us to the next room, Vangey. Let's just take care of the next panel, and only then concern ourselves with the one after that. I find I lack the energy for doing anything else.'
'Har hur stlarning hardy har har,' Semoor said to that, struggling to his feet. 'Tymora, walk with me!'
'If She does, see if you can get Her to break the panels for us,' Pennae said, watching Vangerdahast's arm rise to point out the door.
The portal swallowed Tsantress and Dauntless without a sound, and the cellar fell silent and deserted. For about half a breath.
Then magical light flooded it, making it as bright as any royal court lit by tiers upon tiers of hanging candles, thanks to a wave of the Royal Magician's hand.
Vangerdahast hastened down the stairs, Laspeera and Dalonder Ree at his shoulders. He watched the portal flicker as his conjured radiance swirled around it. He sighed at the sight of that silent, magical skirmish and told Laspeera, 'I'm not waiting for any Purple Dragons. If whoever it is manages that Unbinding…'
She nodded, and he stalked forward. Dalonder Ree hastened after him, throwing out a long arm to bar Laspeera's way to the portal.
The look she gave him was a silent question, and in response he pointed back up the stairs out of the cellar, then at her, clearly intimating she should tarry for the Dragons Tathanter should be sending.
Slowly Laspeera nodded, and Ree strode after Vangerdahast.
Who had turned, just before the portal, to see Laspeera nod to Ree and then hang back. He drew in a deep breath and roared, 'Has all Cormyr fallen out of the habit of obeying me? Hrast it, the realm is doomed!'
'Belt up and get in there and save it,' Ree said, giving the wizard a firm shove into the portal.
Still glaring, Vangey vanished.
Ree shot Laspeera a smile and plunged through the portal himself, muttering, 'Well, we all have to die somewhere.'
'Gods'. 'Islif swore, head bent with the effort of trudging forward. 'Now I know why no one ever managed this Unbinding before!'
Pennae cast a dark look at Vangerdahast, walking slowly but unharmed behind them. She gasped and said, 'No Royal Magician ever had a large enough band of stone-headed pain-lovers before, I'd guess.'
'Did I mention I really need to piss?' Semoor groaned. 'Not now, holynose!' Pennae told him. 'This is lightning around us, remember?'
For all of the Knights, it seemed hatder and harder to move, as if the air had turned to sucking mud. Their strides were slow and labored, and the Lost Palace had gone very quiet around them. Even their strained breathing seemed hushed.
Jhessail kept stumbling, and Florin kept clawing her up again. Struggling, with Vangerdahast standing unbowed in their midst, the Knights of Myth Dtannor fought their way along a long, high passage.
Far ahead, facing them at the end of the passage, stood a tall door graven with a unicorn's head amid trees.
As they came closer, the door started to glow, its graven lines flaring a deep blue. As they got nearer still, those glowing channels started to pulse and spit little blue lightnings.
This was Rhallogant Caladanter's favorite room in all Suzail. Which was a eood thine, beine as it was a room in his own house. Reclining on his favorite lounge, he sipped another tallglass of wine-his seventh, or was it eighth? — and wondered where Boarblade had gotten to.
The door opened. Rhallogant looked up to see which servant was daring to disturb his solitude, and then his jaw dropped. He was staring at-himself!
As he gaped, the other Rhallogant pushed past the lounge and strode toward the door to his bedchamber.
'Here, now!' Rhallogant protested to the intruder's back, waving his tallglass. 'Who d'you think you are?'
His double stopped, turned, and gave him a crooked smile. The face wearing that smile changed. He saw Telgarth Boarblade and something more. Something humplike was receding down rhe front of Boarblade's jerkin. Ah. Some sorr of mask he'd tugged off. Must be.
'Good disguise, hmm?'
Rhallogant nodded, flustered at being so bewildered. 'Certainly, certainly. 'Tis indeed. So, what's afoot?'
Boarblade's smile widened to near smugness. 'Much tumult. We'll be going to the Palace later this night with an urgent need to.speak to some war wizards.'
'About?'
'About something secret.'
Boarblade went to Rhallogant's spirits cabinet as if it were his own, carelessly swinging open the doors and taking forth a tall, slender decanter the master of House Caladanter couldn't remember ever having seen before.
As it caught the light, he saw it was more than half full of a purplish translucent liquid. As he watched, Boarblade unstoppered it and calmly set about dipping the blades of all the daggers he was carrying in it, one after another, setting them on the tailboard to dry. He seemed to be wearing a lot of daggers, some of them hidden in rather surprising places.
'What're you-?' Rhallogant started to ask, then he hastily waved his hand to banish his question. 'No, no. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I want to live.'
Boarblade looked up with an almost fond smile. 'Very wise of you. And you will, if you do exactly as I say.' 'Poison,' Rhallogant muttered.
'What a good thing I didn't catch that,' Boarblade said. 'The results, if I had, might well have been fatal. Some war wizards are going to catch some of this soon, and we'll see how they fare, hmm?'
Rhallogant suddenly felt very cold. He found himself shivering and decided-reaching for the second decanter of his best rubyfire-he needed another glass of wine to warm himself up.
Watching the noble trying unsteadily to refill his tallglass, Boarblade's cold smile grew wider.
Laspeera climbed up out of the cellar, out of the ruin, and into the forest. If she was fated to die after she followed Vangey through that portal, she wanted to smell a fresh breeze and see forest leaves one last time.
Three steps away from rhe opening that had once held a door, a dozen Purple Dragons suddenly appeared all around Laspeera. The trodden turf was empty of all but leaves one moment-and full of grim, fully armored soldiery the next.
