'I have no magic to speak of,' the Harper said, 'so I see no reason I shouldn't go to the aid of the Knights. I would even be so bold as to request war wizard aid in translocating me across the vastness of fair Cormyr so I can reach them in good time.'
'I will furnish that,' Deltalon spoke up, 'and accompany you to assist and to bring back reliable report of what befalls.'
'You will not.' Vangerdahast could put a ring of steel into his voice that echoed louder and more forcefully than even the 'hear now my royal will' tone of King Azoun.
'He will,' Queen Filfaeril said so softly and calmly that she seemed almost to be whispering. 'Vangey, in this you are overruled.'
The Royal Magician reeled in his chair as if he'd been slapped across the face. 'You-you-'
'Dare?' the Dragon Queen inquired sweetly. 'Of course. And please try my royal husband before you deem me foolish or standing alone in this.'
With slow and obvious reluctance, Vangerdahast turned his head to look at the king, who smiled, nodded, and said, 'The Harper is to be given all the assistance he deems necessary-including the service of Wizard of War Deltalon.'
'I shall see to that,' Laspeera said softly.
Vangerdahast's gaze snapped around to her-but he gave her no glare, only silence and several blinks of his eyes, as if some sort of facial tic were afflicting him.
'Very well,' he said at last. 'But hear me!' He gave the Harper a glare that might have melted a shield. 'You're not taking an army of Purple Dragons!'
'Why would I,' the Harper's face was all innocence, 'when all I need is one Dragon? The man called Dauntless.'
Slowly at first, then uproariously until his mirth expired in a fit of choking, the Royal Magician of Cormyr laughed.
Chapter 22
If you skuld out in the trees this nigh The moon is down, not shining bright So lovers stay in, the beasts do ptowl If you skulk out in the trees this night Be the one to pounce-not death-howl.
Brorn had grown tired of looking down at himself. He was entirely skeletal now, coated in bone that made his movements slower, his limbs heavy. Yet his joints were still supple enough, and thankfully he still had eyes and a tongue, his own insides-and what made him a man, too. And he felt… normal. Hah. Normal.
He shook his head and plucked again at the tangle of belts, baldrics, and sheaths that were all he now wore. He'd long ago grown weary of his clothes falling off him with every step, breeches collapsing again and again around his ankles, and suddenly huge boots wobbling and even turning loosely on his bony feet, and he had finally abandoned them. He was thinner, everywhere, as if his flesh had melted away under the coating of bone.
So now Brorn Hallomond was, in truth, the Striding Skeleton. Whether this was really bone coating him or not-and it certainly looked like bone-it seemed something of a shield against the cold. He could no longer feel the gentle touch of the night breeze.
So was he dead? Did it matter?
The night was dark, with drifting clouds cloaking most of the stars and no Selune riding high, so he'd left the thick, tiring, confusing tangles of the fotest to stalk along the Moonsea Ride.
Thus far alone and unmolested.
No honest traveler would still be out faring on a moonless night, outlaws would probably shrink back from a walking skeleton, and he could always duck into the trees if he saw anyone approaching.
So he strode along, trying to cover as much ground as he could without getting really tired. The Knights should be somewhere near, by now.
'Should I-'
'Remain still and silent? Yes. All else: No.'
Laspeera's voice was brisker than shed meant it to be, so she gave the ornrion a smile and added gently, 'Keep your eyes open as the spell ends. You'll be plunged into a well-lit void, rich blue emptiness that it seems you'te falling through, and then yout feet will be on solid ground, somewhere at night in the forest-that 'somewhere' being wherever the Knights of Myth Drannor are. Speak and move and draw sword then, if you deem it needful, but not before. Please.'
Dauntless nodded, a trifle unhappily and showing it on his face. He stood on a worn diamond mark painted on the floor at one end of the dark and cavernous undercellar of the Royal Court-deep under the flagstone garden yard that let into the Royal Gardens proper, if he'd correctly judged how far they'd walked-and there was another war wizard and another man standing on a diamond waiting to be transported across Cormyr in a winking instant, at the other end.
He knew them both. Lorbryn Deltalon and the Harper Dalonder Ree. They were watching him, the calm murmurs of relaxed converse passing between them, as they obviously waited for Laspeera to enspell him first.
Dauntless imagined Deltalon becoming just a trifle impatient and starting his spell as Laspeera was finishing hers-and the one teleport spell clawing at the other, flaring in an explosion that spattered all four of them in a thin drenching of gore over the walls of this spellcasting chamber, in the brief instant before those stones themselves shattered and heaved… and one end of the sprawling Court erupted into the night sky, towers toppling and scores of courtiers shrieking as they died.
Wincing, he shook his head, blinked, and found himself staring into the sympathetic face of the wizatd Laspeera again. He felt shame, but it was swept away in a rush of gratitude at the caring he saw in her eyes. Small wonder that many Wizards of War called her Mother and revered her.
'Sorry,' he muttered. 'Pray pardon, Lady Laspeera. Silence, aye.'
The smile she gave him lit up her face like a leaping brazier-flame, and Dauntless felt as if he were falling in love.
'Aye,' she said and lifted her hands like a master server about to signal the servants under his command at a Palace feast.
She was going to cast the spell. The magic that would hurl him across the Forest Kingdom and beyond, out along the Ride into the wilderlands somewhere near Tilver's Gap, lands where Purple Dragons rode hard and often to keep outlaws and monsters and worse out of Cormyr proper. To see the Knights of Myth Drannor not dead, now, but safely past Tilverton and into the Dales.
Orders, as they said gravely in the service of the Purple Dragon, have changed.
Just where along the Ride he'd be in a breath or two, he didn't know, but there were a cluster of little glowing lights hanging in the air in the center of the room, a little higher than Laspeera's head, that told her where the Knights were. Each of those floating, subtly shifting glows represented one of the tracer-enchanted glowstones the Royal Magician Vangerdahast had given to the Knights of Myth Drannor.
Aye, orders might change, but some things never did. Rise up sun and go down moon, every last jack and lass in Cormyr danced to a tune, whether they knew it or not, and the piper was the wizard Vangerdahast.
Laspeera's hands finished tracing elaborate gestures in the air, her smile grew wider, andSmiling war wizard, chamber, and all were gone, and this par-ticular Purple Dragon ornrion was falling endlessly through a deep blue void.
'Florin!' Pennae snapped, leaping down the last little stretch of cliff to land heels-first in the loose scree beside him, with a crash of shifting stones.
'I hear it,' the ranger said. 'Back up onto the ledge, everyone! Stoop, Clumsum, is there anythingyoxi can do
