He hit the ground in a tumbling chaos of snapping twigs, sliding wet leaves, mud, and bruised wizard.
'And so I taste the Royal Magician's little slap,' he grunted. Pain flared in his left side. Broken ribs, probably. His shielding had done its work, but it was clear that it would be the act of an utter fool to tarry anywhere near the glade.
He'd best get to the Knights and skulk along aftet them. He could still conjure his best shielding and weave a lesser one as well, then combine the two-but he'd best do it only after he'd passed the clearing and gotten well clear of its other side.
Not that there was anything forcing the Knights to stay where they were. Ruldroun sighed, winced again at the pain that brought, turned to face the pattering of falling twigs that matked whete the clearing had just enlarged itself, and started to run.
'I believe that particular tactic would be one I'd deem, in the words of Lord Piergeiron, 'less than wise,' 'a warm, lyrical, woman's voice said. That would be Sharanralee.
'I'm not talking wise, look ye,' Mirt the Moneylender rumbled. 'I'm laying all the tactics I can think of before us, rather than sorting out just those I deem best or preferable beforehand. I've heard too many lords' deliberations-or Harper moots, come to that-to want to do otherwise.'
'So,' an amused, mature, man's voice asked in quiet amusement, 'are we then as bad as Harpers, Mirt-or as good as Harpers?'
That would be the wizard Tarrhus, straying from Piergeiron's shadow for once. The Open Lord of Waterdeep must be very well guarded by someone else just now.
The night was dark, the turret that held those three folk was widely deemed inaccessible to creatures who couldn't fly, and the wards around it would raise instant alarm upon the approach of any flying creatures.
It seemed those wards deemed hovering magical swords to be something other than creatures. Whereupon no alarm had been raised, and it was extremely unlikely that anyone would be out and peering up at the turret just to check up on the efficacy of those wards.
Besides, Old Ghost was making Armaukran float absolutely motionless, vertical, and quite close to the shutters of the window. The little conference was quite interesting.
It was folk such as these three whom he wanted to collect in the Sword That Never Sleeps. To know the workings of the Harpers, or the Lords of Waterdeep, orIt was at that moment that a spell Old Ghost had cast a long time ago suddenly stirred, sending its brief and faint warning across half of Faertin.
Battle spells had erupted in a certain clearing used by Cormyr's Wizards of War, a clearing he'd cast his watch spell upon-and now, scant breaths later, someone had cast a complex, manyspells shielding.
That castet had to be someone powerful, on important business bent.
Business-and a person-he was very much interested in knowing more about.
The long, slender sword silently drew away from the window, turned in the air until its point was aimed east, and raced silently away from the turret, as swiftly as if it had been loosed from the bow of a mighty archer.
Old Ghost had decided to get to that nameless forest clearing just as fast as the Swotd That Never Sleeps could fly.
Tsantress was barefoot and in her nightgown, sitting uptight on the edge of her bed-the bed she'd been tossing and turning in, mere moments ago.
No wonder, that, given the time, but her restless inability to sleep and the energetic propensity of certain unscrupulous merchants of Suzail to get up to things illicit the moment her back was turned had her renouncing all attempts to get back to sleep.
She ran her hands absently through her sleep-tangled hair and stared into her scrying sphere.
It glowed softly as it hung in the air in fronr of her nose, awakening inro a view of Albaertus Tranth's private office, quite a few streets closer to the harbor than where she was sitting.
It seemed the good merchant-if that wasn't using the tetm too loosely-was also afflicted with sleeplessness just now. He was using his wakefulness to meet with someone cowled, masked, and gloved, who appeared to have fallen into the habit of knocking on back doors in Suzail in the dark wee hours with heavy sacks of gold coins in his hand.
The war wizard bent forward and peered closely. Tranth was unlocking a heavy metal coffer with a key that had been hanging around his neck, andAbruptly the scrying sphere flashed bright white, blinding her into a sharp gasp, and flung itself across the room.
Thankfully, it struck her row of cloaks and gowns, rearing them all off their pegs as it raced past to strike a heavy tapestry.
Tsantress rolled on her bed and rhen off its edge to land hard on her spread knees on the carpeted floor. She clawed at her flooding eyes and tried to crawl toward her door on her elbows. An inescapable conclusion reared up like a'dark and inexorable foe in her mind: Vangerdahast was up to his tricks again.
No one else-save Laspeera, and she had more sense-would dare to cast a slaying spell through one of Vangey's precious scrying spheres, causing ir to explode and shattering any other scryings going on at the same time. Certainly not anywhere near the Royal Court. Or the Palace, come to that.
Either the halls were going to be crowded wirh angry, wand-waving Wizards of War in the next few breaths, or the Royal Magician was to blame, and evetything would remain still and tensely silent until morning.
Well, not this time. She could find and pull on her boots by feel, if her eyes didn't stop streaming, and probably find her way to the Palace, too.
She had to reach the Princess Alusair. That blinding flash had thrust a vision into her mind, fleeting and vivid and tluining alarming: Knights of Myth Drannor, fighting hard against some unknown foes in a deep, wild forest somewhere, with Dauntless- Alusair's champion, that Dauntless-fighting alongside them.
Now, the Royal Magician was… the Royal Magician. Very much a law unto himself, who said and did as he pleased and somehow seemed to escape consequences that would kill-not merely discomfit or career-shatter- others. She, Tsantress, was not the Royal Magician and would be before-all-the-gods damned if she behaved anything like the Royal tluining Magician.
She kept her word, once given. And she'd sworn to the Princess Alusair-an Obarskyr who just might end up on the Dragon Throne if bad things befell her family-that she'd inform the princess immediately if Vangerdahast ordered Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul into danger again.
Which meant the moment she had her boots on and had found and buckled her wand belt on over her nightgown, she was going to hurry to the tunnel that linked the Royal Court with the Royal Palace just as fast as she could sttide.
Then, blindness or no blindness, royal slumber or no royal slumber, she was getting to the Princess Alusair just as fast as she could, spitting out the pass phrase that meant doom was coming down on Cormyr, so the guards barring her way at door after guarded door would be frightened as they hurried to fling open their doors for her.
Because if Dauntless died because of Vangerdahast's orders, and the Princess Alusair found out about it, doom would be coming down on Cormyr.
Chapter 24
Anger a wizard and die Aye, I have learned a thing or three Thus far in a life well heaped in deceit And treachery. There's keeping pacts And knowing when to run And this: Anger a wizard, and die.
I've never seen a skeleton like that before!' the Harper said. 'Keep back!'
'I've never seen a skeleton like that before, either,' Dauntless said. 'But never mind that. Look you past it at the creeping things!'
'Hargaunts,' Dalonder Ree said, as he, Dauntless, and Florin backed away from Brorn and tried to peer past
