She found herself in an octagonal chamber of about the same dimensions as Hardisty's receiving room on the topmost floor. Four shadowed passageways led out of the chamber. A pair of thick columns flanked each entrance about six feet in. Each pillar was fitted with a black-iron sconce in which a torch flared.
The hatch was three feet across and six inches thick. Shield picked it up as if it were a serving tray and fitted it back into the hole. Two heavy brass slide-latches had secured it. One was neatly opened, the other a twisted ruin.
'Put them back in place,' Zaranda said. 'We'll just have to hope nobody chancing by gives them too close a look.'
The orog did as he was bid.
Which way? signed Stillhawk.
'This way lies the rear of the palace,' said Farlorn, indicating a corridor.
'As good a way as any,' Zaranda said, and led the group that way.
There came a rumble, a friction squeal, and a thunderclap crash. Zaranda dropped to her knees, ears ringing. She snapped her head around.
A five-foot-thick column of stone had dropped from the ceiling to seal the hatch.
'Trapped!' she cried. 'Farlorn, you've led us into a thieves' foyer!' In the Empires of the Sands it was customary for dwellings of pretense to be built so as to offer prospective thieves a means of ingress-not too easy, just enough to challenge the skills of a self-respecting rogue. The covert entrances led not to treasures but to traps, of varying degrees of lethality.
This one was obviously designed to capture, not kill. Feeling the dull throb of failure beginning in her temples, Zaranda gathered herself to dash for the corridor.
'Correct, Countess Morninggold,' a familiar voice mid cheerily. 'But not just any thieves' foyer.'
In the entryway before her appeared Armenides, white-robed and smiling. Armed men thronged the passage behind him. At the same time blue-and-bronzes stepped out from behind the pillars, leveling crossbows at the group.
Zaranda stopped. She flicked a tiny pellet at the false Ao priest, murmuring height and range, and flung herself backward to escape the fireball's blast.
The pellet struck the archpriest's sternum and bounced. It fell to the floor by his sandaled feet. He knelt, picked it up, sniffed it.
'Bat dung and sulfur.' He smiled. 'Why, Countess, I do believe you've just tried to incinerate me.' He laughed delightedly. 'Did you not think other walls than the dungeon's might be imbued with the god bones of Tantras?'
She squeezed her eyes shut.
'Now I'll trouble you to put down your weapons,' Armenides said.
Someone walked past her. She opened her eyes to see the half-elf approaching Armenides. She scrambled to her feet. 'Farlorn-no!'
The bard walked between two crossbowmen, turned, and smiled. 'Your concern is touching, Zaranda, my love. But quite misplaced. I have nothing to fear from my friends.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean we've all done our poor orc friend a grave disservice. He's a sincere servant of good, may all such die in agony-as will you anon, I might add. I'm your traitor.'
'What are you saying?' Zaranda asked, stunned.
'Consider the love of a woods-elf maid for a human man. Then consider a cow who can jump over Selune in a single bound: both have the same chance of existing. It was rape that engendered me, not romance.'
His dark eyes caught the torchlight like the eyes of an animal, and his features seemed feral. 'I grew to adulthood scarcely tolerated by my true folk, my mother's folk-and worse, pitied by them. At last I per-formed deeds that all the pity in the wide green forests of Faerun would not serve to cover, and fled. Since then I have walked among my father's people, the ravisher's kind, and secretly I have paid my mother's debt a thousandfold.'
He looked Zaranda in the eyes. 'Oh, you were sweet, Zaranda Star! Woman warrior, woman wizard, war leader, merchant-beautiful and haughty. What delight it was to bend you to my will, knowing always that some day I would bring you ruin.'
'What was done to your mother was terrible,' she said in a level voice. 'But why keep it clutched to your breast all these years like your most precious possession?'
'Because it is my most precious possession! In hatred have I found all that I am; I have found a purpose, a destiny!' He reached inside his blouse, brought forth a medallion on which were embossed three lightning bolts branching from a central point.
'When I was driven from my ancestral forest I consecrated my life to Talos the Destroyer. I dream of the day when humankind is cast down in blood and ruin, and the wilderness reclaims its own!'
He let the medallion hang. 'Long have I awaited my chance to strike a decisive blow. When we approached Zazesspur last year a Voice spoke to me in dreams. And I knew then that the time was come.'
'A Voice?' Zaranda repeated. She swayed.
'Now I serve the One Below,' the bard said. 'I serve the Whisperer in Darkness. In his name have I destroyed you.'
Armenides chuckled. 'There. I'm sure we all feel better. Confession is so good for the soul. Now, please undo your sword belts and let them drop. You'll have no need for weapons where you're bound.'
With a guttural roar of rage, Shield of Innocence hurled himself forward.
Chenowyn screamed. Crossbows thumped. No non-magical armor could turn a crossbow quarrel at this range. The milled-steel missiles punched through Shield's breastplate with loud clangs and buried them-selves in his flesh.
Bellowing, the great orc caught Farlorn's neck with one arm and swung him around. The half-elf screamed as crossbow bolts pierced him.
Zaranda tore her borrowed long sword from its scabbard. The crossbowmen who had shot Shield and Farlorn stood flat-footed, the realization slowly dawning that they were now disarmed. Zaranda hacked them down as they turned to flee. Stillhawk, bow and quiver still slung, snatched his own sword off the floor and at-tacked. A blue- and-bronze, quicker on the uptake than his fellows, snatched out his heavy broadsword and thrust at him. He swept the blade aside with a mighty stroke and spun the man back, unreeling blood streamers with the return.
Armenides stepped to the side. Behind him more crossbowmen aimed and loosed. Shield swung round, holding the feebly struggling bard before him. Half a dozen bolts struck the traitor. Some drove onward through metal to pierce the great orc's flesh.
'This way!' Zaranda shouted, pointing her bloodied sword at the entrance opposite the one occupied by Armenides and his troops. Chen had drawn her dagger rand crouched beside her mentor, menacing air. Zaranda grabbed her arm. 'Let's go!'
Though Chen complied, the ranger was reluctant. Won't leave Shield, he signed.
'No one's leaving anybody. Shield, bring a live one!' The orog reached out a black-nailed hand, grabbed a nearby guard by the scruff as if grabbing a rabbit. Then he backed across the octagonal chamber, clutching his captive and the now-limp bard, looking like a child with two rag dolls. Shoulder to shoulder, Stillhawk backed with him, facing the enemy as the civic guards wrestled back their crossbow strings
Zaranda practically flung Chen down the corridor. Shield and Stillhawk backed in as guardsmen finished cocking weapons and reached for fresh quarrels. Zaranda flung a handful of skunk cabbage leaves from her magic pouch, which Chen had brought her, past her comrades and onto the floor. Dense green smoke billowed.
Zaranda patted the air frantically with her hands, signing, Down! Down! Stillhawk understood at once and threw himself flat, drawing the orog and his captive down with him. Zaranda tackled Chenowyn and pinned her to the floor.
Steel bolts buzzed overhead to clatter off walls and ceiling. Zaranda lay a moment with blood drumming in her ears. None of the blue-and-bronzes had had the wit to reserve a shot in case their quarry was up to tricks.
'Run for the cross-passage,' Zaranda hissed as she jumped up. Her voice was raw from breathing the fringes of the stinking cloud she'd raised. 'Head left. Go!'
They did. For a moment Zaranda crouched, gazing at the body of Farlorn, sprawled on the floor. Then she
