“I’m not surprised,” Jhessail said. “This being Arabel, they probably have their hands full of truculent madmen already. An Obarskyr princess, standing around on a rooftop, in this? ”
“Belike you met someone who told you she was Alusair the princess,” Doust said, wrestling with two less than happy horses, “to avoid getting in trouble for being on that rooftop. She was probably a temple-thief, or hoping to be, until the gods sent you into her lap.”
“Friends,” Florin said, “I’ve seen both princesses a time or three while we were at the Palace, and this was the Princess Alusair.”
“Ah,” Semoor said, “you had time to examine her properly, checking all the birthmarks, did you? My, but the Obarskyrs will be glad to see us go! Right into fresh-dug graves, if you start dallying with royal daughters!” He tossed the reins of the largest horse to Florin, and added sharply, “Nice to know you keep your brains in your codpiece. Pity it isn’t larger, so you’d have a hope of carting a little more of them around with you!”
“Semoor,” Florin said heavily, “our meeting was not like that, and was none of my doing-”
“So,” an all too familiar voice came out of the night behind them, “do I add molestation of a personage royal to horse-theft, in my reasons for having all of you flogged to death? Or have you some crimes more inventive yet to add to your confessions? Take your time, and leave nothing out of your reply. We Purple Dragons tend to be all too starved for entertainment.”
Half a dozen lanterns were unhooded in unison, and the Knights of Myth Drannor found themselves staring into the mirthless smile of Ornrion Dauntless-at the head of dozens of grim, armed-to-the-teeth Purple Dragons. Most of whom held loaded hand-bows, aimed at the faces of the Knights.
“Falconhand speaks truth,” said someone grimly, from just behind the ornrion’s shoulder. It was Laspeera of the war wizards. “I very much hope he continues to do so, as I ask this of him: what’s become of my fellow war wizard, Melandar Raentree, who was assisting you at the stables?”
Florin shrugged. “He bade us farewell there, departed-and we were promptly attacked. By many Zhentarim. Swordsmen, led by a wizard. Who was torn apart in a spell-blast… or so I believe.”
“So he’s gone, all his Zhent blades lie dead, and the Princess Alusair is gone too!” His tone of voice made it abundantly clear that Dauntless believed not a word. “Well, now, isn’t that all just so convenient?”
“Dauntless!” Laspeera’s rebuke betrayed the fury she was swallowing. She gave the Knights a long, level look and snapped, “Let’s get you out of Arabel before anything else happens.”
“Lathalance blundered,” Sarhthor reported, “and it cost us the mageling Neldrar, who had showed some small promise.”
Manshoon, Lord of the Zhentarim, turned from lighting the last of the tall bedside candles to smile sardonically. “Lathalance’s blunders are part of his charm. Make his death serve us some useful purpose.”
Sarhthor nodded. “I’ve ordered him to Halfhap.”
“And in that flourishing metropolis he’ll prove useful to us how?”
“The adventurers who were just given the Pendant of Ashaba by the Blackstaff will reach there on the morrow, on their ride to Shadowdale.”
“I quite see. This may prove amusing. Leave us now.”
Sarhthor bowed, turned, and went to the door. When he opened it, he found himself gazing into the darkly beautiful face of Symgharyl Maruel, The Shadowsil, Manshoon’s current favorite. It was a face widely feared among the Zhentarim-in particular when it was wearing the little catlike smile adorning it now.
The Shadowsil lifted an eyebrow in unspoken challenge as their eyes met. Sarhthor carefully kept a faint, polite smile on his own face, and his eyes on hers. Her black robe was hanging open, and she was bare beneath it.
In smooth silence he bowed and stood back to wave her in through the door. The Shadowsil slipped off her robe, handed it to Sarhthor, and strode into Manshoon’s bedchamber, clad only in high black boots.
“At least the sarking rain has stopped,” Semoor muttered, peering up at the bright moon riding high above them, in a sky full of stars and a few tattered clouds.
“Hush!” Jhessail hissed, from beside him. “The gods will hear! And we’ll have hailstorms, or worse!”
“I’d like a rain of gold coins,” Pennae said, looking up into the sky. “Of respectable mintings, slightly worn from use, that no treasury’s missing.” She waited, hands outspread, but nothing happened.
“ I think the gods believe they’ve rewarded you more than enough,” Islif grunted, “coming through that fray without a scratch-leaving the dead heaped in your wake.”
“That,” Pennae replied flatly, “was my doing, not any achievement of the gods.”
Doust and Semoor cleared their throats in unison, and she turned and laid a finger to her lips in a “be quiet” admonition. Semoor used one of his fingers to make another sort of gesture in reply.
The Knights were trotting their horses cautiously along the moonlit Mountain Ride, heading north-northeast out of Arabel. They were making good time, and talking in low tones about all that had unfolded.
“How will we even find Shadowdale?” Jhessail murmured, looking at the dark forest, and the soaring mountains beyond.
“This road leads there,” Doust told her, “so if we don’t stray off it in Tilverton or elsewhere…”
Pennae turned in her saddle, teeth flashing in a grin, to unbuckle the saddlebag behind her left leg. Flipping it open, she plucked something forth with a flourish. A map, splendidly drawn-as they could all see by the magical glow that awakened across its drawn surface, the moment she unfurled it.
Doust blinked. “Where’d you get that? ” Without pause for breath he added gloomily, “As if I didn’t know.”
“Stolen,” she replied cheerfully. “Speaking of which-”
With a more elaborate flourish, Pennae flipped aside her half-cloak and drew forth something from behind her back.
It caught the moonlight as she reversed it in her hand: a well-used, splendidly made sword. She handed it to Florin, who hefted it appreciatively. Before he could ask, she said, “Now Officer Dauntless has a place to store his blinding temper. Inside his empty sword-scabbard.”
Florin groaned. Semoor whistled in appreciation. Jhessail snapped, “You didn’t! ” Doust and Islif turned in their saddles to look back at the road behind them, for signs of pursuit.
Pennae shrugged. “I did. And War Wizard Laspeera saw me, and said not a word. She was too busy winking, I guess.”
In the darker streets of Arabel, it was not unusual to see the few folk of wealth and importance who walked around by night inside a protective ring of bodyguards.
In this particular street, this night, a drunken merchant came reeling out of an alley-mouth to stumble against the foremost bodyguards in one such ring. One bodyguard roughly slapped the drunkard aside-and then stiffened, whirled around, and took a swift step to clutch at his master, walking in the center of the ring; a wizard of the Zhentarim.
Who in turn stiffened, even as the other guards wrestled their fellow bullyblade back from him.
They saw the wizard’s eyes glow eerily. “Release him,” he ordered them curtly. “No harm was done.”
The bodyguards stared at their master suspiciously, for both the attitude and the manner of speech were unusual for him, but his wave to continue on was emphatic, even angry. They obeyed, leaving the drunken merchant slumped on the cobbles in their wake.
A few steps farther on, the wizard suddenly crumpled.
Bodyguards snarled curses and reached for him. Their curses turned to shouts of fear and horror when they felt the light weight in their arms-and saw they were holding little more than bones shrouded in skin. They let the lifeless husk fall to the cobbles and fled in all directions.
None of them saw the cloud gathering in the darkness above the nigh-skeletal wizard. It thickened, whirling, as Horaundoon mentally pawed through the memories he’d just ripped out of the wizard’s mind.