“Lass, that hasn’t fooled me since ye could toddle. Ask.”
“Right, then. The Zhents, in and about Eveningstar. Maglor’s just eyes and ears, yes?”
“Aye. Reports through intermediaries to Whisper, who reports to Sarhthor-when he must.”
Dove nodded. “Those two I know. I’ve been sensing others this last month, scrying and prying.”
Elminster shrugged. “Zhents crawl out from under stones by the score when they sniff opportunity. One-I know not who, yet-just found a way to strike at mantled elf mages.”
“So that’s what befell Arlathna. Know you a wraith Zhentarim? Or any entity that drifts about wraithlike, possessing living men?”
“I know of many such. Setting aside brief skulkings or fleeing in wraithform, only one Zhent, though: Old Ghost, he calls himself. Acts as a go-between for the lowliest Zhents and those just above them-Maglor and Whisper-yet serves Manshoon personally.”
“Standing-right, drifting-outside the Zhent chain of command. The sort of being you usually strike down.”
“Aye. Mystra has ordered otherwise.”
Astonishment made Dove’s eyes flare bright silver for an instant, and Elminster smiled and topped up her tankard.
Pennae drew back from the fray, winded, to watch these new dooms rise up, and saw something that made her eyes narrow.
Farther down the central passage, right in front of that menacing crossbow, a circle of finger-sized somethings whirled around and around above a particular floor tile: brown, dancing somethings.
She watched those tiny skeletons for a moment-then hefted one of her daggers, ducked a reaching skeletal claw, and threw her steel fang, hard and fast.
Her dagger crashed through the center of the whirling ring, bouncing and hopping with a flash and clang of steel, scattering tiny bones in all directions.
And all around the battling Swords, the remaining skeletons flew apart, shedding bones in all directions.
Pennae never saw them. She was watching her dagger skitter on across the tiles. It struck one of tripod’s feet and bounded into the air, heading for those tall bronzen double doors and the two figures on their pedestals before them. It was going to fall short, strike the stones, and skirl to a stop.
Unless her suspicions about those overly grand statues were correct. This had been an embattled lord’s hold, once, if that garrulous tavernmaster in Dhedluk had spoken truth-and not a man along the aleboard had disputed with him. And what lord spends good coin on such fripperies, unless he’s a madman who thinks himself Lord Emperor of All, or they’re part of a trap Sudden blue-white light cracked, lashing out from the male statue to strike her dagger aside. Tiny crawling lightnings hummed and snarled after it, their roots playing briefly across the breast of the statue.
They were answered from the female statue, deadly pale twisted fingers reaching through the air toward its crackling male counterpart.
Most of the Swords stood gaping at the lightnings, but Pennae took two swift steps sideways, to where she could clearly see her dagger. It had stopped just in front of the northernmost of the bronzen double doors, a tiny wisp of smoke drifting lazily up from its scorched hilt.
The watcher leaned forward to stare hard into the crystal, the fingers of one hand pausing in their usual stroking of the unicorn-headed ring on the other hand. Was this a magic that could in time be used to fell the mighty Vangerdahast?
Or could these adventurers become the weapon that would slay the royal magician, and leave Cormyr unguarded, for the taking?
The last lightning bolts leaped and snapped, and the Swords gave each other grim smiles.
“This will come as a deep surprise, I’m sure,” Islif said gruffly, “but I’m not in favor of proceeding to yon doors.”
The answering chuckles were dry. Amid them, Pennae leaned forward far enough to peer up and down the cross-passage, and Agannor grinned and came over to her with his lantern.
“Doust, Semoor, Bey, Martess,” Florin said gently. “Mount you a rearguard right here, while the rest of us go south down this cross-passage, to see what we may see.”
Agannor gave the forester a challenging glance, just for an instant, then shrugged and started down the cross-passage, Pennae right beside him and Islif trotting to catch up. Jhessail rolled her eyes and followed, Florin with her.
A bare ten paces on, the passage opened out into a room, a dark doorway yawning in its western wall-and another passage branching off through its east wall.
“Halt,” Pennae told everyone, in a voice of iron, before she ducked low and leaned out to shine her beam-lantern down the passage. It ran on a slant, back toward the rooms and passages they’d already been in, to end in a bare, angled wall. Pennae’s eyes narrowed again.
She prowled along the short, doorless passage to its end, where she peered at the stone wall, running her fingers along cracks and tool marks and-aha!
“A secret door,” she called back, her voice shrill with excitement. “And I can open it!”
Her fingers had already found two hollows wherein something clicked under her fingertips-and the door trembled, grating ever-so-slightly.
Agannor and Islif came hurrying along the passage, blades drawn. “Not before we-”
Pennae gave them both an “oh, please ” look, and thrust the door wide. Though it proved to be thicker than her own body, piercing a wall of the same girth, it made no further sound, nor opened with any difficulty. She could push its ponderous weight with a fingertip.
The three Swords peered together into the room of the puddle and the heap of weapons. It was very much as they’d left it, holding no sign of lurking beasts, spies, or anyone but themselves.
Pennae studied the exposed doorframe for a moment, then the balance of the hinges and the frame behind them, too. Then she peered at the door-edge, looking for locks and catches and finding just the one she’d opened. She threw up a hand. “Wait here a moment.”
Then she was through the door and across the room like an arrow in flight, fetching up in front of the far wall with narrowed eyes and searching fingers. After a moment she nodded in satisfaction and thrust her fingers into two widely separated tool gouges.
Another concealed door promptly clicked open in the wall, its outlines appearing out of the weathered stone as if by magic. It was just as thick as the first one, but moved even more quietly. Recently used.
Pennae peered quickly into another slantwise passage, a mirror image of the one she’d just traversed. Seeing nothing but stone walls and an utter lack of marauding beasts, she hooked her fingertips into two other handy hollows to pull the door closed again. Its click was barely audible.
“Another slantwise passage, running so,” she told the others, gesturing to indicate its position, as they hastened to rejoin Florin and Jhessail.
Jhessail greeted them with a frown. “Is it wise to go running off in twos and threes?”
“No,” Islif agreed. “A mistake we’ll not repeat.” She gave Agannor a glance. “I hope.”
“We must never leave some area unexplored, that could conceal a man-or even a biting snake-between us and the way out,” Pennae warned them all, “lest we get trapped in here by a monster-or a band of outlaws.”
Her fellow Swords, up and down the passage, nodded soberly.
“So, shall we continue?” Agannor asked, waving at the empty room before them, where the passage ended and that dark doorway awaited.
“Yes.” Florin turned to look back at the rearguard. “All quiet?”
They both nodded, and the forester added, “Pennae and Islif to the fore. Agannor right behind, ready to charge in. Then you, Jhessail.”
Pennae quickly circled the empty room, peering at the walls and ceiling. When she reached the doorway, she stepped well back to shine her lantern inside.
The Swords saw a table and chairs, some of the latter overturned or hacked apart. Bunk beds around the walls, some hewn and splintered. Strongchests under the lower bunks, their locks and hasps smashed. A door-ajar into darkness-in the middle of the south wall, with something odd huddled on the floor in front of it; something of a stonelike hue.