Liches watched Vangerdahast from the distance, down the passage beyond those flames, but no one struck at him or hurled magic his way.
Vangey finished growling out his spell and stepped back, spreading his hands in a sort of grim triumph.
Whereupon the empty air right in front of him split apart in a dark, roiling rift, as if slashed open by an unseen giant's blade. The rift was taller than a man and rapidly drew wider, roiling darkness churning half-seen within it.
As it grew, Jhessail, Dauntless, and everyone else felt a sudden, terrible tugging, a plucking at their flesh and clothing and even the breath in their lungs that sought to drag them to the rift. As they stared at this new danger, Vangerdahast calmly stepped into it.
At his heels there was a flash of light-and the rift and its inexorable pull were gone, as abruptly as they had come into being. Jhessail blinked. Now that the passage was empty of Royal Magicians of Cormyr, she noticed something that had been hidden from her behind his arm-waving bulk.
The flying sword was back.
It arrowed toward the rift, racing fast to try to reach it.
With the rift gone, the sword-Gods Above, but it was a splendid thing, large and long and sleek! — flashed vainly through the empty air where the rift had been and sped on, not slowing in the slightest.
Jhessail found she could turn her head in the ornrion's cradling grasp to follow its speeding flight. That magnificent sword went right on down the rest of the passage to plunge through the dark opening where the door that had blown her away had been.
Or try to, that is. As it entered the empty doorway, the darkness there vanished in a bursr of light as another glowing, upright oval- tluin, was there no end to portals lurking everywhere? — flashed into being.
Jhessail clearly saw the portal swallow the scudding sword. The blade winked out rather than piercing through the glow.
The glow that now hung, silent and bright, waiting in the air.
Laspeera, Lorbryn, and the Harper were aiming theit failing wands with care and precision. They had their backs to the wall of flame as they took down lich after lich. Vangerdahast trusted their skill enough to risk leaving off blasting for a moment to snatch a look or two behind him.
The harrowfire he'd twisted into lich-melting flames was fading and dying, just as he'd expected. Yet for no reason he could fathom, those flames were melting away from the far side of the passage toward the near wall, revealing more and more of the bone-filled passage as they did so.
"A graveyard of liches," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else, looking at all the strewn, crumbling bones.
The sword had gone streaking down the passage to its end, and he could see no sign of it now. Nor the false Vangerdahasr, either.
He suspected the terrific blast had been the enchantments on the door at the end of the passage exploding. And he'd been right. Yonder was the gaping doorway where the door had been, and here, sttewn before him, were the bodies of the Knights, fallen where they'd been flung. Some were moaning. Falconhand and the farm lass, Lurelake, were even moving, struggling ro rise.
Enough. They had to be stopped. Now.
"Dauntless!" he snapped at the ornrion sitting dazedly on the floor with one of the adventurers-the little lass, of course; soldiers never miss a chance, do they? — in his lap. "Stop the Knights! Stop them smashing wall panels, if you have to kill every last one of them!"
He saw Dauntless turn his head and look at the Knight in his arms-Jhessail, that was her name-and saw her look right back at him, their noses almost touching. Their faces wore looks that were more bewildered than anything else.
Together the mage and the ornrion looked at the Knights around them. Doust was sprawled senseless, Pennae a ragged and broken thing, Semoor sprawled and looking just as dead as the thief, and Florin and Islif were wincing in pain as they fought to rise.
Jhessail turned her eyes to Vangerdahast. "Consider us stopped," she said to him, her voice a hoarse, husky ruin-and she slumped unconscious in the ornrion's arms.
"Listen to me," Rhallogant Caladanter told the Royal Palace doot guard. "I'm noble, damn it."
He waved a reproving hand at the man and discovered it was trembling. In fact, he was shaking all over. Shaking with fear.
Boarblade, however, seemed as calm as ever as he leaned close to the guard's mustache and said, "You'll understand that my lord is quite upset. Over a magical matter, if you take my meaning. A matter that might be very important to the safety of all Cormyr. Which is why we need to speak to a senior war wizard. Urgently. We may well be mistaken-I very much hope we are-but as loyal Cormyreans, we dare not take that chance. If you are one,o «dare not take that chance."
The guard stared at them, as expressionless as ever, then said, "Wait here." Stepping away from his closed door, he went a little way along the wall to where a faint magical glow shone, like the light of an invisible lantern, and said into it, "Young nobleman and his manservant, upset and wanting to see a senior Wizard of War. Both armed, but I see no ready magic."
Rhallogant couldn't hear any reply, but the guard nodded, muttered, "Hear and obey," came back to the door, and rapped on it sharply in a particular rhythm with the hilt of his dagger.
"I'll take your srand," said a voice from the gloom within, as the guard led Rhallogant and Boarblade inside. The guard nodded, not slowing, and marched to a passage crossing. He turned and snapped, "This way, please."
They followed the guard down a passage, then around a corner and along another passage, ere the impassive Purple Dragon stopped at a plain, closed door and flung it open, waving at his two guests to pass him and enter.
They did so, finding themselves in a large room whose walls were hidden behind tapestries. A great, six-candle lantern was hanging from a chain above a large and littered-with-parchments desk, behind which a rather weary-looking war wizard in dusty red robes sat alone, making notes with a bedraggled quill pen.
"I'd view that as a tactic rather than an irenicon," he was murmuring to a book he was consulting, paying no attention at all to the door opening and the two visitors entering the room.
As the guard drew the door closed again, staying on the far side of it and leaving the two visitors alone in the room with the mage, the wizard made a last note, unhurriedly set aside his book, and looked up at them, his expression neutral but somehow unimpressed.
"Tathanter Doarmund's my name," he said rather grimly. "Yours? And your business?"
"Lord," Boarblade asked respectfully, leaning forward, "are you a senior war wizard?"
"I believe I have two questions outstanding," Doarmund replied.
"Of course," Boarblade said with a smile-plucking a dagger from its sheath behind his back and hurling it at the seated mage as he straightened up.
It struck an unseen ward and clanged aside, harmlessly. Boarblade muttered a swift spell as he turned back to the door, but halfway through the incantation he fell silent and motionless, still as a statue.
Something small bulged under his jerkin as it drew rogerher, then struggled out of the garment undet Boarblade's chin, thrusting out into midair in a strange, amorphous blob that lacked eyes, mouth, and even limbs, yet was obviously alive. In the act of sprouting protrusions, it stopped to hang frozen in midair.
"A hargaunt," a voice said from behind one of the tapestries. "Quite harmless until that spell wears off, I assure you."
The speaker stepped out from behind the tapestry with half-a-dozen war wizards in his wake.
It was Alaphondar, Sage Most Learned of the Royal Court, wearing robes of rich maroon glimmerweave and an irritated expression. He pointed at the dagger on the floor.