"You are right, Countess Morninggold. More right than you know, for I must crave a boon of you."
"A boon?" She laughed. "Start talking, Your Grace."
"Where ought I to begin? Last night a party of armed citizens surprised a Zhentarim slave galley taking on a shipment of kidnapped Zazesspurian children in a cavern beneath the city. Supervising the vile deed were men wearing the robes of Ao's supposed priesthood."
"So Ao hasn't decided to take an active interest in the affairs of this plane after all."
"The survivors confessed they were in fact priests of Cyric."
Zaranda sucked in a sharp breath. "That's in charac-ter, I suppose. That upstart god loves deception for its own sake." The greatest evil deity currently known in the Realms, Cyric had been born during the Time of Troubles, even as Bhaal, Myrkul, and Bane, whose portfolios he had usurped, were destroyed.
"And Armenides—?"
The duke held up a hand. "In hiding. But more of that anon. Pray let me tell my tale in order. It is painful enough."
Zaranda gestured him to proceed.
"Scarcely had word of the discovery reached the council's ears than a frightful thing came to pass.
Those children of our most prominent citizens who had joined the All-Friends rose up and began to slaughter their parents. Deymos, Baron Zam, and the Lady Korun are known dead at their offsprings' hands; Hafzul Gorbon stove in his only daughter's head with a mace as she stood over her mother's corpse with dripping blade, then lay down beside his wife and slit his own throat. Others—" He shook his head.
"Gods! Tatrina?"
He sighed. "She has vanished into the Palace of Gov-ernance, wherein Hardisty has crowned himself king and declared her his consort. At least I dare hope she has not been . . . affected."
"I hope so as well. But why do citizens and consta-bles battle blue-and-bronzes in the streets?"
"An hour before dawn, even as the last of the mur-derous youths and maidens were being subdued, darklings poured forth from the sewers in unimaginable profusion and began to slay. The civic guard got orders not to fight them. Many deserted; others tried to dis-arm citizens and constabulary and became embroiled in the fighting you saw. A number are fortified up with the usurper Hardisty. Most have barricaded themselves in their barracks and wait to see which way fortune's winds blow."
He shook his head, like an old lion who has found temporary shelter from a pack of hounds who have har-ried him near death. "The hinges are blasted off the gates of all the hells. Earl Ravenak's swine rampage against nonhumans and foreigners. Artisans battle the syndics of their very guilds. The supposed forces of order fight one another. The scions of Zazesspur's finest families are turned to monsters by some means none can divine, have slaughtered the leaders of our city and been slaughtered in their turn. And all must be over-thrown if the darklings are not stopped."
He raised his head as if he had a tombstone yoked to his neck and looked at Zaranda. "It seems we are to know the Ten Black Days of Eleint again, all com-pressed into a single day."
She went to the stool, sat down, and began to mas-sage her temples. "So," she said. " The evil ran deeper than I imagined . . . than I could have imagined." She looked up at the duke. "What do you want of me?"
"I have myself just come from fighting the darklings. We are sorely pressed. The issue—the very survival of Zazesspur—remains in the gravest doubt."
"You want my help."
"I beseech your help, Countess Morninggold. Though I fear that all the help you can possibly provide might not suffice to stem the evil tide."
She spread her hands. "I'd love to oblige, Your Grace, but I have an appointment to be spread out on a giant wheel and have all my bones broken in a few hours."
Hembreon moaned. "You are pardoned. Your sen-tence of death is overturned and rendered null. We were deceived."
"Has the council voted to nullify my sentence? You said yourself that most were unaccounted for."
With surprising alacrity the duke whipped up his sword. "Whoever tries to gainsay me, I will strike down with my own hand. I warrant your life with my own. This I swear on my honor."
"Very well." Zaranda nodded briskly. Turning to the table, she took up pen and parchment. "Send a patrol to convey this message beneath a flag of truce to my friends. Needless to say, you must also alert such forces as remain loyal to the council that we're on the same side now."
The duke was too soul-weary to take umbrage at being ordered about like a scullery whelp by his erst-while prisoner. "It shall be done."
"It'll take time for our reinforcements to arrive. See if you can scare me up some spellbooks. I'll memorize such spells as I can while we wait."
"You will not join the fight at once?"
"You flatter me, Your Grace. Would my single blade make that much difference against numberless hordes of darklings? Especially since I'm without my magic sword?" She shook her head. "As it is, I don't know what good my few paltry spells might do, either. But I'll seize any advantage I can with both hands."
The duke sighed, rose heavily. "I had hoped—" His voice trailed away, and he blinked back tears.
Zaranda looked up from her writing. "Out with it."
"My daughter ... I had hoped—if there is any hope—that you might rescue her."
"What if she doesn't want to be rescued?" The look of agony that washed over the old man's features brought her instant shame.
"Don't worry, Your Grace," she said quickly. "The first item on my agenda is breaking into the Palace of Misrule over there and cutting King Faneuil the First and Last's black heart right out of his chest."
She finished writing, signed the parchment with a flourish, and held it out to him. "After my friends get here."
A knock at the door roused her from a surprisingly deep sleep—surprising in that she had simply lain down to rest her eyes while waiting, and was not plagued by nightmares. Perhaps she was too tired to dream. Or perhaps the owner of that dry and loathly Voice had more pressing claims on its attention.
She woke with a fearful start: they've come to take me and break me! By the time she remembered that those festivities had been called on account of reign—the reign of evil, to be exact—the door had opened and into the city hall clerk's office, which she had comman-deered after her release, came Nyadnar.
"It speaks well for your presence of mind that you can sleep under these circumstances," the sorceress said.
"What surprises me is that I could sleep last night at all," Zaranda said, rising from the makeshift cot. "What can I do for you?"
Day turned the pallor of Nyadnar's features marmo-real, giving her the weird, poignant beauty of an an-cient statue brought to life. She wore her customary robe of midnight-blue velvet, and over it a gray cloak to shield her from the sporadic drizzle. From beneath the cloak she produced a bundle of books and age-yellowed papers, bound up by a purple ribbon. These she laid on the table.
"My early spellbooks," the enchantress said. "Any spells known to you, you will find therein."
Zaranda stared at the bundle as if it might at any moment transform itself into a raging dragon. "The world must be spinning seriously out of balance," she said, "for you to take such measures on my behalf."
"Don't leap to conclusions; that displays a lack of mental rigor," Nyadnar said. "It might be necessary that you fail spectacularly."
"Then I'll have to try my best to disappoint you," Zaranda said with a she-wolf grin. "In the meantime, though, I thank you."
The sun was setting when another knock roused Zaranda from her studies. "What is it?" she called, knuckling sand-blasted eyes.
A policeman opened the door. "His Grace the duke sends his regards, milady. He bids me tell you your friends approach."
"Well met, Zaranda Star!" called Farlorn the Hand-some, waving jauntily from the back of his dapple-gray mare. "Your beauty is most resplendent, all things con-sidered."