Mounted on his dark bay, Stillhawk met her eye and nodded greeting.
It took all her strength to keep her knees from buck-ling right there on the city hall steps. The pressure of tears unshed stung her eyes.
The two men swung down from their horses and walked up to her. When Zaranda made no move to em-brace them, the half-elf cocked an eyebrow inquisitively.
"Where are the others?" she asked quietly. "Where are Shield, and Chen? Where's Goldie?"
The sky was gray as a gull's back, save near the hori-zon where fire held sway. The air was thick with the smells of death and burning and decay. The darklings stank like dead things even when alive, if alive they were. Even if Zazesspur survived, it would take time to eradicate their stench.
"I thought you'd have heard," said Farlorn. "The beast betrayed you to the baron's men; we clapped him in irons and have kept him there ever since. The girl has been in a most powerful sulk since you vanished. She refused to accompany us today."
Have I done wrong? Stillhawk signed.
Zaranda touched his arm. "If so, not intentionally. I suspected Shield for a time myself. But I feel as if a wrong has been done."
Farlorn tut-tutted and shook his head. "Ah, Zaranda. Once again, you're letting the softness of your heart weaken that hard head of yours—"
"Hey! Zaranda! Randi!"
Zaranda turned. Trotting across the plaza from the south came Goldie, bearing Chenowyn on her back.
At their side loped Shield of Innocence.
27
"You're sure this is the way into the palace?" Zaranda asked.
Farlorn's beautiful features assumed a long-suffer-ing look by torchlight. "I didn't spend our previous so-journ in the city cutting out paper dolls. Naturally the palace attracted my interest, as a monument to ele-phantine bad taste if for no other reason. I made in-quiry, and explored some on my own. That's one nice thing about trying to infiltrate buildings built less than an eon ago; it's a lot easier to buy a workman a jack of good ale at a tavern than it is to summon up his shade."
Zaranda's party was recapitulating Simonne's sewer-crawl of the night before, which had precipitated today's crisis. Zaranda's group, while smaller, was much more seasoned. Farlorn led the way with a bull's-eye lantern in one hand and his rapier in the other, es-chewing any armor but the leather jerkin he wore over a white blouse with lace at throat and cuffs. Beside him walked Stillhawk with an arrow nocked to his elvish longbow and long sword belted at his hip; as was his custom, he too wore no armor, though his heavy leather tunic gave some protection.
Next came Zaranda, armed with a splendid if non-magical long sword from Hembreon's armory and a long-bladed dagger with a knuckle bow for parrying. Unless mounted, she hated a shield's encumbrance; her left hand held a torch. Her only armor was a steel cuirass. Chen followed, unarmored in loose blouse and trousers, with a dagger thrust through her belt, primarily for effect. She refused to be left behind, and given her service in springing the great orog, Zaranda didn't argue.
Shield of Innocence brought up the rear. The orog was magnificent and fearful in armor which, like the scimitars in his taloned hands, he had crafted himself under the guidance of Torm, whose gauntlet was inlaid in gold in the center of his breastplate. He wore a hel-met close-molded to his head with cheekpiece flanges that left his pointed ears clear to facilitate hearing, and steel greaves and vambraces, all polished to a mirror shine. His expression was serene. If his imprisonment had engendered resentment in his mighty breast, it didn't show on his face.
The tunnel running under the palace was high enough that all save Shield could walk without stoop-ing. The smell was no less appalling for the compara-tively short time the sewer had been in use, but Zaranda had endured worse. None of the others wasted breath on it either. Chen, who was not normally slow to speak up if things were not to her liking, had always been indifferent to smells, most notably her own, in the days before Zaranda brought her around on the hygiene issue. Farlorn, most aesthetically sensitive of the lot, displayed the loftiness of his contempt by not deigning to complain.
The tunnel began to branch to serve the various parts of the vast structure. Zazesspur, with its wealth of innovative and assiduous artisans, had enjoyed run-ning water and indoor plumbing longer even than most great cities of Faerun; it was a simple enough technic, involving no magic, unless one were Calishite and simply had to have one's needs served by a bowl of water summoning. The half-elf led them left, right, left again down passages that diminished at every fork, so that even Chen, shortest of the group, had to double over, and Shield had to waddle in a painful-looking squat. His placid look never wavered.
" 'Ware upward," Farlorn called back over his shoul-der. "Anything falling from above is unlikely to be the manna of the gods!"
"Thanks so much for reminding us," Zaranda said in a low voice. Farlorn laughed musically. "And could you please be quiet? If Hardisty hears voices floating up out of his commode he's not going to think it's an angelic chorus come to sing his praises."
The half-elf grinned at her and, maddeningly, laughed aloud. His olive cheeks were flushed, eyes fever-bright. From experience, Zaranda knew that when the manic mood came upon him there was no con-taining him. She likewise knew that, while in such an exalted state he might take risks that seemed insane, he had never brought disaster on himself or his comrades. Yet.
Just when it seemed Zaranda's thigh muscles were going to split straight across, Stillhawk and Farlorn straightened. Zaranda came up alongside them and found a round passage rising straight up.
"What's this," she asked, "a giant's oubliette?"
Farlorn shone the beam of his bull's-eye over metal rungs running up the tube's side to a circular wooden hatch ten feet up. "An access passage, so that workmen can enter the sewers in case of blockage."
Zaranda drew in a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. "Once we're up, there'll be no turn-ing back."
She turned and embraced the others in turn. The rest exchanged handshakes and hugs. This might be the last chance to say good-bye.
Stillhawk came to Shield of Innocence, paused, stuck out his hand. The great orc gripped him firmly, forearm to forearm. Then the orog turned to Farlorn.
The half-elf sneered and turned away.
Zaranda looked at him, then up at the hatch. "Locked?"
"Of course. Did you think this would be easy?"
"I thought it would be harder already." She shut her eyes and concentrated. It was difficult to summon the dweomer; fatigue dragged her down with leaden fin-gers. Get through this and you can rest all you want, she told herself. One way or another.
She spoke the spell. The squeal of metal on metal sounded through the thick wooden disk as a bolt with-drew. Farlorn sheathed his rapier, swarmed up the rungs like a squirrel, and tested the hatch.
He spat a curse in Elven. "Still locked!"
The words struck Zaranda like a fist in the belly. The breath chuffed out of her, and she bent over as if in physical pain, resting hands on thighs. She had had but the one knock spell memorized. "Farlorn, it's not like you to do so slipshod a job of scouting."
"No one else did any kind of scouting at all."
"That's fair enough," Zaranda said. She straightened and scrutinized the disk. Its blank, rough wood sug-gested nothing.
"I can try to open it," Chen offered.
"You haven't learned the knock spell," Zaranda re-minded her.
"Maybe I can use my other powers."
"No. They're too unpredictable. And I've a feeling there are things within the palace for whom such a con-centration of dweomer would be like tocsins ringing. I'm uneasy enough about the puny little spell I cast."