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.""Your candor," Florin told the officer—an ornrion, balding and with what little hair he had left gray-white at his temples—"is appreciated.""I'll bet." The ornrion did not quite smile."The Royal Magician ordered us to send out patrols and shepherd you out of Cormyr, trailing behind you unseen until needed.We were to make very sure you didn't turn aside into hiding to try to stay in Cormyr or get caught up in troubles along the way.""As we did," Florin said, a little wearily."We seem to be good at getting caught up in trouble.""A judgment I share," the ornrion agreed, wearing a smile at last."You owe your lives to the diligence of Lionar Threave, as it happens.It was he who insisted on doubling up two of our usual patrols and bringing along Wizard of War Rathanna"—a homely, unsmiling woman in dark robes stepped into view from behind the ornrion's shoulder and gave Florin a nod—"and our priest, Maereld, Able Hand of Torm.With their aid, you Knights were healed and brought here to Halfhap.You'll night over here in the gate-tower, and we'll see you all fed in the morning, given what remounts you need, and attended by holycoats to lead you in prayers.Then we'll let you forth—to go around Halfhap, mind, and ride on."Florin sighed."You'll not be escorting us, just to be sure?"The ornrion half-smiled."Oh, someone will.If Tymora smiles, you'll not meet with them.They're led by someone who's fast becoming an old friend of yours."Florin sighed again.Dauntless, for all the coins in his purse.He politely didn't ask the ornrion for confirmation.He was beginning to be able to read the manner shared by many Purple Dragon officers, and that particular half-smile meant "expect to receive no answers.""Thanks for my life," he said instead.It seemed the polite thing to do.Chapter 4Just such a taskThe realm needs saving again? No need have ye to even ask Every Purple Dragon we rrain Works daily at just such a task(Anonymous)from the ballad "Dragon High, Forever"first heard circa the Year of the AdderThe tapestry had barely fallen back into place behind the departing Lady Targrael when Laspeera slipped into the room from behind another one."That one is on the proverbial sword edge," she said.Vangerdahast shrugged."Send one problem after another.If they destroy each other, that's two fewer we must deal with.""IfT Laspeera said doubtfully."No Wizard of War riding with Dauntless, hey? So is it to be the belt-buckle method?"The Royal Magician shook his head."Rumors about that are finally beginning to drift from Dragon to Dragon.No, I want the spells cast on items no Purple Dragon will leave behind: his codpiece and boots.Belts they can—and will—contrive to change, so cast something swift and worthless over those, to fool them.Their cods, and both boots, mind, are to be enchanted so that I—and you and Tathanter—can listen through them at will.See to it."Laspeera nodded."Wouldn't it be easier to just—?""Send a Wizard of War riding along with them? And have Dauntless blind and foil us at a time of his choosing by arranging matters so 'something happens' to our mage? I think not.Our loyal ornrion is proving to have.surprising depths."Laspeera nodded again and smiled."I'll see to it." Bowing her head, she turned and departed the way she'd come, the tapestry swirling gently in her wake.She was careful not to sigh until she was no less than three closed panels away from her irascible superior.*****Like almost every mage of the Brotherhood, Mauliykhus of the Zhentarim was ambitious.Wherefore he was going to dare this casting, risky though it was.He had locked and barred two sets of iron-bound doors between himself and the common passage in Zhentil Keep, and there was nothing suspicious in that.He had his orders from Lord Manshoon, spell-workings that were both dangerous and would yield results that should be kept secrer from stray eyes.Wherefore the shielding scepter was resting in its holder, in the heart of the flickering yellow-green flame of the brazier to which he'd so carefully added powders, and no one but the most powerful archmage should be able to spy on what he did next.Which was a good thing, because he intended to disobey both the leader of the Zhentarim and one of its most powerful and mysterious mages.Manshoon had given him a working to perform:—just such a task as he needed for an excuse to raise a shielding—and Mauliykhus was going to do something else instead.And that "something else" was a casting that Hesperdan had just specifically ordered him not, under any circumstances, to attempt.No fell creature of the Abyss was to be contacted, for any reason, until he received explicit orders otherwise from either Hesperdan or Manshoon himself.Mauliykhus had no idea if Hesperdan suspected what he planned and was trying to prevent him—or goad him into doing it in all haste, for that mattet—by forbidding him to seek out a demon.or if all Zhentarim were forbidden from demonic contact, forthwith.It soundedlike the latter, but Hesperdan was very good at imparting impressions without actually saying what you thought he'd said.Hrast him.Mauliykhus smiled, shrugged, raised both hands dramatically above the black table upon which he'd arranged everything he would need—and began the incantation.Sealing One's Own Doom, some of the older grimoires tauntingly entitled the words he was now reading.It took only half a dozen of the deep, harsh-sounding words for the room to darken, all of the braziers flickering at once, and chill shadows to start to glide and swoop out of the darkness.He spoke on.The dark, cruising wisps seemed sentient, yet he'd been told many a time they weren't.They merely sought life and light and warmth, stuff of what made up worlds and that which lay between worlds.A way started to open between his locked and barred stone chamber in Zhentil Keep and somewhere in the Abyss.Mauliykhus brought his hands down, watched fire that was not fire form between them and circle from thumb to thumb and smallest finger to smallest finger to shape a silent hole in the air.The way began to open, and he was through and doomed.Darker shadows of malicious—and gleeful—awareness streaked into him out of the yawning, howling darkness.Into his ears they plunged, before he could say a word to stop them, lashing into his mind like burning ice.Fury drove them, fury and exultation.Harsh, ruthless, and insane they were, and they knew themselves as Old Ghost and Horaundoon as they reveled in ravaging his mind.What had been Mauliykhus quailed and cowered, unable to even mew in his terror; one of the terrible spirits in his head had already slashed control of his mouth and hands.They leered into his silently shrieking self, leaned in, and took big, greedy bites.and Mauliykhus knew no more.The body of the ambitious Zhentarim wizard stumbled around the locked room, toppling a brazier onto the stones, its coals spilling harmlessly amid hissing smoke.His head sank in slightly, literally beginning to melt from within as both angry wraiths, snarling their Abyssal madness ar each other, roiled around behind his eyes.Mauliykhus lurched upright and staggered to tug at the bars of the innermost iron-bound doors [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]