Ed Greenwood - Swords of Dragonfire

The lionar of the sixth such guardpost frowned and said, “He passed this way not long ago. By now, he’s personally attending the Silverymoon reception, in Anglond’s Great Hall.”

The constal nodded, turned and opened a particular door, and started to run.

“Stop!” Florin said sternly to the Purple Dragons who were forming a ring around the Knights. “We’ve no desire to spill blood here! We but seek the Dragondown Chambers!”

It seemed he’d said the wrong thing.

The ring of Purple Dragons around the Knights widened as every guard stepped hastily back, their swords rising to readiness.

The ornrions among them and the lone Highknight slapped fingers over rings they were wearing, and hissed into those rings, “War wizard aid! War wizard aid! Armory Shadowpassage! Armory Shadowpassage!”

The two wizards standing in the Longstride Hall were just beginning to hope that their shift might somehow go off without a hitch, as day headed into evening, when the pendants they both wore under their splendid uniforms suddenly murmured, “War wizard aid! War wizard aid! Armory Shadowpassage! Armory Shadowpassage!”

“Oh, tluin, ” Tathanter told the world feelingly, as that chanted summons continued. “What now? ”

Malvert had already snatched a wand out of its chased silver scabbard on his leg; Tathanter hastily drew his too.

Dodging among curious guests, they ran to a particular panel in a tapestry-hung back corner of the hall, hastily clawed it open, and plunged through it.

“My,” a bright young shopkeeper’s wife, spectacular in a sheath of shimmerweave that covered her from throat to ankles-except where cutouts left both of her rounded hips bare-remarked to her husband, “it’s just like in the tales-wizards running everywhere, doing urgent, secret things! Isn’t it exciting? ”

Her husband scowled. “No. Unless you change ‘exciting’ to ‘frightening.’ Then I’d agree with you.”

“ ‘Frightening’? But surely not for you! You did your years in the Dragons!”

He nodded and replied curtly, “That’s why.”

Lord Maniol Crownsilver was staggering and gasping for breath by the time they reached Anglond’s Great Hall. Sweating and nigh-incoherent when he tried to speak, he clutched at a handy servant-who fought successfully to stand both still and expressionless-for support as the guards who’d escorted him laid hands on the magnificent door looming up over them, and hauled it wide open.

Crownsilver hastened inside, wiping persistent sweat from his brow, and stared around. He’d forgotten just how hrasted huge the hall was. It was heavily thronged with guests who were busy staring in all directions and marveling at the size and splendor of the hall and of each other.

Maniol Crownsilver took a few steps this way, and a few more that way, and then stopped, baffled.

He thought of Vangerdahast as a great looming figure, dark-robed and terrible, dominant at Court even when Azoun was on his throne. Yet it seemed that only in his mind was the Royal Magician of the Realms truly tall. Here, especially with all the thick-soled boots and high spiked heels being worn by guests desiring to make an impression, there were many folk who were taller than Royal Magician Vangerdahast. Many, many folk, some so tightly clustered together that movement among them was a matter of many bumped elbows and apologies.

In short, Vangey could be anywhere. And Anglond’s Great Hall was big enough to hold a lot of anywheres.

Lord Crownsilver sighed and threw his head back to gaze slowly around at the heights of the long, rounded, high-ceilinged chamber. Not so much at that magnificent painted ceiling, with its gilded, relief-carved dragons, but at the tiers and tiers of balconies below it, that circled the hall in unbroken rings, four high.

Aye, a lot of anywheres. Crownsilver shrugged, let his gaze drift down again to the floor of the hall where he was standing, and starting hunting Vangerdahast.

“The wizards are coming,” the Highknight announced, his voice startlingly loud in the tense silence that had fallen over the passage. “Maintain the ring of swords. Draw it closer. Two paces, no more.”

Slowly and with care, the Purple Dragons closed in around the Knights, swords raised.

“Keep to the ring, even if they start hurling spells?” an ornrion asked.

The Highknight shrugged. “Kill them all if we must. The war wizards can always question their corpses.”

"I‘ve had about enough of this,” Jhessail snapped, and raised her hands to cast a spell.

Pennae whirled around and caught hold of her arm. “ No. Try this, first. The firing-word’s on the butt.”

She snatched a wand from Yassandra’s belt and slapped it into Jhessail’s palm.

The red-haired mage looked at it, and then back up at Pennae. “Just which wizard is missing this?”

“One who’s also missing her life-not my doing-and so won’t be showing up to complain. I hope. Yet tarry a moment, before you start blasting.” She lifted her head and snapped, “Knights, a ring around us both, please.”

“Done,” Florin and Islif said in perfect unison, steering the two priests by their elbows to form as much of a ring as four people could manage.

“Steady,” the Highknight ordered the Purple Dragons all around them, from only a few strides away. “Continue to advance slowly and in formation. The man who charges will face my wrath.”

“And my blade,” Islif added mildly, earning herself a glare from the bearded Cormyrean.

Pennae had plucked something small from one of the pouches on Yassandra’s belt, and hefted it in her hand. Now she held it up between thumb and forefinger-and threw it, hard.

It was a small black bead, and when it struck the Highknight’s nose, there was a flash of blue light-and the passage was suddenly blocked off, blotted out by a black sphere of shimmering force that filled it, flickering wildly as it tried to expand farther than the distance between the passage floor and ceiling would allow. Purple Dragons cried out and struggled in its thrall, many of them fighting to back away-and were suddenly swallowed up in or behind the blackness, as the magic gave up trying to expand as a sphere, and flooded in both directions to seal off the passage entirely.

Pennae took Jhessail by the arm again, turned her around to face the other way, and gestured as grandly as any servant. “ Now you may blast, please.”

The Purple Dragons who’d crowded in behind the Knights were relatively few, perhaps two dozen in all. They backed warily away now, frowning, into a three-rank-deep living barrier across the passage, and more than one man turned to the ornrion among them and asked, “Permission to go and fetch our shields, sir?”

Whatever the ornrion might have decided was left unsaid, as Jhessail gave the massed Dragons a sweet smile and announced clearly, “ Clarrdathenta. ”

The wand in her hand quivered-and then spat bright blue-white bolts of magic like four battlestrikes all being cast at once.

The magical missiles sped home, just as she’d wanted them to, striking at every Dragon. Twice.

The Dragons reeled, and Jhessail fed them from the wand again.

Men went from staggering to falling, this time, and there were only a few weakly sliding down the walls when Florin said, “Come. Back through them, then start opening doors. Before all the gods, we are going to find those hrasted stairs up!”