Ed Greenwood - Swords of Dragonfire

The ranger plucked the guard off his feet and hurled him bodily into the two guards right behind him, sending them all crashing down in a welter of bouncing halberds.

Lady revelers shrieked and tried to flee-and a reeling, off-balance guard stepped on the trailing gown of one buxom lady merchant and bared her to dethma and elegantly jeweled clout as her low-backed, lower-fronted gown tore from top to bottom. There were cries of both glee and rage at that-and Vangerdahast swept grandly out of his ring of admirers and spread his hands, rings catching fire on all of his fingers, to blast the Knights.

Florin desperately swept Pennae up off her feet, boosted her upright to his shoulder, and threw her forward and high into the air-as the Royal Magician’s spell-blast slammed into the Knights, hurling them back. Pennae, aloft, escaped that roaring magic, but it flattened guards, servants, and guests alike, sweeping them all, bone-shakingly, past pillars to the back wall, to end up with the Knights in a chaos of bruised, interlocked, writhing folk.

Guests screamed, and their cries brought every head in the hall around and an astonished silence to the scene.

Ramurra Hornmantle and Ildaergra Steelcastle hastily drained their flagons, not taking their eyes off what was unfolding for an instant.

They saw Pennae land, drop into a crouch, and without pause spring up again like an acrobat, to deftly avoid the emerald beams of Vangerdahast’s next magic-which struck plumes of smoke from the polished floor.

Pennae came crashing down into the Royal Magician’s arms, bearing him to the floor and entwining herself around him to hiss into his startled face, “There’s a conspiracy to kill you, Wizard! Don’t look into or go near any crystal balls! Any moment now, word will come that both princesses are endangered-that’s the signal!”

As Vangey blinked at her, Lord Maniol Crownsilver cried despairingly from halfway down the hall, “Lord Vangerdahast! Royal Magician! A rescue! A rescue! Ghoruld Applethorn told me to tell you I’ve-he’s-captured the princesses! Gloating, that’s it! Then he vanished right in front of my eyes, and I don’t know where he’s gone!”

“Oh, tluin, ” Vangerdahast groaned, and took hold of Pennae’s wrist in a grip of iron. “Go nowhere, little thief. You are going to explain all of this to me.”

“Gladly, my lord,” Pennae breathed in lavish imitation of an ardent, smitten lady.

The stout, bearded mage underneath her gave her a glare and growled, “Adventurers! Now get off my bladder and let me up. ”

Wizard of War Beldos Margaster was, as usual, in his chambers. When events as large as this revel were unfolding, his scrying involved more than a dozen hovering-in-air crystal balls, and he preferred quiet solitude and room to work ordered as he saw fit, to use them in.

Wherefore he looked up, blinking, as the War Wizards Tathanter Doarmond and Malvert Lulleer bustled into his chambers at the head of a dozen Purple Dragons, who bore the bodies of Lady Laspeera and an ornrion of the Dragons on great decorative shields obviously torn down off the Palace walls.

“I’ve purge-poisoned the Lady Laspeera, and she’s waking,” Tathanter explained excitedly, without even a greeting, “but that’s my one such spell. Can you see to this ornrion? We found them in the Long Passage. Its Palace-end guards were served the same way; all but two who came to us, warning of adventurers who must be in the Palace right now!”

Beldos Margaster frowned. “How so, when they’d have to wade through scores of other Dragons, on guard all over the cellars?”

“That’s just what they’ve done,” one of the Purple Dragons growled.

Margaster crooked a disbelieving eyebrow, then got a good look at the face of the ornrion on the shield, and hurried to a cabinet to pluck forth a vial.

“For this,” he said, waving at both of the stricken, “potions are more reliable than the purge spell. That’s why I’ve no such spell ready to cast.”

He forced open the ornrion’s mouth, emptied the vial into it, and held those slack lips together with his hand.

Almost instantly, Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul’s still face creased, he started to cough, and then his eyes flew open.

They met Margaster’s gaze a moment later, as the mage hastily took his fingers away, and Dauntless growled, “Gaster! Wanted to tell you, next I saw you: we left the Dragonfire swords behind us, in Halfhap! They’re real after all! Flying and glowing, right enough. They’re holding up most of the inn right now!”

Margaster looked interested, but said, “They’ll have to wait until after you tell me what befell you and the Lady Laspeera. Here, that is, in the Long Passage, not in Halfhap.”

Dauntless blinked. “Oh, gods! The Knights of Myth Drannor! They came out of Halfhap with us, but the moment the Lady Laspeera told them the Royal Magician was hunting them, they went mad! The thief slapped us both with a sleep-venom ring!”

Margaster glanced over at Laspeera; her eyelids were fluttering. Turning hastily to Tathanter and Malvert, he ordered, “Take this ornrion to the Battlebanners Room and keep him there until I come for him. Don’t leave him and don’t let him go anywhere. I’ll see to the Lady L-”

“Oh, no, you won’t, Gaster,” Laspeera snapped, looking up at him. “You’ll stay right here and relay all that’s befalling, as the rest of us search the Palace for these Knights! I’ll be having them in chains by nightfall!”

She heaved herself up from her shield, reeled, and caught hold of Dauntless for support.

“Leave him with me,” she snapped at Tathanter and Malvert. Then her face changed, and she asked them rather wearily, “Wasn’t there a revel here, this night?”

“Yes, Lady,” Malvert replied hastily. “The reception for the envoy from Silverymoon.”

Laspeera rolled her eyes and wobbled to her feet, leaning on Dauntless. “ That’s where they’ll be. If I know my starving, thieving adventurers, they’ll not be able to resist all the food and jewels! Lead me there!”

She strode out, visibly gaining strength with every step, and everyone went with her except Beldos Margaster.

Alone again, the old war wizard smiled faintly. Then he shrugged, opened another cabinet, took a pile of dark cloth from it, and shook out the uppermost cloth; it was a hood. Working quickly, he hooded each crystal ball and put it into the cabinet. When they were all closed away, the cabinet firmly latched, he went to the other end of the room and worked a spell.

When the horizontal whirlpool occurred in midair, Margaster bent over to peer into it, and kept his intent gaze upon it as it started to spin, and his scrying began again.

“ ’Strordinary!” Lord Ildabray Indesm commented enthusiastically. “Hurled herself right at old Vangey, she did! Took him to the ground and rode him like a… like a…”

He suddenly became aware of his wife’s cold-eyed scrutiny, and harrumphed into red-faced silence.

“ I think,” Lord Bellarogar Rowanmantle said loudly, “That the realm needs bold adventurers of that sort, to shake our Royal Magician right out of his confidence every tenday or so. Not to mention the entertainment his comeuppance affords us all.”

Others standing near rolled their eyes. Lord Rowanmantle thought a lot of things, and all of them loudly.

“Now, now,” Lord Horntar Dauntinghorn said soothingly. “We must remember that aside from bruised dignity and a few wine-stained gowns for which the Crown will no doubt compensate handsomely, no one was harmed. Our Dragons are back at their posts, halberds in hand once more, with no trace of blood on the floor. Moreover, all the ruffians went off in the company of Lord Vangerdahast, who claims ever that his haste and highhandedness befalls only for the good of the realm. And they were hurrying, all of them, so perhaps-”