Rathan was already clambering to his feet. “Ye want to have fun, is what ye mean. Right, then; let’s go.” His mace gleamed in Selune’s pate light as he raised it. “Don’t fall, now,” he warned. “It would not do for a priest of Tymora to rush upon them with the ferocity of a raging lion, but alone.”
“Keep up, if you can,” Torm replied, breaking suddenly into a run of almost frightening speed. Rathan shook his head and followed.
Laelar was third on the rope. He watched narrowly as the adept at the top looked cautiously in a window. If the alarm was raised now, before they could get proper footing within, things could go ill indeed. He belched to ease his taut stomach, knowing that the magical silence would cover the sound, for he carried a second stone that bore a dweomer of silence upon it. Utter silence reigned. Overhead, the moon shone uncaring.
There was a violent tug on the rope, and the warrior immediately above Laelar lost his hold and came crashing down upon the Hammer of Bane in a silence that could only be magical.
Torm rushed straight in at the two warriors. Blades swept out to impale him, but he dove hard at the turf in front of them, rolled, and straightened his legs as he somersaulted to catch those blades and bring their points down. Rathan leaned over him, mace glinting in the moonlight, to strike a blow with all his weight behind it. The man he struck crumpled, neck shattered, and fell to the side, forcing his comrade to leap away or be struck and encumbered.
Torm, on the ground, scissored the man’s legs between his own, and twisted around hard. The warrior toppled helplessly, arms and blade flailing, and Rathan dealt another heavy blow with his mace. He spun around to see if any of those on the rope were close enough to attack them, but the velvet silence had prevented any warning sounds. Only the man at the bottom of the rope was turning, startled. Torm slammed into him like a dark wind in the night, and swept him away from the rope into the wall beyond, knife flashing repeatedly as they fell together.
Rathan hurried to the rope, saw with satisfaction that only Torm was getting up, wrapped his hand around it securely, and hauled. He let go immediately and stepped back, not a breath too soon. Two mailed bodies crashed together into the space he had just left. Rathan attacked again with his mace. Tymora smiled, surely, or else it could never be this easy.
It wasn’t. One of the two who had fallen still moved. Torm rushed in, catlike, with his dagger, and was struck by a black rod that seemed to come out of nowhere and shook him from teeth to fingertips. He staggered back soundlessly, and Rathan moved in.
Rod struck mace. Rathan felt the jolt up his arm, shuddered-magic! Gods’ laugh, wouldn’t you know it-and struck again. His blow was countered. The force of the counter-blow drove him back. Another was down the rope now, this one a warrior with a blade. Rathan and Torm went forward together, cautiously.
There was a flurry of blows, much shoving and twisting, and the foes reeled apart again. Torm threw daggers carefully at the curly-haired one with the rod, more to spoil any working of magic than to injure. They were struck aside, harmlessly. The other foe, the warrior, plucked something from his throat and threw it over Torm’s shoulder.
The world burst into flames. Torm and Rathan were thrown forward in that terrible silence. Blistering flames raged over and past them. Those they faced reeled back against the tower wall at the searing heat. The rope, still standing upright by itself, was blackened but not burned. Torm stared at it as he sank to his knees in agony, face twisting in a soundless scream.
Laelar staggered grimly forward, his rod of smiting raised to strike.
Out of the night came something long and slim and feet first. The Hammer of Bane was struck in the neck and throat and flipped over backward like a child’s toy, the black rod bouncing free of his weakening grasp as he hit the ground. Sharantyr, her wet gown plastered to her, landed on her shoulders after her devastating kick, and rolled over and up in time to face the warrior.
She stood, panting, hands spread but weaponless, facing that advancing blade. She suddenly realized that she could hear the wet grass slithering as her foe advanced and Torm groaning on the ground beside her. The spell of silence had been lifted. Light suddenly sprang into being all about them, and Sharantyr saw Rathan struggling to his feet out of the corner of her eye for an instant before the warrior of Bane charged. Someone-she had not time to see who-fell heavily out of the darkness above, and crashed to earth beside the rope with a horrible thud. The warrior was rushing at her.
“Die, bitch!” she heard him hiss under his breath, as he slashed down at her crosswise, a blow she could not hope to avoid. Sharantyr flung herself backward, and felt the very tip of his blade burn along her ribs as she fell. She cursed weakly, as she struck the ground, and rolled desperately away to her left-straight into Torm. Oh, gods, she thought, this is it. She twisted around, trying to raise her feet to kick away the killing blade.
But it never came. There was a solid, meaty thwack off to her right, grunts and the ringing clang of hard-driven metal upon metal, and crashing about in the grass. Then a very weak, whispering voice by her elbow said, “Good lady, I fear you are lying upon my arm. It’s almost worth the pain, though, for the view.” Sharantyr grinned in spite of herself.
“Sorry, Torm,” she said, wincing, as she fell onto her side and rolled clear of him again. Across the beaten grass, a blackened and burned Rathan was thoughtfully picking up the black rod. Hefting it, he brought it down on the back of the warrior’s neck, and then rapped the helm of the cleric with it smartly. Then he looked up.
Mourngrym was leaning out of the window above, Jhessail beside him, wand in hand. “All well?” he called. Mutely shaken heads answered him, and then guards and hastily-roused acolytes from the temples were around them.
“Don’t kill that one,” Rathan said faintly, indicating the cleric. “Moumgrym will want to question someone about this, and I’d rather it wasn’t me.” Then he fainted, laying aside his mace and all his cares for a time.
Dawn was clear and chillingly cold, despite the sunrise that shone brightly on the Thunder Peaks above. The small party of dragon cultists climbed the last reaches of a familiar trail and stared at the destruction before them. Where an abandoned but solid keep had stood, over the caverns that led to the lair of Rauglothgor the Undying Wyrm, there was now a vast, round basin of tumbled rock. Here and there gold coins glimmered in the bright, early light.
“May the Dead Dragons wake,” Arkuel muttered, shocked. Malark ignored the blasphemy in his own amazement and gathering rage. It was even as those cowards had said. The girl-or others, but there was no reason to doubt their story now that he’d seen this-had blown the entire mountaintop asunder. The hallowed Rauglothgor, his treasure, the storage caverns, and all the spare weapons and provisions of the followers stored there were gone. This was magic such as the gods must have hurled about in careless might when the world was young. Oh, aye, a dozen archmages could wreak such a result on undefended, unmagical walls, given time enough-but one girl-child, untutored and alone, in the midst of a battle?
Malark drew off his gloves idly. A formidable foe, indeed, if she could do this to great Rauglothgor. Yet she must die. The honor of the cult, of Sammaster First-Speaker, now dust in a ruined city, and of Rauglothgor, now destroyed, demanded it. The safety of us all who remain, he added wryly to himself, also demands it.
Malark, Archmage of the Purple, sat straighten in his saddle, slim and cruel, and looked around with cold black eyes. He gestured to the coins at their feet. “Pick those up-all of them. Recover the lost treasure of Rauglothgor.” He dismounted, cloak swirling, and strode over to stare at the shattered stone. Gods above, he thought, shaken. The entire mountain has been smashed. He looked at the hand-sized pieces of rubble and recalled the tower upon its bare ridge of rock, as he’d seen it the last time he was here, and shook his head. He saw it, but he could still scarcely believe it. And yet he, Malark Himbruel, must stand against-and defeat-the power that had done this.
If he could not, who eke? There were the liches, yes, but liches were chancy things. They served, really, only themselves, and were like the wine of Elversult-they did not travel well. There were other, lesser mages among the ranks of the followers, yes, but he dared not let such a one prevail against an important foe. His own standing in the ranks of the Purple might be threatened.
He was not loved, he knew. The others-who for the most part hated and feared magic that they could not control in their hands, magic not trapped in items they could wield and understand, or that which did not come from a god who laid down strict rules for its use-would not be slow to replace him if other, more controllable mages were at hand. Of course, they would discover that they had merely exchanged one dangerous blade with another-but by then it would be too late for Malark the Mighty. What would it be? Poison? A knife while he slept? Or a magical duel? No, the last was too risky, unless he were drugged or the duel was set against him by allowing his opponent items of power or protective art arranged beforehand; otherwise, Malark might win. The Purple would run red then, indeed.
There were ten non-mages in the Purple: the renegade priest of Tales, Salvarad, the most personally dangerous of them all; their warrior lord and leader, Naergoth; seven warrior-merchants, vicious clods, all; and the soft-spoken, slimy little master thief, Zilvreen. They’d be watching Malark Himbruel to see if he put a foot wrong in this affair. They’d all be watching. Malark thought silent curses upon the head of this mysterious girl and resolved to find someone who’d seen what she’d actually done in the fray. He had to know what the secret of all this power was!
Malark let none of this show on his hawkish face as he watched the men-at-arms scrabbling about in the rocks. “Enough, Arkuel,” he called. “You and Suld, come with me. All others are to find all treasure, remains of the great Rauglothgor, and any other recently dead creatures who may be found where the lair was, and bear them to Over-sember?’ Then he turned his back upon them all and began the casting of a Tulrun’s tracer spell.
The girl who destroyed this place, Malark ordered firmly, and on a hunch he stood in the trail that led down the northern end of the rocky spur where the ruined keep had been. At once the air about him began to glow, and the radiance burst northward down the trail and into the trees below. \\fell enough. “Arkuel, Suld!” he commanded, and led his horse down the trail without looking back.
Looking back is a thing that one of the Purple cannot usually afford to do.
The Seat of Rane stood as empty as ever. The wan-faced High Imperceptor looked up to it in awe, as he always did, in case one day the Black Lord himself should indeed be sitting there. The head of the church of Bane sighed and took his own seat. He rang the little gong beside his throne with the Black Mace of Bane, wielding the great weapon with a delicacy that bespoke strength and skill surprising in one so thin and wan-looking. An upperpriest hurried in and knelt before the throne.
“Up, Kuldus,” the High Imperceptor said. “The reports should be in by now. Tell me.”
The priest nodded. “There is no report from Laelar yet, Dread Lord, or any who went with him,” he began, “but Eilius has just come from Zhentil Keep, and he says that Manshoon has been absent from the city since the meeting he dismissed, the meeting already reported to you! The other lords seek him, and that rebel Fzoul has been trying to contact Manxam and the other beholders. The Zhentarim are plotting and whispering like Calishites all this past day.” The High Imperceptor’s smile lit up his face as if a lamp had been lit within it. He rose from his seat. “Call in all the upperpriests!” he ordered. “If Laelar reports with the girl, well and good. If he reports and has not taken her, have him forget all and return here at once. To Hell with this maid and her spellfire, while we have a chance at Zhentil Keep and that traitor Fzoul! Go, speedily!” And he whirled the great mace over his head as if it weighed nothing and brought it down upon the stone altar with a crash that shook the very Seat of Bane itself. Kuldus scurried out of the room with the wild laughter of the High Imperceptor ringing in his ears.
The clear light of dawn laid a network of diamonds upon the bed as it came through the leaded windows. Narm awoke as it touched his face, reaching vaguely for a dagger or something of the sort, and abruptly recalled where they were-and where exactly he was now: in Shandril’s bedchamber. But-he reached out his hand-where was she?
He sat up abruptly, which set his head throbbing, and looked all about. The tapestries were beautiful, and even the vaulted corners of the ceiling were impressive, but they weren’t Shandril. He looked the other way, past a tall, arched wardrobe and a burnished metal mirror taller than he was, to the door-which obligingly opened. Shandril looked in and grinned.
“Ah, you’re awake at last,” she said delightedly. “Not feeling ill, I hope?”
Narm held his head for a moment, considered the nagging ache within, and said carefully, “Not really, my lady. Is there morningfeast? And-is there a chamber pot?”
Shandril laughed. “How romantic, I must say, my lord. Morningfeast is an ask-in-the-great-hall affair that lasts until highsun. The chamber pot is under there if you must, but behind that door over there is a water-bain-you flush with the jug after using it, or with the hand-pump-that all the ladies here have in their chambers. Was there not one in your room?”
“No,” Narm said, vanishing through the little door to investigate. “Nothing like. It had only a bed and a clothes-chest, a wardrobe, and a little window.”
“That,” said Jhessail from the doorway, “is because Mourngrym and Shaeril figured you’d spend far more time here.”
“Oh?” Shandril asked with lifted brows, “and how came they by that idea?”
“I suspect,” Jhessail said innocently, “that someone must have told them.” She chuckled at Narm’s hasty reappearance to find the door-handle and pull it closed behind him as he vanished again. Then they both chuckled at his muffled complaint from within.
“It’s dark enough!”
“Just like a cavern” Jhessail said encouragingly. “You’ll get used to it… or you could light the night-lamp just within the door. Only mind you put it out when you leave, or the room will be a smoke-hole the next time you want to use it.” She turned to Shandril. “Do you have plans for the day, you two?”
Shandril shook her head. “No. Why do you ask?”
Jhessail got up and paced thoughtfully over to the mirror. “Well, it is usual to see the dale, your first full day, and hunt or ride the countryside after highsun, with gaming and talk in the evening… but I’d like to advise a far less interesting alternative, if I may-Narm, the lamp, remember?-at least until after the testing this evening.”
Shandril said simply, “Say on.” She plucked up Narm’s over-robe and, opening the Jakes door, thrust it within.
“If you don’t mind,” Jhessail suggested, “lllistyl and I will bring your meals. You stay here in this room until tonight. Any of the knights will come to see you, or you could spend the day together, just the two of you…” The Jakes door swung open and Narm emerged.
He grinned. “No words against that from this mouth.”
“Nor from mine,” Shandril agreed. “Only, why?”