War in Tethyr (28 page)

A policeman opened the door. "His Grace the duke sends his regards, milady. He bids me tell you your friends approach."

Mounted on his dark bay, Stillhawk met her eye and nodded greeting.

It took all her strength to keep her knees from buckling 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 embrace 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 horizon 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.

Farlorn's beautiful features assumed a long-suffering look by torchlight. "I didn't spend our previous sojourn in the city cutting out paper dolls. Naturally the palace attracted my interest, as a monument to elephantine bad taste if for no other reason. I made inquiry, 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, eschewing 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 helmet 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 stooping. The smell was no less appalling for the comparatively 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 running 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 shoulder. "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 containing 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 turning 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 fingers. 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 withdrew. 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 suggested nothing.

"I can try to open it," Chen offered.

"You haven't learned the knock spell," Zaranda reminded 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 concentration of dweomer would be like tocsins ringing. I'm uneasy enough about the puny little spell I cast."

"The great Zaranda Star, admitting defeat?" said Farlorn. "I don't believe it."

"Don't," Zaranda said. "Yet. Still-we go in here, or try to batter down the front door."

"Let me," Shield of Innocence said. He strode toward the ladder. Farlorn flowed down like a cat, jumped clear so as not to let the orog near him. Sheathing swords across his back, Shield climbed up. He tested the disk with his hand, then braced his feet on the rungs, laid the side of his head and his shoulder to the wood, and
heaved.

Veins bulged from forehead and great corded neck. His spine creaked loudly. Wood groaned like a soul in torment, and with a
twang
and a
crash
the hatch popped free.

"So much for stealth," Chenowyn said.

"We had few choices," Zaranda said, "and now must play out the game we chose. Up, now, and quickly."

The orog had already disappeared through the hole. Yellow lamplight streamed down into the sewer. Farlorn swarmed up, then Stillhawk with bow slung over his shoulder. Zaranda let Chen go next, keeping long sword ready, then followed

She found herself in an octagonal chamber of about the same dimensions as Hardisty's receiving room on the topmost floor. Four shadowed passageways led out of the chamber. A pair of thick columns flanked each entrance about six feet in. Each pillar was fitted with a black-iron sconce in which a torch flared.

The hatch was three feet across and six inches thick. Shield picked it up as if it were a serving tray and fitted it back into the hole. Two heavy brass slide-latches had secured it. One was neatly opened, the other a twisted ruin.

"Put them back in place," Zaranda said. "We'll just have to hope nobody chancing by gives them too close a look."

The orog did as he was bid.

Which way?
signed Stillhawk.

"This way lies the rear of the palace," said Farlorn, indicating a corridor.

"As good a way as any," Zaranda said, and led the group that way.

There came a rumble, a friction squeal, and a thunderclap
crash.
Zaranda dropped to her knees, ears ringing. She snapped her head around.

A five-foot-thick column of stone had dropped from the ceiling to seal the hatch.

"Trapped!" she cried. "Farlorn, you've led us into a thieves' foyer!" In the Empires of the Sands it was customary for dwellings of pretense to be built so as to offer prospective thieves a means of ingress-not too easy, just enough to challenge the skills of a self-respecting rogue. The covert entrances led not to treasures but to traps, of varying degrees of lethality.

This one was obviously designed to capture, not kill. Feeling the dull throb of failure beginning in her temples, Zaranda gathered herself to dash for the corridor.

"Correct, Countess Morninggold," a familiar voice said cheerily. "But not just
any
thieves' foyer."

In the entryway before her appeared Armenides, white-robed and smiling. Armed men thronged the passage behind him. At the same time blue-and-bronzes stepped out from behind the pillars, leveling crossbows at the group.

Zaranda stopped. She flicked a tiny pellet at the false Ao priest, murmuring height and range, and flung herself backward to escape the fireball's blast.

The pellet struck the archpriest's sternum and bounced. It fell to the floor by his sandaled feet. He knelt, picked it up, sniffed it.

"Bat dung and sulfur." He smiled. "Why, Countess, I do believe you've just tried to incinerate me." He laughed delightedly. "Did you not think other walls than the dungeon's might be imbued with the god bones of Tantras?"

She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Now I'll trouble you to put down your weapons," Armenides said.

Someone walked past her. She opened her eyes to see the half-elf approaching Armenides. She scrambled to her feet. "Farlorn-no!"

The bard walked between two crossbowmen, turned, and smiled. "Your concern is touching, Zaranda, my love. But quite misplaced. I have nothing to fear from my friends."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we've all done our poor orc friend a grave disservice. He's a sincere servant of good, may all such die in agony-as will you anon, I might add. I'm your traitor."

"What are you saying?" Zaranda asked, stunned.

"Consider the love of a woods-elf maid for a human man. Then consider a cow who can jump over Selune in a single bound: both have the same chance of existing. It was rape that engendered me, not romance."

His dark eyes caught the torchlight like the eyes of an animal, and his features seemed feral. "I grew to adulthood scarcely tolerated by my true folk, my mother's folk-and worse, pitied by them. At last I performed deeds that all the pity in the wide green forests of Faerun would not serve to cover, and fled. Since then I have walked among my father's people, the ravisher's kind, and secretly I have paid my mother's debt a thousandfold."

He looked Zaranda in the eyes. "Oh, you were sweet, Zaranda Star! Woman warrior, woman wizard, war leader, merchant-beautiful and haughty. What delight it was to bend you to my will, knowing always that some day I would bring you ruin."

"What was done to your mother was terrible," she said in a level voice. "But why keep it clutched to your breast all these years like your most precious possession?"

"Because it is my most precious possession! In hatred have I found all that I am; I have found a purpose, a destiny!" He reached inside his blouse, brought forth a medallion on which were embossed three lightning bolts branching from a central point.

"When I was driven from my ancestral forest I consecrated my life to Talos the Destroyer. I dream of the day when humankind is cast down in blood and ruin, and the wilderness reclaims its own!"

He let the medallion hang. "Long have I awaited my chance to strike a decisive blow. When we approached Zazesspur last year a Voice spoke to me in dreams. And I knew then that the time was come."

"A Voice?" Zaranda repeated. She swayed.

"Now I serve the One Below," the bard said. "I serve the Whisperer in Darkness. In his name have I destroyed you."

Armenides chuckled. "There. I'm sure we all feel better. Confession is so good for the soul. Now, please undo your sword belts and let them drop. You'll have no need for weapons where you're bound."

With a guttural roar of rage, Shield of Innocence hurled himself forward.

Chenowyn screamed. Crossbows thumped. No non-magical armor could turn a crossbow quarrel at this range. The milled-steel missiles punched through Shield's breastplate with loud clangs and buried themselves in his flesh.

Bellowing, the great orc caught Farlorn's neck with one arm and swung him around. The half-elf screamed as crossbow bolts pierced him.

Zaranda tore her borrowed long sword from its scabbard. The crossbowmen who had shot Shield and Farlorn stood flat-footed, the realization slowly dawning that they were now disarmed. Zaranda hacked them down as they turned to flee. Stillhawk, bow and quiver still slung, snatched his own sword off the floor and attacked. A blue-and-bronze, quicker on the uptake than his fellows, snatched out his heavy broadsword and thrust at him. He swept the blade aside with a mighty stroke and spun the man back, unreeling blood streamers with the return.