“Of course! But I must confess I am not a true Knight of Solamnia,” Sir Grumdish said as he retrieved his shield. “That’s why I want to slay a dragon. If I can slay a dragon, the Knights of Solamnia have no more cause to deny my petition.”

He lay the shield over his armored legs and paused, thoughtfully stroking his moustache. “It’s funny, though. I have no interest in building a flying machine anymore, and the war’s been over for many years. But I still want to become a Knight. That part of the Life Quest is still important to me.” His face hardened once more as he turned back to the commodore. “In any case, I have no desire to be cooped up in a ship, or dragging drunken sailors out of portside taverns. Besides, there would be no room on your ship for my steed, Bright Dancer.”

Commodore Brigg frowned and chewed his beard in frustration. Behind him, the sun lowered behind the nearby hills, casting long shadows over the meadow. Sir Grumdish dragged his lance over to his armor and shield, aided once again by Razmous. They placed it carefully on the ground.

Sir Grumdish straightened his back with a groan, then cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Commodore,” he said sincerely. “I’m sure you understand. I have my own Life Quest to pursue.”

Professor Hap stepped forward and placed one hand on the commodore’s gold epauletted shoulder. “Did we mention that we’ll be diving dangerously close to the portal to the Abyss?”

“Is that so?” Sir Grumdish said, trying not to appear intrigued.

“Indeed!” the commodore said, brightening to this new persuasive tack. “As a matter of fact, “will be diving right down into the abyssal chasm.”

The gnomish knight raised a shaggy eyebrow, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. He then asked in a low, noncommittal voice, “You don’t suppose there will be any dragons there, do you?”

“It seems inevitable,” Commodore Brigg answered.

The pounding on the door woke him from a black dream, one in which spirits crowded round him, touching him with fingers fine as spiderwebs, drawing the breath from his lungs until he didn’t even have the air to scream. He awoke from the dream already rolling out of bed, his hand fumbling at the dagger under his thin pillow. He sucked air through his clenched teeth and glared about the room.

As he gradually recognized where he was and the last tatters of his dream began to fade, he tossed the dagger on the small, filthy bed and stumbled to a small table beside the window. Atop it, a pewter ewer stood beside a battered pewter bowl. He lifted the ewer and poured a stream of brown water into the bowl, then dunked his shaved head into it. Through the water, he heard someone pound on the door again.

He lifted his head from the bowl and listened, water streaming down his long, narrow nose. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Messenger,” came the answer from the hall outside his room. It was a woman’s voice, muffled by the wooden door.

“Messenger?” he asked suspiciously, still stooped over the bowl. With a sigh, he leaned against the small table, its rickety legs creaking under his weight as though about to collapse. “One moment. Let me dress. I just woke up.”

He glanced out the window, seeing that it was midday outside. He could almost feel the messenger’s disgust at his apparent laziness, sleeping until the sun was high overhead. The city of Flotsam was a-bustle with business and trade at this hour, while he snored half the day away, dreaming of bodiless spirits. He shuddered slightly at the memory, and he could almost feel their feathery fingers upon him.

He picked a tattered gray robe from a pile on the floor and shoved his arms through the sleeves. Not even bothering to belt it around his waist, he walked to the door, but as he reached for the door handle, he paused. He returned to the bed and, lifting his dagger from the soiled linens, tucked it into his sleeve.

In former days, he might also have surrounded himself with a protective shell of magic strong enough to deflect almost any attack. The words of the spell came to his lips almost without thought, but they were bitter as bile, and powerless. The magic was a sluggish pool in him now, where once it had been a hot, raging river of power. The simplest spell drained him, where once he had commanded powerful magics in the service of his Dark Queen. He was a Knight of the Thorn, a gray-robed sorcerer in the armies of the once-Knights of Takhisis, now called the Knights of Neraka.

He was still a Knight, still serving the Order of the Thorn, but he had little enough magic to command these days. The Order still found him useful, though-as a knife, a hand to wield a dagger in places an army could not go. Unlike many of his fellow gray-robed Knights, he was no pasty, thin wastrel quivering under the weight of a spellbook. He might have been a warrior, a Knight of the Lily, had he applied himself, for he was very good with orders-this person to be murdered, that cargo of grain to be poisoned, a ship to be sabotaged, a noble blackmailed, a merchant kidnapped in order to bring his family into line. If the Knights of Neraka needed something done in territory not directly under their control, they always seemed to call upon him.

Because he got the job done. He didn’t always do it the way they wanted it done, but in the end the job was done. Even the impossible jobs.

And it always began this way.

He opened the door a crack and peered out into the hall. A little light managed to penetrate the grimy window at the other end of the hall, dimly outlining the face of a young woman with close-cropped black hair. She wore tight riding breeches and boots on her shapely legs, with a loose yellow blouse of thin cotton providing numerous places to secret a dagger or poisoned dart. A plain canvas backpack was slung over one shoulder, and she stood with one hand on her hip as she glared at the door.

“Sir Tanar?” she asked incredulously. “Tanar Lob-crow?”

“Yeah. Who are you?” he asked through the crack. “You’re not the usual messenger. Where’s Rogar?”

“Dead,” she answered.

“Figures. So you’re the new messenger. Did they tell you what to say?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

“Good,” he answered. “The password is that there isn’t a password. I’ll take that now.” He reached for the backpack through the cracked doorway.

“I’m tired. I could use a bath.”

Tanar laughed. “You are new,” he said. “Don’t you know where you are?”

“Flotsam,” she answered angrily.

“And this inn is the Ogre’s Tooth. You’ll get no bath here. For a bribe, you can get a pitcher of dirty water and a flour sack to dry off with. But you’re welcome to use mine,” he said as he opened the door.

The woman entered cautiously, glancing quickly around the room at the meager furnishings. A sneer crossed her face as she paused in the doorway, then she flung the backpack at Sir Tanar. He dodged instinctively, catching the pack by one strap as it hurtled past his shoulder. The woman laughed, then crossed to the bowl and pitcher. Tanar shot her a black look and sat down on the bed.

“What’s your name?” he asked as he undid the straps. His practiced fingers removed the intricate and secret knots in the leather cords binding the pack shut.

“Liv,” she answered as she gazed in disgust at the brown water in the bowl.

“Live and let Liv,” he said with a sneer. He searched under the flap without lifting it, finally finding the small metallic disk concealing the firetrap. His sensitive fingertips detected the trap’s invisible tabs, and he pressed them in the correct order to deactivate it. “Do you think you will?”

“Will what?” she asked. She stirred the water in the bowl with her hand, testing its temperature.