by Ed Greenwood
But Vangerdahast was no mere combatant. He was the High Castellan of the War Wizards, the Royal Magician of Cormyr, the First Councilor to the King, and he did not overlook such things. He could not afford to. Everyday the life of the king and the strength of Cormyr depended on his powers of observation, and he kept his senses honed keener than the blade of any dragon-slaying knight. He perceived all that passed before him, heard every whisper behind his back, smelled any kind of trouble the moment it formed, and still he had not noticed the mosaic until-well, until sometime earlier. Days had no meaning in this place. The only way to mark time was by the steady shrinkage of his ample belly, and he had already taken in his belt two notches before he began to notice the mosaic. Either he was hallucinating or the thing had begun to form before his eyes. He would not have liked to wager which.
A pair of yellow membranes slid across the pool, coating the surface with a fresh layer of black sheen, and slowly retracted again. Vangerdahast had seen the pool blink before, long before the dragon appeared, so perhaps the blinking had nothing to do with the mosaic. Everyone knew mosaics could not blink.
Vangerdahast slipped his ring on, then descended the stairs, moving slowly to keep himself from blacking out. The goblin city contained nothing but stone and water, and he could not eat stone. He had long since passed the stage of hunger pangs and a growling stomach, but his dizziness was almost constant.
Near the bottom, his strength failed. He dropped to a stair, where it was all he could do to brace his hands against the cold granite and prevent himself from sliding the rest of the way down.
“A meal you need.” The words were deep and sibilant, and they rumbled through the lonely city like an earthquake. “A nice roast rothe, and a big flagon to wash it down.”
Vangerdahast leaped to his feet, his strength returning in a rush. He peered into the murk beyond the plaza, searching for a pair of glinting eyes, or a skulking black silhouette, or some other hint of the speaker. Seeing nothing but murk, he considered hurling a few light spells into the darkness but quickly realized he would find nothing. His hunger had finally gotten the best of him, and now he was hearing things as well as seeing them. There was no sense wasting his magic on hallucinations. Magic was too precious in this place, where even spells of permanent light seemed to burn out like common torches.
The pool continued to stare, and it seemed to Vangerdahast that the darkness in its heart had swung around to stay focused on him. He crept down to the bottom stair and crouched above what would be the crown of the dragon’s head. There was a definite rise where the skull swelled up out of the ground, and he could feel a rhythmic shuddering in the steps beneath his feet. Vangerdahast reached out and ran his hand down the nearest scale. It was the size of a tournament shield and as warm to his touch as his own flesh.
“I’ve lost my mind,” he gasped.
“Yes, you have lost something, but not your mind,” the voice rumbled. Ten paces beyond the eye, the row of white triangles moved in time to the words. “You’ve lost only your big belly-and soon your life, too, unless you eat.”
Vangerdahast scrambled up the stairs, but grew dizzy half a dozen steps later and had to stop. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he looked again, the dragon face remained, the eye in the basin still staring at him.
“Why have you less faith in your eyes and ears than the doubts of a spent and weary mind?” asked the dragon. “I am as real as you. Touch me and see.”
“I’d rather, uh, trust you about that.”
Vangerdahast remained where he was, his mind whirling as it tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Insanity still seemed the greatest likelihood, save that he had always heard the insane were the last to know of their illnesses-but down here, he would be the last to know. He had been trapped in the goblin city for… well, for some while. In the eternal darkness of the place, time had no meaning. The only way to mark hours was by the duration of his spells, which all seemed to fade far too quickly.
When Vangerdahast remained quiet, the dragon spoke again. “You don’t believe in me, or you would ask my name.”
The admonishment jarred Vangerdahast back to a semblance of his senses. Concluding that if he was going insane he had already lost the battle, he decided to treat the dragon as though it were real. He gathered up his courage, then sat down on the step and addressed the dragon.
“I’m interested less in who you are than what,” he said. “If you are some chimera manifested by my guilty soul to abuse me in the lonely hours before death, I’ll thank you to spare me the nonsense and get down to business. I know the evil I’ve done, and I’d do it again, fully conscious of the costs to myself and others.”
“Fully conscious?” the dragon echoed. “That is impressive.”
“Cyric’s tongue!” Vangerdahast cursed. “You are a phantasm! I suppose that’s my reward for letting Alaphondar and Owden prattle on about symbols and meaning.”
“Meaning has power,” answered the dragon, “but I am nothing of yours, I promise. I am a true dragon.”
“Dragons are hatched, not…” Vangerdahast paused and glanced derisively at its emerging figure. “… not formed.”
“And hatched I was, in the days when rothe ran free and elves ruled the woods.” The dragon’s eye shifted from Vangerdahast and stared at a magic sphere of light fading above it. “But now I am a prisoner, and more than you.”
“A prisoner, you say?” As Vangerdahast spoke, he was doing a quick set of mental calculations. The dragon’s accent and its reference to rothe-the extinct buffalo that once roamed the forests of Cormyr-placed its age at well over fourteen hundred years. Even for such an ancient wyrm, however, it was too large by far. The distance from its eye to the last white fang had to be sixty feet, which would make the length from snout to tail somewhere in excess of six hundred feet. “I doubt that. The wizard has not been born who could cage such an ancient wyrm.”
“Nor the warrior who could imprison a mage so great as yourself,” replied the dragon. “Yet I have seen you casting your spells-teleporting here, plane-walking there, dimension-dooring all places between, sending thoughtpleas to anyone who might hear-and yet you remain here with me. It was no wizard who caught me, or you. We were trapped here by our own folly and pride, and prisoners we will stay.”
Vangerdahast rolled his eyes and stood. “If you’re going to talk like that-“
“Oh, yes, go and starve to death!”
A tremendous boom resounded from the dragon’s one visible nostril, and a fireball the size of an elephant went sizzling into the darkness. It crashed into a distant goblin manor, spraying blobs of melted stone in every direction.
Vangerdahast cocked a brow. “I won’t be stepping in front of you, I think.”
A scaly red lip drew away from the dragon’s teeth, creating a snarl as long as some streams Vangerdahast had seen. “Die if you like, but leave your wishes for me.”
Vangerdahast folded his hands behind his back, concealing the ring he had been contemplating earlier. “Wishes?”
“In the ring.”A wisp of yellow fume streamed out of the dragon’s distant nostrils. “Everything else you have tried, but the wishes are too dangerous. You don’t understand this place, and if you wish wrong… puff, no more wizard!”
Vangerdahast frowned. “Have you been reading my mind?”
The dragon broke into a raucous chuckle, and clouds of boiling sulfur hissed into the plaza.
Vangerdahast waited until its mirth died away, then said, “Your point, I suppose, is that you do know the nature of this place?”
The yellow membranes closed over the basin in a sort of reptilian wink. “A long time I have been here,” it said, “but you-even if there was food, humans do not live so long. If you are to leave, I think it must be with me.”
Vangerdahast studied the beast for a moment, considering the kind of havoc he would unleash by helping such a creature escape. If the thing truly was as old as it appeared, its magical ab
ilities would rival his own-and he had already seen what its fire breath could do. On the other hand, Cormyr was doomed without him, especially with the ghazneths loose and Princess Tanalasta still infatuated with that lowly ranger she had met-kin to the traitorous Cormaerils, he was, and a ground-splitting Chauntea worshiper as well.
Vangerdahast unclasped his hands and started down the stairs. “I suppose you have a name?”
“I do,” replied the dragon, “but no human could understand it. You may call me Nalavara.”
It was all Vangerdahast could do to avoid falling again. The name came almost directly from a chapter of Cormyr’s earliest history-and not a very proud chapter at that.
“Something is wrong, wizard?” rumbled Nalavara.
Vangerdahast looked up and saw he had stopped moving. “Not at all-just weak with hunger.” Hoping that Nalavara had not been reading his mind, he started down the stairs again. “But I would like to hear your full name, if I might.”
The dragon’s huge eye membranes drew closer together. “Why?”
“Human translations are so graceless.” Vangerdahast reached into the component pockets inside his weathereloak and withdrew a pinch of salt and another of soot, then rubbed them between his fingers and uttered a quick little spell. “My understanding of Auld Wyrmish might surprise you. I have a special fondness for the beauty of the language.”
“Do you?” Nalavara’s eye remained narrow, but her long lips twisted into a crocodile’s smile. “Very well.”
She rattled off a long series of rumbling growls and fire-like crackles that Vangerdahast understood perfectly as Nalavarauthatoryl the Red.
“So, human, do you like my name?” asked Nalavarauthatoryl the Red.
“Sorry, didn’t understand a word.” Actually, Vangerdahast understood better than he would have liked. The name wasn’t Auld Wyrmish at all but ancient Elvish. The phrase meant something like “the maiden Alavara, betrothed of Thatoryl, painted in blood.” He forced a stupid smile and added, “The human ear can be a bit flat.”
“One fault among many,” Nalavara agreed. “And you are called…?”
“Elminster,” Vangerdahast replied, lying through his teeth. “Elminster of Shadowdale. Now, how do we get out of here?”
Nalavara’s eye widened to its normal proportions, which was to say about as broad and long as a spacious work table. “First, Elminster, you must wish for something to eat. You will need a clear head for the work to come.”
“Work? You must be jesting,” Vangerdahast scoffed. “That’s why I have a ring of wishes-and I’m not about to waste the last one on a pot of porridge.”
An angry shudder shook the stairs, then Nalavara rumbled, “One wish only?”
“Only one, so be certain of yourself.”
Vangerdahast was not exactly lying. The truth was he had no idea how many wishes remained to the ring. It had been handed down to him through a long line of royal magicians, and if any of them had ever known the number it contained, the secret had died long before it reached Vangerdahast.
“Tell me what to wish,” the royal magician said, “and I’ll have us out of here.”
A long ribbon of flame snorted from Nalavara’s distant nostril. “A fool I am not,” she rumbled. “Come and bind yourself to my horn, and I will tell.”
Vangerdahast did as he was asked, but the horn was as large as a tree trunk, and even his over-large belt was not long enough to reach. He explained this to Nalavara, then wrapped his arms around the horn and said, “I give you my word I won’t let go.”
Nalavara snorted angrily, then said, “Be warned-if you try to leave me behind, the wish will not work.”
“Leave you behind?” Vangerdahast echoed. “Never. My word is as good as my name.”
“That is less of a comfort than you think, Elminster,” the dragon rumbled. “Know that if you try to cheat me-“
“Yes, yes, I can imagine,” Vangerdahast said. “You will look me up in Shadowdale, and I shall forever after have reason to regret my perfidy. Now, are we going to cast our wish or not?”
“Very well,” grumbled Nalavara. “The secret is not to wish us out of the city, but to wish the city back in time. You must call upon the ring to fill it again with goblins.”
“Goblins?”
“The Grodd Goblins,” Nalavara said. “That returns the city to the time when goblins ruled the land. From there, we must use our own spells to travel to our own times-have you a time-walking spell?”
“No,” Vangerdahast grumbled. “Though it hardly matters.”
He released the dragon’s horn and jumped off her head, then started down the plaza filled with disappointment and despair. Had there been any real chance of the spell working, Nalavara would certainly have insisted on holding him in her mouth-then she’d bite him in two once the wish was made.
“Wait!” Nalavara boomed. “Without me, the spell will work not!”
“And not with you either,” he called back. “Whatever you want, Nalavara, it isn’t to be free of this place. Red dragons are not so trusting.”
To Vangerdahast’s great surprise, Nalavara did not explode into a fit of anger. Instead, she began to chuckle, shaking the plaza so violently he lost his footing and had to sit.
“Come now, Elminster,” she rumbled. “You know I am more than a dragon, and I know you are not who you claim to be.”
Seeing that the virtues of deception had long exhausted themselves, Vangerdahast also began to laugh, a deep, mad laugh begot more of weariness and despair than humor-but a laugh nonetheless. He was one of only two men living who knew the name Alavara and what it meant to Cormyr, and it struck him as absurdly funny to find himself trapped alone with her in a deserted goblin city.
Lorelei Alavara was an elf maiden, quite beautiful by all accounts, who had lived in the Wolf Woods when the first humans began to intrude. She had been betrothed to Thatoryl Elian, a handsome young hunter foolish enough to argue with a band of human poachers over whose arrow had killed a bear. The argument ended only when Thatoryl became the first Wolf Woods elf to be murdered by human hands. Lorelei Alavara’s grief knew no bounds, and she plotted constantly with King Iliphar to make war on the humans and drive them from the land. It was she who organized the slaughter of Mondar Bleth in the days before Cormyr was a kingdom, and who slew a thousand humans more before her own kind grew weary of her obsession with vengeance and, a century after the first murder, finally banished her to the Stonelands.
That much of the story was told to every member of the royal family as soon as they reached the age of majority, but there was more, passed only from royal magician to royal magician and told only to the ruling monarch since the founding of the kingdom. Thatoryl Elian’s murderer had been Andar Obarskyr, brother to the founder of Cormyr, Ondeth Obarskyr, and uncle to the first king, Ondeth’s son Faerlthann.
According to the story passed down to Vangerdahast, Andar had escaped retribution by virtue of good luck, having been tending to nature’s call deep in the woods when the elves came to avenge their kinsman’s death. Though the massacre had left Andar too frightened to ever again set foot in elven territories himself, he had told his brother many times of the bounty of the Wolf Woods, and those descriptions were what convinced Ondeth to build a new home beyond the frontier. That Cormyr’s birth had resulted from such a miscarriage of justice had been the kingdom’s most jealously guarded secret for more than fourteen centuries now, and Vangerdahast could not help chuckling at the thought that the dragon had actually hoped to make him the instrument of its divulgence.
“Alavara the Red,” he said. “I should have thought even your thirst for vengeance long quenched.”
“It is not vengeance I seek, only justice,” answered Nalavara. “Though I know a different appetite sustains the mighty Vangerdahast.”
As Nalavara spoke, the sphere of magic light floating above her head grew dim. A black circle appeared on the dark ground between Vangerdahast’s feet. He cried out in astonishment
and scrambled away, then began to feel cowardly and foolish when he saw that the thing was not moving.
“Take it,” urged Nalavara. “There is no reason to be afraid.”
Vangerdahast exchanged his ring of wishes for a simple commander’s ring from the royal armory, then whispered, “King’s Light.”
A halo of golden radiance rose from his hand and illuminated the ground in front of him, revealing a simple crown of iron.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“You know,” answered Nalavara. “Your whole life have you craved it, and now it is yours. All you need do is wish.”
“Wish?” Vangerdahast kicked the crown away, then stood and began to hobble off into the darkness. “If I were to wish for anything, it would be that you never existed.”
“By all means,” Nalavara chuckled. “Any wish will do.”
4
The horn call rang out a second time, and Alusair glanced over at her father. To her astonishment, the king was smiling.
He caught sight of her and said, almost exultantly, “Magic still serves the crown in some things, lass!”
The Steel Princess lifted an eyebrow, overjoyed to see the King of Cormyr out of his dark mood but somewhat puzzled as to why.
“You didn’t expect Dauneth to meet us here?” she asked, glancing around at the familiar cliffs and crags of Gnoll Pass. “You told me yesterday how sorely we needed the reinforcements he’d bring, and now his obedience seems to be a cause of… Are things in Arabel worse than I’d heard?”
“No, no, lass!” Azoun chuckled.” ‘Tis what he’s brought with him that’s a cause of… I’ll tell all later. For now, let us claim yonder hilltop and there raise the tent I hope young Marliir’s also brought along.”
“Tent? Father, are your wits addled at last?”
“Have a care for treason of the tongue,” a lancelord snapped from behind the Steel Princess. “You speak ill of the king!”
She whirled around with sparks fairly spewing from her eyes and snarled, “Dare less with your own speech, soldier! Obarskyrs speak freely and thereby keep the realm strong. Learn that well, if you learn nothing else about fighting under the Purple Dragon banner.”
