by Ed Greenwood
There was something vaguely familiar in the impatient furrow of his brow and the harshness in his eyes, but Tanalasta could not think of how she might know the haggard old man.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What happened to Rowen?”
What happened to Rowen? mocked an all-too-familiar voice, the sound of it echoing in her mind. Is that all you want to know? No “how are you, Old Snoop?” “Where have you been?” Not even “Are you dead or alive?”
“Vangerdahast?” Tanalasta gasped. “Are you dead?”
The wizard looked insulted. No!
“Then where are you?” Tanalasta grew faintly aware of warm bodies pressing close around in the Crownsilver dining room. She ignored them and kept her concentration focused on the swinging face before her eyes. “What happened to Rowen?”
The City of the Grodd, in answer to your first question, replied the wizard. And in reply to the one that will surely follow my answer, I have no idea. Suffice it to say I’ve been trying to get out for… well, a very long time.
“But you’re younger,” Tanalasta observed.
Vangerdahast cringed and touched the crown on his head. The benefits of rank, I suppose. How long will this spell last?
“Longer than we have. A ghazneth will be arriving any moment,” said Tanalasta. “I was looking for Rowen-“
Yes, so you’ve said, but that’ll have to wait. A giant red dragon appeared in Cormyr.
It was a statement, not a question, but Tanalasta confirmed it anyway.
“Yes-a dragon, and whole armies of orcs, and goblins, too,” she said. “The nobles and I are fighting the ghazneths in the south.”
The nobles? Vangerdahast raised an astonished brow.
“It’s too long a story to tell,” said Tanalasta. “I’ve figured out how to render the ghazneths powerless, but I can’t seem to kill them.”
Forgive them, Vangerdahast said.
“What?”
Call them by their proper names and forgive them, the wizard repeated. They’ve all betrayed Cormyr, and it’s that festering core of guilt that binds their power together. Absolve them of their crime, and the core crumbles.
“It’s that simple?” Tanalasta gasped.
You will have to survive long enough to say the words, Vangerdahast reminded her. And I suspect it must be you or the king himself who’ll have to do it. Only the absolution of a direct heir to the crown would have meaning to them.
Tanalasta furrowed her brow. “How do you know all this?”
There isn’t time to explain. Vangerdahast’s eyes shifted away. Now, what of the dragon? She is their master and your real trouble.
“Father and Alusair are in the north fighting… her, is it?-and her orcs and goblins as well.” A shout from upstairs announced the appearance of a ghazneth on the horizon. Tanalasta fought down a sudden panic and forced herself to concentrate on Vangerdahast. “We have only a few moments more, I fear.”
The wizard nodded his understanding. There should be no more goblins to trouble you.
“Nor the dragon for much longer, with a little luck,” Tanalasta replied. “The king seems to have her on the run.”
The wizard’s eyes grew wide. Stop him! That dragon is Lorelei Alavara.
“Lorelei Alavara?”
Vangerdahast’s voice grew dark. Your father will know who she is. He looked away for a moment, then lifted the top of a golden scepter into view. It was fashioned in the figure of a sapling oak, with an amethyst pommel carved into the shape of giant acorn. He needs this to kill her. The Scepter of Lords. Tell him.
Tanalasta nodded. She knew of the Scepter of Lords and was dying to learn how Vangerdahast had come into possession of it, but she had only a moment longer. The sentries were calling down a running account of the ghazneth’s approach, and the thing had already grown from a mere sky speck to a winged figure with two arms and two legs.
“How will you get it to him?” Tanalasta asked.
Vangerdahast closed his eyes and said, I can’t. He tried to slip a finger under his iron crown and succeeded only in scratching a new furrow into his skin. You found me…
The sentries yelled the final alarm, then a huge hand covered Vangerdahast’s face and Tanalasta suddenly found herself sitting in the Crownsilver dining room across from Owden Foley.
The harvestmaster slipped Rowen’s holy symbol around her neck and said, “It’s Melineth Turcasson.” He uttered a quick prayer, then touched his hand to the silver sunflower now hanging on her chest. “This will protect you and the child from disease.”
Tanalasta nodded, then allowed Owden to guide her into her iron hiding place.
They were still pulling the door closed when the oak window shutters exploded into splinters and Melineth Turcasson streaked into the room. He landed atop the great banquet table, his scabrous black wings smashing into the delicate chandeliers as they brought his flight to a halt. At once, the room filled with the clatter of firing crossbows, and the astonished ghazneth sprouted a coat of iron quarrels. He roared in anger, spewing his rancid black breath across the room, and tried to spin away from the barrage.
Another tempest of clacking filled the air, and Melineth began to resemble a porcupine with wings. He dropped to his knees and began to pluck the quarrels from his body, his wounds closing as fast as he emptied them. A dozen dragoneers leaped onto the table and started to flail at the ghazneth with iron swords. Roaring, he gave up on the quarrels and whirled to defend himself.
Two men died before they could scream, their heads merely swatted from their shoulders. Another pair perished when his powerful wings sent them flying across the room and their helmets split against the stone wall. One soldier fell when Melineth snapped his neck and hurled his limp body into three of his fellows, knocking them all from the table. The last four all managed to land blows before the ghazneth killed them in a flurry of smashing elbows and snapping jaws.
Melineth turned toward Tanalasta’s hiding place. He was a powerful-looking figure with hulking shoulders, gangling arms, and a blocky, almost handsome face.
“Too clever, my dear,” he said, spewing more of his rancid breath into the air. Dragoneers began to cough and retch, filling the chamber with a vortex of loathsome sounds and smells. Melineth kicked a body off the table, then started toward Tanalasta. “Too clever by far.”
A handful of dragoneers raised their crossbows and fired, but they were coughing too violently to fire accurately. The bolts ricocheted off the walls, thumped into the shutters, and tinkled through the remains of the chandelier. Three trembling soldiers moved to block Melineth’s path. They were sweating profusely and so weak they could barely lift their halberds, much less use them.
“Time to go!” Owden hissed, starting to pull the coffin door shut.
Tanalasta stopped him. “No-we can do this.” She pointed to the three soldiers who had moved to defend her. “Give them strength.”
The ghazneth grabbed two of the men by their arms and, staring in Tanalasta’s direction, squeezed. The pair screamed in agony, and their arms withered into black, rotten sticks.
The third soldier drove the tip of his halberd through the bottom of the phantom’s jaw, pinning it closed.
Tanalasta did not even see Melineth’s leg move. The man simply flew across the room, a foot-shaped dent in the center of his breastplate and blood pouring from his mouth. The ghazneth released his other two victims and stumbled back to the edge of the banquet table, struggling to pull the halberd from his jaw.
“Now!” Tanalasta shoved the coffin open and pushed Owden into the room. “Use your magic.”
The priest raised his arms and stepped forward, calling upon Chauntea to dispel the ghazneth’s evil and strengthen Cormyr’s brave soldiers. Tanalasta followed him and snatched a halberd from the hands of a retching soldier. She was doing something she had promised her mother she would not do-risking her own life and that of her child-but the time had come to win the war or lose it. If she fled now, every soldier in
southern Cormyr woul doubt her ability to stop the ghazneths. If she destroyed Melineth, no one in the kingdom would question her eventual victory.
Giving up on the halberd in his jaw, Melineth snapped the weapon off below the head and launched himself at Owden. Tanalasta stepped past the priest and tipped the weapon forward to catch the ghazneth’s charge. She did not get the butt braced before the phantom’s powerful chest struck the blade.
The impact drove her back toward her coffin, but the iron blade opened the ghazneth’s chest and sank deep into the yellow bone of his sternum. She wrapped her arms around the shaft and braced her feet on the floor. Roaring in anger, Melineth leaned forward and lashed out with his gangling arms. The princess ducked and was driven another step backward. The butt of the weapon struck her coffin and stopped.
Melineth tried to strike again, still driving forward in his fury. Tanalasta’s face erupted into stinging pain as two long claws slashed across her cheek. A tremendous crack reverberated through the dining room. The ghazneth’s chest opened before her eyes, spilling all manner of black, stinking offal onto the floor.
Melineth’s eyes widened. He tried to open his mouth to scream, but found it still pinned shut and could not. He stumbled back, dragging Tanalasta’s halberd from her hands and snorting black fume from his nostrils. He tried to pull the weapon from his chest, failed, and dropped to his knees.
The dragoneers were on him, hacking and slashing with their iron blades until the ghazneth was little more than a bloody pulp. Exhausted and trembling, Tanalasta fell back against the wall. She felt feverish and achy and queasy from her wound, but she managed to remain conscious.
A dozen war wizards rushed up with the ghazneth’s iron box, and Owden yelled, “Get him in! Bring the coins!”
Half a dozen dragoneers grabbed the ghazneth and instantly began to cough and retch. Still, they managed to pitch the ghazneth into the box before collapsing to the floor. They were quickly dragged away, and six more men stepped forward to take their place. They hacked the shaft off the halberd Tanalasta had planted into creature’s breast, then began to pour golden coins over him.
Owden took Tanalasta by the arm. “I know you feel ill…”
“I can do it.” She allowed Owden to help her to the prison box, then grabbed a handful of coins and dumped them onto Melineth’s forehead. “Melineth Turcasson, father of Queen Daverna and Lord Mayor of Suzail and the Southern Shore, as a true Obarskyr and heir to the Dragon Throne, I grant you the thing you most desire, the thing for which you betrayed your daughter and the sacred trust of your king. I grant you gold.”
The strength left Melineth all at once, and the foul blackness bubbling up from his chest became frothy red blood. The shadow lifted from his body, then his face screwed into a mask of horrid pain. He began to scream and flail about in his gold-filled coffin, flinging coins in every direction.
Then, recalling what Vangerdahast had told her only a few moments earlier, Tanalasta touched her hand to the ghazneth’s brow and spoke again. “As heir to the crown and a direct descendant of King Duar, I forgive your betrayal of Cormyr, Melineth Turcasson. I absolve you of all crimes against the crown.”
Tanalasta had hardly spoken the last word before Melineth’s flailing arms fell motionless. His eyes rolled up to meet hers. She thought for a moment that he would speak, but his eyes merely filled with black fume and dissolved into nothingness.
32
“Quietly” Alusair growled in a half whisper, for perhaps the fortieth time. “There’ll be plenty of time, if we stay unseen.”
She shook the shield she was crouching beneath, reminding the excited nobles behind her to keep their own cloak-shrouded shields raised, and crept forward a few cautious paces more.
It wasn’t easy trying to simultaneously find safe, quiet footing in the tangle of wet moss, mud, and old fallen branches, and to peer ahead for lurking goblins or forest menaces-owlbears, for instance-that might have been drawn near by the bloody smell of the battle. The cloak-wrapped shields were to keep any sun-flash from blades or armor from alerting orcs. This had to be a hammerstroke no tusker expected.
If the dragon only stayed away to nurse its wounds long enough, she could outflank the orcs, Cormyr could strike at the snortsnouts from both sides, and with the very slimmest shard of Tymora’s luck they’d shatter the goblinkin army. The realm could at last turn to do battle with the ghazneths then-and the Devil Dragon-and perhaps end this madness once and for all.
Her father deserved that much. He deserved a few last years of peace-or what passed for peace in intrigue-ridden Cormyr, with every third noble ready to serve the king with either a dagger or a flagon of poison-before his old bones failed him and he was laid to rest in the land he’d served so long.
Gods, but she’d miss Azoun the Great when he was gone-not just as a father, but as the strength so alert and sure upon the throne that Sembia and Zhentil Keep and Hillsfar and half a hundred treacherous nobles could spend years plotting the downfall of the Dragon Throne, and so rarely dare to do anything to bring their dark dreams even a step nearer reality.
There wasn’t another man on a throne anywhere on the face of Toril to equal him, not a man to stand up against him who didn’t have spells spilling from his fingertips or scores of wizards to stand at his back, hurling lightning upon command. Or a woman, for that matter. They were all spellhurlers or anointed-of-gods or ruled hard and cruel with spells and swords aplenty. No land but Cormyr could afford so many contrary and plotting nobles. No realm had a king strong enough to let them behave so.
Azoun IV was a hero among kings. A man, yes, she was proud to serve.
But she’d miss more than that. Yes, Alusair the Steel Princess, scourge of a thousand brigands and beasts, the hardest warrior among armies of hardened warriors, the wild lass who bedded and fought and hurled aside courtesies and graces at will, wanted her father and would miss him when he was gone.
She wanted to see more of him. Not the stern and disapproving Azoun, or the Lion of Cormyr raging in one of their many fights, but just the old man, watching her with admiration in his eyes-with love in his gaze. She wanted to hear him laugh and trade clever words with a courtier, and see him dance with her mother and make Filfaeril smile that smile she kept only for him, that made her whole face light up. Gods, Alusair Nacacia might even shock the court by turning up in a gown, painted nails, perfume, and with her hair tamed. Not to see their jaws drop, but to see the look on her father’s face.
She hadn’t realized she was smiling or that tears had come into her eyes, until one of the men behind her-Kortyl Rowanmantle, who was still drooling at her heels every day, somehow oblivious to the fact that there was at least one woman in the kingdom that he fancied, princess or not, who wasn’t smitten with his easy good looks and artless, swaggering charm the moment she laid eyes on him-asked, “Is something… ah, wrong, Lady?”
“Nothing that matters now, Kortyl,” she murmured. “Nothing that matters now.”
“Oh,” he said, then added in a rush, “That’s good. As I’ve mentioned a time or two before, if there’s anything I can-“
“My thanks, Kortyl.”
“After all, Highness, my prowess… with a blade… is not unknown across our fair kingdom, and the lands and coins and castles I command are not inconsiderable, if-“
“They are, aren’t they? I must bear that in mind, Kortyl,” the Steel Princess murmured, “when you aren’t stirring me so.”
There was a little silence before Kortyl Rowanmantle almost yelped, “Stirring you, my Lady? I’m stirring you?”
“Indeed,” Alusair replied, turning to give him a sweet, tight, and yet fierce smile. She leaned close to him-so close that he parted his lips invitingly, for her to kiss at last-and added in a whispered snarl, “Stirring me to fury, dolt, with the noise you’re making when I’ve commanded quiet! Keep this up, and the next casualty of this war will be one Kortyl Rowanmantle, executed by a blade through the throat because he disobeyed
a royal order on the battlefield.”
Two fingers closed ever so gently on Kortyl’s windpipe. Swallowing was suddenly painful-and that was unfortunate, because he felt a sudden, urgent need to swallow.
“But-but-yes, of course, Highness,” he husked, then fell silent as if the threatened blade had slid home when the princess laid a finger across his lips, then drew the other slowly across his throat.
Without warning, she kissed him.
Kortyl Rowanmantle was still grinning in startled amazement when something suddenly fell across the dappled sunlight ahead.
Alusair looked up and screamed.
“The dragon!” she howled, in a voice so loud and harsh it was scarcely her own. “Scatter!”
The words had barely left her throat when the tops of two duskwood trees ahead of her exploded like kindling snapped across a forester’s knee.
Nalavarauthatoryl the Red burst through them like an eager fox plunging over a wall into a henhouse pen, diving down heedless of branches and another possible impalement.
Dark drippings were still coming from the dragon’s belly, but it looked not nearly as wounded as the Cormyreans had hoped. Its talons were spread wide to clutch and rake, and its jaws were agape-the jaws from whence the flames would come.
As she hurled herself desperately aside, away from much shouting, Alusair could have sworn the dragon was grinning.
All Faerun exploded into flames around her.
33
The rain fell in sheets, pounding down on the iron canopy with such a roar Vangerdahast could hardly hear himself think. Peals of thunder rolled sporadically across the low ceiling, loosening tiny flakes of ancient Grodd fresco and sending them fluttering to the watery floor. Another lightning bolt lanced across the room and shattered a stubby little pillar. Chips of marble sprayed out like shrapnel, shredding the faces of half a dozen goblin courtiers and compelling them to run for the door, lest they insult their king by bleeding in his presence.
Vangerdahast sat at the edge of the Iron Throne, peering up at Rowen from the shelter of its small canopy. “You are making me reluctant to give you any more magic.”
