by Ed Greenwood
Tanalasta looped her arm through Vangerdahast’s elbow. “By all means. And, Vangerdahast, why did you never ask me who fathered my child?”
“I didn’t?”
Tanalasta shook her head. “You didn’t seem curious at all.”
Vangerdahast assumed a gruff voice. “I assumed it to be Rowen. It would be too much to hope you had married somebody appropriate.”
“Really. And who said I was married?”
Vangerdahast cursed under his breath. The girl was too smart for her own good. “You’d better be,” he said. “The last thing Cormyr needs now is a succession war.”
He stopped in the center of the room and took the Scepter of Lords from the nervous guard, then pointed the man to the balcony. “Young man, in a handful of moments I’m going to come streaking through that window like a flaming star. You and two men of your choosing are to slam and bar the doors behind me-and do it quickly, for all our lives will depend on it.”
Tanalasta looked nervous. “Vangerdahast, if there is any risk to this plan…”
“Risk? There’s no risk if this boy does as he’s told-and is quick about it.” Vangerdahast motioned the guard off, then started to the balcony doors. “The royal magician has returned.”
With Tanalasta following along behind, Vangerdahast went to the balcony entrance. He pulled a pinch of powdered iron from the pouch he was using to carry spell ingredients and rubbed it over the doors, at the same time uttering one of the spells he had fashioned to make the best use of his burdensome crown. His head erupted into white pain as it always did when he made iron, but he was prepared for the shock and managed to endure it with no more than a long grunt. A gray-black darkness spread over the doors, then a long series of creaks and pops echoed through the room as the wood and glass changed to thick, heavy iron.
The ghazneth bell clanged to life, filling the bailey with a deep, insistent knelling.
“Your magic seems to have caught our visitor’s interest,” said Tanalasta.
“It’s not Boldovar come to join us?”
“That would be a different bell,” answered the princess, “and I would be much paler.”
“Well then, let’s have at her and be done with it.”
Vangerdahast stepped out onto the balcony and saw that Suzara had circled down to within a hundred yards of the palace roof. She was close enough to see what was happening, yet high enough to make her a difficult target for the archers’ iron-tipped arrows. He could just make out the red flush of her oblong eyes glaring down at him, and for the first time he wondered if his boasts about how easily he would subdue her had been somewhat overstated. From such a low height, she would be on him almost the moment he was in the air.
“Is something wrong?” Tanalasta asked.
Vangerdahast glanced back and saw not only the princess studying him, but Owden and the guards as well. If he changed plans now, their confidence would go the way of Korvarr and his company.
“Just planning my route.” He shooed Tanalasta back into the room. “To your hiding place.”
“Be careful, Old Snoop.”
“I will be quick.” Vangerdahast drew a crow’s feather from his spell pouch. “That is better.”
As he started his flying spell, the ghazneth dipped a wing and began to circle lower. Vangerdahast brushed the feather over his arms and finished the incantation in a flurry, then took the Scepter of Lords in both hands and sprang into the air. Even as he banked toward Lake Azoun, he felt the iron crown drawing his spell’s magic into itself, robbing him of precious speed and flight time. It might have been wise to warn the princess about this particular handicap, but then again maybe not. She would probably have insisted on doing things her own way.
The ghazneth bell began to clang madly, and Vangerdahast knew Suzara was coming after him. He dropped down below the crest of the outer curtain and banked hard toward Etharr Hall. A sharp thump sounded behind him as his pursuer hit the wall and dropped to the ground. The erratic clatter of firing crossbows echoed across the bailey, and Vangerdahast glanced back to see a cloud of iron quarrels descending on the ghazneth from the ramparts above.
Though more than a few bolts found their mark, Suzara spread her wings and launched herself, dodging and weaving, after Vangerdahast. Even as she flew, her wounds began to close. The quarrels dropped from her body and clanged to the cobblestones below, and only a handful of new ones took their place. Vangerdahast soared over the roof of Etharr Hall, then dropped low and skimmed the ground, circling around the building back toward Palace Hall.
The ghazneth shot over the roof of Etharr Hall in the opposite direction but saw Vangerdahast and dipped a wing to wheel around. Praying he had the speed to outrun her for just fifty more paces, he soared back toward Tanalasta’s balcony. A flurry of bowstrings throbbed from the windows along both sides of the bailey. Dark streams of arrows zipped through the air behind, tracing the ghazneth’s progress as she closed the distance to him.
Finally, the balustrade loomed before Vangerdahast. He scraped over it screaming in terror-it was only an act to distract the ghazneth, of course-then shot through the open doors and across the entire drawing room before a deafening clang sounded behind him.
His flying spell expired an instant later, a dozen steps into the long hallway outside the drawing room. Though only traveling at a quarter speed, he hit hard and tumbled headlong down the floor. A pair of dragoneers managed to grab hold and prevented him from plunging down a sweeping staircase.
“Lord wizard, are you all right?”
“What do you think?” Vangerdahast allowed the guards to pull him to his feet, then shook them off and stumbled back into the drawing room.
By the time he arrived, the battered balcony doors were already open. The ghazneth was surrounded by a handful of dragoneers, all hacking and chopping at her while Tanalasta kneeled at her side, struggling to pull a glittering necklace of diamonds over her broken skull.
“Suzara Obarskyr, wife to Ondeth the Founder and mother to Faerlthann the First King, as a true Obarskyr and heir to the Dragon Throne, I grant you the thing you most desire, the thing for which you abandoned your husband and son-I grant you the luxury and wealth of the Suzail Palace.”
Vangerdahast arrived to see the darkness drain from Suzara’s face, leaving behind the careworn visage of a brown-haired woman who did not look so different from Tanalasta herself. The woman’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, and she began to groan and froth at the mouth and jerk about spasmodically, as the victims of head wounds were sometimes prone to do.
Tanalasta touched her hand to Suzara’s trembling brow. “And as a direct descendent of your line and heir to the crown, I forgive your betrayal and absolve you, Suzara Obarskyr, of all crimes against Cormyr.”
When the princess removed her hand, Suzara simply continued to thrash about and foam at the mouth.
Tanalasta frowned and looked to Owden, who could only scowl and shake his head in bewilderment. Vangerdahast kneeled beside Tanalasta and pressed her hand back to Suzara’s shattered skull.
“And in the name of Cormyr and its royal line through thirteen centuries, and its strong and loyal people, we thank you,” the royal magician said. “We thank you for the sacrifices you did make, and we pledge to honor your memory even as we honor Ondeth’s.”
Tanalasta nodded. “So it will be,” she said. “As Crown Princess Tanalasta Obarskyr and a daughter of your line, I pledge it so.”
Suzara’s eyes opened again, then she fell still and silent and sank, at last, into a peaceful rest.
38
A fellowship of gloom crowded together in the dim depths of the royal tent, close around the silent king.
At the head of the bed where Azoun lay wounded, two bodyguards stood in stolid, watchful silence, their large and callused hands never far from the hilts of their swords.
The men they faced, down at the foot of the bed-half a dozen priests and a war wizard-brooded in a more restless silence, born of futilit
y and mounting fear. Their most modest healing spells had failed, and they dared not try more powerful magics. Not with the ghazneth circling the hilltop like a vengeful hawk, casually diving down from time to time to rake and rend Purple Dragons at will.
At each shout and skin of blades outside the tent, the men sitting around the bed tensed and threw up their heads, peering vainly at the tapestry-hung tent walls as if some helpful, lurking enchantment might pluck the canvas aside to reveal the fray without, but the unhelpful canvas never moved.
Always, after a few moments, a scream of pain would rise close outside-sometimes brief, more often a long howl of agony that sank into the wet gurgling of a bloody death-and cold laughter would begin, fading as the eerie slayer took wing again into the sky.
The king never dozed through these brief battles. His eyes would snap open, anger sharpening his features, and his fingers would close like claws on the linen. Twice he made as if to rise, but each time pain too fierce to conceal flashed across his face, and he fell back to lie listening with fury in his eyes. Azoun was a king as impotent as the men he shared his tent with.
“This can’t go on forever,” the war wizard muttered, after a seeming eternity measured by twenty-seven separate death screams. “The battle could sweep right up to us, and find us no more ready than so many helpless children.”
As if his words had been a cue, the door hangings suddenly swirled and parted, held aside by the spears of two guards, who stepped into the tent and moved apart to allow someone to pass between them. The slightly stooped, stout figure in robes, who wore an iron crown on his head none of them had seen before, was otherwise familiar to all as Vangerdahast, the Royal Magician of Cormyr.
Azoun struggled to thrust himself up on his elbows and failed. The faintest of groans escaped from between set royal teeth.
The court wizard frowned and hastened forward. The sweat-streaked, working face before him opened pain-misted eyes for a moment, blinked, then stared. The king’s mouth twisted into a crooked grin.
“Vangey!”
The court wizard winced-his love for that nickname had never been great-but replied with a smooth bow, “My liege. I live to serve you still, and am come with words you must hear without delay.”
“Of course,” Azoun replied airily, for all the world as if he was gesturing with a wine goblet at a revel and not lying on his back bleeding his life away. “I expected no less. How came you by yon crown?”
“That reply must wait,” Vangerdahast said with a smile. He looked at the gathered priests, then gestured at the entrance.
No one moved, so he repeated the slow sweep of his pointing hand, clearing his throat and lowering his brows. The war wizard rose hastily, and the royal magician gave him an appreciative nod-which brought Eregar Abanther, Ready Hand of Tempus, a man known for neither slow wits nor pomposity, to his feet. Eregar made a low bow to the king, and departed.
Slowly the other clergy followed, their glacial responses tempered by their various desires to demonstrate the exaltitude of their rank or their lack of any need to obey a mere mage. When all others had risen, the war wizard almost had to thrust the high priest of Tymora out of his seat, but he settled for looming so close over him that Manarech Eskwuin clucked and sighed loudly-it was closer to a snarlin disgust, before he shifted.
“Keep them ready, just outside,” Vangerdahast commanded and barely waited for the mage to nod and leave before he leaned forward over the bed and murmured, “I’ve-“
The point of a sword swept in from beside the bed to hang, glittering-sharp, under the royal magician’s nose. Vangerdahast straightened and favored the bodyguard holding it with a withering look, but the blade did not move.
“You may leave,” he snapped, but the warrior’s only move was to advance a step-as did his fellow Purple Dragon, on the other side of the royal bed, their weapons rising in unison to menace the royal magician.
Kings’ Blades take orders only from their king. Not from a wizard wearing a crown they did not recognize, who might just be any mage using a spell to look like an old court wizard-the old court wizard they’d never liked much anyway-the wizard whose fingers, many said, had itched for years to take the crown of Cormyr onto his own head.
Their blades did not waver. Neither did Vangerdahast’s glare.
Azoun tried to hide a smile, and failed. “Step outside, my loyal blades,” he murmured, “but remain close and ready for my call.”
The swords swept down. Their owners bowed to the king and shouldered past Vangerdahast-in the case of the Bannerguard to the King, Kolmin Stagblade, it was as if a moving mountain had brushed the wizard aside, sending him staggering helplessly back a pace or two. The ruler of all Cormyr and his old tutor were finally alone.
Vangerdahast cast a suspicious glance all around the tent, as if expecting to find another dozen or so defiant guards skulking in the shadows. Finding none, he drew something out of his robe and thrust it into Azoun’s hands.
The king cradled it curiously on his palms, looking up and down its beauty. The thing looked elven, and old-and yet alive, almost glowing with power. It was a scepter of bright golden hue, longer than most, and fashioned into the likeness of a sapling oak with a small and delicate array of branches set seemingly at random. Its pommel was a giant amethyst cut into the shape of an acorn.
Azoun did not bother to utter his question but merely looked up at the old wizard.
“As far as I know,” Vangerdahast told him gravely, “you hold in your hands the most powerful creation of the elf Iliphar, Lord of Scepters. You’ll need it.”
He straightened-only to feel something tugging at his robes, holding him half bent. It was one of Azoun’s hands, clutching a fistful of material firmly, and its owner growled up at him, “To save the realm, no doubt. How?”
The Royal Magician sighed. “It has far more powers than either of us has years left to unravel or master, and it’s the key to defeating the dragon and ending this war-if used correctly.”
“And what, 0 most mighty of wizards, is ‘correctly’?”
Vangerdahast’s brows drew down. “I’m hardly as knowledgeable as you seem to think,” he said reprovingly. “Misjudgements as to our own competence are a large part of this…”
“ dark tangle that presently imperils the realm,” Azoun finished the hanging sentence smoothly, then drew down his own brows and growled, “Wizard, get on with it.”
Vangerdahast was silent for long moments before the tiniest trace of what might have been a smile crawled along his lips and was gone.
“My king,” he said at last, “the touch of this Scepter of Lords, in your hands, can wound the dragon more than any spellbolt or blade-but you must first atone aloud for the murder of Lorelei Alavara’s betrothed, then strike with this, in heartfelt compassion for what she and all elves have lost with the rise of the realm of Cormyr.”
Azoun’s smile faded. “The murder of Lorelei Alavara’s betrothed?” he echoed, raising an eyebrow.
It was hard for Vangerdahast to avoid lecturing the man he’d taught for so many years. “The dragon, known among dragonkind as Nalavarauthatoryl the Red-though the goblins she commands more often use the shorter form she herself employs, ‘Nalavara’-was once Lorelei Alavara, a young elf maiden. Red-haired, skilled at magic, and prouder than most, I gather. She was betrothed to Thatoryl Elian…”
“The first elf to be slain by a human in what is now Cormyr-Andar Obarskyr,” Azoun murmured. “I’ve not forgotten.”
“Vengeance has kept her alive these fourteen centuries and more,” Vangerdahast murmured, something akin to awe in his voice. “Satisfying that hunger may cost the fourth ruling Azoun his very life. To break what drives her on may mean willingly surrendering to her and offering her your life-perhaps even letting her take it.”
Azoun looked up, a fire in his eyes that Vangerdahast had not seen there since the birth of Foril, dead now these many years. “Can you promise me, Vangey, that such a sacrifice will destroy the dr
agon and deliver Cormyr from all this ruin?”
“In matters of magic, nothing is ever certain,” his old friend and tutor said quietly. “To claim otherwise would be wildest falsehood. Yet I believe this to be so. I know something of how elven oaths and blood-magic work-a very little, actually, but enough to say this: the Obarskyr ruler or heir alone can end the power of the dragon by such an offer. Your doom is not certain, but very likely. Likewise, the deliverance of the realm is uncertain, but very likely.”
“Certain enough,” Azoun said firmly. “If one must go into the darkness that awaits us all, let my road there be the high one. Let it be in one last service to Cormyr.”
His last words seemed to echo, as if they rolled out across vast distances beyond the dark corners of the tent, and for just an instant, Vangerdahast thought he heard the distant toll of a great bell-a god, marking a fateful decision? The ghazneth bell in Suzail, which after all lay not all that far off? Or could it be… but no matter. It was gone, and might have only been a trick of his mind supplying him with something he hoped to hear. Some reassurance that he wasn’t urging one of Cormyr’s greatest kings to throw his life away in a possibly mistaken, empty scheme.
“More than that,” Azoun added, a few moments later, sounding more than ever like the young prince Vangerdahast had once despaired of, “let it be done now. I’m ready-as ready as I’ll ever be!”
With that, the King of Cormyr flung back the bedcovers and stood up, brandishing the Scepter of Lords like a long sword.
The royal magician was old and feeling older by the hour, yet he wasn’t quite so decrepit as to be unable to move in great haste when he had to. Moreover, his hands were deft-and proved quite capable of plucking reeling rulers of the realm out of the air as they started to topple, and lowering both them and ancient elven scepters gently to resting places on handy beds.
“If this is your idea of ready,” he muttered, as he took the gasping king under the arms and heaved him back up onto his pillows, “I tremble for the future of the realm.”
