by Ed Greenwood
You mean that as some sort of a thrust at me, old man? You think clever words can change everything?
Narnra turned her back on her father again.
Every time she turned around again, however, he was still there. He smiled at her once or twice, but she gave him stony silence. After a while, she started watching him.
He sat and looked around at Shadowdale, not seeming to mind.
Later, her tankard empty, Narnra murmured, "This place is beautiful."
"Aye. I sit here often. Dawn, sunrise, sunset, and dusk offer the best views, of course. If ye want to bathe, soap-flakes and hair-scent are under yon rock."
Narnra gave him a startled look. "You expect me to stay?"
Elminster shook his head. "I expect nothing-but I offered ye welcome at any time ye might care to claim it, and ye might arrive some day desiring to get cool or clean or wash the blood of someone ye disagreed with off ye, so 'tis handy to know where the soap is."
"I suppose you have drying robes waiting under some other rock?"
"No, but if ye go and lie on yonder stone, yell find it both heats and sucks away the damp. The black velvet butterfly hanging on the shrub beside it is one of Jhessail Silvertree's hair-slides. She comes here often to lay her hair out in a fan to get it properly dry."
It was Narnra's turn for head-shaking. "I-I don't understand you. You seem tender and kind, you protest your noble reasons and causes, insist you look at everything from all sorts of viewpoints . . . yet you use people as if they were farm-beasts, love women and leave them as casually as you change your socks, and-and-why?"
"Because I'm a mere mortal, twisted beyond sanity by what I've seen and done, and by holding a goddess in my arms, and by living for far too long," Elminster whispered. "I'm a crazed villain and a proudly enthusiastic meddler as well as thy father . . . but I'd also like to be thy friend. I take folk as I find them and leave judgments to the young; I hope ye can learn to do that, too."
"Old Mage," Narnra told him firmly, "young people have to learn to judge others or they never survive to become older. Yet I'll grant that you . . . are more than I thought you were."
She turned to look directly into his eyes and added, "If I'd never known you'd sired me, we'd already be friends. I'm . . . I'm trying to set aside my anger over growing up fatherless then being left alone to fend for myself after my mother died. I may be just one of uncounted thousands of forgotten, abandoned orphans in Faerun, but I'm me, the only person I've ever had to worry about, and-"
"Precisely. Ye're the only person ye've ever had to worry about. Go get thyself a few friends-real friends-and ye'll have that many more folk to worry over."
"And you worry about thousands, is that it?"
"Worry and do something-lots of things, endlessly-for them. Grieve for all those I failed and those the passing years have taken from me. Whole realms I loved are now gone," Elminster replied and added calmly, "Boo hoo."
Narnra snorted in surprised mirth and set her tankard down. "I could learn to love this place," she said almost wistfully-and then turned her head to look into her father's eyes and added slowly, almost struggling with the words, "To accept you too, I think, with all your lies and meddling. Someday."
"I'd like that," he said gently. " 'Twould mean much to me."
She nodded, and they looked calmly into each other's eyes for what seemed a very long time.
Abruptly Narnra became aware, as she stared through it at her father, of how tangled and sweat-soiled her hair was. Her gaze fell longingly to the pool, and after a few breaths of silence she asked, "Would you mind going away whilst I bathe if I promise to work no mischief?"
Elminster chuckled, took up her tankard, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'll be up in the Tower preparing evenfeast when ye're done. Florin has probably worn his sword-edge dull slicing edibles by now. I'm not much of a family, lass, but ye're welcome, whenever."
Narnra gave him a strange look and waved at the pool. "There aren't-snakes or biting turtles or anything like that, are there?"
"Nay," Elminster told her, as he conjured up a fluffy robe, towels, and slippers, and bent with a grunt to lay them out on a handy rock. "I asked the beast that eats them to depart when ye arrived, and it did."
She gave him a longer look, until he turned and added, "Trust me."
"I'm learning to," she said with a lopsided smile. "Don't make me regret it. Please."
"Well, if ye'd like to toss your clothes onto yon rock, I'll snatch them away with a spell and give them a wash whilst ye're soaking-because they certainly need it. Knives and all, mind. I'll be careful not to let things rust. Oh, and the little blades ye keep hidden in thy hair, too they're starting to tarnish."
Narnra gave her father quite another look and said, "If you trick me . . ."
"I'll be overcome with remorse," he said with a grin and strolled off, his pipe floating after him.
Narnra watched him go, shaking her head. Well, at least she had an interesting father. When she heard the Tower door close, she disrobed, carefully putting her gear where he'd indicated-all but one knife with its sheath, which she laid ready at the water's edge.
She lifted the stone Elminster had pointed out, scooped up some flakes of soap, and waded in.
The water was wonderful.
* * * * *
"B'gads, what if they find us here?" Bezrar muttered. "What tale do we tell them then?"
"That we're thinking of importing some new sort of shingles from-from Alaghon, and had to see if the barracks roofs would ever be a market for us," his partner Surth hissed. "If you shut up for once, perhaps they won't find us here!"
They both froze, there on the roof of the largest Purple Dragon barracks in Marsember, as at least a dozen dragons-each larger than any barracks, and far more impressive-swooped past, in a mighty hurry to get to somewhere in the city!
The great wyrms passed over the barracks so low that Malakar Surth, the taller of the two swindlers, could almost have touched one of those vast and scaled underbellies by standing tall and leaping upward.
He chose not to do so. It seemed more sensible to faint instead.
Twenty-Two
A LITTLE VICTORY
Sometimes, all you can do is take what little victory you can.
Sorbraun Swordmantle, Seventy Summers A Purple Dragon: One Loyal Warrior's Tale Year of the Prince
"Stand easy," Laspeera murmured. "Whatever happens, we've War Wizards enough to keep you both safe."
Filfaeril and Alusair gave her identical sighs. "Speera, it's not that," the Steel Regent exclaimed, armor gleaming. "It's how many loyal folk this will cost us-and how many noble families who lose their young hotheads here will turn against us. When will Cormyr stop bleeding?"
"Here they come," Caladnei muttered, stepping back, as many men stalked into the dimly lit hall, drawn swords glittering in the light of her conjured light.
"Hail, Ladies Obarskyr," one of them called in a grand and cultured voice. "Your attendance-even with so many of your mages-gratifies us. We desire to discuss the future of our fair real-"
The noble staggered forward to fall on his face with a cough and lie still, sword ringing on the tiles. His fellows whirled around with shouts of anger.
Many men in robes were fading into visibility out of empty air-Thayans! Harnrim Starangh glared coldly around Thundae-rlyn Hall and commanded his fellow Red Wizards, "Kill them all-yon women first. Let no one leave alive!"
* * * * *
Bezrar and Surth came back to Marsember at about the same time, with damp and misty air singing past their ears as a grand rooftop-all spires and skylights-rushed up to meet them. They were . . . oh, gods … in the grip of great talons.
Talons that were attached to a huge and iridescent silver-blue dragon. Turquoise eyes burned into theirs with force enough to keep them blinkingly, tremblingly awake. When both Surth and Bezrar would quite happily have fainted again great jaws hissed in a soft thunder, "Open those skylights so we can see and
hear who's within. I've no desire to provoke all the War Wizards and whatever other mages happen to be in Marsember by tearing apart a few buildings at random and slaughtering folk heedlessly."
"B-b-but-" Bezrar managed to splutter.
"However," Joysil told him, "I can make a few exceptions when it comes to slaughtering if you provoke me. Yes, this is the roof of Thundaerlyn Hall, and yes, I'm a dragon, just as you are Aumun Tholant Bezrar and you are Malakar Surth. Get those open!"
The two smugglers leaped to the panes with frantic eagerness, fumbling at catches that hadn't been oiled or thrown open in decades-decades of sea-mists and incontinent birds and nesting fowl that . . . that. . .
"Oh, gods!" Surth hissed, his fingers trembling helplessly. "We'll never-"
Beside him, Bezrar drew his longknife, puffing like a walrus and sweating a river, and brought its pommel down firmly through the dirty pane in front of him.
There was a shout from within, and a roaring gout of flame burst up out of the shattered skylight. A dragon banked sharply overhead, thrust out its neck, and breathed something back.
Bezrar emitted a sort of frightened mew as he tumbled over backward. Spells were bursting out of skylights up and down the roof now, shards of glass tumbling in all directions, and dragons were diving down and breathing death of their own.
It was, yes, a luminescent time to faint, Bezrar and Surth decided in unison-and did so.
* * * * *
Caladnei and Laspeera did nothing but hold up shimmering shielding-spells around Alusair and Filfaeril as they all rushed together to the east end of the hall-which saved them, even as Red Wizards by the dozens vanished in dragon-spew.
The very floor-tiles of the central open hall exploded, heaved, and melted where the full fury of dragon-magic struck, and the roof started to come down in great crashing chunks.
The two highest-ranking War Wizards reeled, moaning in pain and clutching their heads, as their shieldings were torn asunder. Somewhere down there, the Obarskyrs were on their own, now . . .
Doors burst open in the darkness all over the hall as Rhauligan and the other Highknights decided that with War Wizards screaming and fainting and igniting like torches all around them they might already be too late to rush forth and perform a rescue.
The Red Wizards Starangh had been able to assemble were the youngest and most ambitious Thayans handy in Sembia, but they neither trusted each other nor had much experience in working carefully together in spell-battle … so in the flashing, bursting confusion of swooping dragons and men running about with swords, they soon started hurling death at anyone and everyone they saw, including each other.
Harnrim Darkspells looked around from a high balcony in disbelief as War Wizards and his fellow Thayans hurled spells, chairs, and knives at each other with equally blind fury. This was a swiftly unfolding disaster! He had to-
Something made him duck and turn, and the point of Rhau-ligan's thrusting blade flashed harmlessly past his arm. With a curse, Starangh teleported away, leaving the Highknight slashing empty air and airing a few curses of his own.
Down below, terrified nobles were swording everyone in their haste to escape what they correctly saw as a deathtrap. The ring and clang of sword-steel rose deafeningly in the hall.
Rhauligan whirled around and raced down the nearest stair. He had to get to Alusair and Filfaeril and keep them safe, whatever happened.
* * * * *
"Get down, Mother!" Alusair snarled, hacking a man to the floor viciously and stamping on his throat. "That gown won't stop a child's knife! I've got to set aside having to defend and worry about you! Too many of these dogs are getting away!"
"Look-unnh!-to your own back, dear!" Filfaeril called, whirling her overgown around a man's head and rushing past him to drag him off-balance. Wildly slashing nothing, he went down, and she leaped in to land knees-together on his chest, and drive her little jeweled dagger into a face she couldn't see. "I'm Cormyr's past, daughter-you're its future!"
Alusair laughed bitterly as two swords reached for her. "Yes, but for how long?"
* * * * *
"Gala, we've got to get back to Luse and Fee," Laspeera panted. "They'll get butchered!"
"If we don't drive off these dragons," the Mage Royal of Cormyr spat back, "we'll all wind up fried, crushed, and entombed before six-toll!"
"They're drawing off!" Laspeera gasped, pointing. "Look! They're flying away!"
* * * * *
"ENOUGH!" Joysil roared, in a voice that shook every spire in Marsember. "We can do no more without destroying every human down there! Come-to the sanctum!"
'To the dragonbinder!" dragon voices thundered in chorus, and wings flapped and wheeled in the sky.
* * * * *
"Shields!" Caladnei cried, clutching at Laspeera. "Find them! We must raise the shields around them again!"
Laspeera peered helplessly around the darkened confusion of the hall, made a sound of exasperation, and cast a bright radiance spell out into the chaos.
Everywhere, knots of men were fighting, their swords flashing. Bodies lay huddled in their blood everywhere, too, and robed War Wizards waving daggers were rushing down stairs and along balconies, shouting.
"There!" she cried, pointing to where she'd seen Alusair's familiar hair swirl, just for a moment, amid a glimmer of clashing blades.
Hip to hip the two mages worked a casting, then collapsed with a groan.
"I worked an ironguard on them," Caladnei gasped. "Rhauligan's coming-see?-and he should be able … to take care of… men who can only punch . . . and gouge and strangle."
"Wait, what's that?" Laspeera snapped. Where they'd thrown their shield, something flared like a momentary star.
"Fee's teleport gem," Caladnei said with a grin. "She's taken them back to the Palace. Find that portal, and let's get there before Luse tries to bring every last Purple Dragon in the place back here!"
* * * * *
"What was that, Mother?"
"My teleport gem," Filfaeril gasped. "This dolt of a Dracohorn brought his blade down on it, before I… before I…"
"Mother!" Alusair cried in alarm, whirling back to the queen. Filfaeril was clutching at her side. She sat down against a heap of bodies, managed a little smile, and said rather triumphantly, "Before I put my little knife through his eye." She waved a hand. "Don't worry, I'm just winded, not cut. I trust."
The singing of a shielding-spell-at least, Alusair hoped it was a shielding-spell-rose around them, and she waded through the dead and dying to get to her mother.
She was still two paces away when the balcony above, smoldering in the aftermath of a spell, tore loose and crashed down on them.
* * * * *
"Hah!" Darndreth Goldsword cried triumphantly, as something splintered and the door sagged open. "Out, lads! Out!"
The dozen or so nobles of the Rightful Conspiracy surged forward as one, panting in fear and weariness. This had all gone so wrong-dragons, by the gods!-wizards everywhere! More grim men with swords than they'd been able to muster in the first place! And all the doors spell-sealed, too!
This was the only one they'd been able to get open, and now they'd have to run far and fast before the Obarskyrs set the hounds of the realm on-
Darndreth staggered back with a cry, almost spitting himself on half a dozen swords. "Who-?"
"No one important," the lady who stood outside replied calmly, her eyes large and dark in the glow of the conjured dagger and whip-sword in her hands. "Just someone who grew bored in Can-dlekeep and looked in a scrying-stone to see what was happening back in Marsember. Not that I found anything surprising."
"Stand back!" one noble shouted.
"Make way or we'll kill you!" the youngest Goldsword added, in a snarl.
The lady slashed his thrusting sword aside with her own, the meeting of blades numbing his arm as if he'd touched lightning. "You may try," she commented pleasantly.
"Who are you?"
"The Lady Noumea Ca
rdellith," she answered, parrying his furious attack, "of Sembia. Stay within, traitors, and face justice."
"Justice! You're not even of Cormyr!" a noble panted furiously, trying to reach his sword past Darndreth's shoulder to stab her.
"No matter. I stand for peace and honesty, whenever possible … to slaughter a ruling house always plunges a land into strife and outlawry and suffering, and the lurking monsters and dark cabals alike come prowling … or have you so swiftly forgotten what befell in Tethyr?"
"Hah! You can't stand against us! One woman, alone?"
"I don't have to," Noumea gasped, as a blade drove her own sword aside and two others thrust into her. "I only have to delay you, until-"
Glarasteer Rhauligan struck the knot of nobles from behind like a deadly storm, four Highknights with him-and only five of the traitors had time to start pleading. Their frantic attempts to make deals went unanswered.
* * * * *
Vangerdahast gently parted Myrmeen's arms and set her aside. "Tis done, lady," he said gently. "Our time together. They've come."
He waved above the wide expanse where Joysil had felled so many trees-and the Lady Lord of Arabel found herself looking up at a sky full of dragons.
The song dragon arrowed down into a wing-fluttering landing in front of their shattered window, the other wyrms wheeling and banking watchfully above.
"Mage," Joysil said, "we flew to war-and this threat to Cormyr from Red Wizards and traitor-nobles, at least, has been ended."
"In return," the former Royal Magician replied, silver and green fires briefly shining forth in a visible web that made more than one dragon hiss and rear back, "look, and see the truth of my words: I've bound my dragonbindings to my own life. If I perish, they go with me."
