She smiled thinly. “And what am I to call you now, Alaphondar?”
“Ah, ‘sluggard,’ ‘good-for-nothing husband,’ and ‘old fool’ are all handy phrases,” the old merchant told her, “but my name is Flammos Galdekund, and yours is Aglarra, my queen.”
Filfaeril’s eyebrows rose. “Won’t the neighbors be a trifle surprised to see new inhabitants of whatever house or apartments you’ve chosen for us?”
“Nay, lady,” Vangerdahast said. “Both Flammos and Aglarra really exist, and since their luggage has preceded them from the docks, they’re expected back this very day from a long vacation in southern Amn, where they went to take healing waters at Iritue’s Firesprings, because you fell so ill that your memories left you and your manner and even your voice changed.”
The queen’s smiled broadened, and she asked, “Yet I suppose I look as dumpy and shrewish as ever?”
The Royal Magician bowed. “Your Majesty is as quick and as wise as ever.”
Filfaeril laughed, looking briefly like a much younger woman, and held out her arms. “Change me, then. I’ve a feeling I’m going to enjoy this!” Then she frowned. “Are there servants, or is Flammos going to grow very sick of partridge, hocks, onions, and mushroom stew? They’re the only things I could ever make really well.”
Both men snorted in amusement and said more or less in unison, “There are servants, great lady.”
Flammos scratched himself and added, “But, O queen of my heart, you could tell them how to make your stew as often as you like. They might never get it just right, you know.”
Unexpectedly she giggled. “Change me, Vangey,” she said almost pleadingly.
“You’ll lose something of your height and grace,” the wizard warned, “and almost all of your great beauty.”
“Understood,” she said firmly. “Must I wait longer? Change me and let us go, before I start to want this and that from my chambers and my resolve starts to go…”
Vangerdahast touched her hand, her foot, her breast, and her forehead, stepped back, and carefully cast a long and rather involved spell. There was a brief flicker of light, and the Dragon Queen was gone.
A shorter, almost mannish woman with a pot belly, bodice to match, and large, pimpled chin glared at him from where the queen stood. “Well?” she rasped. “Is it a good idea to ask you for a mirror?”
Vangerdahast shook his head. The queen nodded ruefully, took a few experimental steps, wiggled her hips as she looked down to watch her heavy midsection sway, and stamped her feet. “Right,” she announced gruffly. “I’m ready.”
She ran an exploratory hand over her chin as Flammos stumped up to take her arm, and said, “Hmm tell me, husband mine, do I need a shave as badly as I think I do?”
Both men hooted with laughter, and Vangerdahast reached to take her hand and kiss it. “You’re itching to be the terror of the young men of Waterdeep, I see,” he said, “so I’ll bid you farewell for now, and-“
Aglarra Galdekund snatched her hand away from him, growled fiercely, “Well!” and then seized his ears firmly with both hands, dragged the wizard’s face down to where she could kiss it firmly on the lips. After she had done so, she said, eyes inches from his, “Guard the realm for us, lord wizard, as our thoughts guard you. Guard it and keep it safe for us all.”
“Lady,” Vangerdahast replied, feeling suddenly humble again, “I shall.” He stepped back, murmured, “Keep still now,” waved to them both, and cast the spell.
A glow grew about the Galdekunds as they stood there on the warm dragonhide before the fire. The glow blazed with sudden brilliance, then faded-and when it was gone, they were gone, too.
The Royal Magician shook his head wearily and went to the nearest chair, sinking down into it thankfully to discover that Filfaeril had left behind a dainty little glass and her silver-mounted bodice flask on the table beside it. He picked it up, finding it still warm from her body, and brought it to his nose to smell… yes, the last faint wisps of her perfume. He smiled and opened it. Gods, but he was tired.
Spiced wine-Tethyrian tanagluth, his favorite!
“Thank you, great lady,” he murmured, pouring the ruby-hued liquid into the tiny glass with slow, deliberate care.
Raising it to his lips, Vangerdahast sipped gently at the welcome fire and thought about the days ahead. Azoun had been-nay, at this moment still was-a great king… perhaps too great. Even in the crusade there had been little thought he would ever die. Very few plans had been made… plans that should have been made.
The glass had somehow become empty. Vangerdahast reached for the flask again. Had there ever been a change of power so precipitous and dangerous as this one?
And would a certain Royal Magician be strong enough to do what he would have to do?
Chapter 12: The Insufficient King
Year of the Dun Dragon (245 DR)
Sagrast Dracohorn, nobleman of Cormyr and steward of the Royal House of Obarskyr, fidgeted in his duskwood chair, wondering if he were strong enough to do what needed to be done. An upstairs room in the Ram and Duck would not have been his first choice for a meeting of traitors. Indeed, Sagrast would prefer not to be a traitor at all, but the reigns of mad Boldovar and now poor, inept Iltharl had given him little choice.
The room itself was rough-hewn and ill-kept, a memory of Suzail’s early days. There were fewer and fewer of these rough inns in the city itself these days, though they were common enough beyond the city’s walls, in the countryside and in distant Mabel. The timbers were exposed, with muddy patches of dried wattle crumbling between them. Most of the furniture had been broken and inexpertly repaired several times. None of the line of peg-hung mugs on the wall matched. Every tread on the floor reverberated through the loose floorboards of the building.
There was one advantage to this place, Sagrast thought. There was little chance of meeting any of the aristocracy here. That’s probably why the wizard had suggested it.
The window shutters, mostly wooden slats set with broken bottle bottoms, had been swung fully open, allowing the sounds and smells of the street below to waft into the room. It was the first hot spell of the summer, and the rot of meat and smell of bodies and offal and horses rose to Sagrast’s nostrils. The stench almost took away the bitter taste of the dark, grainy ale that clung tenaciously to the sides of the nobleman’s mug.
Sagrast hung back from the open window, knowing on one hand the chance of being seen was minimal, but fearing such a discovery nonetheless. Even if this meeting should prove innocuous, being seen in this place would raise questions in King Iltharl’s delicate court.
From his viewpoint, he could see a small part of the city. Most of the buildings were wood-and-wattle, with rough thatched roofs. A few builders on the hillside had taken to using stone for the foundation and lower floors. Only after several goblin raids on the city and complaints from the soldiers about trying to fight in the thick smoke of a wall set alight by brush-carrying foes had Iltharl approved replacement of the wooden palisade with a real stone wall.
Faerlthann’s Keep was stone, of course, from shallow dungeon to highest battlement. The great tower, seat of the Obarskyr power, rose from the hillside like a stake from a vampire’s chest and seemed to accuse Sagrast of his intended crimes. The keep’s windows were barred slits, a memory of Boldovar’s time, and Sagrast wondered if anyone stood behind those slits, scanning the city… watching for traitors. Watching for him.
The wizard was there when Sagrast turned back to the room. The nobleman hadn’t heard him enter, but then again, he never did. Despite himself, Sagrast started at the sight of the mage sprawling like an ancient spider in the chair on the opposite side of the table.
Baerauble the Venerable, High Wizard of Cormyr, sprawled across the chair like a discarded child’s doll, all elbows and knees. The mage had always been thin-nay, emaciated, a scarecrow of a wizard. His beard showed only the slightest streaks of its original red, and his hairline had retreated to the crown of his head. His eyes were as cold and ancient as a dragon’s. He was dressed, as ever, in the forest green that had become known as “his” color, but the cut of his robes was archaic, harking back-like this tavern-to older and better times in Cormyr.