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 futility 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.