Delmoene’s voice seemed almost lazy, but its casualness fooled none of her companions. The agitated flashings of the sentient gems set into her gauntlets might have had something to do with that.
“So? ‘Tis a ghost—a pranksome ghost, that seeks to lure us astray into doom. Think you no one died here?” The growling warrior looked at the moss-girt, leaning tower on their left, then peered quickly at the moss-girt, soaring tower on their right.
“Why,” he added slowly, looking again to the left, “fiends must have bounded over all these stones, tearing elves apart with their claws in a storm of slaughter!”
“Thank you, Solor,” Delmoene said icily. “Just the cheerful image I needed, with dusk coming down fast and no time to walk back out.”
“I say again: Teleport us back to the clearing and we’ll use the gate again tomorrow,” another warrior said in exasperation. “I’m not smitten at the thought of spending a night here, either!”
The fair-haired sorceress had known the kisses of both men before, but her patience with thick-headed warriors had run out for this dying day. “Baerlor,” Delmoene asked almost gently, “did you or did you not see Rathkra blasted to blood-spray when she tried to teleport, back by the broken bridge?”
Baerlor shrugged. “That might have been just there. We can—”
“Baerlor, Rathkra is about the twoscore and third mage I know of who died trying a translocational spell in Myth Drannor. I’m not about to become the twoscore and fourth.”
The warrior waved his glittering sword angrily. “The Mythal’s not supposed to let anyone open gates into the heart of the city, either, yet here we are!”
“Yes, but we don’t know who crafted the gate— it might’ve been part of the Mythal all along! Why can’t you think for a breath or two, all of you, before opening your big mouth!”
The ground under Solor’s boots erupted in tentacles—a dozen, racing up as high as five Solors and more, ere stabbing back down again.
Delmoene didn’t spare time to scream, but Baerlor did. They were all running back the way they’d come by then, as hard and as fast as their boots could take them over broken stone, vines, and slippery moss, racing for the stone steps that would take them back out of this dell, and— Delmoene crashed into Baerlor’s back, spun away, and caught her balance with a curse. “Loviatar lash you, Baer, what’re you— oh!”
The stair was occupied. Gasping adventurers stared into the cold, gentle smiles of about a hundred dark-armored drow.
* * * * *
Oh, yes. The Hungry One’s tentacles behind you, the drained drow before you. No time now to wave swords at me, hey?
I am Ondruu, and I will live forever.
THE LONG ROAD HOME
That second day of Flamerule was well past highsun by the time six Purple Dragons reined in amid a cloud of road dust under the signpost where the ways met. Without a word to the curiously-staring folk of Hultail, one of them stood in his stirrups to hammer the broad signboard another handed him to the old post.
By the time he was done and sat back in his creaking saddle to survey his work and wearily wipe dust from his lips, half Hultail had gathered around the Crown warriors and were peering up to read what the sign said:
All Cormyr mourns its beloved King, Azoun Obarskyr, fourth of that name, lately fallen in glorious battle personally slaying “the Devil Dragon.” In delivering the realm from this titanic red dragon and her ore and goblin armies, the Purple Dragon laid down his life without hesitation, displaying to the last the courage and battle prowess that have made him especially beloved of the warriors who’ve served under him.
A just and greatly loved king, Azoun reigned long and well; most Cormyreans alive today have known no other occupant of the Dragon Throne. The only son ofRhigaerd II and his queen Tanalusta Truesilver, Azoun is survived by his Queen, Filfaeril.
The Dowager Queen has named her only surviving child Regent. Princess AlusairNacacia shall guide Cormyr as “Steel Regent” until Azoun’s grandson shall come of age. Azoun V, rightful ruler of the Forest Kingdom, is the only son of the Crown Princess Tanalasta, who also perished in heroic battle. The whereabouts of the infant king’s father, Rowen Cormaeril, are unknown; he, too, may have died fighting to deliver the realm from the fell evils of the sinister ghazneths.
The fallen Azoun was beloved of many Cormyreans; he was a personal friend to many noble ladies, yeomen, and farmfolk of the realm. As the minstrel Rauth Rindrel said of him, the Purple Dragon was “a man who looked any Cormyrean in the eye as an equal—and when he looked at you, the looking made you feel warm, befriended, and of consequence. Ill miss that—and so will many, many folk of the realm. He shall be sorely missed. I fear none of us shall see so great a king again.”
I know that same fear. Grieve, Cormyr, and let him never be forgotten, that his name and the tales told of him will still comfort, cloak, and embolden all good folk of this realm down the long years after he has gone.
Elminster of Shadowdale
“Who’s he, then?”
“Know you not the King? Why, dolt, he—” “No, no: Elminster, dunghead! Who’s Elminster of Shadowdale?”
Whatever incredulous answer the older man started to utter then was lost forever in the sound of fresh hammering as the proclamation-poster stood up from his saddle again, a new and smaller plaque in his hand, and set to work affixing it under the first.
This one read:
Sound the deep drum.
The lion I am proud to love
Has fallen, that Cormyr might stand.
Some kings are but old names
On crumbling tombs
Sounds in a roll chanted at Candlekeep
No more.
MyAzoun shall not be so easily forgotten,
Ask any Tuigan.
Raise a cup in his memory
And be happy, as I am.
He was mine, down long golden years
The gods granted us that.
He was Cormyr’s, all his years.
The gods gave that gift to us all.
Aye, be happy.
No tears can bring him back.
Why cry now
From the gates and the battlements
Until all the mountainsides roar back griefs thunder?
My love is gone
The sun set over the realm
All glory fallen
I shall never see Cormyr so bright again.
Her Royal Majesty Queen Filfaeril Obarskyr
There was a respectful sigh from many throats, and more than one cap was doffed and pressed to its owner’s chest. “The gods keep her,” one man muttered.
“Aye, poor queen,” said someone else, but a third someone snorted.
“Seems almost happy to see the back of him, she does. ‘Be happy’ she says there—twice. Seems all his bedhopping rankles still.”
“Bite back those words, you! She but bids us be lighthearted—look you the last line? She weeps, fool, she weeps!”
“I ask again: who’s this Elminster, to get high banner over our queen?”
“Man, have ye grown up deaf and blind, both? No one’s not heard of the Old Mage of Shadowdale!”
“Ah, but he’s just tall tales, fireside fancies grown in the telling, not real.”
“Oh, he’s real enough,” one of the helmed warriors said from his saddle, his words as grim as they were unexpected. “As you’ll learn right quick if you ever have the misfortune to meet him.”