Cormyr

Chapter 1: The Hunting Party

Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

The king of all Cormyr raised the bright silver hunting horn to his lips. Three short, sharp blasts floated out through the forest, a small silence following their echoes. A faint creak of saddle leather was the only sound from the other three hunters as they listened to the echoes fading into far places. Then, faint and far off, came the expected response-three short, high notes, followed by a long enthusiastic blast that rose mockingly at the end.

The king grinned, his even teeth flashing briefly beneath his graying mustache, and said, “That’s Thundersword’s windwork, to be sure. By the sound, they’re about a mile and a half east of us… with quarry and without any great desire to return yet. We shan’t have to worry about them for a while.”

Two of King Azoun’s three companions, men as old as the man who wore the crown, nodded and chuckled at some shared joke. The third, a younger warrior in stiff, new hunting leathers, nodded solemnly, as if the king had delivered sage words from on high.

“Perhaps they’ve found the Ghost Stag,” came the deep voice of the stouter of the old hunters, accompanied by a sly smile. Baron Thomdor was a massive man even without his protruding stomach. His shoulders were as broad and as muscled as the withers of many a stallion. He was cousin to the king, as was the old hunter on Azoun’s far side. Thomdor ran one gloved hand through unruly dark hair that was shot with gray and leaned forward in his saddle to better see his brother, the Lord High Marshal of Cormyr.

Duke Bhereu, the king’s other cousin, shook his bald head. “Then know ye they bid fair to be gone for most of the day, my lord,” he replied in mock, courtly tones, sketching as much of an elaborate bow as one can in an old and worn hunting saddle, before erupting in easy laughter and continuing, “to return to the lodge with empty hands, tremendous stories-and raging thirsts-this evening.”

“Agreed,” said His Majesty, “And you, young Aunadar Bleth. What make you of this possible portent?”

The younger man took a ragged, obviously nervous breath, but there was only a slight stammer when he spoke. “If-if they’re chasing the legendary Ghost Stag of the King’s Forest, I’d not bet against the stag. They’ve Warden Truesilver among them, true, and Bald Jawn as their guide, but the Ghost Stag has eluded us all for generations. And besides, would even so noble a hunting party seek to bring down the chosen prey of the King of Cormyr?” As an afterthought, he added, “Sire.”

The king allowed himself a relaxed smile. “Perhaps that’s what’s been keeping the stag alive all these years. It’s waiting for me, eh?”

He nodded at the younger man and added, “Let’s go down toward the river-the ruin you wanted to see is there. And so long as we’re out here in the woods, you can drop the ‘Sire.’ Azoun will do very nicely, it’s a name I’ve heard a time or two before.”

“As you wish, Si-er, Azoun,” said the youth, and then added “my lord” with a quick smile.

The king matched it as he wheeled his destrier and reined it down a ferny slope toward a trail that led to the riverside. The youth followed, his mount tossing its head at the uncertain footing. The two royal cousins held back, watching their king and the young knight bobbing through the trees.

“What do you make of young Bleth?” asked Thomdor, pointing at the receding back of Aunadar Bleth with his chin.

Duke Bhereu shrugged broad shoulders. “This one has some potential. Courteous without being unctuous. Respectful without overmuch groveling. Has book-learning enough in his head to be interesting and enough wits not to show it off all at once. Filfaeril approves already, you know. He’s better than your average pick.”

“Not only the queen thinks so,” the baron rumbled. “The crown princess likes him, too.” As they urged their horses down the loose slope where the king’s war-horse had preceded them, letting the massive beasts choose their own leisurely paths, he added, “Did you know the two of them met in the palace library?”

“I’ve heard the story,” Bhereu replied wryly, “though with each retelling, the court gossips adorn it. The strains of harps and songhorns positively swirl about it these days, grown as sweet and syrupy as any minstrelry of the Brokenhearted Knight. The last time I heard it, the tale had their eyes meeting, and without another breath, our bold young Bleth sweeps the Crown Princess up and onto a table, scattering tomes and scrolls in all directions. They say he practically kissed the lips-to say nothing of a good court gown-off her before the maids clawed him free of the royal person. Whereupon she leapt up, snatched him away to another table, laid him out on it, and bestowed a mighty kiss upon him, to return the favor.”

The two men shook their heads in amused disbelief, and Thomdor murmured, “The worst of it is, some folk’ll believe it when it comes to their ears, half a world away, in a tenday or two.”

Duke Bhereu nodded, ducked under a tree limb, and said, “Yet a full glass to it all, and more, if Tanalasta is fond of him. It’s better than the king trying out future sons-in-law on her… and forcing an unhappy marriage.”

“I can’t see Azoun playing that game,” Thomdor replied, frowning equally at his brother and the offending low tree limb. “Other kings, perhaps, but you know our Purple Dragon dotes on both his daughters. Truly, not mere honeyed words and kisses.”

“Aye, but our pet wizard has been going on of late about storied heritage and ancient bloodline and solemn succession. Pointing out none too delicately that age stalks us all, and Azoun’d best get his house in order before it overtakes him. You may guess how successful that argument has been.”

Baron Thomdor, Warden of the Eastern Marches, whistled air out sharply between wryly curled lips. “Azoun probably smiled, nodded, and serenely ignored the Royal Magician,” he judged, hefting a boar spear in his hand. Then he shrugged. “Vangerdahast worries about everything, you know. I swear the Obarskyr bloodline keeps Azoun young just as magic keeps old Vangey alive.”

He patted his stomach and added in grand, courtly tones of doom, “Age stalks us all.” An errant branch poked at his middle, and he backhanded it aside with a mock scowl, adding darkly, “Some, of course, more than others.”

“Some more than others,” echoed Duke Bhereu, passing a meaningful hand over his bald pate. “As the royal cousins, we’ll always be in Azoun’s shadow, growing old while his youth and vigor rides on. The day’ll come when we’ll both be doddering graybeards, counting our teeth as they fall into our laps by warm firesides-and he’ll still be using these hunts to check out suitors for his lasses.”

“And grandlasses,” said Thomdor with a rueful smile. “And bite your flapping tongue about counting falling teeth. May the watchful gods deliver us both from such a fate!”

“Grandlasses? Well, perhaps, if either daughter ever marries,” the duke replied, doubt heavy in his voice. “Tanalasta’s almost a wizard herself, at least with her ledgers and sums, but no taste for rulership there. You’ve seen her at court-cool and quiet. Too quiet. Hesitant to speak out, and the words halting when she does… a royal wallflower.”

The stout war-horse beneath him snorted, as if in dispute, and the duke steered it deftly between two phandar trees before adding, “Can you see her at the head of an army, staring fiercely at the foe as she draws her abacus and account book for the fray? Not your typical Obarskyr, that one.”

“Aye, all the family traits bred into young Alusair,” Thomdor agreed, scanning the nearby trees with the alert vigilance of a veteran warrior. “Hell on horseback, all ego and fury, with talent to match. Every time she comes home, bets are heavy among the kitchen staff as to how long it’ll be before she and her father get into a row about politics that breaks half the goblets and platters!” He leaned low over his mount’s neck to pass under another phandar bough and added, “She’s all swords and armor right now, and would rather be on the battlefield than on the throne.”

“Aye, it boils down to that,” Bhereu agreed. “Neither wants to rule, or truly has the aptitude for it. So perhaps a child of Alusair, or more likely of Tanalasta, will be the next king… and that’s what makes these hunting parties so bleeding important. You think Azoun would pull you from Arabel and me from the High Horn just for a social gathering? You’ll notice he asks us and not Vangerdahast, every time.”

The baron stuck his forehead in mock woe. “I am crushed under the weight of the responsibility. It smites our shoulders like a falling castle turret!” The heavier of the cousins chuckled, then added in more normal tones, “No doubt the good mage delivered a five-volume report on Aunadar and the entire Bleth clan-every last high-nosed noble and illegitimate woodchopper among them, back to the dawn days of the kingdom.”

The leather saddle creaked as he reined in his prancing mount and added more quietly, “I say let Tanny choose her own prince consort and be done with it. She was smart enough to see right through that proud flower of the Illance line… er, Martin?”

The duke smiled at the name. “Martin Frayault Illance, the most untrustworthy young noble in the kingdom. You know after Tanalasta rejected his entreaties, he got on his horse and rode hard and straight for Alusair? Of course, our elder princess had already told her sister all of Martin’s favorite lines.”

It was the baron’s turn to smile. “I bet she broke both his arms.”

“Dislocated a shoulder, actually,” said the duke. “With a table that had the misfortune to be standing, all innocent like, outside the window he was hurled through.” He snorted. “A month gone, and he was still telling folk he got it in a barroom brawl.” His voice took on the brightness of an earnest young courtier who’s just grasped one of the king’s dry jokes a day or so after hearing it as he added, “Which was true, strictly speaking!”

The baron snorted loudly. “I never liked that Illance boy. He’s got teeth like a werewolf-big incisors, the size of my thumb!-and he’s always smiling, like he wants to show them off.” He leered at the duke, cocked his head to one side, pointed at his teeth, and growled in mock lascivious tones, “Care to see what I ate last?”

As the duke snorted in amusement, Thomdor straightened in his saddle and growled, “Good thing neither lass showed him any favor. I’d hate to be hunting with that one.”

“Probably there’d be a ‘hunting accident’ before long,” Bhereu replied. “The sort that plagued the realm in the bad old days when Salember was regent. And if asked, I’d support the king’s story about it, whatever the story was.”

“I as well,” the baron grunted.

The trail to the river narrowed before them, and Baron Thomdor had to fall back behind his brother’s mount. Neither man had ceased his habitual, wary glances at the deep, damp, and watchful wood during the banter. They knew the king and Tanalasta’s young suitor had already reached the riverbank near the ruins of an old beacon tower.

The king still could pass for a man of forty, if you discounted the gray streaks in his hair and beard. Still, he was as lean and well muscled as ever, and could still best both his cousins at arm-wrestling, fencing, riding, or any other sport either could name.

His riding leathers were his informal set: white leathers trimmed with purple, even the heavy boots and gloves. His court garb had been left at the lodge, a symbol that the general ceremony attendant on the crown should be set aside. Azoun’s sword hung in a tattered scabbard on a weathered belt that one of the palace stewards would have consigned to the fire heap at a glance. The king wore a plain circlet on his brow, and an old, tattered brown scarf-a luck token from his queen-hid the hunting horn at his belt. Yet he rode like the great monarch he was, shoulders straight, quietly confident, clearly master of all around him without any need for arrogance or pomposity. As they came down the hill, both Thomdor and Bhereu were struck with the noble bearing of the man who was both their king and cousin.

The youth who rode beside Azoun seemed dim by comparison, as did any mortal next to the King of Cormyr. On a crowded dance floor, young Aunadar probably cut a dashing figure, his boyish charm and gallant looks leavened with a serious, almost bookish demeanor. The youth wore dark ebon leathers trimmed with gold, accented by a short golden riding cape. It was rather somber wear. Even so, in another hunting party, he would have been the center of attention, but here he was subdued by His Most Radiant Majesty.

The youth could have dressed more grandly, Thomdor thought, but at the risk, of course, of competing with his possible future father-in-law. Was such a diminished appearance cold calculation on the young man’s part, or merely common sense? The baron wanted to believe that it was the latter, not the former.

As they watched, Azoun raised a hand to point at the wreckage of the beacon tower. Such turrets bristled all over Cormyr, their summits used to relay messages quickly from one side of the realm to the other. Thomdor remembered when Azoun returned from Thesk and his triumph against the Tuigan horde. Every beacon tower was alight with bonfires that night, their red, leaping glow outshining the stars themselves.

This tower hadn’t been part of that celebration, it had been abandoned long before there were human kings of Cormyr. The faded but fluid script over its door proclaimed elven builders now gone and forgotten. Their slender handiwork had once been three floors in height, but passing centuries had taken their toll, until it had collapsed into a small shell reached by broad, vine-covered steps.

Thomdor knew by heart the history lesson it told. He had heard it from Rhigaerd, Azoun’s father, just as Azoun had gotten it several years later. The king would be telling it to young Bleth now, speaking of the dragons that once ruled this land and the elves who followed them. And the men who followed thereafter. The moral was clear to any man of noble station and clear thoughts:

“We do not own this land. It was here before us and will be here after we are gone. We are but guardians. Make the best of the time given to us here.”

If Aunadar was getting the history lesson, Thomdor thought, Azoun must have decided about young Bleth. Vangey, Bhereu, and, yes, the overweight Baron Thomdor as well would be consulted, but it was clear Azoun had already made up his mind. Had he not seen it so many times before, the baron’s ego would have been bruised. But how can one bruise a stone, one of the two pillars who held up the realm under the king? They had been called that, Bhereu and he, and as his brother duke had said, they were always to remain in the shadows.

Thomdor smiled and shrugged. What knight of the realm wouldn’t die to win the places they held? He looked at Bhereu, and they traded half-smiles of easy contentment, slowing their mounts in silent accord as they approached the king, so as to avoid having to hear the history lesson yet again.

The thought of shadows brought Thomdor’s eyes to the wreckage of the elven tower and the darkness beyond its carved lintel. Someone had been to the ruin since the last time they’d visited, for its broad steps were bare of heavy vines, and the stones that could be seen inside the door were no longer heaped with old rubble.

In that darkness something glinted, like a gold coin. Or a suit of armor.

Thomdor pointed and opened his mouth to say something about poachers to the duke-and the glittering thing moved.

And raging doom broke loose and came down on Cormyr.

“Aye?” Bhereu’s puzzled query burst from his lips as something sprang out of the tower like a stallion bursting from its stall. A golden flash and glimmer, the creature from the tower charged at them without hesitation.

The four hunters goggled, frozen for a moment by the sight. The creature was golden and bull-shaped, but its mirror-polished hide was covered with sinuous overlaid scales, much like a lizard’s. As it surged forward, sunlight danced on its scales, reflecting the light scattershot. Its forward-swept horns were impossibly long and curved so that their tips were mere inches from its faceted amber eyes. Steam billowed from its flaring nostrils and fang-ridged maw as it roared, deep and triumphant. The beast clattered down the broad steps and closed swiftly with the four mounted men.

The two mounts closest to the beast, Azoun’s and Aunadar’s, reared at the sight, turned about, and bolted. The king sprang deftly clear of his horse, drawing his sword while he was still in midleap. Aunadar Bleth was less successful, sprawling awkwardly to the ground but rolling hastily and managing to come up with his own blade bare. His free hand had tangled in his short cape, which partially covered his face in a confused tangle.

The golden beast was coming on too swiftly for much thought or plan for attack. As the fleeing horses rushed past, Thomdor and Bhereu fought to keep their own war-horses from bolting, snarling and hauling on the reins like madmen. Then, in unison, the royal cousins roared a challenge and spurred their mounts forward, hauling out their own blades. Neither had seen such a monster before, but there was no time for speculation as to what it was or how it had come to be here. Perhaps Vangerdahast or the sage Alaphondar could puzzle out its origins after they killed it.

The royal cousins met the golden creature in a flurry of slashing steel and golden horns. One man went to either side of the snorting beast, their blades gleaming in the dappled sunlight, and as one, they slashed at the glittering flanks of the golden bull.

Such an assault would normally take down a wild ox, but the blades bit into no flesh. They sparked as if they were smiting armor and squealed harmlessly along the creature, dragging along as if scoring metal.

The two brothers scarcely had time to curse before the golden creature bellowed, turned with lightning speed, and tossed its massive head. Wickedly sharp horns tore open the belly of Bhereu’s mount, spraying hot blood over the fray. The horse had time for one horrible scream before it collapsed in a rush of steaming innards, tumbling the duke out of his saddle.

Thomdor reined in his own mount in a pounding of hooves and threw his boar spear. It struck with a ringing sound, metal on metal, and sprang away, unable to sink home. “The luck of bloody Beshaba!” he snarled, rolling hastily out of his own saddle. The horses were little more than moving targets to the creature. The bull turned and rushed after Thomdor’s mount but gave up the pursuit when the horse plunged into the river.

Thomdor cast a look back at his fellows as the golden monster turned, crashing through shrubbery and saplings, and added a few more curses at the goddess of ill fortune. Most of the royal bodyguards were off in another part of the King’s Forest, with Thundersword’s hunting party. Everyone’s armor was minimal, and each bore weapons more suited to gutting boars than battling a magical juggernaut.

The golden ox must be an enchanted machine, it clanked and squeaked as it moved. To take it down, they’d have to aim for the thing’s clockwork joints. Thomdor cast a glance back at the ruined tower, but there was no activity in the dark doorway or beyond. There was no sign of other golden creatures, nor was there any sign of someone who might be guiding this one.

Bhereu was slow to rise, and Thomdor saw that the duke’s face was pale and already streaked with sweat. We’re both getting too old for this, Thomdor thought as he raised his heavy blade and charged.

Aunadar and Azoun had split up and taken their stances, His Majesty to the creature’s right and the Bleth lad, his face still partially covered with his cape, to the left. The youth was obviously trying to make himself as small a target as possible, crouched and wary, ready to spring, but the king stood upright, chest out and feet planted firmly, bellowing a challenge.

The beast had been lumbering straight at Thomdor, but at the king’s shout, it swerved to charge at Azoun, leaving the baron with a chance to strike it as it passed. He kept his eyes on the mirror-bright beast, danced carefully in to just the right spot, and swung-hard.

The impact shook Thomdor to his very teeth, but his stout blade sheared deep into the bull’s left leg just below the knee, digging into the joint with a satisfactory thunk.

As the man spun helplessly away, struggling to keep hold of his notched and bent blade with numbed hands, the glittering monster stumbled, breaking its charge. As the baron’s world stopped whirling and turning, he saw the bull regain its footing and turn his way. It had acquired a limp.

Thomdor’s satisfaction was short-lived, however, for the beast’s great, doleful eyes were settled on him, staring steadily into the baron’s own hot gaze. The steam from the bull’s maw wreathed its face, and Thomdor smelled a bitter, acrid odor, like burnt oranges.

The smell was strong and pungent, seeming somehow oily in his mouth, and the baron stumbled back a few paces, wondering if this could be some transformed, renegade mage with a grudge against the crown.

Aunadar took advantage of the bull’s menacing advance on the baron to launch his own attack. Charging forward, he repeated the mistake the royal cousins had made earlier, trying to drive his sword into the beast’s flank. The tip of the blade skittered across the bright scales, leaving only a thin scratch. The bull thrashed its head, and young Bleth sprang back, lost his footing, and sprawled backward into the trampled ferns.

Bhereu and the king were both closing in on the beast now. Thomdor inwardly cursed Azoun for risking himself, but the king had always been like that, even as a lad. To ask him to stay out of a battle while others fought was unthinkable. The baron set his jaw, strode forward, and took another hack at a leg joint. His aim was true, but the blade dug less deeply than before.

Something was terribly wrong. The air around Thomdor felt stifling, the thick oiliness was curling and moving in his throat, and the forest seemed to close in on all sides.

The baron snarled a curse and staggered backward. His vision was collapsing into a small tunnel around the massive, steaming golden beast. Once more the creature’s doleful eyes stared tirelessly into his, and Thomdor could feel sweat pouring out of his body. He was starting to tremble and feel numb all over. This was more than the ravages of too many years spent gorging at the board, this was magic… deadly magic.

Thomdor looked at Bhereu. His brother’s face looked like a death mask and wore a look of grim realization that must mirror his own. The duke nodded in unspoken answer to Thomdor’s look as he came around the bull, hacking at its legs as vigorously as Azoun was doing on the beast’s other flank, then opened his mouth to speak.

What came out was a weak cough, and Bhereu’s eyes turned an odd green color. Then the beast lunged in their direction, and the world became a place of stabbing horns, hacking blades, and desperate dives for safety clear of plunging hooves. Both royal cousins fell and roiled, then rose to topple backward again. Thomdor struck the ground hard more than once, but the pain felt distant, as if the world were slipping away into numbing mists.

The tunnel that the world had become heaved and rolled, and Thomdor knew he was rising very slowly, pushing at the stubborn ground with his hands. Beside him, Bhereu rolled over, but did not try to rise. Somewhere the bull roared again as the Warden of the Eastern Marches staggered over to his brother, using his sword to support himself.

The duke was laboring to breathe, his face taut with pain, his eyes bright and wide.

“Poison!” Bhereu gasped. He was shaking under Thomdor’s hands, his burly body streaming with sweat. He tried to rise once, scrambling to gather himself in the baron’s firm grasp, and then collapsed, head lolling and limbs jouncing loosely.

Thomdor laid him back down. Poison, not magic. Yes, that would make sense, particularly with a clockwork creation. To have any hope of surviving, he and Bhereu would both have to get back to the Royal Chirurgeons in Suzail as soon as the battle was over.

Aye, the battle. Where was that bull, anyway?

Head buzzing from the effects of the poison, Thomdor looked around, the tunnel shifting and flowing crazily until he spotted a golden flash.

Aunadar was up and hacking ineffectually again, but the beast seemed intent on slaying Azoun, trying to smash the ever-dodging king down with its golden hooves. As Thomdor watched, Azoun danced away from a lashing hoof and struck out backhanded with his blade, sweeping his sword’s tip neatly into the beast’s right eye. There was a flash of spraying sparks, and the eyeball-a faceted gemstone!-bounced to the ground.

The bull stiffened and let out a tremendous roar. Internal bellows whined, and the burnt-orange smoke billowed from the monster’s maw and empty eye socket with renewed vigor.

Poison, Thomdor reminded himself grimly as he lumbered forward on rubbery legs. Horns slashed, but he drove them aside with his battered blade and then lifted it and drove it weakly into the gaping eye socket amid the flowing smoke.

The bull shook its head, and Thomdor’s blade was wrenched from his grasp. He stumbled again, the tunnel before him becoming smaller, the beast receding in the distance.

Azoun struck at the monster’s other eye, and the clockwork golden head swung around again. The bull stamped once and then charged, trying to impale the king on its wicked horns. Its maw was open, and the acrid smoke wreathed its head, trailing behind it in oily wisps.

To dodge left or right was to be gored on those glittering horns. Azoun dropped to one knee, raising his blade in front of him. As the creature bore down on him, the king made a desperate lunge, striking into the bull’s open maw, driving his blade in to the hilt.

Sparks sprayed and metal skirled as the blade bounced from one unseen innard to another. There was a metallic singing and snapping, and the blade burst out the back of the bull’s skull, spraying a thick purple-black fluid.

The clockwork beast hung motionless for a moment, pinioned on the blade, its horns inches from the king’s face. Then it slowly, almost gracefully, dropped in its tracks. Whirring noises rose and clattered briefly from its collapsing form, only to die away once more.

Silence descended immediately on a battlefield wreathed in acrid-smelling fog. The king let go his blade and stood up unsteadily, shoulders trembling. Aunadar, the only man still holding a sword, poked at the glittering body a few times.

It lay still, but Thomdor could barely see it through the swimming tunnel. He staggered forward. He had to tell Azoun to summon aid for Bhereu.

The baron stopped short at the sight of His Majesty. The king’s flesh was bone-white and drawn as tightly over his skull as that of any mummy in a tomb. The royal eyes were wide, almost panicked, and Azoun’s brow and beard were beaded with dripping sweat.

The king mouthed a few words Thomdor could not catch, then collapsed in front of the golden bull’s horns.

Thomdor stared down at him, feeling his own knees going weak, but Aunadar was at his elbow in an instant, holding him up, voice shrill with fear. “What happened? What’s wrong with the king-and the duke? Are they ill? The bull didn’t strike him. What’s wrong?”

The tunnel of his vision was growing smaller, Thomdor sagged against an arm that seemed afraid to hold him. He had to get this boy to summon help, or House Obarskyr was lost.

“Right… boot,” the baron gasped. The words felt like acid in his throat, he could barely speak. “King’s right boot,” he rasped. “Wand.”

Aunadar looked at him blankly for a moment, as if trying to translate Thomdor’s wheezing words, then knelt down beside the king and peered into his right boot. His fingers closed on something, and he looked questioningly back at Thomdor as he drew it forth: a slender ivory wand, sheathed just inside the royal boot top.

Thomdor set his teeth and managed a nod, mentally snarling at the young man to get on with it. The tunnel had closed almost to nothing, and the darkness around it was crawling with dark, monstrous serpents and spiders, waiting for the Warden of the Eastern Marches to falter so they could claim all three of the royals.

Aunadar turned to the baron with the wand flat across his palms. There was a shocked, questioning look on his young face.

Thomdor licked lips that were suddenly thick and numb. “Break it,” he tried to roar, but it came out as a husking whisper.

The youth remained motionless. Either Bleth could no longer understand his words, or too little of the world was left for the baron to know what he was saying.

He repeated his command, but the young puppy remained still, the wand in his hands and that shocked, waiting look on his face.

With the last of his fading energy, Baron Thomdor of Arabel, Warden of the Eastern Marches and Royal Right Hand to King Azoun IV of Cormyr, lunged forward and grabbed the boy’s hands, forcing them to close over the wand and pressing them up and together. The wand snapped like a brittle bone.

A humming familiar to the baron filled the glade, and a small silver coin appeared in midair, tumbled once, flashed, and quickly widened to form a hoop. The hoop stretched swiftly into a great circular doorway, and out of that entry to otherwhere poured royal guards in white and purple, priests of Tymora in their blue and silver, and war wizards in their violet robes. Last came Vangerdahast, the fat old mage in his familiar red-brown robes, rolling slightly as he walked, bellowing orders right and left.

The Royal Magician knelt next to the king, then looked up sharply and yelled something. Thomdor could no longer understand what was being said, and his vision had faded to a mere pinprick of light, the russet-robed wizard kneeling in a vast void of slithering darkness.

It had been enough. They had summoned aid. Whatever was wrong, the Royal Magician would see to the matter and set things right. Vangerdahast would fix everything. The crown was saved.

And with that thought, Thomdor let go of the last of his crumbling, once iron-strong grip on life and said farewell to the tiny light…