Cormyr

Chapter 29: Treachery

Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

“O Lady of Fortunes and Mysteries,” the priestess said reverently, “hear us.” Striking the silver gong just inside the door, she threw off her sea-blue cope to reveal vestments of shining silver, took three slow, measured paces forward, and knelt. She touched the silver disk at her throat, the symbol of her goddess. “Tymora, hear us.”

Behind her came the soft rustle of the crown princess removing her own overrobe and slippers. Gwennath remained on her knees until Tanalasta joined her, murmuring her own “Tymora, hear us.”

Gwennath reached out as she did every morning to clasp the hand of the heir to the throne. Tanalasta’s grasp was firm this time, yet thankful-not the trembling clinging it had been on earlier days. Such a contact was not actually part of established ritual, but the crown princess need not know that. Gwennath had thought she needed it that first day when a pale and visibly grieving princess had come to the clergy of the goddess and almost pleaded for the consecration of a temporary shrine, so that she might have swift access to divine guidance whenever she felt need of it. High Priest Manarech had agreed without hesitation, with an eye to the future favor of the Dragon Throne, but Gwennath knew, and had a shrewd suspicion that Tanalasta did, too, that the old patriarch had no intention of any shrine to the goddess being temporary.

No matter. The silver disks, symbols of the goddess Tymora, were hung along the walls and the site consecrated. The crown princess of the realm got on her knees to Tymora every morning and evening, and the clergy of fair fortune were well content, even with the establishment of a companion shrine of Tyr, the Lord of Justice, barely a room away. However devout Tanalasta really was, she did seem to find comfort in the prayers, she was obviously seeking guidance, and her visits to the little room with the altar did give her some peaceful time alone every day-time without Vangerdahast glowering at her or young Bleth murmuring in her ear.

Tanalasta cast a sidelong glance at Gwennath, and the priestess gave her a quick smile before she broke their handclasp and rose to begin the supplication. If the goddess granted it, she might come to know this one as a true friend in times to come.

“Lady of Favor,” she began, seeking that wholehearted nearness to Tymora that devotion required, “hear now the-“

There was a sound in the passage behind them, the quick and frantic sound of booted feet running-lots of them. Whatever could it be? Were these soldiers coming? Gwennath’s heart sank. Had the king died?

Her duty was clear. The supplication must be seen through. She raised her arms to the altar and-Tanalasta screamed.

Gwennath spun around in time to see the crown princess fleeing, wild-eyed, past her, trying to get around behind the altar. Trying to escape from the five masked men with glittering blades who were flooding into the chamber. Their eyes were on Tanalasta, and they held murder in them.

Nobles, to judge by their rich clothing, and coming fast. They’d cut down a young priest at the doorway without even slowing, and Gwennath was unarmed.

“Lammanath Tymora!” Gwennath snarled, flinging up her arms. The foremost noble slashed viciously at her, and she ducked low, swayed away from his flashing blade, and then launched herself into him shoulder first. As the breath whooshed out of him and his feet left the floor, she got in one good punch, discovering with satisfaction that his codpiece was only soft gilded cloth. The man made a strangling sound as he and the priestess crashed to the floor together.

By then her spell had filled the room with whirling disks. Her desperate shout had snatched all of the platter-sized holy symbols of Tymora from their hooks on the walls and animated them to her will. She sent them slashing, edge on, against the rushing men. She was rewarded with shouts and startled curses.

“Princess!” she called, rolling away from the man she’d felled. “My mace lies beneath the altar! Defend yourself!”

One of the nobles barked out a contemptuous laugh and leapt past one of the discs, heading toward the priestess. Gwennath glared at him and brought a disk swooping down sharply from the air overhead, She’d only a few moments more before this magic ended…

It was enough for this foe, at least. The disk sliced into his hair and the head beneath, and the man gasped, spat blood, and went to the floor, still wearing a goggle-eyed look of surprise and pain.

Another noble was rushing past toward the altar, and all of the disks were falling now, the power of the spell expired. Gwennath ran to intercept the man. The princess cowered low behind the holy table.

A dagger flashed end over end across the room and thunked into the back of the attacking noble’s head. He staggered, wobbled-and the priestess was upon him, snatching the man’s own dagger from his belt as she moved quickly inside his sword arm. Gwennath drove the hilt of the stolen dagger hard into its owner’s temple and then shoved him against the wall. Turning to see what new peril she might face, Gwennath found herself staring at the bloody point of a blade as it burst through the front of an elegant silk shirt.

Behind the dying noble, as he sagged, was a face she’d seen before: a woman with eyes like two merry flames and hair the hue of honey, who gave Gwennath a merry smile and said, “Catch!” as she tossed the noble’s cosh into the air.

Gwennath gave Emthrara the Harper a smile in return, plucked the falling weapon out of the air, and spun around to see to the safety of the princess.

Tanalasta was dodging around the altar, dragging behind her a mace she obviously found too heavy to use, with a snarling noble in hot pursuit. Even as Gwennath cried out in alarm and raised her hand to hurl the dagger she still held, someone else-a merchant in battered boots, who was waving the longest knife she’d ever seen-vaulted the altar and crashed solidly into the noble. The knife flashed once as they went down together, and there was a short, wet gurgling sound from behind the holy table. She wasn’t surprised to see that only one man rose again-and that it wasn’t the one who wore the mask and fine clothes.

The last of the nobles-the one Gwennath had struck in a sensitive place-had risen behind the priestess, sword up and red rage for the Tymoran in his eyes. Gwennath did not see him, but Emthrara did. The lady Harper shouted a warning, but nothing was going to be able to stop that blade in time…

And then Emthrara saw another figure rise up behind the noble, the altar stool raised in one trembling hand. White to the lips, Crown Princess Tanalasta of Cormyr brought her improvised weapon down with all her strength.

The noble’s sword went one way and his head snapped to the other, blood spraying from the force of the blow. The impact left the noble’s head no longer round, but it managed to make a rattling noise before plunging heavily to the floor with the noble’s dead body.

The princess stared down at what she’d done, gasped, arid promptly emptied her stomach in revulsion.

Her shoulders were still shaking as more armed men, priests of Tyr and Purple Dragons, all waving ready weapons and glaring around at the carnage, burst into the room.

“What happened?” one of the guards demanded and strode forward with one hand out to roughly grasp and spin about the sobbing woman in front of him.

He stopped abruptly when she turned of her own accord and he recognized her face. White it might be, and blue about the lips, but he could not mistake the face of the heir to the throne. The eyes in that famous face were wet with unshed tears.

“We-I was attacked by these… traitors,” the princess, said, her breathing suddenly fast, “and all of these other folk slew them for me.”

“Other folk, High Lady?”

Tanalasta glanced around. The merchant and the woman with the sword had vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, only the priestess of Tymora stood with her. The grim-looking priestess now stepped forward and said firmly, “Her Highness prevailed against these men, blade to blade and eye to eye. Let word of this travel throughout the realm, that justice and right have made the crown princess victorious in battle against five experienced fighting men… who also happened to be foolish nobles. They found the fate that awaits all traitors.”

The eyes of the guards and priests looked at Gwennath and then turned back to the princess.

“What really befell here?” a grizzled Purple Dragon asked bluntly, rising from the blood-smeared flagstones where he’d been examining the man Emthrara had run through.

Tanalasta gave him a wintry glare. “It was just as the holy lady has said,” she snapped, and she turned away to kneel before the altar. “Now, if you gentle sirs will clear away that carrion, my prayers are unfinished…”

“Well said, Your Highness,” Gwennath whispered as she knelt beside the royal supplicant.

Tanalasta surveyed her with a sidelong glance and whispered back fiercely, “When I rise from here, I’m going to expect some answers! Go nowhere until I give you leave.”

Gwennath smiled and bowed her head. “Of course,” she murmured, and she lifted her voice to sing the first call to the Lady of Fortune.

The eyes behind the azure mask almost seemed to glow with interest. “And what else did Bleth propose?”

Dauneth Marliir shrugged. It had been a long, cramped day for him, skulking in this hiding place or that in the palace, and the mage seemed serenely unconcerned with the palpable villainy of the Royal Magician. “I’ve told you all,” he said, a trifle sharply. “He made it clear he’d not accept an endless regency and warned Vangerdahast that he’d raise the whole country against the wizard if he tried any such thing.” He frowned. “But you seem to be missing my point: The Lord High Wizard was agreeing to all this, it seemed, and fighting only over the details of how this council would operate! Both he and Bleth seem to think of the princess simply as a-a pawn, to sit on the throne and do as either a wizard regent or a council of nobles tells her to do! Vangerdahast is as cold-hearted as all these scheming nobles! He doesn’t care about the Obarskyrs at all, any of them! He claims he serves the crown, but that seems to mean that he just wants the realm to stay stable while he goes on wielding the power he has now, no matter who is-in name-ruler of Cormyr!”

The woman in azure robes nodded almost absently. “Many have said such things, through the reigns of a host of Obarskyr monarchs and the service of more than one of the faithful mages this realm has been blessed with-and yet time and time again, the wizards have served Cormyr with staunch and shrewd deeds when it was required. Vangerdahast seems quite capable of looking after himself and Cormyr for the time being. I’m more interested in what Aunadar Bleth said to Tanalasta-and his tone of voice and facial expressions as he uttered those words. Let’s go over it again-slowly, and in as much detail as you can recall. Don’t invent or embellish just to please me. I know that I’m asking for more than you can remember. Just give me all you can.”

Dauneth did, and it took a long time. More than time enough for the young noble to begin to wonder just who this woman who hid herself behind an azure mask was, and what she was really hoping would happen in the days ahead. It was easy to claim that one loved Cormyr and was working in loyal service to, or in the best interests of, the realm, but who judged such things? And why wear a mask to do them?

That last question stayed with him, and he grew quiet enough that the mysterious lady in the blue mask told him to go to wherever his lodgings were and get some sleep for as long as his body needed. If he were reeling with weariness when something important did happen in the hours or days ahead, he’d hardly be able to do anything useful about it.

Dauneth nodded curtly, agreed, with every appearance of weariness, and took his leave. He was careful to stumble along the street in case she was watching. When he turned the corner, the scion of House Marliir promptly sprang onto a rain barrel, used it to reach a balcony, and from there took a perilous leap onto a roof by way of a carved gargoyle rainspout. She might leave by a spell or another of those mysterious tunnels that these northerly reaches of Suzail seemed to be positively riddled with, but… he shrugged. She might also simply walk out of the place. If he could only get to its roof so that he could watch both its front entry and the back way.

Dauneth hurried and, just in time, fetched up at his destination in panting haste. She went out the back way, of course. He watched which way she was heading, keeping low and immobile until she was out of sight, and then moved. He was going to have to be very careful if he hoped to keep her in view and escape being spotted. Whoever this blue-masked mage was, she was certainly no fool.

He’d suspected all along that she was noble-born or connected with nobility or the court itself and that she’d get to the Promenade before long, and he was right. Crouched in the lee of a potted pricklethorn bush that was decorating the steps of some grand townhouse or other, Dauneth saw the lady in blue turn out of the side street he was watching and walk briskly along the Promenade toward Eastgate.

She wasn’t going out of town. No, she’d turn off westward before the gate and head back into the Nobles’ Quarter on the pleasant hedge-lined street that crossed Lake Azoun by that beautiful arched bridge… yes! There she was! Dauneth raced along the top of the ornamental wall that separated the holy ground of Deneir from the meadows of the rich merchants next door, down to the edge of the lake. He just had time to crouch down behind the last sculpted stone book, spread open forever on its wall-top pedestal, when she stopped on the bridge and looked back and down the lake, scanning the gardens… for him?

She looked down at the gentle waters for what seemed like an eternity to Dauneth but was probably only a short time, enjoying the evening stars swimming in Lake Azoun. Then she turned and went on down the far slope of the bridge, heading for-Dauneth squinted, and finally climbed right up onto the stone book to see properly-Wyvernspur House!

Yes, she was glancing up and down the street, up at the sky, and then she went inside. Dauneth clambered hastily down from his perch and almost fell as a calm voice from just below him said, “Yes, a lot of folk seem to find that inscription particularly interesting.”

He stared down into the kindly eyes of an old bald priest, who nodded a grave greeting, and said, “Personally, I think the next one over is more profound, but then, the variance of opinions is born of the strife between the gods that gives us all life and striving. What do you think?”

Dauneth Marliir looked desperately from book to book, seeing that both of them sported-amid spots of bird droppings-long and carefully carved inscriptions, half seen in the moonlight. He didn’t have time for this…

“I think,” he said carefully, looking at the grass of the lawn outside the temple wall and glancing up that long sward, “that the future of the realm depends upon my acting now and thinking later!” And with that grand declaration, he hurled himself backward off the wall, hopefully out of reach of any spell that the priest might use against uninvited night intruders.

He landed running. He heard only a single faint, dry chuckle behind him as he hurried along from dock to garden seat to fence to the next dock, and so on, until he finally reached the rising stone wall, topped with large stone spheres, that joined the bridge parapet. He was gasping by then, but for Dauneth Marliir, there could be no rest until he uncovered one more secret allegiance. Just one more. His feet took him to the crest of the bridge in a rush, and then he slowed, noting that Wyvernspur House seemed to have no guards and to be darkest on the lake side. The imposing edifice of the Cormaerils across the street, however, seemed to bristle with watchful guards, several of whom were already staring his way. He gave them a casual wave of greeting, as if they were old friends he’d expected to see, and turned along the shore beside Wyvernspur House, as if he were strolling along a way he knew well.

As he’d hoped, a footpath wound along the water’s edge. He slipped past a prowling cat, ignoring the brief snarl of greeting it made, and vaulted the low wall that marked the Wyvernspur boundaries, hoping he’d triggered no alarm spells or deadlier guardian magics.

He crouched tensely on a cobbled garden path amid gardens where water chuckled endlessly over stones somewhere nearby, moving only a few quick steps to be away from the place where he’d first intruded… but nothing happened. No guards or seeking spells came his way. After a long time, he relaxed. He was being overly fearful again. It seemed even nobles couldn’t afford to cover every inch of their holdings with defensive magic.

Right, then. Dauneth Marliir took hold of his scabbarded sword to keep it from knocking against anything and glided forward. A window sat invitingly open, framed by garden flowers and occupied by an orange tabby on the sill. He eyed the dark room inside narrowly, looking for guardians. Surely it wasn’t going to be this easy.

But it was. The cat on the sill stretched, yawned, thought for a moment, and then bounded away into the night gloom of the garden, leaving the sill unoccupied. Dauneth was up and over it in an instant, crouching on bare flagstones in the dimness beyond. This was some sort of plant room, leading into.. a servants’ stair. Dark, narrow, and offering a high window with a ledge!

There seemed to be no cat in residence up there just now. Dauneth found the servant’s footholds on the wall, spaced so that someone shorter, older, and grumpier than he could reach the window occasionally to wash it, and used them. He hadn’t even settled down to think of his next move before he heard the voices.

A man and a woman, in the next room, talking with easy familiarity. He knew the female voice: Lady Bluemask. Dauneth became an intently listening statue.

“Cat, the nobles can’t all be base, blackhearted villains. I’m a noble! You’re a noble, too!”

Lady Bluemask-What had he called her? Cat?-sighed. “Giogi, my own, it doesn’t take all of the nobles to hack our country down into war. Almost all of them with any influence, or more money than fear, are up to something right now. Who knows how many quiet little deals are being hatched over wine around this city right this minute?”

“None that I know of,” came the reply. Giogi-Giogi Wyvernspur, of course, the adventurer! One of the country-squire nobles. His voice continued. “And there may be none at all!”

“Say you’re right,” Cat replied, “and there are none at all. That still leaves the two factions we do know of without any chance of mistaking what they’re up to. Agreed?”

Giogi sighed, and Dauneth heard liquid splashing into a glass. “Agreed,” he said. “Anything new with those?”

“Well,” Cat said as glasses clinked together, “the only news out of the palace today is that five nobles grew so impatient that they tried to murder the crown princess this morning, cutting her down at prayer.” Dauneth stiffened and almost cried out in astonishment before Cat’s next words dumbfounded him. “She slaughtered them all.”

“Tanalasta?” Giogi’s voice was a cry of disbelief. Dauneth echoed it silently.

“A Harper and a friend of hers, plus the priestess at the altar, did the killing, I believe. Gwennath spoke to me after all the Purple Dragons had finished huffing and snorting and looking grim all over the place.”

“So, which nobles?”

“Young blades, all of them-Ensrin Emmarask, a Dauntinghorn, a Creth, an Illance, and Red Belorgan.”

“Him-huh! Any chance to kill anything, he’d be in on it,” Giogi said disgustedly.

“They were all carrying huge rubies,” Cat added.

“No! Not the Secret Society of Men Who Carry Huge Rubies!” her mate protested with mock incredulity. “Say it isn’t so!”

“Dolt,” said Cat affectionately. “Rubies or no, they’re dead. That leaves us with all the usual villains.”

“Aunadar Bleth and Gaspar Cormaeril and their nobles’ council. An idea silently supported by at least some members in all the oldest, largest houses and feared by the minor nobles, who know they’ll be left out of all decisions… and profits.”

“Exactly. Everyone from the Huntcrowns to the Yellanders wants the council. Even the Illances have set aside their old feud with the Cormaerils to be in on this and upstart houses such as the Flintfeathers are pushing the council as their way of gaining respect among the ‘heavy houses.’ They all-even the three socalled royal houses-see it as a way out from under the tyranny of the Obarskyrs.”

“Into the tyranny of their rivals and neighbors,” said Giogi, “a tyranny that will undoubtedly soon spill over into open violence when various stiff-necked families seek to get even with each other over ‘you voted against me’ grudges.”

“Five months?” Cat asked, considering.

“Nearer three.” Giogi nursed a thumb under his chin. “And that’s assuming that the big houses, who stand to lose everything they’ve gained if the country is plunged into war, try to keep tight reins on things. If just two of the large old houses get annoyed at the same time and don’t work hard at keeping the peace, we could have massacres and then raids and then full-scale battles in a month.”

“That’s right, lift my spirits! Even the young lion I recruited to help me get to the vaults seems to be going sour,” Cat said bitterly. In the darkness, Dauneth’s lips twisted wryly. “Tell me who stands on the side of the wise old regent.”

“Well, there’re the Wyvernspurs!” said Giogi brightly.

“And?”

“Well, there’re the Wyvernspurs,” Giogi added, in mimicry of his own breathless tones.

“Go on,” Cat said, a clear warning to become more serious in her tone.

“Uh.. most of nobility with country estates and holdings: the Dauntinghorns, the Skatterhawks, the Immerdusks, the Wintersuns, the Indimbers, the Rowanmantles, House Indesm, and the Rallyhorns-but not the Roaringhorns, who want king or council and no ruling queen.”

“Could that have anything to do with the fact that the Roaringhorns detest both the Bleth family and the wizard Vangerdahast?” Cat asked with a smile.

“Never,” Giogi said, with mocking shock in his voice. “No noble house of this realm would ever sink to such a shortsighted, personally vindictive level. Not when they can proclaim such actions as part of a grander, higher-minded policy of supporting only what is best for fair Cormyr.”

“Speaking of what is best for fair Cormyr,” Cat asked, “how is our guest in the basement?”

Giogi shuddered. “The guest in the basement,” he declaimed grandly, “is fine. I, however, am frazzled-distinctly frazzled. See?”

He shuddered dramatically, then sighed and said in tired, serious tones, “Restless and ill-behaved children are less problem. Our guest does only three things, and all of them all too well: demand, argue, and worry.” He sighed again. “I’m going to be very glad when all this is over.”

Cat wrinkled her nose. “I’ve hated all this deception and spying on perfidious nobles from the very beginfling,” she said firmly.

Giogi sighed. “I feel the same way, but you must remember that we’re proceeding exactly as Vangerdahast planned, and he’s been at all of this a lot longer than we have.”

“And quite successfully, too,” Cat said. “Dealing smoothly with the mundane work of statecraft as the Royal Magician for years, while crafting spells and making alliances behind the scenes. All in the name of service to the crown.”

“He’s smooth,” Giogi admitted, filling his glass again. “I’ll give him that. Smooth as a greased basilisk. Or something similarly smooth.”

In his dark window, Dauneth nodded grimly. Good old Vangerdahast was the true villain, then-the shadow behind all of the troubles now besetting Cormyr. Of course, if his magic had laid the three royal hunters low, that same magic could keep the puzzled priests and baffled sages from curing his victims.

There was a sudden flash of light from outside. Dauneth looked out the little window to see what had caused it and smiled, slowly and grimly.

The gods did have senses of humor and justice, after all. Here was the fat old spell-hurler himself, come calling on his conspirators with a big smile all over his face! This would save much chasing about and creeping through wizardly defenses, the young Marliir noble thought, reaching for his blade.

Vangerdahast had appeared out of the now fading glow by magic, transporting himself from the palace, and was humming pleasantly as he swung wide the door of Wyvernspur House and strode in.

Moving hastily, Dauneth’s shadowy form dropped down from a balcony and silently slipped in through the slowly closing door, blade glittering in hand. It had been a frantic few minutes of running and clambering and lurking to get here while the stout wizard strolled leisurely among the garden plantings, seeming highly satisfied with Cormyr in general and himself in particular.

Yet he’d made it, and the fat fool hadn’t even noticed the noise or the shadow… the shadow that had skulked long enough!

Dauneth raised his glittering blade and took two catlike, velvety soft steps forward. He did not hold with putting steel into men from behind, but with wizards, all principles were laid aside. The death of Vangerdahast would end a threat to Cormyr as grave as anything the legendary Baerauble had ever dealt with! If a mage had to die by a surprise thrust from behind, then so be it!

Die, wizard! he murmured inwardly, not quite daring to say it aloud, and his blade flashed down.

Let it be swift, let it be now, and let it be for Cormyr!