Cormyr

Chapter 30: Adventurers

Year of the Grimoire (1324 DR)

The Royal Magician thundered on the inn door with his fists, the thick frame nearly rattling loose from its hinges. “Balm!” he bellowed. “We have to get on the road!”

On the other side of the door, there were sounds of giggling and hushed, urgent whispers.

Vangerdahast shouted, “Get out of there now, or I swear I’ll teleport you to your father, along with any ‘guests’ you may be currently entertaining.”

The whispers were replaced by the sounds of hasty movements. Vangerdahast counted to ten. Then he counted to ten a second time.

He was up to eight on his third counting when the door cracked open and Crown Prince Azoun, son of Rhigaerd and the fourth Obarskyr to bear that name, squeezed out. He opened the door only sufficiently to allow his growing frame to pass and held the door shut behind him with one hand, tucking his shirt into his breeches with the other.

“Do you have to shout, wizard?” asked the prince in groggy exasperation.

“It’s the only proven way to get words through your ever-thickening skull,” the mage replied. “Unless, of course, you’d rather I took to suddenly manifesting in your sleeping quarters with attendant flashes of fire and smoke.”

Prince Azoun, traveling through his own country as Balm the Cavalier, muttered something definitely unroyal and then said, “Give me ten minutes to gather my gear.”

“Make it five minutes. That way you won’t get distracted again by the young lady.”

Azoun grumbled an assent, and six minutes later he was out in front of the inn, yawning loudly. His pack was on his back, his short sword sheathed on his belt, and a shapeless, wide-brimmed hat covered his head and most of his features. At nineteen winters old, the young noble was already broad-shouldered and handsome. Soon he’d have to make use of magical disguises to avoid being recognized at once.

The larger and more portly Vangerdahast was similarly attired and equipped, save that he had a short walking staff instead of a sword. Azoun had no doubt that the leather-shod walking stick held more magic than any gnarled staff wielded by a more powerful mage.

“Where to today, O learned elder?” asked the prince.

“Eveningstar,” said the mage. “It’s about two days’ jaunt from here. I thought we’d walk half today and rough it overnight, and make the town by dusk tomorrow.”

“We could make in a single day if we rode,” the prince observed, not for the first time.

“Aye,” said the wizard. “And we could travel in comfort if we took a carriage, and we could make it in an instant with a spell. But with a spell, we’d miss the countryside, and with a coach, we’d not meet anyone else in our travels. And with horses, we’d not have time to talk,” he added meaningfully, “and for me to help you review your lessons.”

The young prince grimaced. “One day, you know, I’ll have my own band of heroes and adventurers, mighty warriors all! And we will ride horses!”

“So you will,” said Vangerdahast with a smile, “and you’ll be able to tell your brave companions about every bend in the road and every inn in Cormyr, because you saw them all on foot as a boy.”

“Boy!” spat Azoun. “My father was king at my age!”

“And with Tymora’s grace, you’ll be spared the pain that he had to go through, wizardless and alone!” retorted the wizard. “So tell me, O learned young one, what other kings of Cormyr took the throne at such a young age?”

Azoun grumbled and rummaged through his memory as the two set out, leaving the Old Owlbear Inn behind them. The wizard chose a path along the banks of the Starwater, as opposed to doubling back to the main road itself. It was little more than a footpath that followed the course of the river, meandering along beside it beneath the shade of early summer leaves.

Azoun recited the names of the nineteen young kings and seven warrior queens, starting with Gantharla, and of the four recognized illegitimate kings. He listed the current noble houses with ease, though he needed prompting to recall all the names of the dead houses that had ended through lack of heirs or loyalty. He recalled perfectly the lyrics of the song “The Cormyte’s Boast,” including the lewd ones, which he had learned the night before from a bard at the Old Owlbear. Of course, eventually the conversation would come back to sore feet, tender calf muscles, and the pain of traveling overland on foot and incognito.

“I still don’t see why we can’t tell anybody who we are,” Azoun complained, shaking his left boot while on a rest break. A single small pebble that had pained his footsteps for the past quarter of a mile dropped out.

“Two reasons. The first is safety. I shouldn’t have to remind you that we’re far from war wizards and Purple Dragon guards and the relative safety of home. I can aid and protect, but I cannot be all-wise or all-vigilant, so our best protection is secrecy. Enemies of the crown think the Obarskyrs cling to their castles and high society. We should do nothing to dissuade them from that view.”

The young prince waved away the explanation. That one he understood. The elder mage was certainly being a mother hen about the dangers abroad in the kingdom, but at least Vangerdahast now let him journey forth from the castle for these little forays.

“Secondly, when you wear a crown, the rest of the world is transformed. People tend to tell you what they wish you to hear, as opposed to what you need to know. Truths are shaded, identities are hidden, and facts are concealed. Would any troubadour dare teach his king the racy lyrics of ‘The Cormyte’s Boast’?”

This was the argument Azoun was prepared for. “So what you’re saying,” he said sharply, “is that the king has to seem something other than he is in order to get to the truth? That he has to deceive his own people?”

“I am saying that no one is what he seems,” said the portly mage, “and the king should recognize that fact and plan accordingly. That young waitress at the inn, for example.”

Azoun blinked. “What of her?”

“I noticed she was rather cold and aloof to you last night. Obviously the situation had changed by this morning. I trust you did not, by any chance, happen to let slip that you were more than Balm the Cavalier last night after I retired?”

Azoun reddened slightly and shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps I did. I can’t remember.” He straightened his shoulders and added, “We were drinking parsnip wine,” as if that explained everything.

“Ah, but that’s exactly the point. We are travelling Cormyr on foot, not for my health nor for yours, but to understand both the land and the people. And even the most good-hearted may not be what they seem, and even the coldest may warm to the glow of the royal crown.”

They traveled for another two hours in the bright forest of morning, breaking once for another boots-off rest and once for an early, dry lunch. Vangerdahast lectured on the history of Eveningstar and the monster-haunted halls that reached through the gorge north of the village. This region had been his own playground back when he was a boy. It was here, he would point out, that he’d first decided to become a wizard, and there, he would note, that he was later taken on by Jorunhast, the last Royal Magician of the Court.

“I haven’t heard much about Jorunhast,” said Azoun, “save that he backed the wrong side during the reign of Salember, the Rebel Prince.”

“That and more,” said Vangerdahast. “Actually, he killed Salember when the Rebel Prince threatened to kill your father and your grandmother Truesilver. Then your father thanked the mage and banished Jorunhast from the court. Cormyr was without an official mage until your elder sister was born, and I was sent for to act as her tutor, and yours as well. However, King Rhigaerd has withheld the official title of Royal Magician from me, as is his right.”

“Yet if your teacher saved my father…” began the prince.

“Jorunhast killed a king,” said Vangerdahast. “A bad king, but a king nonetheless. I think your father was worried it might become a habit. And there are lessons here.”

“Such as?”

Vangerdahast sighed. “Returning to Suzail twenty years after Jorunhast left, I saw that the kingdom had survived being officially wizardless quite nicely. Thirteen centuries of careful and not-so-careful building had left a good foundation that two passing decades could not demolish. But small things had cropped up-the weakness of the battle wizards, the growth in power of the thieves’ guilds, the erratic politics of Arabel, and the shady dealings of Marsember. All small things in themselves, but with great future consequences if they were ignored. Your father chose not to ignore them and sent for Jorunhast’s pupil. In this your father showed great wisdom, a lesser king might see Cormyr’s prosperity and decide it did not need an official wizard after all.”

“Whatever happened to Jorunhast?” asked Azoun.

“I think Jorunhast was right, you know,” said Vangerdahast, ignoring the question Azoun had asked. “He had to make a choice between a mad current king and a young, untried would-be ruler. He made the choice, and in so doing, he knew he would be banished for his actions. Yet he spared your father any need to slay Salember, even with the excuse that he was defending himself. Jorunhast was willing to make an unthinkable choice if it was what was good for the realm. That’s an important lesson for both of us.”

Azoun was about to press the question of Jorunhast’s eventual fate again when he heard shouts from up ahead. Two people were running toward them, shouting and waving their hands. A older man and woman, just past their middle years, wearing dressing gowns and sandals. Not the sort of garb one chooses for a hike in the woods, thought Azoun.

“Ghosts!” cried the man. “Our house has been possessed!”

“They’ve taken over,” the woman gasped, “and driven us from our home!”

“You appear to be adventurers licensed by the crown. You must help us!” said the man.

“Let us be calm,” replied the wizard soothingly. “I am Borl the Proficient, and this is my young companion, Balm the Cavalier. You say you have ghosts?”

“We are but humble farmers,” said the man. “We’ve been living on an abandoned estate a mile up the trail, rebuilding the house and clearing the old fields.”

“That’s when the old nobles came back,” the woman added, tears forming in her eyes, “screaming and moaning, and drove us from the house!”

“Which nobles?” asked the disguised prince.

The old man blinked. “I don’t know. There was no indication, and there are so many noble houses in Cormyr. But it was a right fine building, it must have belonged to aristocrats.”

“And the fact the ghosts have returned proved that,” the woman added, almost triumphantly. “Only nobles care so much for their property they come back from the dead to protect it!”

“What do these noble ghosts look like?” Vangerdahast asked quietly.

The couple stammered as one, and then the old man’s voice trailed alone out of the confusion, admitting, “We’ve not exactly seen them.”

“No?”

“Oh, but they put up a horrible racket,” the woman exclaimed, leaping in. “Down in the basement, and up in the attic, making dreadful moans and cries for vengeance. For three days and three nights, we’ve huddled in our beds, but we could find nothing amiss in the light of day. We found one of the chickens dead this morning-brutally slain! We had to flee for our lives!”

“Sounds like something worth investigating,” said Azoun.

Vangerdahast shrugged. “There are hauntings aplenty in this Forest Country. All too much history assures us of that.”

“But still, our duty to the crown, that document we signed when the king allowed us to pass through his lands…” Azoun began, smiling.

The wizard waved him to silence. “Well, if it’s on the way…”

“And they’re not going to move Eveningstar in the meantime,” the young Prince added helpfully. Vangerdahast gave him a look, and Azoun fell silent. But he did not stop grinning.

The manor house was only about a quarter of a mile off the Starwater trail. The man gave them directions, but the couple would not leave the main path, declaring they’d go nowhere near the house until the two adventurers had cleared it of all risen spirits.

The house itself was fashioned in a style some called “Cormyr Sprawl.” The main house was a foursquare, sturdy block of fieldstones on the ground floor and brick for the floor above, thickly covered with ivy along its southern face. On three sides, additional wings had been built of stone or lumber or unfinished wood. The result looked like three houses had collided in the depths of some dark night, and no one had bothered to disentangle them since. Over the door was a faded and battered heraldic device.

“Goldweathers?” said Azoun.

“Goldfeathers,” corrected the mage. “A minor house from a few hundred years back. They fomented an unsuccessful rebellion in Arabel years ago and were stripped of their rank and lands. Those commoners have clear title to this land just by occupying and clearing it.”

The immediate surroundings had been cleared, but the fields beyond were still overrun with brambles and young trees. There was a coop, but no chickens or other animals on the property. Azoun thought that strange and mentioned it to Vangerdahast.

“Aye,” said the wizard. “Perhaps our ghosts have an interest in live chickens and goats.”

“I wondered the same thing myself,” said a voice from above them.

The speaker swung down from the branch that had been her perch. She was almost as tall as Azoun, but slender and as lithe as a panther. She wore leather trousers that hugged her muscular thighs and calves, and a loose cotton blouse with a heavy leather vest that did nothing to conceal her charms. Her auburn hair was braided in a whiplike tail down her back. Her eyes were bright and green, and she carried a thin, double-bladed sword.

Vangerdahast started to move forward, putting himself between the newcomer and the young prince, but Azoun stopped him with a hand. The wizard looked at his liege and saw that look on his face, eyes determined and serious, mouth in a wide smile. It was an Obarskyr look, and Azoun got it when faced with a new challenge or a new woman.

The woman held her weapon at her side and said, “I am Kamara Brightsteel, errant adventurer and solver of mysteries. And you?” Her voice was husky, and she rolled her r’s slightly. The accent made her all the more attractive.

“Balm, a wandering cavalier,” Azoun replied, “and his manservant and instructor, Borl.” The young prince ignored the fat mage’s harrumphed protest and went on. ‘We met the inhabitants of this homestead on the road, and they said there were ghosts here.”

“I think I also saw their ‘ghosts,’ the young woman said. “I saw them leaving in haste.”

Vangerdahast raised an eyebrow, and she continued, “There were a couple of men, or at least manlike forms, moving around the sides of the house. I think they were gathering up the chickens and goats, but I didn’t get all that good a view from my hiding place. Three or four, I’d say. They didn’t look like anything special.”

“So you think…?” prompted the wizard.

“I think a pack of brigands came upon the house and chased the couple out with spooky noises and rattled chains. They can’t have much spine, or they’d simply have killed the two. I think they’re nothing more than chicken thieves with perhaps a little more imagination than usual.”

“Then let’s clean out that nest of chicken thieves,” said the wizard.

“Let us do it,” Azoun said, still wearing that look. “I mean Kamara and I. It’ll be good practice for me. Why don’t you go back to the trail and fetch the old couple? By the time you return, we should have taken care of this little problem.”

Azoun expected Vangerdahast to argue, but instead, the wizard stared off into the forest for a time, his mouth a firm, straight line. At length, he said, “Very well. I bow to your adventurous spirit. Be careful now.” And with that, the wizard padded back down the path, leaving the pair alone before the house.

Kamara watched Vangerdahast’s retreating back dwindle into the distance. “Funny old man,” she said. “Mage?”

“Scholar,” replied Azoun, sticking to the story they’d crafted at the outset of their trip. There was no need to brag of Vangerdahast’s abilities, in any event. “I am the warrior of the pair.”

“And a brave young warrior at that,” Kamara said gently. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke.

A silence fell between them for a moment. The man and the woman stood facing each other. Azoun stared into the young woman’s eyes, they seemed like jade coins from some distant and forgotten empire. Somewhere in the distance, a hawk cried out.

Azoun broke the locked gazes first. “We should take care of our ‘ghosts.’”

The woman managed a small smile. “Indeed. It would not do for your scholar to return here to find us mooning about with brigands in the house.”

Side by side, the pair ascended the porch steps of the old manor house. The front door was unlocked, and Azoun went in first.

The interior was fairly typical of a country house. A slender hall ran from front to back, dividing the ground floor in two. All the doors along the hallway were closed.

On the right would be the dining room, and behind that, a kitchen overlooking cooking pits behind the house. On the left would be a sitting room, parlor, or library. The bedchambers would be upstairs, reached by a narrow wooden flight of stairs. Azoun tried to imagine brigands getting the goat up the stairs. He shook his head. They must be hiding the livestock somewhere else.

The building was too quiet. Even if the livestock had been shoved in the basement, they would make some noise. There would be the soft sounds of their calls, or at least the slight shifting of floorboards as they moved about.

Kamara hung close behind him as he entered, and he could feel her soft, warm breath on the back of his neck.

Had the brigands taken the chickens and left? Mentally he figured the time it would take Vangerdahast to return to the main trail and bring the old couple back. More than enough time to get comfortable with a fellow seeker of adventure. And perhaps enough time to “let slip” one’s true identity and reap the benefits of that admission.

Kamara shut the front door behind her as Azoun opened the door on the right. As he thought, it was the dining room, with another door beyond leading to the kitchen. The furnishings were sparse but of high quality, probably the salvageable remains of the original Goldfeather stock. A great table dominated the room, and the walls were covered with cabinets, all open, their contents spilled on the floor. In the center of the table, a box of silver flatware, another legacy of the Goldfeathers, was rudely overturned, the knives and forks carving fresh scratches in the deep polish.

The thieves came after chickens but did not stop for the more valuable silver, thought Azoun. Perhaps they were still in the building. He held his breath and looked at Kamara. She hung back from the dining room and was scanning along the hallway. Her muscles were tense, as if she expected an attack at any moment.

Azoun brushed past her and tried the door opposite, which should lead to a parlor or sitting room. The door was stuck, and the young prince had to shoulder it open. Something heavy and wet slid along the floor, pushed out of the way of the door, leaving a crimson streak on the floor behind it.

It was a goat. A dead goat in the sitting room, propped against the door. Azoun had found the missing livestock.

The sitting room had been turned into an abattoir, its old furnishings covered with blood, fur, and feathers. There were a trio of old goats, including the billy goat that partially blocked the door. Their throats had been torn out by crude daggers or teeth. The chickens, great black hens with crimson bellies, had their necks snapped and were strewn about the room. Some had been half eaten, but most had been slain and discarded in an orgy of slaughter. Feathers blotted the sticky pools of blood.

Azoun began to say something to Kamara, something about these invaders being more than mere brigands or even ghosts, when he heard her growl behind him.

He turned and realized what the supposed ghost had truly been. Brigands had never been inside the house. Someone else-something else-had created the bloody carnage in the sitting room.

Kamara growled as her shoulders slumped and narrowed, her jaw elongating into a fang-toothed muzzle. Her eyes went from jade coins to cat’s eyes, as bright and sharp as the claws erupting from her fur-covered hands. Her flesh grew orange fur, striped with black.

Kamara was a weretiger. She dropped her sword and leapt, snarling, at the young prince, paws outstretched, slavering maw open.

Azoun shouted and ducked beneath the leap, desperately bringing his blade up as he did so. The steel raked deeply down her chest and belly, jarring his arm. Then she was over him, carried into the bloodstained room by the force of her leap.

Azoun wheeled and saw the tiger-woman kneeling among the slain goats and chickens. She held her split belly together with one paw, and the young prince could see the slashed sides of the wound he’d made crawling, meeting, and flowing together-healed. Lycanthropes could be only affected by silver or magic. And Azoun had sent his magical support away.

Kamara crouched again, and Azoun’s free hand lashed out, grabbing the doorknob and pulling the door shut in the weretiger’s face. A moment later, the boards above its central crossbrace splintered under the force of her charge, and with a horrible tearing sound, the boards gave way. Cruel black claws batted the air inches in front of his face. Azoun staggered back.

His sword was useless, and he could never hope to outrun the transformed lycanthrope. By the time Vangerdahast returned, the heir to the Dragon Throne would be in the same state as the chickens in the sitting room. Kamara was ripping apart the door and would be through in a matter of seconds.

Then Azoun remembered what he had seen earlier, and he fled from the hall.

When Kamara tore apart the last of the door and sent its remnants spinning from their hinges, she found the young royal’s sword lying abandoned in the hallway. The front door remained shut. Her prey was still somewhere in the house.

There was a noise, the shifting of weight on floorboards, directly ahead. The dining room! Kamara sprang across the narrow hall and into the doorway directly across from her… and caught a thrown steak knife in the ribs. The cut was shallow, but it burned like acid!

Silver! The quivering blade was silver, a legacy of the Goldfeathers.

She hissed, spat, and jarred the blade loose. Two more daggers, crudely thrown but accurate, caught her in the arm. Kamara the weretiger howled in pain and threw herself at her assailant.

Azoun stood at the far end of the table, the spilled silverware arrayed before him. He managed to dig one more thrown knife into her thigh as she vaulted the table. She came within striking distance, and he lashed out with his hand, catching her full in the side of the face with a silver teapot.

Kamara sprawled to one side, wide of her mark. Already a hideous swelling had erupted from where the pot had struck. The knife wounds were not knitting. Blood seeped through her shredded blouse and leggings. Azoun readied the teapot for another attack. It would not be a battle he’d brag about, but it would be one he would win.

The weretiger seemed to recognize that as well. She leapt up, and Azoun raised the pot in one hand and a knife in the other. Kamara snarled, but instead of pouncing on the waiting prince, she leapt for the window, smashing through it to land heavily on the porch beyond.

Azoun charged forward, but by the time he reached the empty frame, she was gone. The young prince saw a flash of something orange disappearing into the trees.

He sighed, retrieved his sword, and checked the rest of the house. There were no robbers, ghosts, or weretigers left in the building. By the time Vangerdahast returned with the old couple, the young prince was sitting on the front porch, head between his hands.

The old couple shouted in alarm when they saw the smashed window, demanding to know what had happened. Azoun sighed and explained. “Your ‘ghost’ was a weretiger who wanted your livestock. So she drove you off, then killed your chickens and goats. There were no real ghosts here, only a hungry predator. I drove it off. It won’t likely be back, but you should get some silver weapons just to be sure. Be careful going into the front room-it’s a bit of mess.”

So warned, the couple hurried into the house. The woman shrieked and then sobbed, and the man made comforting noises.

“I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?” Vangerdahast asked softly.

“How was I to know?” the young prince protested.

“You weren’t to know,” the wizard said severely, “but you should always be cautious.”

The pair remained at the old Goldfeather Manor for the remainder of the day. Azoun removed the rest of the shattered parlor door and used the boards from it and some additional lumber to patch up the front window. When they reached Eveningstar, he’d send a carpenter for the door and a glass glazer for the window, compliments of the crown, to make full repairs. Vangerdahast helped the old woman clean away the carnage in the parlor room and dress the chickens and goats. One of the goats made an excellent dinner at the close of the day, and the old woman proved to be an excellent cook.

The weretiger did not return.

They talked late into the evening, the old man telling tales of when he was a lad, when the kingdom was torn apart in the War of Red and Purple. When he started to nod off, the old woman told her guests where beds had been made ready for them, shook her husband awake, and the couple retreated to their own room.

Vangerdahast and Azoun sat by the last dying flames of the hearth fire. Neither moved to put more wood on the waning blaze.

“You’re right, you know,” said Azoun at last.

“Right about what?” said the wizard, his eyes red and tired beneath half-closed lids.

“No one is who he seems,” said the young prince, stretching, “and while I should not be paranoid about it, I should be aware-and therefore wary.”

“A lesson learned,” said the wizard. “The day is not a total loss.”

Azoun rose from the hearthside and went to the door, waving his arm to loosen a bruised and tired shoulder. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “It’s amazing that our morning discussion had such an immediate reinforcement. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you planned all this, just to drive home a lesson.”

The young king-to-be shook his head, half smiled, and was gone, leaving the stout wizard sitting beside the last cooling coals in the hearth, alone with his thoughts.

“Then there’s hope for you yet, boy,” Vangerdahast said softly to the embers as he rose stiffly to seek his own bed. “There’s hope for you yet.”