Cormyr

Chapter 31: Loyalties

Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

“Our shy crown princess certainly showed some fire,” Rhauligan remarked, raising his glass to his companion in the Snout Room. “I guess we’ll just have to get a stool into her hand more often.”

“As she governs Cormyr, you mean?” Emthrara responded with a smile, clinking her glass gently against his.

Rhauligan nodded. “I’m getting just a trifle too old for such frantic scramblings as this morning’s little fray.”

“You’re getting just a trifle too fat, you mean,” Emthrara replied, shaking her head to tell an approaching patron that she wasn’t interested in dancing just now. The man held up three golden lions hopefully, but she continued to shake her head. He raised his eyebrows and pressed on through the crowded Roving Dragon in search of a lady who’d say yes. Rhauligan watched, the patron’s trip was not a long one.

“At least the threat to the throne is ended,” he said, licking his lips and gazing into his glass appreciatively.

“This threat to the throne is ended,” the Harper corrected him. “There’ll be others, knowing our valiant nobles.”

In a place much darker and quieter than the Roving Dragon, where two hallways met in a little-used back corner of the sprawling royal court, a young, cleft-chinned nobleman stood talking to nothing, keeping his voice low.

“I’ll ask you the same thing I asked Vangerdahast and Gaspar Cormaeril,” Immaril Emmarask, cousin to the now-deceased Ensrin, said calmly. “What’s in it for me?”

“Loyalty to Cormyr?” the woman’s voice came back to him. “A bright future for the realm?”

Immaril shrugged. “Grand goals, bandied about all too much by folk seeking justification for small and dirty things they want done right now. Offer me something I can have and hold for my loyalty.”

“A typical noble son of Cormyr,” said the voice that came out of the small, whirling cluster of winking lights.

Immaril shrugged again. “I prefer to see myself as slightly more honest than most. I don’t bother to hide the same feelings that drive most of my fellows. We see others enjoying wealth and power in return for things done, or silences kept, for the crown. Why should we not have the same things?”

“Why indeed? If I fill your hand with rubies right now, will you serve me?”

Immaril hesitated. “I need to know just a bit more about you first. Am I hitching myself to a lich righting age-old wrongs? Or a dragon seeking an even more ancient revenge on the realm? Or a Red Wizard seeking to gather an entire kingdom of slaves? Or some other archmage, out to smash a realm for mere entertainment?”

“This is something it would be better if you did not know,” the voice told him, “but let us share a few secrets. Tell me who stands with Vangerdahast, and I’ll tell you whatnot who-I am.”

“Fair enough,” Immaril said, glancing around. “The Dauntinghorns-most of them-the Rowanmantles, the Rallyhorns, the Skatterhawks, the Immerdusks, The Wintersuns, the Wyvernspurs, the Indimbers… and House Indesm.”

“Hmmm,” the voice commented, “that certainly seems like a muster of all the far-flung and obscure household names among the nobility.”

Immaril shrugged. “Many are country squires and come to the court once a year at most. Most of the city nobles, the true nobles of Cormyr, stand against Vangerdahast. As a group, they are greedy or stupid enough to think that they can trust each other and rule the realm better than an Obarskyr backed by all the war wizards. The recent and sudden demise of Ondrin Dracohorn should be proof enough to even the most stone-headed that they cannot, but a lot of us believe what we want to believe and not what the world shows us to be the truth.” He raised his voice a trifle and said, “And I believe it’s my turn to be shown some truth now. What are you?”

“A human woman skilled in magic.”

“So much is obvious. I expected something more than what has already been established.”

“Fair enough,” the voice from the lights said. “Know, then, that I once shared King Azoun’s bed, and-“

“Had a son by him,” Immaril said calmly, “which is why you want all the Obarskyrs slain. Lady, so much is also already apparent. I trust you know that approximately half the Cormyrean noble sons of my age are reputed to have been fathered by our Purple Dragon?”

There was a little silence, and the voice was distinctly colder when it came back to him. “I have heard something of the sort. How many nobles will have to die, then?”

“Lady,” Immaril said gravely, “you can’t have enough rubies to manage all those killings. Besides, I myself am said to be Az-“

The bolt of roaring white death that snapped from the winking lights then left only drifting white ashes and a sharp burnt smell at the place where the two hallways met. An instant later, the little group of whirling lights flickered, faded, and was gone.

When the Purple Dragon sword captain Lareth Gulur came striding along a minute later, his sword half drawn and peering about for whatever might have caused the roaring sound, all that remained was the reek of fiery death. He stopped, sniffed, frowned, and shook his head. More magic. Someone-or two dueling combatants, perhaps-had died here.

He’d never thought the court in Suzail would become a more dangerous place than the battlefields of the Tuigan Horde. But it had. Perhaps it was time to retire and settle down in one of the quieter dales and brew beer. Gulur sighed and went back to his post. He knew he’d never leave this land, whatever happened. He just hoped his bones wouldn’t soon be tossed into some pit in Cormyrean soil. He wanted to see the realm at peace again before he died.

*

Dauneth Marliir gasped and reeled as his descending sword suddenly came alive with sparks from end to end. He was still trembling helplessly when the young man with the glass in his hand set it down on a side table, loped to him, and removed his sword, then kicked the front door shut and took Dauneth’s throat in the crook of one elbow.

Vangerdahast, smiling faintly, said, “Two daggers at his belt and one in his left boot.”

Deft fingers plucked out the indicated weapons and tossed them away. They landed with steely slidings atop the discarded blade, and Giogi Wyvernspur said pleasantly to his prisoner, “Come and sit down. Cat’ll-oh, have you met my wife, Lady Cat Wyvernspur? Sorry, should’ve introduced you straightaway-Cat’ll be most upset if Vangey has to fry you with some spell or other. Tends to ruin the furniture and leave nasty stains and whatnot.”

“Unhand me!” Dauneth snarled, struggling to get his breath. He drove a vicious elbow backward, but it seemed to strike some sort of tingling barrier.

“Ah, ah,” Giogi reproved him. “Play nice.”

“Wizard!” Dauneth roared, ignoring his captor and trembling with a rage that suddenly threatened to consume him, “You have betrayed your king, the crown, and Cormyr! You have brought the realm to the brink of war!”

The Royal Magician raised his eyebrows. “There is a fire in our young nobles that I sometimes wish could be kept alive as they grow older-and much wiser. Still, I’m pleased to see that you can distinguish between the differing calls of monarch, rulership, and realm. Very few of your fellow bluebloods can. I assure you, Dauneth Marliir-son of a family which has demonstrated expertise in determining loyalties, to be sure-that I am acting for the betterment of all three.”

“Spare me your lies,” Dauneth spat as Giogi sat him down in a chair, smiled like the gracious host he was, and wordlessly offered Dauneth a glass of wine.

The young noble struck it sharply upward, so that its contents splashed into Giogi’s face. He then launched himself across the room, tearing out the dagger from its sheath in his sleeve, a dagger that Vangerdahast did not know of.

Lady Wyvernspur rose, lifting her hands and starting to mutter words, but Dauneth had already looped one long arm around the Royal Magician of Cormyr and brought his dagger to the old man’s throat.

It struck some sort of barrier, and fire blazed from it. Dauneth ignored the sudden heat and pressed it in harder.

“Desist, young Marliir. I have no interest in slaying a loyal son of Cormyr.”

The pain was excruciating now. Dauneth leaned into it with all the strength in his shoulders and snarled, “If such a great threat to the realm I love is destroyed, the loss of my own life will be worthwhile and gladly given!”

“Gods, I wish I heard such heartfelt words from more men of Cormyr!” said an admiring voice from somewhere off to the left. Dauneth raised his eyes from watching his dagger tip turn slowly red, inches from the wizard’s hairy, scrawny old throat, and saw a single, shadowy form standing in an inner doorway. The watcher took a step forward and smiled, and as the lamplight fell across his face, Dauneth gasped and dropped his dagger. His hands slowly fell away from the wizard, who rubbed his nose, shook himself, and went straight to the wine bottle on the side table where Giogi-who was wiping at a nose that still dripped wine-had left it.

“You’re getting old, Vangey,” the man at the doorway said gravely.

“Old and forgetful,” Vangerdahast replied, raising the bottle and not bothering with a glass. “Perhaps I should start considering my own replacement, eh?”

Dauneth was staring at the man by the door. When he could finally speak, he asked, “But-but-if you’re here, then what’s going on at the court? Who’s trying to rule Cormyr?”

“A lot of folk, lad,” the Royal Magician said with a smile. “A lot of folk. The reasons lie in the past, but to see the unfolding of their fruit, we must adjourn to the palace. Bring your sword. By now they’ll all be waiting for us there.”