Cormyr

Chapter 33: At The Brink

Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

The Hall of the Dragon Throne was one of the oldest parts of the court, Obarskyrs had walked here for more than a thousand years. Tall, fluted pillars ran down both sides of the lofty chamber, supporting a wooden gallery added by Palaghard in one of many renovations performed on the site over the years.

Between the lines of columns, in the open area that was usually crowded with murmuring courtiers, stood the great sealed stone tomb of Baerauble the Mage, its surface worn smooth by the touch of a million hands over the countless years. Facing it was the lowest step of the short, curving flight that led to the high dais.

On that bright-polished height stood two arch-backed chairs of state for the princesses of Cormyr, and between them the filigreed Throne of the Dragon Queen and the taller, simpler, far older Dragon Throne itself. All of them were empty.

“Why are we here, love?” Crown Princess Tanalasta asked, nestling against Aunadar’s shoulder. Something about their lovers’ stroll felt wrong. They had never come near the throne room before.

“Some folk are going to meet us here, and if all goes well, something important is going to happen,” Aunadar Bleth murmured. The dark-paneled doors partway down the room opened, and a group of young nobles strode in. Gaspar Cormaeril led them, and behind him, Tanalasta recognized Martin Illance, Morgaego Dauntinghorn, Reth Crownsilver, Cordryn Huntsilver, Braegor Truesilver, and others.

Tanalasta stood very still. “This has the look of a meeting of state,” she said and stepped quickly to a bellpull to summon guards. The cord came away in her hand and fell to the floor. It had been cut through with a sword. No alarm sounded.

“This is not right,” Tanalasta said, and three quick strides took her back to Aunadar, to pluck at his sleeve. “Aunadar! What’s happened? Why are we gathered here?”

“The road ahead for Cormyr must be chosen,” Aunadar said, turning to face the high dais, as if he expected more figures to suddenly appear there. “Your father has died,” he added shortly. “We think he died some time ago-and that foul wizard, our Royal Magician, hid that fact from us all, hoping to take the throne before you could be crowned.”

Tanalasta reeled and then clung to him, fighting down sudden tears. Azoun! Papa! Oh, merciless gods! Her mind flooded with memories of a smiling bearded face, hands gently helping her to toddle her first few steps, or sweeping her up onto a saddle so high that she shrieked in fear, or…

Aunadar must have known that the wizard was going to appear by the throne. He was watching, hard-faced, as the air shimmered and glowed on the broad step below the thrones where men knelt to be knighted and envoys to plead. When the light died away, three men stood on that step: the fat old Royal Magician of Cormyr, and on either side of him a grim noble holding a drawn sword. Lord Giogi Wyvernspur was on the wizard’s right, and young Dauneth Marliir on his left.

Tanalasta stared up at them through helpless tears.

What was going to happen? Was there going to be a fight?

She turned to ask Aunadar, only to discover that she stood alone. Her lover had walked back to stand with Gaspar Cormaeril and the other young nobles.

The crown princess looked from the trio by the throne to the confident line of nobility, and a sudden chill shook her. Father! she cried silently, come back! Cormyr needs you! I need you.

A voice cut through her anguish, a crisp, measured voice that struck her like ice water.

“The fates of our king and his two cousins have left a perilous lack of authority in Cormyr,” said the wizard Vangerdahast, “particularly in light of the current dispositions of Princess Alusair and Queen Filfaeril. The whereabouts of both remain unknown, we can only presume they are in hiding. Moreover, Crown Princess Tanalasta is, by her own words, unwilling to take up the crown at this time.”

His words echoed around the room. One of the nobles stepped forward and raised his head to speak, but the Royal Magician went on. “I will act as regent until the princess is willing to assume the throne. If, at the end of five years, she has not done so, we shall meet again-the wizards, high clergy and nobles of the realm, all together in council, to debate the future of the realm. Until that time, there will be no council of nobles or anyone else in Cormyr. I shall assist the princess in making ready to ascend the Dragon Throne, and she shall marry her fiance Aunadar Bleth during this time if she desires to do so. I hold here”-the mage raised a piece of parchment over his head-“a writ of regency, signed by Queen Filfaeril. It names me rightfully what I now claim myself: Regent of Cormyr.”

Tanalasta stared up at the wizard, torn between grief and loneliness… and now, in the midst of that loss, a rising rage. The old wizard was seizing Cormyr as his own! And it was all her fault! She could have stood strong against him. She could have insisted on his kneeling to her… but she had not. And now it was too late.

But why had Father left her so unprepared? And where was Alusair? Where was Mama? Stolen away-as if by magic. Magic. Of course. In the face of such dark power, how could she hope to lead the realm?

Eyes swimming with tears, Tanalasta turned to face the line of nobles again. The next words would surely be theirs.

“You are sadly mistaken, Lord High Wizard,” Aunadar Bleth said coldly into the waiting room, “and as usual, you sadly overreach yourself.”

On their slow, numb way down the room to look at the nobles, Tanalasta’s eyes fell across the doors the nobles had come in by, and there she saw a shadowy figure step forward and wave to her.

Tanalasta almost fainted. There was no mistaking that face, those gestures-and now a finger going to lips to counsel silence, and a grim motion to hold on. Tanalasta bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. The figure was already drawing back into the shadows beyond the doorway when she managed to marshal enough control to manage a careful, regal nod.

“Look at yourself now,” Aunadar Bleth was saying, “as we do: alone save for a few misguided lackeys of minor houses. Yet you stand making demands and issuing orders with only your own pride to give them any authority. Wizard, you remain in Cormyr only at our sufferance, and you will be allowed to stay only if you accede to our rightful demands. We need no skulking, manipulating regent, but our proper queen!”

His shout rang back echoes from the high ceiling of the chamber and was answered by a second roar of approval from the nobles who stood with him. “The inexperience of the princess will be addressed by a guiding council of nobles, whose deliberations will be open for all the folk of Cormyr to hear. My dear Tanalasta and I will be wed forthwith, and as consort to our queen, I shall chair the council and ensure that it acts in a just and honorable manner.”

Aunadar stepped forward, eyes alight with excitement, and pressed on. “In return for your peaceful agreement to this, Lord Vangerdahast, you’ll be permitted to keep your title and be awarded a seat on the council, though your secretive and disloyal war wizards must and shall be disbanded. The time of Obarskyr kings who rule without regard for the people, trusting in the murderous spells of their own private pet wizards to keep them in power over a populace that fears and hates them, is past, and such days will never return to Cormyr. The people shall be free at last.”

As if they’d waited for his words as a cue, a rabble of other courtiers, joined by a few clergy and high-ranking court officials, burst through the double doors at the end of the hall and surged forward, their boots thunderous as they passed through the paneled doors. They surged forward, voices rising, and the nobles already in the room turned to see what this new disturbance was…in time to see a concealed door open in one of the pillars down the hall, and the sorceress Cat Wyvernspur step forth. Her hands were already raised, a wand clutched in one palm, and her mouth moving. She turned, faced the advancing throng, and suddenly waved her hands outward dismissively, and the foremost priests and courtiers ran into an invisible barrier. Said barrier did nothing to hamper sight or sound, but permitted nothing solid to pass through. Thrown caps and daggers tested it for a few moments, but Cat had already turned to calmly face Bleth’s nobles already in the room, her arms crossed. One of said nobles, Martin Illance, clapped a hand to his sword hilt, looking meaningfully in her direction, but she caught his eyes and shook her head ever so slightly. Illance’s hand fell away to his side once more.

“More foul magic,” Morgaego Dauntinghorn snarled, and the words had scarcely left his mouth when another secret door opened in another pillar, and a grim line of Purple Dragons strode out to stand with drawn swords, barring the way of the conspirator nobles.

A grim Lareth Gulur led the soldiers, and the center of their line was anchored by his superior, Hathian Talar. Most were battle-scarred veterans, but at the end of the line stood a new recruit, uncomfortable in his stiff new uniform, but whose sword twitched with eagerness. All the Purple Dragons bent their burning eyes on the luxuriously dressed young nobles.

“More foul magic indeed,” the Royal Magician said into the deep silence. “Think for a moment of just how well a hundred nobles would fare if they were ever sent against a hundred war wizards.”

Aunadar Bleth smiled crookedly and said in silken tones, “I have done so-and have an answer: a blade that I am confident can cut down a hundred war wizards!” He raised his hand and made a quick, intricate gesture as he called, “Hear us, Lady Brantarra! Attend us, Red Wizardess of Murbant!”

A moment later, as everyone in the chamber watched in breathless silence, a cluster of moving, winking lights appeared at Bleth’s shoulder, and a low, purring voice that carried from end to end of that hall spoke out of it.

“Greetings, Vangerdahast, Royal Magician of Cormyr. Call me Brantarra-call me your nemesis. Long have you wondered who it was who shielded rebels and contrary nobles and outlaws from your seeking spells, and who protected them against your magic of rulership and punishment. I stand ready now to shield all the other nobles of Cormyr who desire such protection-from you and your petty magelings. I am the bane of the war wizards. I am the one who has frustrated you for so long.”

Vangerdahast shifted and stirred on the step where he stood but said nothing. The triumphant voice rolled on.

“You think these were your masterminds, these clever young nobles unable to see beyond the ends of their swords? Mine was the hand that stole the abraxus from your precious vaults. Mine was the hand that guided these pawns before you. Mine was the skill that took your king’s will, on a night eighteen years ago, in the sight of the walls of Arabel. Mine was the body that bore the son who will be your next king!”

Aunadar Bleth’s head snapped around in surprise. He gaped at the sparkling, circling lights as the voice from the heart of them added, “Know, nobles of Cormyr, that the war wizards you fear so much will be shattered within the season and gone utterly soon after-as I and those mages loyal to me ensure that each war wizard is hunted to extinction.”

There was a brief but sharp chorus of gasps and murmurs from the courtiers crowded up against Cat’s barrier. The next words spoken, though they were soft, cut that noise off as if a knife had fallen across their throats.

“And who will protect Cormyr against the Red Wizardess and her wizards then?” Vangerdahast asked mildly, taking another step down from the throne. Giogi and Dauneth moved with him, their eyes watchful.

“Protect Cormyr against me?” came the low, rich voice out of the lights. “Why? I know and love the realm well. I have borne a son by King Azoun to prove it. A future king…”

More murmurs, and even some laughter, came from the crowd of watching courtiers just inside the entrance to the hall. The gathering of lights hissed a deep curse and the laughter quieted, but the murmurs continued. Even the densest courtiers realized the minimal value of an unrecognized son of Azoun.

Tanalasta cast a look at the dark doorway where she’d seen the figure that counseled her to silence, and then looked away again.

“This land has had enough of kings,” Aunadar Bleth said firmly, “and despite what you have just heard her say, this Red Wizardess and I have a solemn agreement on this point. I know not the measure of Thayvians, but noble families of Cormyr keep their word and expect others to do the same.”

“Do they?” Vangerdahast’s voice was as soft as silk, or the edge of an oversharpened dagger. “I am pleased to hear of this new shift in their natures.”

Aunadar Bleth showed anger for the first time, tossing back his head to glare up at the old wizard. “Don’t bandy words about falsehoods with me, wizard. For over a thousand years and more, the Bleths have served the crown of Cormyr well, fighting and dying for their country. Yet somehow the Obarskyrs they served so loyally managed to overlook the Bleths time and time again. One can grow used to being taken advantage of, but one need not grow to like it. Now the blood of the Obarskyrs has run weak indeed, and the Bleths shall be overlooked no longer. Now will come the ultimate service to the Obarskyrs and to Cormyr: the fusion of the proud lineage of Cormyr’s two oldest families into one bloodline-a Bleth bloodline that shall not hold the Dragon Throne in a tight-taloned tyrant’s grasp, but share rule over the Forest Country with all of its people.” He turned to the crown princess and smiled coldly. “The power I have come to love.”

Tanalasta’s lips trembled for a moment as she struggled to find the words she wanted to say, but when she did speak, her voice was firm and high and clear.

“I am shocked, Aunadar Bleth, to learn that you love me only for my station and lineage and the power you can wield through me. Do you care so little for Tanalasta the woman?”

There was triumph in the young noble’s eyes as he looked into hers and shrugged. “It matters little if I love you or you me,” he said callously. “What matters is that the power of the Obarskyrs be dashed down, and the wheel of time move this land into brighter, fairer times that all citizens can agree with. The old Cormyr died with your father-its last king.”

There was a gasp and stir that rose almost to a shriek as the figure that had skulked in the shadows of the doorway strode slowly and purposefully into the room. When the watching crowd saw the crown glittering on its head, their cries died into instant heavy silence.

“I find your presumptions a trifle premature, young Bleth,” said a voice that everyone in the room knew, “and I order your surrender. Kneel to me, your true and rightful king, Azoun Obarskyr, a man who, despite your best efforts, is not dead just yet.”

Aunadar Bleth turned white and swallowed. He looked quickly around the room, as if seeking ways to escape, and then drew himself up proudly, eyes blazing. “No. I am no lesser man than you. Why should I kneel to a man whose time is past and whose morals demean us all? Why should I kneel to a man who should be dead!”

“Why,” the low voice from the lights at Bleth’s shoulder purred, “should you kneel to a dead man?”

A coldly, darkly beautiful female face rose into view among the whirling radiances. It was a face Vangerdahast had seen before, the night before the fall of Arabel. From its eyes leapt two red, ravening beams of light.

The nobles standing with Gaspar Cormaeril screamed and ducked for cover as the magical beams cut through their ranks and stabbed at the king.

The rays burst into raging flames upon striking an unseen barrier. The eye beams clawed futilely at a barrier that shielded the grimly smiling Azoun and washed out along it, revealing the true dimensions of the barrier.

The barrier was anchored at three points. One point was the sorceress Cat, who held aloft a small white oval, a talisman of protective power. The other two points were in the hitherto empty minstrels’ balcony, high above the king, where two people rose stiffly, holding similar talismans. One of the two in the balcony was a Harper with hair the color of honey and eyes like two dancing flames-Emthrara. The other was a bright-eyed, unshaven merchant dealer in turret tops and spires named Rhauligan.

Ripples of Brantarra’s ruby-red radiance rushed across the barrier now, streaming toward the three ovals at its extremities, and then reflected back, like ripples in a small fountain, to its center. The flames meeting there flickered, pulsed, and burst forth as a great reaching tongue of fire, which roared back at the face in the light with frightening speed and fury

The Red Wizardess screamed. Her features vanished under the onslaught of her own returned magic, and sobbing howls of pain echoed off the vaulted ceiling of the hall for a moment before the lights winked, flashed bright again-and the agonized face was gone.

In its place stood something gleaming and golden, something that stood like an upright, motionless bull.

“The abraxus!” a dozen voices exclaimed in horrified unison. Aunadar Bleth smiled tightly and said, “Thank you, wizardess, for restoring my clockwork toy. It needs a human soul to power its magical engine, and my lady Brantarra has thought even of that!” He placed his hand along the back of the golden beast. There was the sharp click of a switch being thrown, and Aunadar pointed at Gaspar Cormaeril. “I have need of your noble spirit, Gaspar!” shouted Aunadar.

Gaspar Cormaeril screamed. The noble allies who previously stood alongside him now scattered like frightened fowl in a barnyard. Gaspar pawed at his ornate vest and pulled forth a large ruby, given to him days earlier by his friend Aunadar Bleth. Green and crimson flames erupted from the gem, spreading along his chest and arms as if they were coated with oil. Gaspar writhed in helpless, rising agony as the mystic fire consumed him.

The green flickering flames grew into a green snake of crackling magical force, a twisting, questing rope of radiance that climbed over the heads of the nobles and then descended, like a vengeful arrow, to strike the abraxus.

Strike-and be absorbed. The golden bull pulsed with green light, and the flames left the tottering, shriveled body of the stricken noble, infusing the abraxus with life energy. Gaspar Cormaeril fluttered like a dry leaf caught on grass in a high wind, and then collapsed into dust. Not even his bones survived to hit the floor.

The abraxus rattled, shook, and moved, raising its head and shifting its shoulders with a heavy clank. Its head began to turn, and Aunadar, fairly leaping with glee, pointed and shouted to direct the automaton at the king. This time there would be no mistake.

Forgotten on the dais, the Royal Magician of Cormyr quietly finished casting a spell and let his hands fall, a grim smile on his lips.

Suddenly the crown princess burst into motion in a swirl of robes, racing to stand in front of her father. “No! Aunadar, you must not do this!”

Aunadar’s intent, ruthless expression did not change. “Join me, my love,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “Throw off your heavy past and join me in a brighter future. I will comfort you, care for you, protect you, in a way that these others never will!”

Tanalasta recoiled from the look in Aunadar Bleth’s eyes, but her gaze did not leave him. She looked neither at Vangerdahast nor at her father, nor at the assembled trembling nobles. Instead, her mouth formed a smooth, thin line. “No,” she said simply. “I will not. Stop this madness now.”

His glittering eyes shifted from her in an instant, dismissing her, and turned back to his quarry, Azoun, who stood calmly and quietly, watching the metallic doom come down upon him.

Tanalasta raised her hands, as if she could stop the steadily advancing abraxus, and shouted, “Aunadar! Stop this! Don’t-“

Aunadar lifted his lips back from his teeth in a wolfish grin, and a hissing began. The poisonous breath of the abraxus rushed out, swirling like smoke, but did not reach the terrified princess. Instead, it struck something hard and hitherto unseen in the air before it-something large and curving. The smokelike breath of the beast stole outward along it, revealing the great curve of another barrier, this one a sphere that enclosed the abraxus-and with it, Aunadar Bleth.

On the steps below the throne, the wizard Vangerdahast’s smile tightened. Giogi looked at him. Just for an instant, he saw the glittering stare of the ruthless hunter in the old mage’s eyes, and from below them came the raw sound of Aunadar’s disbelieving scream.

The abraxus breathed again, and the sphere could be seen clearly now as deadly vapors swirled within it. It was moving with the clanking monster, proceeding slowly down the Hall of the Dragon Throne toward the king.

Tanalasta turned an instant before the magical shield would have touched her. She stepped backward one step, then a second, and rushed into her father’s embrace. Azoun’s arms went around her and held her firmly.

Behind her, Aunadar’s scream broke off into choking, frantic hacking sounds that went on and on as the smoky sphere advanced. Tanalasta turned in the king’s arms to stare at it in horrified fascination. Her treacherous fiance was going to die, but would he be the only one? Were they going to be able to stop this golden clanking horror?

Was it her imagination, or was the sphere growing smaller?

The abraxus hissed again, and through the rising smoke of its breath, she dimly saw Aunadar bend double and blindly stagger away, only to strike the far side of the sphere. He clawed weakly at it, and then slid down into the swirling smoke. The sphere was drawing in around the golden monster!

Up on the dais, Giogi and Dauneth both caught sight of sudden sweat bursting into being on Vangerdahast’s brow. They turned to the old wizard, opening their mouths in identical protests of concern. The sweat was running off his old nose and dripping from the Royal Magician’s beard.

The sphere grew smaller, and the wizard began to tremble. The two men caught hold of Vangerdabast’s shoulders and elbows gently and held him up, even when his body began to shudder and spasm, folding up in violent, wrenching contortions.

“What can we do, sir wizard?” Dauneth hissed, but Vangerdahast set his teeth and made no reply. His eyes were steady on the sphere below him, the sphere that was dwindling rapidly now. It reached the edges of the abraxus itself, which stood hard and golden against it, though only for a moment. Then the golden automaton bent over sideways with a deafening crack of shattered metal. Tortured golden plates shrieked in protest as the sphere closed inward steadily. There was a splash of crimson as the body of Aunadar Bleth was broken along with the golden creature. Then there was another scream, the inhuman scream of crumpling metal.

Something tugged at Tanalasta’s hands. It was Cat, placing the oval talisman into them. She closed the fingers of the crown princess around it, gave Tanalasta an encouraging smile, and stepped a pace away, raising her hands in a quick, deft spell-weaving.

On the dais, between Wyvernspur and Marliir, Tanalasta noticed Vangerdahast sagging like a man gravely wounded. Cat lifted her hands in shaping gestures, and Vangerdahast shouted a single tortured, almost unintelligible word.

The sphere vanished, consumed in a sudden ball of flames. Tanalasta flung a hand over her eyes an instant before the fire became blindingly bright.

Then the Hall of the Dragon Throne rocked under the force of a blast that hurled flames up in a roaring column to scorch the ceiling, but touched nothing else.

Cat Wyvernspur, whose spell had directed the flames harmlessly upward, reeled back into the Obarskyrs, father and daughter. Azoun’s other arm found its way around her as well. The spent sorceress sagged against the king’s shoulder briefly, then immediately disengaged. The ragged panting of the magess was suddenly loud in a chamber that had grown silent again. All within the Hall of the Dragon-royals, spellcasters, Purple Dragons, and nobles-were silent for a moment.

The sphere was gone, leaving only a scorched circle on the marble tiles. Aunadar Bleth was gone. The abraxus was gone.

And on the steps beside the throne, the old wizard rose unsteadily, his hands on the shoulders of two faithful nobles. Vangerdahast cleared his throat and roared, “The king is restored to us! Long live the king!” The ceiling echoed back the Royal Magician’s words, and they rolled out and down the room.

Someone in the crowd of nobles cried, “Long live the king!”

Other voices joined in an instant later: “The king! The king! Long live the king!”

“Azoun!” roared the Purple Dragons, their swords flashing straight up in salute. “Azoun!”

“Long live the king!” The chant was spreading beyond the room now, resounding through the palace as wondering people flooded toward the Hall of the Dragon Throne.

“Long Live the king!” The roar echoed around the Hall like thunder, and then an old noble burst into tears and went to his knees. “Azoun-lead us!”

“Long live the king!” the chant came again, but it seemed to be coming almost entirely from outside the chamber now. Inside the Hall, man after man after highborn lady were going to their knees-another, and then another-until only the king, Tanalasta, and Vangerdahast remained on their feet. Dauneth dropped to one knee, but kept his sword ready and his wits sharp for one last attack.

Dauneth let his gaze drift to the face of Azoun-who was smiling quietly, and nodding to noble after noble, and to faces in the line of Purple Dragons-and then to the smiling face of the crown princess.

The heir to House Marliir looked at that face thoughtfully for a long time. He knew that both Lord Wyvernspur and Vangerdahast had noticed his intent gaze and followed it to its destination, and he did not care.

Gods, but she was fair. He could kneel to a woman like that. Dauneth drew in a deep breath, noting that Tanalasta had not wept for her lost love, Aunadar. Perhaps there was hope yet.

Dauneth Marliir, heir to a stained family name, sprang to his feet. “Long live the king!” he roared like a lion, raising his blade in flashing salute.

Azoun’s head turned in time to see Giogi’s blade flash up to join Dauneth’s, and then the old man between them giggled like a schoolgirl. Sudden magefire shaped a sword in his hand, too. The three blades swung up together as Cat, Azoun, and Tanalasta laughed as one, and the three men on the steps thundered, “Long live the king! Long live Cormyr!”

The echoes of their shout were so thunderous that only Giogi and Dauneth heard the old wizard’s muttered addition: “This ought to be worth a feast.”