Death of the Dragon

25

Vangerdahast was the proverbial fly on the wall in the goblin war room, save that he was actually a mouse-eared bat and, in deference to the diverse menu of his subjects, an invisible one at that.

With Nalavara gone, he felt free to use all the magic he wished, so he had made use of a live spider from the kitchen’s garnish box and a pinch of coal dust from the cooking ovens to cast a spider climb spell on himself as well. He was hanging quite comfortably in a high quiet corner, looking down on a sand-covered situation table surrounded by bronze-armored goblin generals. At the near end sat the high general’s chair, with a back so tall Vangerdahast could not see the occupant. At the far end rested an even larger chair with a skunk fur seat, vacant save for the iron crown Nalavara had tried to press on him. Rowen was not in the room. He was outside, hiding in a small hollow near the top of the Grodd Palace, drizzling rain on twenty legions of puzzled goblins assembled in the great plaza below.

A smallish goblin in an iron breastplate rose from the high general’s chair and clambered onto the situation table. The goblin-Vangerdahast still could not tell the males from the females-crawled to the middle of the table, where a thin leather strap enclosed a pebble gridwork that bore an uncanny resemblance to Arabel’s street plan. Intersecting the model at right angles were four strings, each representing one of the highways that met at the Caravan City. In the quadrant between the High Road and Calantar’s Way, there was even a small stand of crow feathers to represent the King’s Forest southwest of the city.

A second goblin followed the leader to the middle of the table, then fished two handfuls of dead beetles from its belt pouch and tossed these onto the sand, one in the quadrant northwest of the city and one coming out of the forest to the southwest. With the others looking on, the leader carefully arranged both groups of creatures into the triple-wide ranks of a Cormyrean Heavy Company with a war wizard complement. The lead beetles of both groups converged on the High Road just west of Arabel and seemed to be heading into the city.

The goblin pointed to the company coming from the north. “The Legion of the Steel Princess is this.” Having made good use of the ingredients in the palace kitchens, Vangerdahast had also cast a comprehend languages spell and recognized the leader’s voice as that of Otka, the High Consul of the Grodd. “She has given our tusked allies much trouble.”

Otka pointed to the company from the south. “The Legion of the Purple King is this.” She held her hand out behind her. Her adjutant passed her a handful of dead ants, which she carefully arranged in two squares flanking the rear of Azoun’s army. “The legions of Pepin and Rord have turned him back, and still the Naked Ones control the south.”

An angry rush filled Vangerdahast’s round ears. That he should be trapped here helpless while a bunch of goblins passed freely back and forth into his home plane outraged him to no end.

Again, Otka passed her hand back. The adjutant gave her a handful of cave roaches, which she arranged in an amorphous mass behind Alusair’s army. When one of the creatures turned out to be not quite dead, she angrily snatched it up with a handful of sand and swallowed both down, then carefully rearranged the other roaches and smoothed the resulting divot.

As soon as she was finished, her adjutant turned to another adjutant, who produced a beautiful red dragonfly mounted on a long thin wire. Almost reverently, the assistant presented the thing to Otka, who took it in both hands and carefully sank the wire into the sand next to the High Road, so that the dragonfly hovered over the convergence of the two Cormyrean armies.

“The Giver has joined the tusked ones, and now must the Steel Princess flee into the great fortress at Four Roads.” Otka jammed a finger into the great palace complex in Arabel, then said, “Here we stop the human things before they do to Grodd what was done to Cormanthor. Here we repay the Giver for all she has taught us.”

Vangerdahast expected Otka to continue on, but instead she simply accepted a pouch full of dried ants from her adjutant and began to arrange them in Arabel’s streets. “This way the Legion of Makr goes, to fill the east streets with fire and death. This way the Legions of Himil and Yoso and Pake go, to take the western gate and to the tusked ones throw it open. This way the Legion of Jaaf goes…”

Vangerdahast listened in growing horror as Otka outlined a plan to eradicate not only the Cormyrean army but the entire city of Arabel as well. The goblin did not need to describe what would come next. Her legions would sweep over Cormyr, driving all humans from the land and reducing their grand cities to smoking midden heaps. Shadowdale and Sembia and the other neighboring realms would send troops either to aid Cormyr or to bite off what they could, but the efforts would come too late and be too small. By the time they mobilized, the Grodd would control all the crucial points-Gnoll Pass, Thunder Gap, High Horn, the port cities, Wheloon and its crucial bridge. Their numbers and organization would astonish all corners, and with Nalavara to back them up, the kingdom would be theirs.

Vangerdahast listened intently as Otka rattled off assignments, trying to discern some hint from the goblin’s instructions of how she communicated with the legions she had already sent to Cormyr. Thinking that perhaps Nalavara’s disappearance had lifted whatever magic kept him captive in the caverns, the wizard had already tried to teleport and plane walk home, but the only result had been that he and Rowen spent the next several hours searching each other out. His luck with communication spells had been no better. Save when he tried to contact Rowen, all he ever heard back was the mad rushing of empty space.

And yet Nalavara had gone to Cormyr when he wished her out of existence, and the goblins were as free to pass back and forth as Xanthon had been. Even now, they were standing along the rim of the black void where the dragon had raised herself from the plaza, arrayed in neat ranks and ready to step through the darkness into the very heart of Arabel. Vangerdahast cursed himself for not understanding how Nalavara had imprisoned him and for being foolish enough to free her on Cormyr. The truth of the matter was he had expected everything that had happened. Had he held his tongue, Nalavara would have destroyed Rowen and perhaps him and the Scepter of Lords as well, then departed in her own time. All the wish had done was preserve his hope, and that was really all he had expected to gain.

As Vangerdahast watched Otka lay out her legions of ants-he had deduced her scale now, one ant per cohort-he thought about using the wish again. If Nalavara had been moved to Cormyr by being wished out of existence, perhaps Vangerdahast could do the same thing by wishing himself out of existence. He could tell by the way Rowen’s pearly eyes were constantly drawn to the ring that it still had plenty of magic in it, and it seemed reasonable to hope that if a thing worked once, it would work again.

The trouble was that wishes were reasonable things. They were entirely reasonable, and it was that which made them entirely unpredictable. For the multiverse to stay in balance, there had to be a certain equilibrium to wishes, so that even as the thing the wisher asked was granted, something he did not wish also came to be. If people could simply go around wishing things without consequences, the multiverse would quickly grow unstable and spin out of control. By wishing Nalavara out of existence, he had merely taken her out of his immediate existence and placed her in another where he wanted her even less, and the multiverse had stayed in balance.

To wish himself back to Cormyr, he would have to wish for what he did not desire and hope that what he actually desired came about in reaction. He would have to wish himself out of existence but choose his words carefully enough to be certain that he came back into existence in Cormyr. That would, of course, trigger another reaction, since what he really desired could not possibly be as important as what he truly desired but did not wish… Vangerdahast felt as though he were standing between two mirrors trying to find the last reflection when there simply was not one. No matter how carefully he worded the wish, he would be playing knucklebones with his own life. Even if he did find a way to cheat the spell, he would be gambling with the multiverse itself. That he could not do, even to save Cormyr.

Otka made her final assignments and turned to address her generals, reminding them of how much they owed Nalavara for bringing them the gift of iron and civilization, and that all the Giver had ever asked of them was that one day they would go stop the depredations of the human things.

As she spoke, Vangerdahast found himself staring across the room to where the iron crown sat in the empty throne. Twice Nalavara had offered him the crown, and twice he had refused it. Even if he did want to rule a nation of goblins-which he did not-he had seen no reason to trust the dragon. The offer had seemed a mere trick to bind him to her service or more likely an empty taunt meant to mock the dark ambitions everyone save the wizard himself seemed to sense lurking in his soul. He had dismissed the crown as a thing of no value to him or anyone else-and yet there it was, sitting empty in a seat of honor.

It had value to the goblins.

Still invisible, Vangerdahast dropped out of his corner and spread his wings, swooping so low over the Otka’s head that she ducked and cried out as he sifted past. The other goblins looked at her as though she were mad, and she gazed around the room with wide, suspicious eyes.

Vangerdahast landed in the center of the chair and slipped his wingtips under the rim of the crown, then changed back into a man. If the goblins noticed his transition from an invisible bat to an invisible wizard, they showed no sign. The wizard found himself sitting in the throne, holding the iron crown over his head with both hands. The Scepter of Lords, which had been absorbed into his body when he changed into a bat, re-emerged in the crook of his elbow-then slipped free and clattered to the floor.

The goblins looked instantly in his direction. Vangerdahast lowered the crown onto his head, then canceled his invisibility spell and pointed at Otka. “No!”

Even Otka shrank from the thunder in his voice. Vangerdahast took the opportunity to pull a piece of twisted horsehair-goblin thread-and two tiny goblin thimbles from his pocket. He pictured Rowen’s dark face in his mind and uttered a quick incantation. As soon as the ranger’s pearly eyes shifted, the wizard thought-spoke to him.

Come quick. In war room, down in-

That was as much as Vangerdahast could think before he felt the spell’s magic dissipating out into the iron crown. Trying not to let his alarm-or his confusion-show, he stood and pulled from his sleeve a pellet of red glass he had taken from one of the iron trees in the goblin graveyard.

In his most commanding royal magician voice, he spoke again in Grodd. “This shall not be!”

Vangerdahast pointed at the center of the situation table, simultaneously tossing the glass pellet at the model of Arabel and hissing the words of a lightning spell. Again, he felt a strange, disk-shaped surge of energy from the center of his head into the crown. A meager flash of red lightning fizzled from his fingertip and razed the tiny city. Though hardly the awe-inspiring demonstration he had planned, the spell was sufficient to cause the goblin generals to back away and press themselves to the walls.

Otka was not so easily impressed. She narrowed her eyes at Vangerdahast and said, “Where you came from?”

Drawing himself up to his full height, Vangerdahast leaned on the edge of the table and said, “Otka does not know the Iron One?”

This drew an incredulous murmur from the generals. Some pressed their palms together before their faces and inclined their heads. Others let their claws drop toward their swords and looked to Otka. She narrowed her eyes and started forward, motioning her generals to follow.

As the Royal Magician of Cormyr, Vangerdahast was as accomplished in the art of politics as any man alive, which was to say that he had no doubt forgotten more about it than even the high consul of the Grodd had ever known. He was also well versed in the worth of a symbol, so when he decided that the time had come to eliminate his rival, he did not have to think twice about how to do it. He merely pulled a pinch of iron dust from his pocket and tossed it toward the ceiling above Otka’s head, at the same time speaking the words of his iron wall spell.

Instead of the strange draining he had experienced earlier, Vangerdahast’s head nearly burst as the crown released its store of magic. The energy shot through him in a searing flash and left his hand. A huge sheet of iron appeared beneath the ceiling, blasting the walls apart and filling the room with billowing clouds of dust.

Otka had barely enough time to look up before the slab dropped. It flattened not only her but the generals who had been moving forward alongside her.

Vangerdahast barely noticed, for it felt as though his skull had been chopped off from the iron crown up. Dizzy, blind, and sick, he collapsed screaming into the throne and tried to tear the burning circlet off his head.

It was too tight. He could not slip his fingers under the band, nor push it up, nor even twist it around beneath his pressed palms. The thing had melded itself to his skull, and nothing he did would loosen it.

Eventually, a gentle drizzle cooled his brow to a temperature less than feverish, and the pain subsided to the point that Vangerdahast could think of something beside his aching head.

“Vangerdahast?”

He looked up to see Rowen’s dark face peering down at him from atop a four-foot slab of iron. Flanking the ghazneth were a dozen goblin generals, their greenish faces paled to sickish saffron. Their iron swords remained sheathed, and they took care to keep a reasonable distance between themselves and the Naked One.

“Not Vangerdahast, you fool!” Vangerdahast hissed, glaring up from beneath his new crown. “The Iron One.” He reached down and picked the Scepter of Lords up from the foot of his throne, then used it to push himself to his feet. “King of the Goblins.”