Death of the Dragon

45

The fire of surging, thudding pain-a roiling that only comes from being struck hard and deep by magic seeking to slay-lashed the royal magician back to wakefulness. There was an iron tang of blood in his mouth, and his fingers were tingling as if they held huge, rushing spell energies overdue to burst forth. The world was lurching.

Vangerdahast was being carried across uneven ground, the sky storm-riven smoke above him. He was still on the battlefield, with the dark peak of Azoun’s tent looming above him. The bloodstreaked faces of the knights who bore him were turned toward it, and he thought he knew why.

Long ago, Baerauble had said it was the curse of the magely protectors of Cormyr to be right, all too often. The weak, bubbling voice that came to the royal magician’s ears now told him he’d been right again.

Vangerdahast found that he could turn his head, as they laid him down, and see the king.

Azoun lay on a broad, creaking bed of shields set over rolled blankets to raise them from the trampled ground. The cloaks and sleeping furs atop those shields had been dragged into wildness by the king’s clawing hands, and the king of all fair Cormyr was still moving in the restlessness of ravaging pain, threads of smoke rising from his groaning mouth as knights bent as near to him as they dared.

More smoke was rising from the hacked and torn rents in Azoun’s armor, the places where the once bright plates had been torn away in the dragon’s fury, and the cloaks beneath the king were drenched with dark blood.

More blood was coming from the king’s mouth as he turned his head, fixing eyes that were bright with pain on Vangerdahast’s face. For a moment Azoun’s gaze roved, as if he did not see what lay around him but beheld something else, then the king’s eyes grew sharp again. His lips twisted in what might have been cynical amusement, or might have been just the pain.

“It seems I still live,” he said.

“Great lord?” Lionstone led a general rush of Cormyr’s war captains to their king.

Unhelmed now, they were so many anxious hulks in scarred and scorched armor, sweat-soaked hair plastered to their faces or matted with blood, gauntlets gone to reveal bloodied fingers that reached for their king with anxious haste, and even more frantic gentleness.

“Help me rise,” Vangerdahast snarled, never taking his eyes from his king. He had to repeat himself thrice before someone plucked him from the ground like an old sack and swung him upright. His legs felt curiously weak as they steadied him by the shoulders, but the royal magician found that he could stand on his own and that his body obeyed him. Gods, it even seemed whole. He thrust one hand into the neck of his robe, through the white and gray hair that curled across his chest. The wizard drew out certain things on chains, only to find just what he’d expected.

The handful of chased and worked silver talismans had been old when Cormyr was young, healing things made on the floating cities of Netheril and other elder lands. Mighty was their magic, lasting down the centuries, or, well, it had been. He was holding crumbling ashes now, lumps on the ends of fine chains that had dragged him back from the ravages of the dragon as he lay senseless and broken.

They’d made him whole by becoming themselves broken things, their ages-old magic exhausted. As he regarded them, even the chains started to crumble. Vangerdahast tossed them to the ground and murmured, “Step not there. Let no one tread there.”

Azoun’s head turned abruptly. “Is that my wizard?” the king snapped, struggling to sit up. Knights leaned and reached to help him, then recoiled, stumbling in their weariness.

Azoun’s movement had awakened to full fury the dragon’s blood that was eating him. A small ball of flame snarled up from his limbs to burst in the air head-high above him. Even as it faded into rising, drifting smoke, fresh lightning raged up and down the king and across his bed of shields, spitting sparks.

Ravaged armor shrank before the watching eyes on the hilltop, curling and darkening like leaves in a fire, and fell away from Azoun’s arms and thighs. The gleam of bared bone shone forth from at least one ashen tangle beneath the tortured metal.

Vangerdahast took one unsteady stride, then another. Cormyr reeled under his boots, but did not heave itself over to smite him, and after another step, he was all right. The Forest Kingdom would have its royal magician a little while longer, at least.

“My king,” he said gravely to the twisting figure atop the shields, as fresh lightning washed over that bed of pain and faded away into dancing sparks, “I am here.”

“Vangey!”Azoun shouted-or tried to. The voice was like a distant cry, but the pleasure in it was unmistakable.

As the king drew himself up onto one elbow, the pauldron fell away from that shoulder, trailing fresh smoke. Paying the crashes of collapsing armor no heed, Azoun thrust himself properly upright and fixed his pain-bright eyes on Vangerdahast.

“Despite,” the king gasped through lips that dripped black, oily blood in a constant stream now, “much provocation to the contrary-” he coughed, shoulders shuddering in a spasm of agony that forced his head down for one choking moment before he shook off the pain and looked grimly up again, “-you have always been my friend. More than that, the greatest friend Cormyr has had. Better than us all.” His voice faded, and he murmured faintly, head sinking again, “Better than us all…”

Vangerdahast stepped forward, a frown of concern preceding him, and drew something from beneath his beard-the last of his hidden magical somethings. With a sudden wrench, he broke the fine chain that had held it hidden there against his throat. The eyes of many of the watching knights narrowed. The dancing ends of chain were green with age.

The royal magician stretched forth his hand with whatever it was clutched and hidden in his grasp to touch the king, but Azoun threw back his head and squared his shoulders again, almost defiantly, black blood raining down around him.

“By that friendship,” he growled, eyes like two sudden flames as he stared into the wizard’s gaze, “I charge you-stretch forth your magic and touch my daughter Tanalasta. Tell her she is to take the crown and… rule now.”

Someone among those crowded around gasped, and Azoun nodded as if answering a disbelieving question. “Oh, yes,” he said almost gently, “I’m done. The king too old and stubborn to fall is fallen at last. Not all the magic in you, Vangey-not all the magic in fair Faerun-can save me now. Tana must rule. Tell her.”

The wizard nodded slowly, his hand stretching forth once more. Azoun glared up at him and snarled,

“Tell her!”

Vangerdahast’s fingers touched the king. Azoun shivered, huddling back as if he’d been drenched with icy water, his face twisting in silent pain.

One of the war captains-a young man who bore the name Crownsilver-started forward with an oath, plucking out his dagger, only to come to a frozen halt as Azoun flung up a forbidding hand. King and warrior spoke together, the one wearily and the other furiously, “What is it you hold, wizard?”

“My greatest treasure,” Vangerdahast said in a voice that sounded for a moment like that of a small, high-voiced woman on the verge of tears. “The only bone I was able to find that was once part of the mage Amedahast. A little of her power is left in it, I think.”

Ilberd Crownsilver stepped back, tears streaming down his cheeks. Vangerdahast raised the yellowing lump from Azoun’s breast, where it seemed to fleetingly leave tiny wisps of smoke behind, and touched it to the king’s mouth. The king stiffened.

Men watched like so many silent statues.

The red, searing pain suddenly left Azoun’s eyes, melting away like shadows fleeing a bright sun. Men gasped, and there were more muttered oaths on the hilltop.

Color came back into the king’s face, and his cracked, bleeding lips grew whole. The watchers leaned forward to stare in wonder, the old wizard still standing before the king with his hand thrust forward, as if lunging with a blade, holding the bone firmly in the royal jaws.

There was wonder on Azoun Obarskyr’s face too. He drew in a slow, deep, shuddering breath, and they saw the ashes fading from his skin, leaving smooth, unburnt flesh behind. Old muscles rippled-but even as Ilberd Crownsilver drew breath for an exultant shout, the talisman crumbled, yellowed bone fading to brown dust that fell away into the air and was gone… leaving just two old men staring into each other’s eyes. The ashes and bloody ruin did not return to where they’d been banished from the king’s flesh, but neither did they fade farther.

After a moment, Vangerdahast let his empty fingers fall away.

In their wake Azoun shook his head slowly, and managed a smile. “Not this time, I’m afraid,” he said calmly.

Vangerdahast stood still and silent.

The king’s smile faded and he said, “Are you going to obey me this once, old friend? For the realm?”

The wizard’s voice, when it came, sounded like the rusting hinges of a very old gate. “Of course.”

Vangerdahast turned like a weary mountain and strode a safe dozen paces away, lifting his left palm out in front of him to cup the shimmer of the spell to come. He paid no heed to the armored giants in his path, but they melted or stumbled away in front of him as if he was the striding god of war himself.

All but one.

A single dark and slender figure stepped to meet Vangerdahast, blocking his way. A hand shot out above the wizard’s, breaking his concentration. The royal magician’s head snapped up, his eyes darkening with anger.

“Save the spell,” Alusair murmured. “I tried to reach Tanalasta earlier, and-” she dipped her head and managed to choke out the last word, as suspicious war captains drifted closer on all sides, eyes narrowing as they cocked their heads to listen for treachery. “-silence.”

Vangerdahast may have looked like an old, dirty hermit in plain rags, but as he turned very slowly to look at the approaching warriors with the magnificent Purple Dragons on their breasts, his eyes were cold. He met their gazes, and the knights fell back.

“Secrets of the realm,” the wizard said shortly, and at his words they retreated two swift paces in unison like so many trained dogs, leaving Alusair and Vangerdahast standing alone again.

“I’ll try your mother,” the royal magician muttered, not looking at her, and as Alusair threw back her head and gasped for air, she discovered that the sky was bright with tears. She realized that she was weeping, her face streaming with so many tears that her chin was dripping.

The Steel Princess brushed an impatient forearm across her face, not caring if the armor tore away skin, and shook her head as a dog coming out of a pond shakes away water. Her watery vision cleared enough to show her the nearest war captains, their faces wet with tears, too. They knew what was about to befall here on this hill.

Silvery threads of whispering air were curling about Vangerdahast’s shoulders-the magic he used when he wanted to speak aloud to someone distant but to have their words and his face cloaked from those standing nearby. Suspicion was spreading across the faces of some war captains as they watched those dancing threads gather. Alusair caught their eyes and reached out deliberately and laid a hand on the wizard’s neck to ensure she’d be privy to the farspoken conversation. Vangerdahast’s response was to move a little closer to her, to ease her reach.

“Filfaeril,” the royal magician said gravely, without preamble, “your Azoun hangs near death, and I cannot comfort you with the expectation of a recovery. The magics on him keep him asleep and make it dangerous for us to approach, but in his last wakefulness Azoun spoke to me of how precious your love has been to him, and to give you his last salute. He also commanded me to learn, and tell him, of Tanalasta’s fate, and that of the child she bears. What news?”

“Good Vangerdahast,” came a clear, cold voice out of the empty air, for all the world as if the Dragon Queen stood in front of the wizard, “my eldest daughter is dead-she died true and fearless, destroying Boldovar to save us all here-but her babe lives. It is a boy, another Azoun for Cormyr. I pray you, if your wisdom makes these our words private, that you not burden the heart of my lord and love Azoun with word of Tanalasta’s passing, in his own last moments. Just… just…” Filfaeril’s voice wavered on the edge of a sob, just for a moment, then steadied again into cold resolve. “Tell him, Vangey, just how much I love him. Farewell, my Azoun. Our love will endure when our bodies cannot.”

Her voice broke entirely, and was a pleading agony as she whispered, “If you love me, old wizard, can you not bring me to him?”

Alusair felt a tremor pass through Vangerdahast then that marked his own sob bursting forth-a tremor that was promptly and with iron determination mastered, head bowed, as the royal magician murmured, “Oh, Lady Queen, I dare not try, lest I doom us all, your other daughter most of all. If this magic goes wild…

“I understand,” Filfaeril whispered. “Oh, gods, Vangey, keep Alusair safe and… and ease my Azoun’s passing. If you have any magic, later, to show me what you saw and thought of his dying, I command you show me. I must see.”

“Lady, you shall,” Vangerdahast said gently. “Fare you well.” He ended the spell with a weary wave of his hand, and turned to Alusair. “For the safety of the crown, I dared not bring her here,” he said, sounding ashamed. “I want you to kn-“

Alusair whirled away, tearing free of his grasp, but not with the snarl of anger he’d feared and not to spurn him. Instead, she was crouching with drawn steel, like all the other war captains on that hilltop, awaiting fresh menace. The wizard peered around her.

The Steel Princess was facing a whirling chaos of growing radiance in the air a little way down one slope of the hill-the glow of manifesting magic.

“Translocational arrivals,” Vangerdahast said loudly, to identify the magic for any who might not yet have recognized it. “Launch no attack until I bid y-“

“Be still, wizard!” one of the war captains snapped, eyes intent on the brightening glows. His voice sank to a mutter, Vangerdahast forgotten as he studied the flaring magic, and he added, “For once…”

Several heads snapped around to see how Vangerdahast would react to that outburst, but the royal magician’s face was expressionless as he took a step sideways to place himself squarely between this burgeoning magic and the fallen king. Vangerdahast squinted into the flares of brilliance as they reached their heights, then sighed and stepped back, a sour expression flickering across his face so swiftly that Alusair, watching him, could not be quite sure she’d seen it there.

Some of the veteran war captains of Cormyr were not so discreet. Disgust and disdain were written large on their faces as Cormyrean high priests of various faiths appeared out of the roiling sparks and glows of their collective teleport. Loremaster Thaun Khelbor of Deneir, his face set with fear, glanced this way and that at the wrack of battle, and was promptly shouldered aside by the High Huntmaster of Vaunted Malar, who in turn found himself in the striding wake of Aldeth Ironsar, Faithful Hammer of Tyr. Evidently the war wizards who’d sent them hence had lacked magic enough to send the upperpriests of each church who customarily accompanied their superiors everywhere. Every arriving priest ruled the Cormyrean churches of his faith.

“Trust the vultures to come now,” someone among the watching war captains said loudly, as many blades-but by no means all of the swords held ready on the hill-were sheathed.

“Aye,” someone else said bitterly, “now that the bloody work’s done.”

The Lord High Priest Most Favored of the Luck Goddess turned his head and snapped, “Who said that?”

For a long, cold moment there came no reply, then the air grew more frosty still when more than a dozen of the blood-drenched men in armor said in flat, insolent unison, “I did.”

Manarech Eskwuin blanched and quickly looked away, striding on, like all of his fellows, up the hill to where the king lay. As if the magic that had brought him was rolling along before him, fresh flames and radiance burst into being around Azoun’s body, and he roared and twisted in pain, spasming on the bed of shields. The taint of the dragon’s blood had returned.

“Make way!” commanded the high priest of Malar. “We are come in Cormyr’s hour of need to heal the king.”

“This is not a matter for straightforward healing,” Vangerdahast said warningly, standing his ground. Behind him, something that hissed and coiled arose from Azoun’s mouth, and small puffs of flame curled up from his drumming heels. Fell magic was raging and gnawing within him.

“I fear there is nothing you can do here, holy men,” the royal magician said politely, “save to let King Azoun die with the dignity he has so valiantly earned.”

Some of the war captains there drew in to stand beside the wizard, barring the high priests from reaching the king, but others cast suspicious glances at Vangerdahast, and murmurs were heard of, “Refuse the king healing? What treachery’s this?”

Augrathar Buruin, High Huntmaster of Vaunted Malar, raised an imperious hand. It was swathed in a furry gauntlet whose fingers were tipped with the claws of great cats, and whose outer side was studded with the bone barbs of beasts. He pointed at the royal magician, then swept his arm to one side, still pointing. There was a sneer on his face, and his eyes glittered with contempt through his obvious excitement. “Back, Vangerdahast!” he snarled.

The old man in the torn and dirty robe neither moved nor spoke.

The huntmaster snapped, “In this, wizard, you’re but an ignorant, meddling courtier. Stand back, and take your puny spells with you. The divine might of Malar shall prevail, as it always has-and always will.”

A swelling of light occurred in the air behind the priests then, and several of them whirled around in swiftness born of fear, faces tightening. The light outlined a figure, then swiftly faded into streaming sparks. Out of their heart trudged a man in hacked and blood-drenched armor. He was bareheaded, his face wore the weathered calm of a veteran warrior, and the bare-bladed miniature sword floating upright a foot in front of his breastplate marked him for all eyes as a battlelord, a senior priest of Tempus, come late to the feast. On this battlefield, first rank should be his, yet the huntmaster of Malar gave no sign of noticing the warpriest’s arrival, but merely gestured imperiously to Vangerdahast once more to stand back.

Something that might have been the faint echo of a smile passed across the old wizard’s face, and without turning away, he retreated three slow steps.

The huntmaster drew himself up in triumph and cried, “Oh, Malar, Great Lord of Blood and master of all who hunt, as this brave king has done, look down upon thy true servant in this hour of a kingdom’s need, and grant thy special favor upon this endeavor! Let the strength of the lion, the suppleness of the panther, and the stamina of the ice bear flow through me now, to touch this fair monarch in his time of need!”

The healing spell needed neither the invocation nor the grand gestures that followed, but no one moved or spoke as the huntmaster almost leisurely completed what must surely have been the most spectacular casting of his holy career, stretching forth both hands to Azoun with white purifying fire dancing between them.

The fire leaped forth to the bed of shields and plunged into the body of the king. Azoun convulsed, hands curling into claws as the surge of magic lifted him, back arched, amid sudden snarls of lightning and rolling, fist-sized balls of flame. Fire fell to the turf, and smoked, shields buckled with a shrill shriek, and out of the fading white fire a crackling arm of lightning reached, with an almost insolent lack of haste, to wash over the huntmaster.

Buruin staggered back with a strangled cry of his own, crashing into the watching priests behind him. Only the steadying arms of Owden Foley and Battlelord Steelhand kept him from falling. As they steadied him, the Malarite’s face was gray, his eyes were dark, staring pits, and his teeth chattered.

Holy faces turned pale, holy hands-some of them trailing radiance that hung in the air, glowing, in the wake of where the hands had been-hastily sketched warding signs in the air, and holy boots as hastily moved back. Fearful glances had not failed to notice that more than one war captain of Cormyr had half drawn a blade and stepped forward in slow menace, faces as cold and set as stone.

“Your concern for and your devoted service to the king are both noted and appreciated,” Vangerdahast told the priests gravely, the iron crown on his brows giving him the look of an old and mighty monarch. “Stand you back, now, and bear witness. Your gods would desire you to be present and to pray, but the time for healing, I fear, is past.” He allowed a frown to cross his face as he lifted an imperious hand and added, “The king fades swiftly. Rob him not of his last moments.”

The priests hesitated, several mouths opening to launch uncertain protests, and glanced at the angry warriors.

The royal magician looked at Owden Foley, then at Battlelord Steelhand, giving them both a nod that mingled unspoken thanks and a request. The two priests returned the nod, turned, and began to shoo their fellow clerics away, raising and spreading their arms in unison to form a moving fence that swept all the holiness a little down the hill.

Vangerdahast nodded again, satisfaction in his face, and turned back to where Azoun lay. Alusair and her fellow war captains gathered around the king, eyes darting from the face of the wizard to that of their king, and back again at Vangerdahast.

“My liege,” said the royal magician, in a voice that for a brief, fleeting moment held the hint of a sob, “I have obeyed and in so doing learned bright news. The Princess Tanalasta has been delivered of a son, whom I understand is to be known as Azoun the Fifth. Cormyr’s new prince will bear a worthy name onto the throne, when the time is right.”

“That-is good,” the king gasped, and panted for a moment in the aftermath of a sudden spasm of pain. For a moment he sagged back, face going gray, and his war captains threw out cradling hands like so many bloody, sweat-drenched, armored nursemaids, to hold him nearly in a sitting position. Ilberd Crownsilver choked back what could only be a sob as the king struggled to clutch at his balance and find the strength to sit upright.

After a few terrible, convulsed breaths, Azoun found it, somewhere deep within, and looked up to give them all a savage smile-almost a sneer-of contempt for his own weakness. The smile softened into genuine, gentle warmth as he looked around from familiar face to familiar face. Alusair glided forward, eyes dark and face as white as polished bone. Her lips were parted as if to speak, but she said nothing, her sword forgotten in her hand.

Her father looked at her, then up at the sky, and offered his next words to it. “It’s been a good ride,” he remarked conversationally to the scudding gray clouds, “but if my striving counts for anything, let my son have a better one, O you watching gods.”

The king threw off the gentle hands that held him, and surged to his feet, a lion once more. Swaying, as hands reached out to steady him then fell away in uncertainty, not wanting to insult Azoun in his last moments, he stared around at his realm for one last time, his eyes already going dull. His gaze wandered from one face to another, and his lips trembled on the edge of a smile. Azoun’s hand slipped twice on the hilt of his sword before he drew it forth with the grace of long-won skill, and raised it. If he noticed that it shivered like a blade of grass in a high wind, he gave no sign of doing so.

“I will not say farewell,” the fourth Azoun to rule the Forest Kingdom told those standing around him almost fiercely, “because I’ll be here, in the night wind, watching over the land I love, with cold steel for her foes, and whispered comfort for her defenders.”

The sword fell from his trembling fingers, but Alusair was as quick as a snake, plucking it from the air to hold it up, and raising it into his grasp again.

Azoun’s body shook and shuddered as he put failing arms around her. “Take this to your mother,” he said, as he turned to kiss her cheek.

His lips brushed her skin, then he gasped in ragged pain and sagged, his full weight on her. Alusair turned to hold him up, and their lips touched.

Azoun’s breath was hot and sweet, and tasted like blood and flame. A last tiny lightning played about their joined lips, but Alusair never flinched, even as dragonfire shook her like a leaf in a storm.

Her father moaned in pain, whispered “Filfaeril” in the heart of it, sagged again, then pulled back his head with a lion’s roar of exultation.

For a moment Azoun clutched his daughter fiercely, strength returning in a rush until his embrace was almost bruising, then he thrust himself free from her, whirled around on his heels to look at all of those watching him grimly, and cast his sword into the air.

It caught fire as it whirled up. Blue flames flashed, then faded to a deep, roiling purple as it spun. As it slowed at the height of its journey it became-just for an instant, but long enough that all men there on that hill swore the rest of their days that they’d seen it look down at them, talons wrapped around the fading sword-the ghostly outline of a dragon.

Alusair saw Vangerdahast’s fingers crook in two subtle gestures just as the sword swept up, and their eyes met for a moment, but she merely nodded, almost imperceptibly, and said no word, as men gasped in wonder all around them at the apparition.

Azoun regarded it with an almost sad smile, as if knowing it as one last mage’s trick, as it flashed into a burst of bright purple and silver fire, and was gone. He turned away and strode-a walk that in two paces turned into a last, doomed stagger-into his tent. Alusair and Vangerdahast moved at his heels, but the others stood staring into the sky.

Men blinked at the emptiness that had held sword and dragon, a gulf of air that even the clouds were drawing back from to lay bare deep, clear blue, and let their long-held breaths out in a chorus of faint regret.

Into the silence that followed, Azoun said his last words as he sank to his knees, like a tired tree deciding to slowly meet the earth.

“For fair Cormyr,” he gasped, his voice almost a whisper now. “Forever!”

“Forever, father,” Alusair said, her voice trembling on the edge of tears. “Be remembered-forever!”

The king of all Cormyr was smiling as his face struck the turf, and the long silence descended. When his war captains and his daughter and even the priests began to weep, Azoun did not hear them. His ears were full of echoing trumpets, a sound he’d almost forgotten, down all the years, the triumphant horns that had sounded over the castle to mark his birth, so long ago. High, bright, and clear. Gods, but it was good to hear them again.