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
