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.”
Epilogue
Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)
The conspirators, real and incidental, were gathered in Gryphonsblade Hall. The king’s sickbed had been removed and the original furnishings replaced. The windows that had been sealed for fear of contagion were now flung wide, and below them the city of Suzail was spread out like a blanket, leading downward to a cool, blue sea that mirrored the sky above. Somewhere down there a bell was tolling, long ringing peals that cascaded through the streets.
“The king lives,” said Cat Wyvernspur, nodding her head towards the bell’s joyous clangor. “Long live the king!”
The king in question was playing chess with Cat’s husband, Lord Giogi. Giogi would stare intently at the board for many minutes, then carefully nudge a piece to its new location. Azoun would then stroke his beard twice, reach out, and make his move. Giogi would sink his chin into his hands and return to his intense concentration.
“How’s the game going?” she asked, stroking Giogi’s shoulders.
“Totally engrossing,” her husband replied. “I’ve tried every variation in the book, but I can’t crack his defenses. Worse, every time he repulses one of my assaults, I’m in a worse position. He’s won three games so far, and in this little slaughter, I’m down two turrets and a Purple Dragon already.”
Cat smiled fondly at the top of her lord’s head, exchanged a solemn wink with the king, and took up a ewer of wine before sauntering over to where Vangerdahast, Dauneth Marliir, and Tanalasta were deep in conversation.
The Royal Magician looked over at the game in progress. “How is young Lord Wyvernspur doing?”
“Badly,” said Cat, pouring herself a goblet of blood-red wine. “He’s baffled by the king’s masterful defenses.”
“Should I let him in on the secret?” asked the mage, his eyes twinkling.
“Secret?”
“Azoun never plans out his moves in chess,” said the wizard. “He just moves what catches his fancy at the moment. Thinks of a move, does it on the instant, and-bless my soul-it’s usually right.”
Cat chuckled. “Oh, don’t tell Giogi. His Majesty beat him twenty-seven games straight when we were keeping him in the basement. My poor husband was up half the night memorizing Chess Variations of the Masters of Old Impiltur just on the chance of getting one more game in. I think he’d be crushed if you told him.”
Giogi let out a curse, and the king answered it with a mighty laugh as he took the noble’s queen and forced checkmate.
“Looks like he’s crushed anyway,” said the wizard, loudly enough for the two combatants to hear.
“It was a Theskan double-counter gambit,” said Giogi mournfully. “I didn’t stand a chance after the tenth move.”
“One more noble crushed beneath the heel of the Purple Dragon,” Azoun said, smiling.
“It’s good to see you up and around again, Sire,” said Dauneth. “But I’m puzzled as to how you were cured. It was my understanding that no magic worked against the venomous disease in your blood.”
“Ah, but that’s exactly the point,” said Vangerdahast. “The blots of disease in the abraxus’s venom were all enwrapped in their own dead-magic zones. Spells couldn’t reach the disease itself through the zones, and so His Majesty could not be cured by magic. But those very zones held the key to defeating the disease.”
Dauneth looked puzzled.
Warming to the task, Vangerdahast went on with the enthusiasm of a proud crafter of magic. “We bled His Majesty, then enchanted the blood we collected. A simple spell-Nystul’s Magic Aura-that would just turn the blood magical. Except, of course, the parts of the blood surrounded by dead-magic zones.”
“The disease.”
“Precisely. Then we worked up a spell to teleport enchanted blood to another container. That left the diseased blood, with its tiny dead zones, back in the original container, since it could not be affected by the spell. Then we infused the king again with the purified, magic-free blood.”
Dauneth shook his head. “But you couldn’t do that with all the royal blood at once, or His Majesty would die. And such a process is like diluting wine-the taint grows thinner and thinner, but there will always be some scrap of disease left.”
“Again correct,” the wizard replied, “but eventually the healthy blood overwhelmed the tainted, and the body of the king began to heal naturally. We had to effectively replace all of the blood in the king’s body twice before his natural resistance could deal with it.”
Dauneth goggled. “But that must have taken days! I can’t think of anything else so time-consuming…”
“And painful,” added the king, taking a seat with the others around the table. Giogi, still shaking his head, moved to where Cat perched. She handed him a goblet of wine, and he held it in one hand, rubbing her bare shoulder absentmindedly with his other hand.
“It is not,” Azoun said feelingly, “a process I care to repeat.”
“Nor will it be,” the Lord High Wizard responded. “Now that we know the process, we can craft a spell to duplicate its effects in manifestation. And as much as I want to take credit for the process, it is almost entirely the work of Dimswart and Alaphondar, our devoted sages. I’m afraid I was caught up in other things.”
“No,” said Tanalasta with a solemn smile. “You were too busy scheming and dreaming up plots against the crown.”
“And successfully, I might add,” said Cat.
“Don’t blame our good wizard too much, child,” said the king. “When I was a lad, one of the lessons he taught me was that things are not always what they seem, and that the most evil people can put on a good face if they are after something. While this blood process he’s so gleeful about was going on, I was as weak as a kitten. So I gave Vangerdabast orders to keep everyone in the dark and let him spin out all the dark intrigues he could think of, so long as he didn’t bring all-out war to Suzail or bring the palace down around our ears.”
“Separating the wolves from the sheep,” Giogi said brightly, “or the wheat from the chaff, or the mill from the floss… or whatever.”
“Aye,” said the king. “The power of the Cormaerils, the Bleths, and the others whose acts were treasonable is now broken. Their lands are seized, their titles are stripped from them, and some will be exiled. I’ll not be slaying more folk than have already died, however. That’s one lesson I’ve learned from Vangerdahast and his forebears. The realm is stronger than any one man, and it’s always best not to bleed away the best of its stock in wasteful executions.”
“I’ve made it known,” Vangerdahast added silkily, “that any interpretation of this clemency as a weakness of the monarch would be a mistake… almost certainly a fatal mistake.”
“However, letting the threat of execution hang over a man seems quite a useful tactic,” Azoun agreed. “Those who supported the traitors but were not immediately involved in the plot have either recanted or are heading for Sembia, Westgate, or Waterdeep with all the haste they can muster.”
“And those who recanted or denied their allegiance to the conspiracy know they are being watched,” Cat put in. “Knowing that, they are going to be on their best behavior trying to prove their loyalty like the youngest and most enthusiastic of knights for the next few years.”
“And they will not be the only ones,” Vangerdahast added slyly. “I made it a point to personally thank the families who sat on their hedges, blowing neither hot nor cold, as the realm almost pitched into the abyss around them. Particularly the supposedly loyal Huntsilvers, Crownsilvers, and Truesilvers. I’m sure they’ll spend the next few years trying fervently to prove their loyalty to the crown as well.”
“And what of those who passed your little test?” asked the crown princess, her eyes darting to meet those of
