forceful, and his faults are forgiven for this. Iltharl is thoughtful and mild and caring, probably the most learned of any of the Kings of Cormyr, but he is reviled for his weakness and timidity. I had to foil five plots against Boldovar’s life in his entire reign. I’ve had to thwart that many attempts against Iltharl’s life this year alone.”
The wizard transfixed the young nobleman with his dragon-sharp eyes. “But yours is the first that has not involved killing the king outright. Were you to hang yourself with your own tongue, I would have that tongue, and I would have the priests speak to your eternal essence and tear from it who your conspirators were. You may have figured on this… and if so, my opinion of Cormyrian nobles rises.”
Sagrast went the color of old cheese. “We only want what’s best for the kingdom…”
“You want what’s best for yourself,” barked Baerauble, eyes glinting across the table with sudden fire. “I see none of the tripartite Silvers here, who nestle so closely to the king’s robes. And none of the Rayburtons or Muscalians sit in this meeting. Oh, yes, I know which nobles are hiring mercenaries and drilling militia and buying swords of Impilturian steel. What good end do they serve? And who, if they grow dissatisfied with whomever they install as Iltharl’s successor and seek to plunge the realm into war, will rule them? A young noble of a middling house, whose reputation was built on serving the crown if not the head that wears it?”
Sagrast was silent. After what seemed like a very long time, he swallowed noisily. Baerauble smiled at him. “You get your wish, youngling. I will stand aside and not interfere in your attempts to find a ‘suitable’ king for Cormyr. And how long do you think such a labor will take?”
“I think it will take a year to get Gantharla and Lord Bleth together, with all of us pushing,” Sagrast ventured, almost shuddering with relief that his life wasn’t going to end horribly right then and there.
“You are young and an optimist,” the wizard replied, and Sagrast was afraid he would be treated to another bout of bone-dry laughter. “And if those two individuals notice each other, what then? What does Sagrast Dracohorn oversee then?”
“A suitable courtship,” answered Sagrast, his voice gaining strength, “a decent period after the wedding, assuming the first child is male, and then ensuring the heir survives the battery of childhood illnesses and has a basic training in government.”
“From such caring nobles as the friends of Lord Bleth,” the wizard interjected.
“And the trustworthy family wizard,” added Sagrast. “I figure twelve years.”
Baerauble smiled very thinly. “Do you think Cormyr can stand twelve more years of kind, hapless Iltharl?”
“I think,” Sagrast said slowly, licking his lips in nervousness, “that it would if we had the promise of an heir on the way.”
The mage was silent for a long moment, and in the city beyond the shutters, Sagrast heard a distant disturbance: shouts and the clashing of steel. Adventurers on a brawl? Or had rebellion finally come to Suzail?
The wizard was apparently deaf to the sounds of battle. “Then we’d best start as soon as possible, shouldn’t we?” He reached out a skeletal hand to the young noble.
Sagrast reached out, but before grasping the extended hand, he asked, “Why did you have me meet you here? With all your resources and power-“
“I could have met with you anywhere,” finished the mage. “But if I had to kill a traitor, I thought I might as well burn down an ugly eyesore of a building in the process.”
Sagrast’s eyes widened a split instant before their hands touched-and blinding light exploded around them.
When the light faded, they were standing on the front steps of the keep. Sagrast felt as if his internal organs were still back in the upper room of the Ram and Duck. His insides felt weak and swimming, only after he felt the blood return to his stomach and heart did he notice that there was an uproar around them.
Courtiers and bureaucrats were streaming in and out of the building, some shouting orders, some clutching scrolls and account books. The king’s guards were at the base of the stairs, arrayed for combat in their red-leather jerkins and carrying long metal-shod pikes. They were facing outward toward the city below.
The wizard snaked out a hand and reeled in a passing page, one of the young Truesilvers. “What is going on?”
The Truesilver began to curse but swallowed the profanity when he saw who had him by the collar. “Gantharla is back,” he gasped.
Sagrast Dracohorn shook his head, frowning. “She was supposed to still be in the Western Marches.”
The Truesilver boy nodded. “She was, but the king sent her a message relieving her of command and summoning her here. She came, but she brought her loyal foresters with her! They’re in the city now, and she went inside with His Highness.” The boy jerked his head at the Keep, and then gulped and added, “I hear that His Highness was wearing armor and everything when she went in.”
Baerauble dropped the boy and took the steps two at a time, Sagrast following in his wake.
“Of all the times to finally make a royal decision,” muttered the mage, and Sagrast saw that this was as much a surprise to Baerauble as anyone else. He also realized what the shouts were that he’d heard in the city- Gantharla’s foresters. But had they been cheers or shouts of fury and anger?
Most of the courtiers were emptying their offices and adding to the panic. They were obviously convinced that Gantharla’s loyal foresters would lay siege to the keep at any moment. Fortunately, their quarters were in the outer ring of the keep, and once the mage and noble had waded through the frantically scurrying throng, they encountered little resistance. Deeper within the keep was the Great Hall, and beyond that a small antechamber leading into the official throne room. That would be where Iltharl would meet Gantharla.
The entrance to the antechamber of the throne room was guarded by four of Iltharl’s best soldiers. Solid men in red leather jerkins as tall and as broad as some doorways, they stood grim and watchful, with heavy swords in their hands, determined to prevent anyone from passing.
The wizard strode toward them without slowing. The soldiers made a halfhearted attempt to block Baerauble’s path, but the wizard ignored them as if they were smoke until a blade actually menaced him. Then he looked straight into the eyes of its owner, and a careful look was exchanged. The man lowered his head, muttered something apologetic, and stepped back. The mage looked at the next guard, and then strode through the gap they’d left him, Sagrast drifting along at his heels. Behind the two, the guards closed ranks again, determined to prevent anyone else from passing.
The smooth flagstones of the antechamber thundered under Sagrast’s heavy boots. Baerauble glided soundlessly to the great double doors leading to the throne room itself. He pulled at a door handle, but it did not budge. The wizard said something that at first Sagrast thought was a spell but then realized was an elven curse.
Then Baerauble waved at him to stand back, took a deep breath, and began weaving a real spell. From his throat issued strange, twisted vowels and strings of consonants, and from his palm, laid flat against the door, issued a pale blue glow. Strands of the blue radiance streamed between the mage’s fingers and lanced out, like the strands of a spider’s web, to the edges of the doorframe. There was a series of snaps from the other side of the door, and one large thunk that could only be a bolt being released.
The doors swung open inward.
The throne room had been part of the original house built on this site, over the long years, the rest of the stonework had grown up around it and consumed it. Along the walls hung tapestries and a few battle banners. Along one side of the hall, a small series of broad steps led up to a single throne. Iltharl was standing on the top step, Gantharla at the bottom. Both were in armor, with their swords drawn.
Iltharl was decked in gold and white, his normally immaculate robes covered with a bronze breastplate and leg guards. The plate and guards were chased and sculpted into images of fantastic beasts and stood out in bold relief. Ceremonial, thought Sagrast, and the thought struck him that Iltharl had probably never owned a real suit of armor or had any cause to use it. On his head he wore the Crown of Faerlthann, the elven circlet that commemorated the origin of the realm.
Gantharla was in her foresters’ leathers, a mottled green from neck to foot, with a hood of the same material thrown back from her head. A shirt of elven chain, fine-linked and tinted green, tightly hugged her torso. Her hair, a brilliant red, was short and mannish. Her eyes gleamed, and Sagrast thought of Boldovar’s madness.
Baerauble apparently thought the same, for he raised his hands to work a spell.
Iltharl raised a hand that held the heavy, broadbladed sword of his father and shouted, “Hold!”
The wizard broke off in midword, but he strode on toward the pair at the dais. Uncertainly, Sagrast
