support.
The illusion of the High Magess spoke again. “I have sent my successor, the young mage, Thanderahast, to you to prevent a magical assassination attempt. If you are hearing this, he has been successful. I would have come myself, but I will be dealing with the conspirators who sent this evil creature to you. They are powerful mages, and if I do not return, know that the young mage has my complete confidence.”
Then the image faded. Thanderahast swallowed, he’d never seen her so grim, her face drawn so tight. She could defeat Luthax, of course, but rank upon rank of treacherous war wizards?
Then he remembered the staff, and her words: “The day I need a staff…”
Outside the window there was a bright flash: the magical detonation of a lifetime of spells ignited in a single moment. Its brilliance overpowered the fire in the room, and for a long moment, Draxius and the mage were etched in sharp, white relief. Then the sound came, a huge, rolling boom that shook the very stones of the castle.
By the time Draxius reached the window, a column of flames was rising from the lower city. He turned to Thanderahast. “Wait outside. I’ll get dressed and join you. Two minutes.”
The young mage nodded and headed for the door. He knew what had happened there, and what they would find. The top of the townhouse would be blown out by a single blast, created by a powerful magess breaking a powerful staff over her knee to release the energies within. The bodies of all the others would be sprawled around the room, the torn tatters of their shattered magic drifting around them. The message would be clear to any conspirators fortunate enough not to be in the room at the time: The price of treason was death, and no sacrifice would be judged too difficult to bring about that payment.
The sleeping guard had slid entirely down the wall. Thanderahast let him lie in peace, and in the promised two minutes, Draxius emerged, dressed in a fine shirt and simple leggings. He had his crown on now and his scabbard belted to his side. “Come on, lad,” he said. “We may have to call out the war wizards on this one.”
“No,” Thanderahast replied and met the king’s eyes squarely, feeling the weight of his new responsibility settling onto his shoulders. If he were as loyal and true as the High Magess had been, only his death would lift that burden. “The war wizards,” he said firmly, “or at least the brotherhood’s leaders, were the conspirators. I heard that myself.”
Draxius looked long and hard at the wizard, then nodded. “Then we’ll manage on our own as we always have. And, lad,” he added, placing a friendly hand on the young man’s shoulder, “I know you’ll think long and hard about what happened here and tell your stories about it accordingly.”
Then the king kicked the guard awake and bellowed that an armed, full-strength party should be readied to investigate the explosion immediately. The groggy Purple Dragon hurried off, and the king strode along in his wake, bellowing orders to the bleary-eyed staff as he passed.
“Think long and hard?” repeated Thanderahast. Did the king not want it known he could handle a sword, or that there existed invisible creatures of ancient magic or that the war wizards themselves had betrayed the throne?
Then he thought of the flash of blonde hair and pink flesh in the king’s bed and realized what Draxius meant. The queen had red hair and was as tan as a polished duskwood tabletop.
Thanderahast smiled slightly and went off after his liege, following the sound of shouted orders.
Chapter 19: Chess
Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)
Two men sat in an antechamber of the palace. Ostensibly they were off duty, enjoying a quiet game of chess in the quiet of the royal wing. In reality, they were war wizards, and they were very much on duty. They were here to ensure that none of the nobles gathered to see the dying king wandered where they weren’t supposed to… such as into the presence of the crown princess. With both the royal cousins dead or nearly so, no one but a war wizard could comfortably order about a noble of the realm without unpleasantness. War wizards could, however, because they were experts at unpleasantness.
The drifting silvery spheres in the water clock patiently marked the passing minutes as Kurthryn Shandarn frowned over the forest of tall, spindly white pieces sculpted of moonstone. They were emblazoned with the Purple Dragon of Cormyr, and the carved features of the king were said to be a good likeness of the long-dead King Galaghard. That wasn’t going to help his position much, though. He sighed, moved the turret carved with the arms of Arabel along a file of the board, and looked up.
Huldyl Rauthur met his gaze and made his move without hesitation. He was a short, stout man whose temples were almost always beaded with sweat, but he was a better crafter of new spells than Kurthryn, and they both knew it. For all that, Kurthryn outranked him. The war wizards were funny that way, a lot of enforced teaching and learning of humility went on, and there were still a lot of covert tests of loyalty. Those who failed such things usually simply vanished.
Kurthryn frowned down at the board again. Then, reluctantly, he moved his other turret, the one that bore the arms of Marsember, and sat back to survey the board. Huldyl’s bat riders-mounted wizards on oversized bats that were the counterparts of Kurthryn’s noble knights-were slashing through his line of soldiers. Huldyl moved a bat-mounted wizard and took one of those pawns now.
“One little dragon down,” he announced calmly. Kurthryn nodded absently and frowned down at the board again. The palace was as silent as a tomb around them, with the king still dying and all, and they’d both had ample opportunities to lose games of chess to each other yestereve and today. The other shift of war wizards, Imblaskos and Durndurve, were dice-and-cards men who played Wheel-of-Spells and Chase the Dragon and left the chess pieces undisturbed. Which had led to this long multishift match and Kurthryn’s present grim position.
Damn these dark days for Cormyr, anyway! Kurthryn tried to concentrate on his increasingly muddled defenses, noting that one of Huldyl’s death priests was threatening to slash in and take any one of three of his little dragons if he wasn’t careful.
A shadow flickered at the edge of the mage’s vision. Kurthryn looked up to see Aunadar Bleth stride past, on into the royal wing. The young nobleman was frowning and seemed to have acquired new lines on his face over the last few days. Kurthryn looked over to Huldyl, who had obviously been watching Bleth’s approach for some time, and the junior war wizard met Kurthryn’s eyes and shrugged. Technically the young noble was one of the very people they were here to stop, since he was a young noble. But then this particular young noble was the favorite of the crown princess, perhaps the next king of Cormyr-no, he’d be called a prince consort, wouldn’t he? Neither of the mages felt like denying Tanalasta what little comfort she could find just now… or offending the possible future queen.
Moreover, Tanalasta was Azoun’s eldest daughter, and word was going around the palace that the Lord High Wizard Vangerdahast himself, head of their brotherhood, was a traitor to the crown in her eyes, trying to make himself regent while Azoun lay dying downstairs. Fear made few folk love war wizards at the best of times, if the people came looking for scapegoats, Suzail-nay, all of Cormyr-might suddenly become a very unsafe place for those in the purple robes of the war wizards.
So where did the Royal Magician stand now? Several nobles had said loudly that any man who’d try to climb on the Dragon Throne while the king lay stricken in a bed not far off was a scoundrel, even if pieces of paper protected him from the charge of open treason. Such a man was morally unfit to be lord of anything, let alone the most powerfully ranked mage in all the land, whatever his true magical might.
One war wizard, an earnest young man from the Wyvernwater shores called Galados, had even confronted old Thunderspells about it last night-and had not been seen since. Whispers were spreading among the Brotherhood even now-wild rumors about a lot of things. Unable to concentrate on his game, Kurthryn Shandarn rubbed his eyes and voiced one of the rumors now.
“Anyone heard from Galados yet?” he murmured across the board. Huldyl did not look up.
“Nothing,” he said in a low voice. “Yet remember, none of us has been able to find Princess Alusair, either. She must be shielded. I wonder why.”
Kurthryn shrugged. “Who knows what precautions she usually takes in the Stonelands? They say Zhentarim lurk thereabouts all too often. I’d carry a magical device to hide my presence from other mages if Lord High Thunderspells’d spare me one.”
