The Calishites looked at Vangerdahast with open contempt. “This realm of Cormyr must be barbaric indeed if one fat old man with such paltry magic can be its titled high mage,” one remarked loudly. The other chuckled.
Their chuckles died abruptly, an instant later, when Vangerdahast stood up and made a rather rude gesture and the two mages suddenly found themselves surrounded by a ring of over thirty identical Vangerdahasts, all of whom licked their fingers, made another leisurely impolite movement, and then waved a cheerful farewell before fading away.
Vangerdahast faded back into solidity elsewhere-the Tower of the Balconies at the front of the royal court, to be precise-just in time to look out of its windows and down into the courtyard to see Gaspar Cormaeril saunter out of the Dragon Door and stop to talk with Aunadar Bleth.
The two greeted each other as old friends and chatted casually. The young Bleth reached into his pocket and pressed something into Cormaeril’s hand. From a distance, it appeared to be a large crystal, the color of sunset, or perhaps a small decanter or large piece of jewelry. Long reaches, deep pockets, and surprising allies, thought the wizard.
“Long reaches, deep pockets, and surprising allies,” Vangerdahast said quietly to the unhearing figure below, “and far worse fates indeed.”
Chapter 22: The Last Dragon
The Year of the Dracorage (1018 DR)
“I hate this,” pouted Crown Prince Azoun, the second of the royal line to bear that name. “We’re sitting here like coneys waiting for the hunter.”
“Your objection is noted,” the young mage Jorunhast said icily, “and duly ignored.”
“You don’t want to be here either,” said the crown prince.
“You are correct,” the wizard replied, his voice verging on a snarl. “But I have to be here to protect you.”
The wizard had no love for this crown prince, and deep in his heart, he hoped that Thanderahast would hang onto life long enough that Jorunhast could be the court wizard of the next King of Cormyr after Azoun. But not this one. Any king but this one. To swear fealty to such an egotistical, pampered, self-centered child! To call him “Sire” and “liege” and “master”! Jorunhast shook his head.
Even the young prince’s voice was shrill, tinny, and irritating to the mage’s ears. Only three years separated the two in age, but the young prince still sounded like a petulant child.
The bickering pair waited on a low, windswept hill outside Suzail. They made an odd pair as they sat astride their light message ponies. The crown prince was whipsaw thin and gangly, the apprentice wizard broad-shouldered and well muscled. An impartial observer would probably have judged that the lean, hungry one was the mage and his larger companion had Obarskyr blood in him.
Behind them, low on the horizon, the smoke from the wreckage of Cormyr’s capital city spiraled up into the warm summer air.
The great rage of dragons had descended on Cormyr without warning and without mercy. Arabel, Dhedluk, Eveningstar, and a score of other settlements had gone up in flames. Small hamlets were reduced to kindling, and the roads would likely once more become haunted, dangerous paths through lawless wilderness.
But it was Suzail that had suffered the worst. Three great dragons, red wyrms of huge dimensions, had descended on the city like eagles among sheep. The docks and the lower wards, built mostly of wood, roared up in flames. Most of the stone buildings weathered the initial blasts, though glass melted and scorched wooden doors caught fire from the heat. Those buildings that still stood, the dragons ripped apart with their claws, seeking the humans cowering within.
Castle Obarskyr sat above the conflagration, separated from the flames by wide gardens now wilted from the heat. Protected by generations of spells, wards, and glamors, it became the rallying point for the city. Here the nobility fled, and here, in the scented chambers of King Arangor, the response was launched.
Three wings of Purple Dragon guardsmen had erupted from the secure doors of the castle. King Arangor, barely fitting into his own armor, led one wing south to the docks, accompanied by Thanderahast. The future King Azoun II led a similar wing of troops to the west, where the smallest of the three dragons was ravaging the warehouses and taverns. The third wing struck north and east, where the noble manors were clustered along the base of the hill. This was the smallest of the groups but contained many of the nobility of the realm-the Crownsilvers and Truesilvers, the Dracohorns and Dauntinghorns, the Bleths and Illances. This group was led by Lord Gerrin Wyvernspur and aided by Thanderahast’s pupil, Jorunhast.
Each of the groups met their dragons and triumphed. The crown prince’s soldiers drove out the dragon to the west. The dragon on the docks was trapped against its own burning work and slain, but at a heavy cost-the king was sent flying from his saddle in the fray and severely injured.
Lord Gerrin’s party found the third red dragon prowling the cobblestoned streets of the noble district like a huge hunting panther, sniffing at cellar stairs to discern which houses had plump aristocracy hiding in the basement. The noble knights struck hard and fast, and Jorunhast barely had time to unleash a few spells before they had run the dragon through.
Jorunhast was standing over the still-cooling body of the red dragon in the wreckage of House Illance when a great shadow passed over his face. He looked up to see only darkness as a great shadow blotted out the sun itself.
A fourth dragon, larger than any they had seen before, descended on Castle Obarskyr.
It had come out of the north, and Lord Gerrin’s party saw it first. The nobles and their retainers could do naught but gawk at the immense size of the creature, as if one of the moons had been pulled down and now hovered over their city. Jorunhast was caught in the spell as well. It was the largest creature the Cormyrean-born mage had ever seen.
All they could do was watch as the monstrous creature banked its mighty wings and settled over Suzail.
The new arrival was three times the size of the great elder wyrms they had previously fought. Its once ebony scales were purple and gray with age. As it beat its wings, the rushing winds extinguished some flames in the lower city, fanned others, and caused many damaged buildings to collapse. It landed on the castle, and the west wing collapsed beneath its prodigious weight.
The purple dragon, the true Purple Dragon of Cormyr, had returned.
Lord Gerrin, strongest and most noble of the knights, was the first to recover, shouting out a curse as he began to run up the hillside. Jorunhast and the others, wounded and tired, followed more slowly. Elsewhere, the sorely wounded king and the crown prince were also rallying their troops and climbing the low hill to the place where the dragon that was too large to be true was destroying the Obarskyr family home.
Jorunhast stumbled after Lord Gerrin, trying to shake the image of the beast in flight, blotting out the sun itself, from his mind. The dragon was immense to the point of being overwhelming. The mage wracked his brain for a proper spell to use against a beast so huge, but all he could come up with was a name. Thauglor. Thauglor, the Black Doom.
The Purple Dragon continued its slow, leisurely destruction of the castle’s western wing. Ancient stonework crumbled under its weight, and the slate roof shrieked and crashed inward. Jorunhast was relieved. Most of the noble refugees were in the east wing. The west wing contained the guest quarters, the scriptorium, and the library…
And Thanderahast’s spell-chambers, filled with all manner of dangerous devices and explosive magic. Jorunhast forced himself into a panting run, catching up with powerful Lord Wyvernspur halfway up the hill. Behind them trailed the armored knights, struggling in their heavy armor. The young mage opened his mouth to warn the Wyvernspur lord.
They were too late. The dragon crushed something better left uncrushed, probably in the wizard’s chamber of alchemy itself. There was a fierce white flash and a roar, and the ground beneath them rolled and surged.
Their boots had already left the ground behind. The two men tumbled end over end, blown halfway down the hill by the force of the explosion. The brightness of the flash was later reported to have been seen in Arabel, a brief, flickering star on the horizon.
