magical remedy, and the other felt as if it had been shattered in a dozen places. He staggered down the steps to where Thauglor lay, belly up, smoke streaming from his burned jaws. The dragon’s eyes were wide and wreathed by the smoke.
The elf lord did not even make for his sword, for fear that the effort would be too much. Instead, he put the tip of the wooden staff against the dragon’s head and asked, “Give up?”
The dragon hacked a great cloud of black smoke up from his gut. “You weren’t supposed to use magic, technically.”
“You weren’t supposed to use your breath weapon. Technically.” He did not move the staff. Let the dragon think this was another magical staff, as deadly as the first.
The dragon responded with another great cough, and Iliphar added, “It was your own breath that caused the magical damage. You know that. We elves have honor. Do you dragons?”
Thauglor, the Black Doom, gave a weak nod and barked for the remaining blue. Iliphar took a half-step back as the two conversed briefly in the Auld Wyrmish tongue of the dragons. Then the dragon turned to Iliphar again.
“We dragons have honor,” said the black, the last tendrils of smoke wreathing his bead. “And we honor our agreement. You have the forests of this land, and the dragons who swear fealty to me will not trouble the elves who swear fealty to you. Glor, here, will carry the word and reassure those that Mist encounters that I survived this battle.
“But know this,” the dragon added. “We honor the letter of the law. Our agreement is with your elves and only applies to the forests. The swamps are mine, and the mountains and bare hills belong to my people as well. The day will come, elf lord, when you will regret winning this battle as much I resent losing it.”
And with that, the young blue dragon, Glor, leapt into the air with a majestic beating of wings and flew to the north, hoping to catch up with the cowardly red. Thauglor himself coughed one last time, folded his wings, and slunk off, half crawling, into the forest.
The dragon had surrendered, thought Iliphar, at the cost of one elf’s shattered body. Still, it was not a bad price for a kingdom. Thauglor was ancient and would have to sleep a long time to recover from the wounds inflicted today.
The other elves streamed from the tower and surrounded him now, the priests intoning the healing enchantments and the retainers shifting back and forth between fearful worry and jubilation.
Iliphar waited until the last of the dragon’s black tail vanished into the multihued forest before surrendering to the inner darkness of oblivion. He put his trust in the gods and his shattered frame in the bands of the priests.
And in the blackness, Iliphar Nelnueve, the Lord of the Scepters, dreamed a singular dream. He saw in his dreams the battle he bad just fought, but with himself as the dragon, tormented by a multitude of smaller, frailer creatures. And though he did not speak of it upon his awakening, he carried that dream with him for the rest of his long elvish life.
Chapter 3: A Death in Suzail
Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)
They lost Duke Bhereu, Lord High Marshal of Cormyr, in the first few moments after the hunting party had been brought to the palace. Before they could even move him to a sickbed, he lapsed into convulsions, vomiting streams of thick, black blood. High Priest Manarech Eskwuin of Tymora was bent over the duke, in midword of a powerful curative spell, when this befell, and was coated over face, chest, arms, and hands with the warm, viscous bile.
The priest’s nerve broke at that point, and he gasped out some very unholy words and fled from Satharwood Hall, abandoning his lesser curates and bishops and leaving them to deal with the disaster. Behind him, the duke twisted, shook, and with a final, rattling breath, died.
Vangerdahast cursed, in part because of the duke’s ignoble passing and in part because of the priest’s flight. A blood-covered Lord High Priest Most Favored of the Luck Goddess, running through the palace halls, frightening the staff, and spreading this day’s ill tidings further was just what he needed right now.
A few other clergy, wearing frightened, pale faces, scuttled from the room. The Royal Magician scowled at them, and a few visibly flinched from his gaze as they bolted. He spared them no more attention than that, right now the realm had even less time than usual to spare for overweening fools. Most of the remaining priests were all staring back at him like so many cornered rabbits.
Vangerdahast could almost read their thoughts as they regarded him. The wizard was not an imposing man physically, being of average height and greater than normal girth, but because of carefully placed spells, the very air crackled around him. His eyes could be as sharp as any sword, and his glare as piercing as any spear. The wizard used his glare to keep the remaining priests at their tasks. He took care not to let his eyes fall to the sprawled bulk of Bhereu on the floor and thus spawn another exodus.
The ranking cleric remaining in the chamber ignored the wizard. She was an adventuress, a young bishop of Tymora, bedecked in sapphire-shaded robes, whose flaxen hair was wrapped in a severe bun. She wore a severe expression as well. While Vangerdahast was regarding the other priests, she had dropped to her knees beside Bhereu, determinedly pulling a scroll from her satchel. Vangerdahast laid two restraining fingers on her ann.
“I have an incantation here that can raise the dead,” she said, her voice low with urgency. Her face was calm, but her eyes were wide and nervous.
“Concentrate on the living now,” said the wizard, indicating the other two recumbent forms. The king was lying as still and serene as a tomb effigy, but a murmuring Thomdor was thrashing, hands clenching and clutching at imaginary foes, just as his brother had done a few breaths ago when Bhereu had yet lived. Expressionlessly Vangerdahast watched three guards struggle to hold the baron down.
“But, Lord Wizard,” the young priestess protested, “I can bring his lordship back with this single spell!”
“And two more lords may die while you’re about it,” Vangerdahast said sternly. “Your duty is to the king and the baron, who still live-at least for now. The duke won’t leap anywhere to elude your ministrations, he’ll keep for the moment.”
The young woman opened her mouth to protest, brows darkening, then swallowed and shut it quickly. It opened again, like a trap in a dungeon door, to snap, “Yes, sir.” There was a swirl of sapphire-hued robes as their owner turned to where Thomdor was thrashing.
Reaching in over the struggling guards, she laid her palm on the baron’s forehead and muttered a few words. Instantly his thrashing subsided to mere twitchings. Vangerdahast dismissed the soldiers, telling them to bear the remains of the clockwork monster to the castle. The present crisis was a matter for priests and wizards.
Both of the living royals were then lifted from the floor and gently laid on makeshift biers. They looked like wax statues of their former selves. Their skin was translucent, and seemed to be melting. Their eyes were opened wide but clouded, staring at nothing through milky orbs. Thomdor twitched and spasmed slightly, even under the effects of the bishop’s spell. Azoun lay still but taut. Vangerdahast could see that every sinew in his body was tensed.
With no more bodies being carried here and there or expiring spectacularly, a babble of voices arose in the room. An argument had broken out between a priest of Deneir and one of the Tymorans over whether or not the bodies should be moved immediately to “a more suitable resting place for men of their station.” Other men, including the two belarjacks, or door butlers, assigned to the room, looked to the Royal Magician to still the wrangling, but he said nothing, standing statuelike, face grim.
The dispute ended with the arrival of Loremaster Thaun Khelbor of Deneir, who curtly agreed with the Tymoran priest. For her part, the adventuring priestess of Tymora offered no argument to the decision, nor to the high priest of the rune-god assuming ministrations over the king while she worked on Thomdor.
Vangerdahast was still standing with his best scowl on his face, thinking furiously, but as fine-robed shoulders pushed past him and cultured voices lazily demanded to know “what was befalling, by the Purple Dragon,” he roused himself enough to note that there were twice as many people in the room as needed to be. His hand went to his belt pouches, which carried a variety of magical baubles, spell ingredients, flash stones and light
