chamber. He crashed down among the iron scarecrows, then rolled to a painful halt and found himself staring at his hand, watching the glow fade from the stump of a broken little thigh bone. Though recovered enough from his teleport afterdaze to recall that the scepter in his hand had been counterfeit, he couldn’t think of why he should be holding a goblin’s femur.
Nalavara’s head swung in his direction, then disappeared from sight as she spat out the top half of the thigh bone. “Fraud!”
Vangerdahast rolled away before the stub could strike him, then found his escape blocked by a dozen iron scarecrows and began to think the situation more serious than he had imagined.
“Rowen?” he called. “Help?”
A bolt of lightning crackled up from the opposite side of Nalavara and silhouetted her immense snout against the black vastness. Her head swung away and disappeared into the darkness. There was a booming crack as her jaws came together, and Rowen howled in agony.
Vangerdahast knew what he had to do. “I wish Nalavara out of existence!” he cried, rubbing his ring of wishes. “I wish Nalavarauthatoryl the Red out of existence! I wish Lorelei Alavara out of existence!”
The cavern went suddenly quiet, then a familiar flickering glow began to illuminate the scarecrows fifty paces distant.
“Rowen?” Vangerdahast called.
“Aye, wizard, it’s me.” The ghazneth stood and tried to walk, then doubled over backward and collapsed. “But why in the Thousand Hells did you not make your wish before she bit me in two?”
18
“Very good progress, Your Majesty,” Warden Huntsilver confirmed. “We can judge how far we’ve come by certain trees that mark the distance along the trail. There’s one of them: Velaeror’s Oak, named for the swordcaptain buried there, after his valiant death fighting brigands, by your great, great-“
Azoun. The voice in his mind was warm and familiar, yet sharp with an urgency he’d seldom heard before. It took a lot to break Filfaeril’s outward calm. The king put an imperious hand on Maestoon Huntsilver’s arm, and the quickwitted and sensitive warden of the King’s Forest fell silent, instantly devoting his attention to guiding the silent Azoun smoothly along the root-studded trail, so that the king need not even look down… or anywhere.
Faery, I am here, he replied silently, fumbling behind his belt buckle for the little catch that would release what he might need. To the gods’ dark places with all ghazneths! He was king in this land, and he’d use his ring if it seemed needful. What ill? Another three identical rings tumbled into his hand. The only spares he possessed- perhaps all that still existed. He held them ready to touch to the one on his finger, not caring, just now, if he burned all the magic in the royal treasury.
Gods, but he’d missed Faery’s voice-even if it did now bring dark tidings.
Tana has been wounded, and-as many now know, though she keeps secrets well-is pregnant.
Azoun was more amused and pleased at his eldest daughter’s spirit than angry, though he knew he should be furious at the keeping of a secret that could so endanger the crown. Do you approve of the father? he sent to his queen, not hiding his feelings, as he touched one of the rings to the one he was wearing, and it flared up with a bright pulse that they felt in their linked minds like a racing line of fire.
I have not yet met the father, she replied tartly, so it is difficult to-Her touch faded. Hastily Azoun thrust another ring against the first. In an instant, it blazed up and was gone. Gods, would all magic prove so fleeting?
Come to me, my lord love. Filfaeril’s voice was stronger now, almost pleading. Whatever Tana says or does, I need you. More than that, Cormyr needs you here, if only briefly.
I come in all commanded haste, Azoun sent wryly, ending the contact with the wordless rush of emotion that they used in lieu of a kiss across the miles between their lips.
“Warden,” the king said smoothly, shaking the ashes of a crumbling ring off a blistered finger and sliding his last replacement onto it without heed for the pain, “affairs of state call me away, perhaps for a short time, but more likely for longer. You are to obey Swordlord Ethin Glammerhand as you would me, and guide all here safely and swiftly through this my royal forest. The good Swordlord is..
Azoun turned to find and identify Glammerhand, only to find him walking right behind them. “Here, my liege,” the swordlord said promptly. “I have heard, and will obey. Your needs now?”
“Halt and rest the men, but speedily send to me the Lord Mage Arkenfrost.”
Glammerhand bowed his head and turned to give the orders. Remaeras Arkenfrost was the ranking war wizard accompanying the army, and a calm, shrewd diplomat to boot-eminently suitable for teleporting himself and his king into the midst of a possibly tense court confrontation. He was also, as it happened, carrying many healing potions and other beneficial magics brought along to safeguard the king and officers. Azoun disliked many of what he liked to privately call “Vangey’s Brood” because they were arrogant, ignorant of the real world, openly ambitious and overeager, or suffered from all of these faults at once, but there were exceptions-mages he liked on sight and respected increasingly the more he saw of them. Arkenfrost was one such mage.
Azoun felt a rush of warmth now as he saw the man hastening toward him in response to the subtlest of hand signals from Glammerhand. Ever-tired eyes like those of a hangdog hound, pepper-and-salt beard, well- tailored but dark and plain robes worn over warrior’s boots… what a war wizard who served Cormyr before his own interests should be. Perhaps they could say and do the right things to rein in the more fractious nobles and set things to rights at court, then return to this army soon.
“Your Majesty?” the wizard asked, kneeling as if he was an oath-sworn warrior. Some of Vangey’s Brood never knelt, even at the most formal state occasions.
“Good Lord Mage,” Azoun greeted him, clasping the mage’s work-hardened hands firmly and drawing Arkenfrost to his feet, “I’ve urgent need to be at court, at the side of my queen. How soon can the two of-“
Something blotted out the sun overhead. Something dark and large. Very large.
Almost instinctively Azoun drew in under the shading boughs of the nearest tree as he peered up at the biggest red dragon he’d ever seen.
Just above the treetops it hung, gliding more slowly than he’d thought the lightest bird could manage, its sharp eyes fixed on the warriors of Cormyr. Dragoneers and lionars suddenly erupted into a whirlwind of shouting, trembling, and vomiting. Some men drew their swords and hacked wildly at those nearby, or at the empty air. One man stared fixedly ahead and began to foam at the mouth, while another sank down drooling something yellow from his blackening, bloated face. Others began to scratch feverishly, whimpering, and Azoun saw a bristling green mold spreading over the limbs of one such victim, coating armor and flesh alike with horrifying speed.
“They come for us! They come!” one man bellowed, attacking the nearest tree with such insane force that his sword bent under the force of his blows. A swordcaptain beyond him started to howl like a hound.
“Swordlord,” Azoun said evenly, “are your wits still about you?”
Ethin Glammerhand was sweating like a river, and a muscle was working on one side of his jaw, rippling in endless, uncontrolled spasms, but his voice was steady enough as he replied, “I-I think so, my liege.”
The king drew his sword and said, “Bring all of the mages and priests to me, speedily if you think they are as stricken as these men here. Use any officers you can trust to disarm and truss those doing harm to others. Worry not about chasing those who flee into the forest.”
“Forthwith, Your Majesty,” the swordlord snapped, and leaped away into the confusion of shouting, staggering men with a stream of bellowed orders. The sound of his voice seemed to steady some of the demented, but Azoun had eyes only for the war wizard standing beside him, and the point of his blade was raised and ready.
“Arkenfrost?” he barked.
The Lord Mage smiled thinly. “I believe my wits are unaffected, Majesty,” he said. “In answer to your query, we can be standing beside the Dragon Queen in the space of two breaths. If I must now use magic to heal or quell maddened or injured clergy or mages, it will of course take longer to be elsewhere.”
Azoun grimaced rather than grinning. “You’re as sound as any of us, I guess.”
Glammerhand was already trudging back toward them, head swinging constantly from side to side as he shot
