Buruin staggered back with a strangled cry of his own, crashing into the watching priests behind him. Only the steadying arms of Owden Foley and Battlelord Steelhand kept him from falling. As they steadied him, the Malarite’s face was gray, his eyes were dark, staring pits, and his teeth chattered.
Holy faces turned pale, holy hands-some of them trailing radiance that hung in the air, glowing, in the wake of where the hands had been-hastily sketched warding signs in the air, and holy boots as hastily moved back. Fearful glances had not failed to notice that more than one war captain of Cormyr had half drawn a blade and stepped forward in slow menace, faces as cold and set as stone.
“Your concern for and your devoted service to the king are both noted and appreciated,” Vangerdahast told the priests gravely, the iron crown on his brows giving him the look of an old and mighty monarch. “Stand you back, now, and bear witness. Your gods would desire you to be present and to pray, but the time for healing, I fear, is past.” He allowed a frown to cross his face as he lifted an imperious hand and added, “The king fades swiftly. Rob him not of his last moments.”
The priests hesitated, several mouths opening to launch uncertain protests, and glanced at the angry warriors.
The royal magician looked at Owden Foley, then at Battlelord Steelhand, giving them both a nod that mingled unspoken thanks and a request. The two priests returned the nod, turned, and began to shoo their fellow clerics away, raising and spreading their arms in unison to form a moving fence that swept all the holiness a little down the hill.
Vangerdahast nodded again, satisfaction in his face, and turned back to where Azoun lay. Alusair and her fellow war captains gathered around the king, eyes darting from the face of the wizard to that of their king, and back again at Vangerdahast.
“My liege,” said the royal magician, in a voice that for a brief, fleeting moment held the hint of a sob, “I have obeyed and in so doing learned bright news. The Princess Tanalasta has been delivered of a son, whom I understand is to be known as Azoun the Fifth. Cormyr’s new prince will bear a worthy name onto the throne, when the time is right.”
“That-is good,” the king gasped, and panted for a moment in the aftermath of a sudden spasm of pain. For a moment he sagged back, face going gray, and his war captains threw out cradling hands like so many bloody, sweat-drenched, armored nursemaids, to hold him nearly in a sitting position. Ilberd Crownsilver choked back what could only be a sob as the king struggled to clutch at his balance and find the strength to sit upright.
After a few terrible, convulsed breaths, Azoun found it, somewhere deep within, and looked up to give them all a savage smile-almost a sneer-of contempt for his own weakness. The smile softened into genuine, gentle warmth as he looked around from familiar face to familiar face. Alusair glided forward, eyes dark and face as white as polished bone. Her lips were parted as if to speak, but she said nothing, her sword forgotten in her hand.
Her father looked at her, then up at the sky, and offered his next words to it. “It’s been a good ride,” he remarked conversationally to the scudding gray clouds, “but if my striving counts for anything, let my son have a better one, O you watching gods.”
The king threw off the gentle hands that held him, and surged to his feet, a lion once more. Swaying, as hands reached out to steady him then fell away in uncertainty, not wanting to insult Azoun in his last moments, he stared around at his realm for one last time, his eyes already going dull. His gaze wandered from one face to another, and his lips trembled on the edge of a smile. Azoun’s hand slipped twice on the hilt of his sword before he drew it forth with the grace of long-won skill, and raised it. If he noticed that it shivered like a blade of grass in a high wind, he gave no sign of doing so.
“I will not say farewell,” the fourth Azoun to rule the Forest Kingdom told those standing around him almost fiercely, “because I’ll be here, in the night wind, watching over the land I love, with cold steel for her foes, and whispered comfort for her defenders.”
The sword fell from his trembling fingers, but Alusair was as quick as a snake, plucking it from the air to hold it up, and raising it into his grasp again.
Azoun’s body shook and shuddered as he put failing arms around her. “Take this to your mother,” he said, as he turned to kiss her cheek.
His lips brushed her skin, then he gasped in ragged pain and sagged, his full weight on her. Alusair turned to hold him up, and their lips touched.
Azoun’s breath was hot and sweet, and tasted like blood and flame. A last tiny lightning played about their joined lips, but Alusair never flinched, even as dragonfire shook her like a leaf in a storm.
Her father moaned in pain, whispered “Filfaeril” in the heart of it, sagged again, then pulled back his head with a lion’s roar of exultation.
For a moment Azoun clutched his daughter fiercely, strength returning in a rush until his embrace was almost bruising, then he thrust himself free from her, whirled around on his heels to look at all of those watching him grimly, and cast his sword into the air.
It caught fire as it whirled up. Blue flames flashed, then faded to a deep, roiling purple as it spun. As it slowed at the height of its journey it became-just for an instant, but long enough that all men there on that hill swore the rest of their days that they’d seen it look down at them, talons wrapped around the fading sword-the ghostly outline of a dragon.
Alusair saw Vangerdahast’s fingers crook in two subtle gestures just as the sword swept up, and their eyes met for a moment, but she merely nodded, almost imperceptibly, and said no word, as men gasped in wonder all around them at the apparition.
Azoun regarded it with an almost sad smile, as if knowing it as one last mage’s trick, as it flashed into a burst of bright purple and silver fire, and was gone. He turned away and strode-a walk that in two paces turned into a last, doomed stagger-into his tent. Alusair and Vangerdahast moved at his heels, but the others stood staring into the sky.
Men blinked at the emptiness that had held sword and dragon, a gulf of air that even the clouds were drawing back from to lay bare deep, clear blue, and let their long-held breaths out in a chorus of faint regret.
Into the silence that followed, Azoun said his last words as he sank to his knees, like a tired tree deciding to slowly meet the earth.
“For fair Cormyr,” he gasped, his voice almost a whisper now. “Forever!”
“Forever, father,” Alusair said, her voice trembling on the edge of tears. “Be remembered-forever!”
The king of all Cormyr was smiling as his face struck the turf, and the long silence descended. When his war captains and his daughter and even the priests began to weep, Azoun did not hear them. His ears were full of echoing trumpets, a sound he’d almost forgotten, down all the years, the triumphant horns that had sounded over the castle to mark his birth, so long ago. High, bright, and clear. Gods, but it was good to hear them again.
46
Vangerdahast knelt at Azoun’s side a long time after the breath stopped coming, rubbing the ring of wishes he still wore on his finger and wondering if he dared. A simple gesture, a few little words, and Thatoryl Elian would not have been in those woods when Andar Obarskyr passed by. Lorelei Alavara would have lived and died a happy elven wife, Nalavarauthatoryl the Red would never have risen, and Alaundo the Seer would never have uttered his dire prophecy.
What then? Had Thatoryl Elian not been in those woods when Andar wandered by, Andar would never have had reason to flee the Wolf Woods and tell Ondeth about them, and there would never have been a Cormyr-at least not the Cormyr he served and loved. Vangerdahast had wished Nalavarauthatoryl out of existence once before, and it had cost him Azoun and Tanalasta and very nearly the realm itself. That was the temptation of magic. Like any power, sooner or later those who commanded it always abused it.
Vangerdahast took Azoun’s hands and folded them across the king’s chest. As he did so, he quickly slipped the ring of wishes off his own finger and onto his friend’s. Kings died and so did their daughters, but the realm lived on. It was better to leave it that way.
He uttered a quiet spell to hide the ring from sight, then said, “Guard it well, my friend.”
Only then did the tears start to come, pouring down Vangerdahast’s cheeks in long runnels. He slipped the
