Whatever comments he had prepared about Tuigan troop strength and the khahan's tactical abilities flew from Azoun's mind when he entered the hall. The burst of loud laughter that greeted him as he opened the door drove such organized thoughts away and replaced them with unsettling confusion.
The herald standing inside the hall started as the monarch entered, and the grin on his boyish face weakened to a faint smile. He quickly bowed to Azoun. 'His Highness, King Azoun of Cormyr,' the herald announced loudly, and the laughter died away.
The stylishly dressed men and women who sat at the three long trestle tables turned from something at the front of the large room and faced the door. Those few who were sitting immediately stood. All bowed to Azoun in the silence that had suddenly overtaken the room.
'Please, my friends,' the king said, 'there's no need for that. We are here as allies, to solve a common problem.' He slowly scanned the crowd, meeting the gaze of as many people as he could. 'Let us relax and speak as friends.'
The lords and ladies, magicians and generals, visibly relaxed, and a murmur of renewed conversation washed over the room. Many of the thirty or so people sat down again. When they did, the king saw a handsome, dark- haired man sitting alone in front of the room. The blood-red shirt the royal bard wore was neat and proper, and it mirrored the embarrassed flush on his face quite well. Azoun smiled and walked to the young man's side.
'No doubt you were the cause of that outburst when I entered the room,' the king said. 'Just what story were you telling them, Thom?'
'I was trying to lighten the mood a bit, Your Highness,' the man said, bowing his head and hugging his harp tight to his chest. His fingers slid nervously over the whales carved into the instrument's neck. 'Vangerdahast told me to play for the gathering until you arrived. They were all rather somber … so I told them the tale of Sune and the hayward.'
Azoun flinched slightly. That particular story of Sune Firehair, the Goddess of Beauty, was one of Thom Reaverson's better. Still, though not vulgar, the tale was a bit bawdy for mixed company. 'Was that a wise choice, Thom?' the king asked, turning to look at the gathered nobles. Various polite excuses ran through his mind as he studied the assembled rulers of the most powerful cities and countries in Faerun.
'They requested it, milord.'
'What?'
Thom smiled and pointed to an attractive young woman. As the king watched, the Cormyrian lady tossed her head back slightly, laughing at another noble's jest, letting her hair dance luxuriously around her bared shoulders. 'She asked if I knew that particular story,' the bard quietly told the king. 'When I said yes, she requested I tell it. I tried to suggest another, more appropriate tale, but the other lords and ladies followed her lead.'
King Azoun sighed, then smiled. 'Thank you, Thom. You did the right thing. They probably wanted a little light fare to cut the tension before the meeting started.' He pointed toward the doorway. 'I'd like you to remain in the meeting hall, but at the back of the room. Observe what you can. We'll talk again later.'
The bard nodded, then quietly moved from the front of the room. A few of the nobles applauded Thom, and he smiled and bowed in response. As the bard reached the door, Vangerdahast and a very, very old woman entered.
'Time for us to begin,' Azoun announced, and the assembled men and women took their places at the long, polished wooden tables. Chairs lined one side of each table instead of the benches often used with them, and the three tables themselves formed a large U. The opening in the tables' arrangement faced the front of the room, where Thom Reaverson had played and Azoun now stood.
The room in which the dignitaries gathered was large and had a high ceiling, with brightly colored pennants hanging from the rafters. The king had purposefully chosen the meeting hall, located deep inside the castle, because it had no windows, a single door, and thick walls of stone. If someone thought to assault the assembled leaders, he would have found the task difficult, if not impossible.
Still, though the hall was secure, it was rather drab, apart from the pennants hanging near the ceiling. Barren stone walls, whitewashed like all the walls in the castle, surrounded most of the room. Brightly glowing globes hung at regular intervals around the hall and sat upon each table, but shadows crept into corners and made many a face look far more ominous than it did in daylight. The only unusual ornamentation, a large, colorful cloth-and-thread map of Faerun, covered much of the wall behind the king.
Azoun stood framed by the tapestry, waiting for the assemblage to settle down. After a moment, he inclined his head slightly. Everyone recognized the subtle request for silence. Vangerdahast and the old woman continued toward the front of the room as Azoun said, 'May Torm, God of Duty, help us discover our responsibilities to Faerun, and may the gods of all gathered here aid them in their search for the best path to the truth.'
By now the royal magician had reached the front of the room. A servant quickly brought a chair for the old woman, but she waved it away silently. Her tight-skinned, age-spotted face remained impassive and unreadable, even when Azoun smiled at her in greeting. Looking at the woman, the king realized why she so unsettled Vangerdahast. A prominent, knife-thin nose jutted out from between her close-set violet eyes, and it, like the rest of the woman's thin face, was covered with ash-gray skin pulled taut. In all, it seemed to Azoun that he was gazing at an ancient, but well-preserved corpse.
'Go ahead, Vangy,' the king said softly as he pulled his eyes from the old woman's steady gaze.
Vangerdahast patted his beard, and his eyes seemed to lose focus under the bushy covering of his eyebrows. He inhaled deeply once, then again. Closing his eyes, the mage started to mutter a low, rumbling incantation. The few wizards in the room, members of various delegations, leaned to their companions and whispered that the royal magician was casting a spell to detect scrying. If anyone was attempting to magically eavesdrop on the conference, Vangerdahast would be able to ferret out their spell.
At the front of the room, Vangerdahast's chant grew louder, more frantic. His hands wove a complex pattern in the air. Without warning, he raised his fingertips to his temples, opened his eyes, and uttered the spell's final word. A brilliant blue-white flash burned through the room.
'By Mystra's wound!' Vangerdahast cried. The wizard covered his eyes and fell backward onto the floor.
The skittering sound of swords leaving their sheaths and daggers sliding from boot tops hissed in the room. A few well-trained soldiers, guards for various dignitaries, crouched next to their lords, ready for battle. A mage cast a spell, and a glowing sphere of protection appeared around one of the dalelords.
The few Cormyrian guards in the room rushed to Azoun's side, but the king paid them no attention. 'What's going on, Vangy?' he asked as he helped his mentor from the gray stone floor.
The wizard rubbed his eyes with both hands and muttered curses under his breath. 'Someone close by had a very powerful spell locked on this room. That flash was caused by my incantation uncovering the other mage's scrying spell. Their contact with the room has been severed.'
Many of the dignitaries relaxed, but few of the bodyguards put their weapons away. A large, middle-aged man slammed the hilt of his broadsword against the tabletop, breaking the room's uneasy silence. 'If we could trace that spell,' he growled, 'we'd find a Zhentish agent to be the spellcaster.'
'How do you know that, Lord Mourngrym?' asked a quivering merchant from Sembia.
All eyes turned to the nobleman who had spoken first: Mourngrym, lord of Shadowdale. The dalelord frowned as he slipped his broadsword into its jeweled sheath, but when he saw that he commanded the room's attention, he straightened his thick-muscled frame to its full height and smoothed his immaculate, stylish surcoat. Almost casually he cast an appraising eye over the crowd and drew his mouth into a hard line in the midst of his neatly trimmed beard and mustache. The politicians in the room who were allied with the dalelord would later call the look on his face as he spoke benign, even paternalistic. Those who thought less of the nobleman labeled the expression condescending.
'Who else but Zhentil Keep would want to spy on this gathering?' Mourngrym touched the symbol of Shadowdale-a twisted tower in front of an upturned crescent moon-which lay over his heart on his impeccably tailored surcoat. 'We from the Dales know of the Keep's evil better than anyone.'
Vangerdahast shook his head and stepped forward. 'The mages at the Keep would have used a far more subtle spell than the one I discovered.'
'What about the Trappers' Guild, then?' the dalelord returned. 'I hear you're having trouble with them about the crusade.'
'A few grouchy hunters hardly constitute 'trouble,' ' Azoun offered. He bowed slightly to the delegates from the important merchant kingdom of Sembia, 'Though we certainly have the highest respect for our trade
