Crusade - James Lowder [3]
The wizard turned away from Azoun. "As I've I told you every other time you've wanted to help the Dales or Tantras or Ravens Bluff, you shouldn't go looking for trouble."
After reaching into his pockets, Vangerdahast dug out the components to a spell and muttered an incantation. "Look," the wizard cried as a glowing map of Faerun appeared, superimposed on the tapestry he had been studying only moments before. Rivers and mountains, deserts and glaciers, cities and countries all appeared faintly in the air, the armored warriors from the hanging showing vaguely through them all.
The kingdom of Cormyr lay on the northwest end of the Inner Sea, also known as the Sea of Fallen Stars. To Cormyr's north were mountains, then the arid, inhospitable Stonelands and the vast expanse of the great desert, Anauroch. The merchant kingdom of Sembia, equal in size to Azoun's domain, was located directly to Cormyr's east. The Dales, to the northeast, were a loose confederation of small farming communities. Unlike Cormyr, with its hereditary monarchy, and Sembia, with its merchant oligarchy, the Dales were strongly democratic. Together, Cormyr, Sembia, and the Dales made up much of the "Heartlands" of Faerun.
With their varied political outlooks, it wasn't surprising that the three core countries in the Heartlands often suffered long disputes. The multitude of independent city-states-places like Tantras and Hillsfar-that were located close to the larger nations often found themselves caught between bickering giants. Still, Cormyr, Sembia, and the Dales were lands where peace flourished; their disputes were never serious enough to create permanent rifts.
And they always agreed when it came to matters involving Zhentil Keep.
Though only a walled city just to the north of the Dales, Zhentil Keep was the focus for much of the evil in the Heartlands. Only out of necessity did Azoun and the other lawful rulers deal with the dark priests who controlled the Keep.
But it was not to Cormyr or the Dales or even Zhentil Keep that Vangerdahast pointed when the magical map came into focus. The wizard's finger drifted east of the Heartlands, across the land of Impiltur, to the eastern end of the Inner Sea.
"For the horsewarriors to get from where they are now," the wizard began, directing their attention to a spot hundreds of miles beyond even the end of the Inner Sea, "to our forests, they'd have to go through Thesk, Damara, Impiltur…"
With each new nation or free city he mentioned, Vangerdahast unfurled another of his pudgy, large-knuckled fingers. Azoun and Dimswart merely waited for the royal wizard to finish his tirade.
"And depending upon the route they take," Vangerdahast concluded, turning sharply to face his king, "it's conceivable that Yamun Khahan, 'emperor of all the world,' could lead his barbarians through Zhentil Keep before he came south to the Dales." The map disappeared, and the wizard stood in front of a plain tapestry once again.
"That's a fine hope," Dimswart noted after a few moments. "It would be nice to see the Tuigan try to storm the black walls of that wretched, evil place.
However, it's more likely the Zhents would join the Tuigan-or at least guide them toward the Dales and us. For all we know, the Keep might have struck a deal with this khahan already, like the Red Wizards of Thay did last fall."
Azoun considered that possibility for a moment, then shuddered and dismissed it. He could only hope that the leaders in Zhentil Keep had more sense than to believe the Tuigan would leave them alone if they appeared to offer no resistance. The messages he'd received lately from Lord Chess, the nominal ruler of the Keep, all indicated that the Zhentish would support any sane plan against the raiders. Azoun knew that Chess could be