Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [127]
"Perhaps," the Loremaster of Deneir said slowly, "the wounds given him by the dragon are no ordinary hurts but something different than what the healing prayers we've employed are intended to treat."
"We've done this before, all of us," snapped the high huntmaster of Vaunted Malar, gesturing down at the unconscious king. "Azoun Obarskyr has hazarded much, and received much healing, down the long years. Perhaps a body-any body-can only receive so much healing ere it has tasted enough, and the magic must fail."
Several faces turned sharply to regard the Malarite, wearing fresh frowns of their own. If there was any truth to that thought, many more folk than the king of Cormyr stood in imminent peril… not a few high priests among them.
"I have heard," the Lord High Priest of Tymora said heavily, "of persons who desired death-husbands who'd held their slain wives in their arms, and wives who'd beheld their dead husbands-taking no benefit from even the strongest healing spells. As if they willed the magic to pass away from them, and do them no good."
He strode a few slow paces away, then told the nearest tent pole, "The lantern of the king's mirth, so far as I could see, went out in his face when he heard of the death of the Steel Princess."
"Whatever the reason," Battlemaster Ilnbright said from the entrance to the tent, "we dare not try more healing now. A ghazneth is come upon us."
The priests looked up at him, only too ready to sneer at a mere warrior-even if he was a nobleman, and regardless of the sense of his words-but their denunciations died in their throats at the sounds that came from behind Haliver Ilnbright then.
Outside the tent-just outside the tent-they heard a startled shout, thudding footfalls, the clang of a sword ringing off a shield, and the heavy fall of a body. Then they heard a wet, grisly sound. It was a sound of rending flesh, accompanied by a rising, choked-off, disbelieving shriek.
It was the sound of a man being torn apart, and it was followed, after a sudden soft rain that could only be the spraying of much blood, with cold laughter. It was mad laughter, high and shrill, that faded into the distance as the throat it was issuing from ascended into the air, and flew away.
The laugh was followed by the groan of a disbelieving veteran Purple Dragon starting to be sick.
After a moment, several of the priests in the tent echoed that last sound with an enthusiasm none of them wanted to feel.
37
Keeping the ghazneth centered in Alaphondar's new spyglass was not easy, especially not when it was circling directly overhead and kept vanishing behind the palace roof for two seconds at a time.
Vangerdahast had developed a painful crick in his neck, and his arms ached from holding the heavy brass tube over his eye. His vision had grown spotty and painful from continually swinging the lens across the midday sun. Still, the device worked well enough for him to glimpse a pair of leathery black wings, two thin arms, and two crooked legs. The thing was definitely a ghazneth.
Vangerdahast lowered the spyglass and returned it to Alaphondar. "It works better than the last one. I saw what I was looking at."
The sage beamed at the compliment. "Not as clear as one of your spells, but it has its uses."
"Could you tell which one it was?" asked Tanalasta.
Vangerdahast shook his head. "Alaphondar hasn't improved it that much."
"The priests have stopped trying to heal Azoun," said Filfaeril, speaking from the balcony door. It was the first time in decades Vangerdahast had seen her looking less than radiant. Her eyes were swollen and rimmed in red, her face puffy and pale, her expression haggard and mad with worry. "They say the spells don't work. They say the magic only gives them away to the dragon and draws ghazneths."
Vangerdahast went to the door and clasped Filfaeril's arm. "I'll get there," he promised.