Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [167]
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 golden tricrown off Azoun's head, then stood and faced the others.
"The king is dead," he said.
That was all he could think of, for Tanalasta was dead as well. The new king was an infant, not yet a tenday old, but the others did not yet know that, of course. He had kept Tanalasta's death from them just as he had kept it from Azoun, and so they stood there watching, waiting for him to say what should have followed, their eyes frightened and sad and curious-but also hard and suspicious and calculating.
There would be scheming nobles who seized on the child's paternity to challenge his throne, and there would be Sembia and the Darkhold Zhentarim and others who hoped to seize