Ed Greenwood - Cormyr

Salember stumbled forward a half-step and fell to the floor, Orblyn skittering away on the flagstones in one direction, Palaghard’s gaudy crown in the other. The carrion stench returned again, and this time Salember’s tattered scream was borne on the whispering wind.

Rhigaerd bolted down the dais stairs and knelt by the king’s body. “He’s dead.”

“Aye,” said Jorunhast softly. “I had to deal with the threat to the crown.” The mage held his arms before him, hands interlocked in the opposing sleeves, as if hesitant to show the deadly weapons again.

“The king is dead,” said Damia Truesilver.

Jorunhast nodded and pulled from his robes the crown, the original elven crown of Cormyr, slender with its three amethyst-studded spires. He handed it to Lady Damia. The young prince knelt, and the noblewoman placed the circlet on his brow.

“Long live the king,” said Damia, “Arise, King Rhigaerd the Second of Cormyr. Would that your coronation had been a celebration, but your kingdom has need of you.”

Rhigaerd stood again, and Jorunhast saw that his eyes were wet.

The young king’s voice was firm, however. “You have my thanks, wizard.”

“I had to deal with the threat to the crown,” repeated Jorunhast sadly. “I am sorry there was no other way. He was my friend as well as yours.”

“Let him be remembered in his strength, not in his madness,” said Damia, as if finishing a litany.

“Yet you have killed a king,” said Rhigaerd solemnly, “and for that, the sentence is death. I hereby commute that sentence to eternal exile. You will leave Suzail, wizard, and never return to it again.”

Jorunhast opened his mouth, then shut it again and nodded.

“None will trust a kingslayer, regardless of his motives,” said Rhigaerd, “and none will believe me to be truly a ruler if I keep Salember’s chief plotter as my own.”

Jorunhast nodded again and said, in tones almost of relief, “As you wish, Sire. I follow your orders out of my loyalty to the crown. I will gather some things and then be gone.” The mage retreated to the door of the great throne room.

“Hold one moment, wizard,” said Rhigaerd, and the mage paused by the doorway.

“Sire?”

“Cormyr has always had a wizard, but now will not,” said Rhigaerd carefully. “In your exile, find and train the best young mage you can find. When I marry and produce an heir, I will send word far and wide, to where you cannot help but hear-and I bid you then send your pupil to become my son’s tutor. Cormyr can survive without its wizard, but not for long. In this, I command you.”

Jorunhast bowed deeply. “As you wish, my liege.”

“And thank you,” Rhigaerd added softly. “Thank you for the crimes you committed in the name of the crown.”

Jorunhast’s eyes were as wet as those of the new king.

“I do my duty out of loyalty and love,” he said roughly, “and I will teach my pupil to do the same.”

And though no one saw him leave, Jorunhast was never seen in Suzail again.

Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

“O Lady of Fortunes and Mysteries,” the priestess said reverently, “hear us.” Striking the silver gong just inside the door, she threw off her sea-blue cope to reveal vestments of shining silver, took three slow, measured paces forward, and knelt. She touched the silver disk at her throat, the symbol of her goddess. “Tymora, hear us.”

Behind her came the soft rustle of the crown princess removing her own overrobe and slippers. Gwennath remained on her knees until Tanalasta joined her, murmuring her own “Tymora, hear us.”

Gwennath reached out as she did every morning to clasp the hand of the heir to the throne. Tanalasta’s grasp was firm this time, yet thankful-not the trembling clinging it had been on earlier days. Such a contact was not actually part of established ritual, but the crown princess need not know that. Gwennath had thought she needed it that first day when a pale and visibly grieving princess had come to the clergy of the goddess and almost pleaded for the consecration of a temporary shrine, so that she might have swift access to divine guidance whenever she felt need of it. High Priest Manarech had agreed without hesitation, with an eye to the future favor of the Dragon Throne, but Gwennath knew, and had a shrewd suspicion that Tanalasta did, too, that the old patriarch had no intention of any shrine to the goddess being temporary.

No matter. The silver disks, symbols of the goddess Tymora, were hung along the walls and the site consecrated. The crown princess of the realm got on her knees to Tymora every morning and evening, and the clergy of fair fortune were well content, even with the establishment of a companion shrine of Tyr, the Lord of Justice, barely a room away. However devout Tanalasta really was, she did seem to find comfort in the prayers, she was obviously seeking guidance, and her visits to the little room with the altar did give her some peaceful time alone every day-time without Vangerdahast glowering at her or young Bleth murmuring in her ear.

Tanalasta cast a sidelong glance at Gwennath, and the priestess gave her a quick smile before she broke their handclasp and rose to begin the supplication. If the goddess granted it, she might come to know this one as a true friend in times to come.

“Lady of Favor,” she began, seeking that wholehearted nearness to Tymora that devotion required, “hear now the-“

There was a sound in the passage behind them, the quick and frantic sound of booted feet running-lots of them. Whatever could it be? Were these soldiers coming? Gwennath’s heart sank. Had the king died?

Her duty was clear. The supplication must be seen through. She raised her arms to the altar and-Tanalasta screamed.

Gwennath spun around in time to see the crown princess fleeing, wild-eyed, past her, trying to get around behind the altar. Trying to escape from the five masked men with glittering blades who were flooding into the chamber. Their eyes were on Tanalasta, and they held murder in them.

Nobles, to judge by their rich clothing, and coming fast. They’d cut down a young priest at the doorway without even slowing, and Gwennath was unarmed.

“Lammanath Tymora!” Gwennath snarled, flinging up her arms. The foremost noble slashed viciously at her, and she ducked low, swayed away from his flashing blade, and then launched herself into him shoulder first. As the breath whooshed out of him and his feet left the floor, she got in one good punch, discovering with satisfaction that his codpiece was only soft gilded cloth. The man made a strangling sound as he and the priestess crashed to the floor together.

By then her spell had filled the room with whirling disks. Her desperate shout had snatched all of the platter-sized holy symbols of Tymora from their hooks on the walls and animated them to her will. She sent them slashing, edge on, against the rushing men. She was rewarded with shouts and startled curses.

“Princess!” she called, rolling away from the man she’d felled. “My mace lies beneath the altar! Defend yourself!”

One of the nobles barked out a contemptuous laugh and leapt past one of the discs, heading toward the priestess. Gwennath glared at him and brought a disk swooping down sharply from the air overhead, She’d only a few moments more before this magic ended…

It was enough for this foe, at least. The disk sliced into his hair and the head beneath, and the man gasped, spat blood, and went to the floor, still wearing a goggle-eyed look of surprise and pain.

Another noble was rushing past toward the altar, and all of the disks were falling now, the power of the spell expired. Gwennath ran to intercept the man. The princess cowered low behind the holy table.