Crown of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

  A little silence followed; Thrulgar let it stretch as he peered long and consideringly at the three of them, then said, “You cannot pass. Go up the road, and take rooms at the inn. The lord will see you in the morning.”

  “We will see her now,” the fat man repeated patiently.

  Thrulgar locked gazes with him and was surprised at the wisdom—and the steel—in the eyes that met and held his. He had to muster all his will to pull his gaze free, and shake his head.

  “No one disturbs the lord at this hour,” he said flatly.

  “I do,” the big man levelly replied, “just as Azoun does.” The Purple Dragons stiffened at that, but their spear points did not come down.

  “Go away until morning,” Azatlim said. “And take care to speak with respect when you name the king.”

  “I did,” growled the man, “considering—ah, ne’er mind. We must speak with Tessaril, man, and speedily! We’ll not go away, I warn ye.”

  “You warn me?” Thrulgar repeated, voice rising. “Who are you, stout one, to stand on the soil of Cormyr and ‘warn’ a Purple Dragon of anything?”

  “Guards,” the slight lass said quietly, “if you can spare a moment from blustering, look at me.”

  Two startled sets of eyes did so, but Azatlim was moved to ask, “Why?” in tones that were just on the proper side of a sneer.

  “Because of this,” she told them evenly, then raised one arm slowly to point at the sky behind her.

  Without taking her eyes off the guards, she let flames crawl slowly from her shoulder to her fingertips, and then explode with a sudden roar into a bright pillar of fire, raging skyward. In the next moment, it was gone. She closed her hand and said in the same calm voice, “I’d hate to have to use it on you to get in that door—but I’ve just used it on Manshoon of the Zhentarim, and he died very easily.”

  The guards in chain mail stared at her, and their faces grew pale. They hastily yanked down their visors and raised their shields.

  “Come ahead, then,” Thrulgar’s voice came hollowly from within the all-concealing war-helm. It trembled only slightly. “For Azoun we stand, and for Azoun we’ll fall.”

  The woman hesitated. These men clearly meant her no harm, and she had no love for slaughter. Both their spear points were leveled at her breast now—and as she waited, one of them reached out and slapped at a gong behind him.

  Struck glancingly in frantic haste, the gong made only a sort of clank, but the doors behind the men opened almost immediately. An unshaven man clad only in boots and a night robe looked out, a drawn sword in his hand. “What befalls here?” he asked, peering over the shoulders of the guards.

  “These three demand immediate audience with Lord Tessaril,” said Thrulgar without turning around. “The maid threatened us with conjured fire if we didn’t let her pass.”

  “I saw and heard the flames out the windows of my room,” the man with the sword said dryly. He straightened. “Outlanders, I am Tzin Tzummer, Herald to the Lord Tessaril and king’s man. More guards await within, and I can call on many others if need be. Even using magic, you cannot prevail here by force of arms. Tell me your names, and why you are so set on seeing the lord now.”

  “I am Mirt,” the fat old man said, waving at his companions to keep silent, “and as a Lord of Waterdeep, I demand audience with Lord Tessaril Winter.”

  The herald frowned. “None know the identities of those who wear the masks of the Lords of Waterdeep, save for the Lord Piergeiron of that city. Anyone could come to this door claiming to be a Lord of Waterdeep. Besides, it’s highly unlikely a Lord of Waterdeep would ever come to Cormyr without a large escort, an invitation from the king, and—ah, rather more splendid clothing.”

  “You don’t know Waterdeep very well,” Mirt murmured.

  “Whether I do or not,” Tzin Tzummer replied coolly, “your claim is not going to move me to let you in, especially given the magic the maid among you wields—all here will resist to the death, if need be. If you’d prefer, one of the guards can escort you to the inn—The Lonesome Tankard, just up the road, there—and see that you get comfortable rooms. Come back in the morning.”

  Mirt inclined his head. “Reasonable words, herald—yet we can no longer afford to be reasonable. D’ye know what this is?” Slowly his hands went to his belt, opened a pouch there, and drew forth a Harper pendant, on its broken chain.

  The herald’s eyes widened, but he said slowly, “That device is welcome here, as are those who bear it. Yet we serve Azoun here, not the silver harp. Could you not come back in the morning—and unarmed?”

  Mirt sighed. “Azoun, is it? Well, then. Hold yer blades back a moment.” He turned and waved his companions back off the porch, followed them, and turned as his boots touched the dirt of the road. There, in the full light of the porch lamps, he slowly drew a dagger that glowed—the guards traded glances—and he dropped it point-down in the earth at his feet. Upending the empty sheath, the old man twisted it in a certain deft, delicate way. Its steel tip slid sideways and open, revealing a tiny cavity; out of this Mirt plucked something and held it up. It was a ring.

  “In Azoun’s name,” he rumbled formally, holding the ring up between finger and thumb so they could all see it in the flickering light of the lamps, “I ask immediate audience with Tessaril Winter, Lord of Eveningstar.”

  “A Purple Dragon ring,” the herald said wonderingly. “I’ve never seen one in the hands of an outlander before.”

  “Well, now you have,” Mirt said testily, “and no, I didn’t steal it. Azoun gave it to me when I guarded his two infant daughters, years ago, when—but that’s not for me to tell without his word. Well? What’s it to be? Defy Azoun or let us in to talk to Tessar? By the burning lashes of Bane, I’ve kissed her often enough!”

  As the full darkness of night descended softly on Eveningstar, Lord Tessaril Winter lay abed, lounging in the warmth of the dying fire. King Azoun ruled this pretty village through her, and matters both great and small sometimes weighed heavily on her mind. Today, it had been Lord’s Court, and she’d had to disentangle several nasty trade disputes and sit through much blustering. She cared nothing for the threats, but the shouting had given her a headache that had taken three hot mugs of soup and much quiet to quell.

  She yawned and shook her head ruefully, set aside the spellbook she read every night after she’d used a spell, blew out the lamp, and waited for slumber to take her.

  The four chains her bed hung from creaked once as she settled down, and then all was dark and silent. For a time.…

  The roar of spellfire awakened Tessaril. She sat up in the hanging bed and looked out her west window in time to see flames licking at the night sky. Snatching up a wand in one hand and her sword in the other, she strode to the north window, using the tip of her scabbarded blade to hook down a robe from a peg along the way.

  It was a long way down from her chambers at the top of the tower, and a wizard going into battle should never get out of breath. Tessaril tossed the wand and blade ahead of her as she vaulted the windowsill, whispering the word that evoked a spell that let her fall the three floors to the ground slowly and gently. By the time her feet touched the grass just outside the tower, she was dressed.

  Snatching up wand and blade, Tessaril let herself into the ground floor of the tower through a secret door that would open only for her and trotted to the main hall, shaking the sword free of her scabbard as she went. She burst out the front door with wand and blade both held high, expecting trouble.

  Mirt’s words still hung in the air as Lord Tessaril herself strode out into the light. All around her, her men stiffened, and the herald said, “Lord, you should not—”

  The rest of his words were lost as Tessaril tossed sword and wand aside with a clatter and ran across the porch to kiss the fat man who held the ring. Even in her bare feet, the slim, ash-blond Lord of Eveningstar stood taller than everyone else present, and she moved with fluid grace and a warrior’s speed.

  Tessar
il flung her arms around the old merchant. “Mirt! Old Wolf, I’d never thought to see you here in Eveningstar! Come in, come in! Who are your friends?”

  Mirt managed to keep a grin off his face as she dragged him into her tower, through a throng of astonished Cormyrean faces. Narm didn’t.

  Goblets of wine were in their hands a moment later as Tessaril waved them toward her audience chamber.

  “Come in here and tell me what business presses you so urgently,” she said, making signs to the guards—who scattered in all directions, one darting up the stairs with her sword and wand.

  “Teleport me to Zhentil Keep,” Shandril burst out. “I … I have to destroy the Zhentarim, now!”

  Tessaril smiled. “Some of us have been trying to do that for years,” she said, “and they still sit in Zhentil Keep tonight.”

  Shandril looked at her with eyes that blazed, just for an instant, and fought to control her voice. When the words came out, they were low and angry. “Lady, those snakes killed our friend and have hunted me like game across the Dales. Today, I burned Manshoon to bones and ashes—and I want to go after the rest of the Zhentarim before … before my nerve fails me.” Her words ended with a sob.

  Tessaril stared at her. “You’re serious,” she said quietly. Then, slowly, she shook her head. “I’d be sending you to your deaths.”

  Narm looked quickly at Shandril. On the verge of tears, Shandril pleaded, “Please, Lady? Please? I must go now!” Her voice rose. “I can’t go on like this, every day, wondering how soon we’ll be killed!”

  Tessaril looked at her and asked softly, “Are you in the right state of mind, now, to go up against any Zhentarim—and live?”

  Shandril glared at her. “By the gods, get me to Zhentil Keep!” she cried, then held up a hand that blazed with spellfire. Around her, men cried out, weapons rang as they were drawn, and she heard running feet approaching.

  Tessaril was on her feet facing Shandril, flinging up her hand in a restraining signal. Silence fell.

  Shandril looked around at all the scared faces and raised blades and saw the herald holding a sword warningly at Narm’s throat. She shook her head wearily and dissolved into tears, turning to Mirt’s arms. “I’m sick of all this killing and fighting and running,” she sobbed. “When will it all end?”

  “It never does, lass,” Mirt said softly, holding her. The words summoned to his mind memories of burning cities, spilled blood slowly running out and down stone steps underfoot, and corpses—fields of sprawled, contorted corpses—all around. “It never does.”

  Mirt and Tessaril exchanged glances, and the Lord of Eveningstar said quietly, “You’d best bring her in and tell me what this is all about. I can see this is going to be one of those evenings when the gods turn us on our heads a time or two.…”

  Storm looked up at the stars sailing endlessly overhead. They glittered softly through a thin veil of scudding clouds. She said, “I can’t sleep, Old Mage.”

  “What’s amiss?” A wrinkled hand came out of the darkness to pat her own comfortingly.

  “Manshoon. What’s he up to, now?” After a moment, she added, “I hate leaving things unfinished.”

  “Lass,” Elminster told her gently, “nothing is ever finished. Do what ye can, when ye can, and go on to the next thing. Some folk never learn that, all their lives long—and never do anything, spending their time worrying away at something they should have set by long ago.”

  Storm sighed. “You’re right.” She watched the stars for a while, then whispered, “Old Mage, remember when I was young? You used to hold me until I fell asleep, and tell me wondrous tales of when Faerûn was new …?”

  The old, familiar arms went around her, bringing with them the faint reek of old pipesmoke. “Would ye like a story now?”

  “Please,” she whispered, and covered his hands with her own.

  “Well, now,” Elminster said slowly. “Ye see those stars, up there? I recall a time when …”

  Firespark rode on her shoulders as Tessaril walked silently down the street toward the Tankard. Her tressym was restless and ill at ease; it answered her only with a wary little mew when she stroked it. The winged cat could smell trouble before she could, so Tessaril went well armed now.

  She’d turned the tower over to her three guests for the night, telling them to get some sleep while she went out to ‘confer with someone.’ All nine of her Purple Dragons were already gathered to guard them, and she’d used a sending to call in war wizards from High Horn. That aid would not be here until midmorning at the earliest. She herself would sit guard over them until the wizards arrived—once she’d told Dunman at the Tankard to alert the local Harpers. If she knew Zhentarim, this night would bring an attack from some fell wizard or other.

  Behind her there came a peculiar hissing sound, a groan, and the thud of someone falling.

  Turning, she calmly drew a wand. In the end, until she died or Azoun gave her other orders, Eveningstar was hers to defend. Trying to see the cause of the commotion, Tessaril peered back into the nightgloom in front of the tower, a bare thirty paces behind her. With one bound, Firespark was gone from her shoulders.

  Something small and white floated in the air beside the tower porch. One of her guards lay sprawled in the dirt beneath it. As Tessaril stepped forward, raising the wand, the eyes of the floating thing—a human skull, by the gods!—flashed, and part of the front wall of her tower simply vanished with a little sighing sound. Lamplight spilled out through the breach, accompanied by frightened curses. The Purple Dragons within hauled out blades and peered out into the night.

  A sudden bright bolt of lightning spat from the skull. Trailing sparks, the bolt danced from man to man, making each in turn convulse, stagger, and fall. Smoke rose from their armor.

  Tessaril mouthed a curse and triggered her wand. Fire shot through the night, shrouding the skull in bright flames. It turned slowly to face her, quivering in the air as flames raced over it. Then its eyes flickered, and it spat another bolt of lightning from its bony jaws.

  Tessaril dived to one side, but no one in the Realms could have dodged that leaping lightning. With an angry snapping sound, the bolt struck her, and she reeled, gasping, and fell. Her veins crawled. She could not breathe. White needles pierced her eyes, and the smell of burnt cloth and hair was strong in her nostrils. Only the hard dirt against her cheek told her she was still alive.

  The bolt that had almost slain Tessaril awoke the slumbering Mirt. He sleepily shuffled out of the audience chamber, blade in hand, then skidded to a halt when he saw that the entire front wall of the entry hall was gone—and that a skull floated in the night outside. Purple Dragons lay sprawled about the room amid fallen blades and splintered furniture.

  Mirt snatched up a discarded sword and hefted it to throw. As he moved, the skull turned to confront him, fire flashing where its eyes should have been. With a chill, Mirt recognized the same leaping flames in its empty sockets that he saw in Shandril’s eyes when she was angry. Spell-fire lived in this undead thing.

  The skull laughed hollowly as it drifted slowly into the room, the twin, coiling flames of its gaze bent on him.

  “I’m getting much too old for all this,” Mirt grunted sourly, squinting up at the glowing skull.

  On the road below, a weak and dazed Tessaril fought her way slowly to hands and knees. Pain raged inside her, and from somewhere nearby, she heard a frightened, querying mew. With weary detachment, she looked down at herself and saw the cause of her tressym’s alarm: smoke was rising in lazy curls from her body. Biting her lip, the Lord of Eveningstar caught her breath, struggled to a sitting position, and frowned in concentration to gather her wits for another spell. As she fought to make the intricate gestures, she heard and saw the battle above.

  “All right!” Mirt growled, waving both blades. “Come on, then! Let’s be at it!” A voice from his memory—female, and mocking, but he was damned if he could recall just who, at this tense moment—echoed in his head:

&
nbsp; Heroes can’t choose which fights they will win.

  That is why all of them die in the end.

  The light within the skull flickered. The air was suddenly full of the bright, deadly pulses of flame the Old Wolf had seen many mages hurl down the years—the bolts that cannot miss.

  So this damned dead thing could work spells. Thanks be to the gods! Mirt held that sour thought as he steeled himself against the pain he knew would come, and threw his borrowed sword at the skull as hard as he could.

  The bolts struck him, lancing into his body with shuddering pain. As always, their energy made his limbs tremble violently. The Old Wolf set his teeth, staggering back under the force of the attack, and blinked back tears to see what happened to his hurled blade. It missed, whirling away harmlessly into the night as the skull rose smoothly up out of its path.

  Mirt snarled, plucked up a stool from the wreckage nearby, and hurled it at the skull, lurching into an ungainly charge in its wake. His eerie foe bobbed again, and the stool hurtled harmlessly past it and shattered against a wall. The skull’s hollow laughter rang out around the old, wheezing merchant.

  Then the skull spat something at him that glowed with tiny, sparkling motes of light. Panting in his haste, Mirt dived aside and rolled on the floor—but not fast enough: some of the spittle struck his arm and shoulder.

  Aaargh—acid! Gods, but it burned! Roaring in pain, the Old Wolf twisted on the floor and clutched his shoulder. It felt like slow-moving fire was crawling along his flesh; Mirt whimpered at the pain and writhed helplessly.

  Unseen, the skull soared past him, heading for the stairs. The grand stair climbed from the entry hall to a gallery on the floor above, where many statues stood. Among them were warriors of Cormyr, a mermaid rampant upon a wave, and a sleeping dragon. As the skull floated amid these, a dagger suddenly spun at it, striking chips from the curved bone of its jaw before glancing off.

  The lich lord turned menacingly and saw a servant-woman on the landing, her face white with fear. She was frantically trying to raise a sword that was far too heavy for her.