Behind them was Queen Filfaeril with the infant king in her arms and the sage Alaphondar at her side-and there seemed to be an inadvertent contest between the infant Azoun and the patrician sage as to who could look the most dazed and just-awakened.

Rhauligan shook his head as he slid his sword back into its sheath and went to help them. He was still two steps away when the Steel Princess bumped down onto the floor.

"I know," he remarked, reaching down a hand to help her up, "there're some folk who'd look upon this touching scene and draw quite the wrong conclusions, but…"

Alusair gave him a level look, and said crisply, "It's a good thing for уоu, sir, that Vangerdahast, my father, and Elminster all carefully took the time to separately and in the utmost secrecy explain to me just who you are. It's kept you alive these past few months, when certain folk very strongly urged you be rendered dead."

As she spoke, blue flames of healing magic swirled from between her lips.

Weakly, from the couch, Caladnei muttered, "So I was mistaken. Not one of my larger mistakes, I'm afraid."

She looked up at Vangerdahast apologetically. "Are you still sure you made the right choice? I knew nothing about these nobles, and-and that tentacled thing."

Her predecessor smiled, shook his head, and said, "The Blood of Malaug are everywhere these days, it seems, and Cormyr is always entertaining noble traitors and exiles who think regicide will win them back their estates and titles with a sword stroke. You'll get used to them." – Caladnei sat up and said almost pleadingly, "I failed the Crown! I didn-"

Vangerdahast snorted. "Nay, nay, lass-don't think to get out of being Mage Royal that easily! The mistakes are all yours to make now. I'm not watching over you all, ready to appear in a puff of spellsmoke to save your various shapely behinds whenever you stumble."

He turned slowly on his heel, to favor everyone in the room with his stern gaze, and added, "Consider this a lucky chance that I was passing through. Cormyr is yours now. With the passing of Azoun, my duty was done, and I've so little time left to cram all my neglected tasks and whims and unfinished business into. Farewell!"

Amid a vain chorus of protests, he smiled again, wiggled his ringers playfully at the child king, and vanished.

Filfaeril broke the little silence that followed with a sigh, and turned to Caladnei and asked, "How do wizards do that? I've always wanted to just begone into thin air, too-usually when particularly obnoxious nobles were approaching. Twould be very handy-"

It was not considered polite to interrupt the Queen of Cormyr, but Caladnei was suddenly lost in a flood of giggles-mirth that begat laughter from others, a rising chorus of guffaws through which the Mage Royal only dimly heard Glarasteer Rhauligan remark in gloomy tones, "She has a flaw after all, our Royal Magician: she giggles."

In a room that swirled with shadows, Tarane of Shade stood watching the scene in the Chamber of Frostfire Candles through a whorl of scrying magic.

"Well, well," he said, smiling faintly. "An interesting place to rule, to be sure. Let it mature awhile, to grow strong and prosperous again first. Waiting for the right moment is one thing I know very well how to do."

He picked up a ring that had until recently adorned the hand of Maerlyn Bleth from a flaring, flute-topped pedestal table beside him.. Turning it so that its half-aroused enchantments-magic the young fool had been utterly unaware he was carrying-made it flash in the backwash of the scrying spell, the Shadovar added with a smile, "Unlike so many of the fair flowering of Cormyr's proud noble houses. Or the last Obarskyrs and their handful of loyal servants, for that matter."

King Shadow

Richard Lee Byers

11 Kythorn, the Year of Wild Magic

The old knight and his squire hobbled their weary destriers through the charred and shattered gate. They walked the rubble-choked streets of the murdered city, where even a fresh horse would likely lose its footing.

At first Kevin felt numb and sick. The short, sandy-haired youth had yearned his whole life to ride to war, had felt feverish with excitement on the long, difficult ride from Kirinwood to Tilverton. But he had never imagined war's aftermath: broken buildings and broken bodies reeking of burning, evil magic, and rot, the stink perceptible despite the drizzling rain.

Gradually, though, pure stupid horror lost its grip on the squire, and he regarded his master, only to discover a new cause for dismay.

Before forsaking martial endeavors to run the family farm and make fern-and-mint wine, Sir Ajandor Surehand had seen other scenes of carnage nearly as grim as this. Yet he trudged along without a word, his thin, wrinkled face with its drooping white mustache ashen, his gray eyes lost and empty beneath his shaggy brows.

Kevin was appalled. He had always thought the gaunt old knight indomitable, but apparently the loss of an only child could overwhelm anyone.

"Sir," he said, picking his way around a spill of field-stone, "you know, it may not be possible to find him."

If Ajandor heard, he gave no sign.

"There are so many dead people," Kevin continued, "some disfigured by fire and the like. Others no doubt lie inside the collapsed buildings."

"Is that what you think?" snapped Ajandor, who had never before spoken harshly to Kevin in all their years together. That my son was cowering indoors when he died?"

"No! I'm sure he died fighting the enemy."

"Then shut up."

As Kevin wondered what to say next, a gray form sprang up from the ground, where it had apparently been lying flat as a sheet of parchment. A pair of vague limbs outstretched, it pounced at Kevin.

The squire tried to dodge and draw his sword at the same time. He managed neither. The dark thing slammed into him and bore him down to the ground. Raking claws shredded his mantle and surcoat and ripped at the hauberk beneath.

Something flashed. The creature leaped away, and Kevin saw Ajandor standing over him with Gray Dancer, his sword of gleaming mithral silver, in his hand. The knight had used it to drive the phantom back.

Kevin scrambled to his feet and yanked out his own blade, a plain steel one, devoid of pedigree and with only the simplest of enchantments. The humans and the creature stood and regarded one another.

Kevin could see that the shadow resembled an enormous cat, though perhaps that was only one of many possible forms, for its murky substance seemed to flow and shift from moment to moment. The refugees whom he and Ajandor had encountered on the road had warned them of such shadow creatures, phantoms apparently engendered by the same wizardry that had destroyed Tilverton and the army assembling inside its walls.

Evidently hoping to flank the apparition, Ajandor edged to the left. Kevin moved to the right. The cat sprang at him, its entire head opening like an oyster to become nothing more than a set of jaws.

Sidestepping to throw off the shadow's aim, Kevin cut at its shoulder. Though he had felt the phantom's weight and strength, his sword swept through it as if it were made of smoke. That should have been good, but he knew it wasn't. Some supernatural beings were all but impervious to mundane weapons, and this was apparently one of them.

The phantom clawed at him, and he jumped back. Ajandor rushed in and drove his point into the shadow's flank.

The creature spun, reared on its hind legs like a bear, and raked at Ajandor with talons grown long as daggers. Scarcely giving an inch of ground, the knight met the shadow's attack with savage stop cuts. At least his blade seemed to be biting something solid, though whether it was doing the phantom any real harm was impossible to say.