Skeletal arms upraised, Kohath cast a spell of his own.

Tiuren had no knowledge of sorcery, but Kohath's spell seemed to him a thundering avalanche of boulders crashing down a mountainside in comparison to Dic-cona's meager stone flung without skill. The spell she cast was lost in the rising magical might summoned by Kohath and his Dark Eye.

The floor beneath the three figures began to quiver. A rumbling rose all around, and the temperature began to climb. Tiuren could remain no longer. Terror, more from seeing what had become of his friend than for his own well-being, forced him out the door and down the hall. Diccona's screams rang long in his ears.

The entire palace shook. On the stair, Tiuren met a handful of guards who raced upward, their faces filled with dread.

"No," Tiuren told them, shaking his head. 'There's nothing you can do. Flee."

"But the king. The queen. We must-" a guard said, pushing past. He referred to Kohath, not Darius, Tiuren could tell.

"Do as you wish. Your life is your own-but you no longer have a king, and quite possibly no longer a queen."

"Gods!" another guard cried. "What has happened?"

"There is no time." Tiuren did what he could to keep his voice level and calm. "Flee." Without looking to see what decision these good, loyal men made, he raced down the stairs.

As he reached the bottom, the shaking intensified. The temperature continued to rise as he made his way toward the foyer, the doors, and the way out.

Something grabbed his arm and wrenched him backward. It was Darius, knife still clutched in his hand, breathing erratically.

'Tell me," he rasped, "what is going on?" The knife rose toward Tiuren's throat.

Tiuren had endured enough of this wretch's threats and demands. He shifted his weight toward the wizard, knocking him off balance, and grabbed at the arm holding the blade, turning it away.

Darius reacted quickly. Fear-strengthened muscles twisted the knife back toward the bard.

Tiuren threw his body into Darius. The two tumbled to the floor as some of the ceiling supports gave way from the shuddering quake and bits of plaster and wood crashed near them. As the two struck the floor, Tiuren made sure the knife found a home-in Darius's chest.

Tiuren rolled and gained his feet. The floor cracked open near him, steam and sulfurous air belching out of the ever-widening opening. Rumbles and crashes as loud as he had ever heard told him the upper levels of the palace had collapsed.

By the time he had reached the doors, steam and smoke clogged the air, choking him. He slipped out into the courtyard. Bodies lay everywhere, covered by rubble, crushed by what looked like-as near as Tiuren could tell-most of the south watchtower. A gaping hole in the curtain wall was all that marked where it had stood. Tiuren was dismayed to see so many friends among the fallen. Even noble Beanth lay under the ruined tower.

Kohath's slaying wrath was indiscriminate. The dead king's quest for vengeance knew no bounds.

The shaking of the earth continued, and fire burst forth from the numerous fissures opening all around Tiuren. He could do nothing-he couldn't even see anyone for him to help escape. Realizing that there was no time to reach the stables (if indeed they still stood), he ran for the opening in the wall, thunderous crashes and the roar of spurting molten rock behind him. Fire from within Faerun itself was consuming the fortress.

Across the rolling hills, Tiuren ran until he could no longer hear the rumbling or feel the vibration of the ground and the unnatural scorching heat on his back. In the distance, only a reddish, hellish glow marked the palace. He collapsed from exhaustion.

Weeks later, Tiuren stood at the edge of what was once-beautiful Vantir.

Nothing in his experience could have prepared him for the sight of his homeland smoldering like a charnel pit. The stench of death pervaded the air. Smoke filled the sky, dragging the whole realm into an unending night.

After he had destroyed the palace and surrounding city, Kohath had systematically razed the nearby towns and villages. The smoke that choked the sun rose from burning homes, trees, crops, livestock, and even people. All that had been Vantir now burned. Of the inhabitants of the dead land, precious few had escaped. Kohath had, intentionally and methodically, slain his own kingdom.

Yet Tiuren lived. He could not help wondering if somehow, deep within the creature that was once Kohath, his friend had let him escape. Perhaps he owed his life to that undead monster. Buried within it, his friend possibly lived on. Yet if Kohath could lay waste to the land he loved, the man Tiuren knew was so utterly lost in the cavernous pit of his soul that he had no chance of ever escaping. He wondered if somewhere, immersed in that darkness, Kohath-the real Kohath- despaired.

The new Kohath was different. A few mortals had escaped his realm, and told of its horrors.

Deep within the dark land of death, on the site of the old palace of Vantir, Kohath used sorcery and undead slaves to build a new fortress. This fortress was made from the bones and flesh of the fallen citizens of Vantir. In this subterranean castle, the former king had begun to call himself Kohath the Eternal.

Tiuren knew no reason to think the moniker an idle boast. Nor did he intend to find out. Never again would he bring himself to utter the names Kohath or Vantir.

Faerun was a big place, and there were certainly other realms in which to live out the rest of his life. Without another look, he turned his back on his former home, his former friend and king,.and his former life.

The Whispering Crown

Ed Greenwood

The young Lady of Dusklake stood alone in her feast hall, in the last golden gleam of the setting sun, and waited to die.

Dusklake and Grand Thentor had been at war for only a day now-but the battle between Aerindel and Rammast, Lord of Grand Thentor, had begun when they were both children. He had wanted her to be his slave and plaything for more than a dozen years-and Rammast was not a man accustomed to waiting long for anything.

He would come for her, and soon. Aerindel wondered if she'd be strong enough to hold on to the three things she valued most: her freedom, her land… and her life.

Knowing what was coming, she'd sent the servants away-but she also knew that eyes were watching her anxiously from behind parted tapestries and doors that hadn't quite closed. The eyes of those who feared she might take her own life.

The news of her brother's death lay like a heavy cloak over the household-but it rested most heavily on the Lady Aerindel. She could not quite believe she'd never hear his bright laughter echoing in this high hall again, or feel his strong arms lift her by her slim waist and whirl her high into the air.

But the news had been blunt and clear enough. Dabras was dead by dragonfire, the grim old warriors had said, proffering his half-melted sword hilt and their own scorched wounds as proof. And that made her ruler of Dusklake.

Though a small realm, Dusklake had once been widely known-and feared-for the man then its master: the mage Thabras Stormstaff. Thabras was Aerin-del's faintly smiling, sad-eyed father. He was the mightiest of a long line of famous heads of House Sum-mertyn, from Orbrar the Old, the grandfather that Aerindel had never known, to Asklas and Ornthorn and others in the early days, known only in legends. A small but proud hold, oldest of all the Esmeltaran, Dusklake was nestled in the rolling woodlands between Lake Esmel and the Cloud Peaks. And it was hers, now.

If she could hold it. Aerindel looked grimly out through a window that was seven times her height, at the lake the land was named for. Its waters were dark and placid, at the end of a bright, cool summer day. The Green Fields to the north were still a sheet of golden light, but westward, the purple peaks of the Ridge rose like a dark wall, bringing an early nightfall down on her hall.