Lythrana met Azoun's gaze again. "I want to," she hissed after a moment, "but the Keep won't. Not without something in return."

The king paused. He knew that this was all the envoy had to offer, that Lythrana would not, could not concede him anything else. The king's course was set; Azoun had decided after the hunt that reasons of state demanded only one decision from him. "We'll leave Darkhold alone for two seasons," he said at last.

"No. A year."

Azoun sighed, then nodded. "A year."

The words burned like acid in Azoun's soul. He knew that he was allowing the network of evil that connected Zhentil Keep and Darkhold-the Zhentarim-free reign to attack travelers and raid caravans, but he saw no other solution. If the Tuigan came to Cormyr, they'd cause a thousand times more suffering than the troops in Darkhold could ever create. He needed the archers from the Dales to stop that from happening.

Azoun pointed a slightly quivering finger at Lythrana. "Darkhold will be left unhindered for a year," he said, "but I want troops. And if I don't get them, or if Zhentil Keep stands in the way of this crusade again, I promise you that Darkhold will be crushed to rubble."

Lythrana was shocked into silence for an instant. "Of course," she agreed after a time. "Zhentil Keep wants the Tuigan stopped as much as you."

The Zhentish envoy looked over at the queen, who sat quietly at the end of the table. "Are you taking notes?" she asked, her words mixed with puzzlement and sarcasm.

Locking her ice-blue eyes on Lythrana's cold stare, Fil faeril smiled pleasantly. "No," she said. "The crusade is Azoun's matter."

Lythrana arched a thin black eyebrow under her raven-dark bangs. Noting the look on the envoy's face, the queen added, "However, if Zhentil Keep breaks its word and attacks the Dales or Cormyr while the king is in Thesk, Iwill be here to mount an army against you."

Narrowing her eyes to green slits, Lythrana studied the queen more closely. Filfaeril looked delicate, with her pale skin and long golden hair. Even the filmy rose-pink dress the queen wore made her seem fragile. But as the envoy looked into Filfaeril's eyes, she caught a glimpse of something-a hardness, perhaps-that worried her. "Zhentil Keep does not take threats lightly," Lythrana said at last.

The king leaned on the table with both hands. "Be assured, Lady Dargor, neither Queen Filfaeril nor I ever make idle threats. We do not like to deal with the worshippers of evil gods, but you are the lesser of two bad options."

Lythrana stood slowly. "Zhentil Keep never assumed you would regard us as anything but a 'necessary evil.'" A false, cold smile crossed her face, then she bowed. "We should end this meeting before either of us says something ... regrettable. The papers detailing the treaty will be ready in an hour?"

When King Azoun nodded, Lythrana bowed again and moved toward the door. "I will send word as to how many troops you can expect and where they will meet you."

As the echoes of the envoy's retreating footsteps died in the large room, the king put his hands on Filfaeril's shoulders. The queen pursed her lips. "I don't trust her for a moment," she noted. "Still, I suspect the Keep isn't foolish enough to break a truce."

Azoun smiled weakly. "They certainly must see that if I can raise an army of thirty thousand to fight a foreign war, the force that would rise against them if they foolishly attacked the Dales would be ten times that size."

The door slid open, and Vangerdahast briskly crossed the room. He looked expectantly at Azoun, who only nodded.

"The Keep will send troops?" the wizard asked expectantly as he got nearer.

"They haven't said how many yet," replied Azoun, "but I'm sure I can get at least fifteen hundred men-at-arms from them." He squeezed Filfaeril's shoulder and added, "We should be ready to send the first troops to the east within twenty days."

5

The Black Rat

Arrow loops were the only source of natural light in the tower's lower floors.

As a result, rooms located there were usually dark, dreary places, even during the daytime. King Azoun didn't mind the deep shadows. In fact, he welcomed the darkness as he stood quietly on the bottom floor of his fortress's northeastern watchtower, for the shadows hid the monarch's growing anger at the soldier who stood before him, his tunic rumpled, his boots unpolished. The guard also had his sword drawn, and a broad smirk lined his thick-boned face.

"So tell me again, old man," the guard grunted at the king. "Just what are you doing down here? Don't you belong back in the main hall with the rest of the relics?"

Azoun narrowed his eyes and cursed silently. The piggish man who stood before him, dappled in the late afternoon sunlight from a nearby arrow loop, was being far too obnoxious to be tolerated. "I told you, my good man," the king said softly, "I'm looking for the captain of the guard. I have a message from His Majesty. Now, are you going to let me deliver it or not?"

The soldier rubbed his poorly shaven chin. "I don't know. I mean, I can't be too careful about who I let roam around the keep." He paused for a second and scratched a particularly hairy spot at the corner of his jaw.

It was obvious to Azoun that the guard was simply being difficult to someone he saw as a harmless old civil servant. "Kind sir," he pleaded, "I must be on my way. The king will be very cross if I don't deliver this message soon."

"All right, but just you remember that Sergeant Connor was nice enough to let you pass," the guard warned, finally stepping out of Azoun's way.

Smiling, the king stared at the soldier's round face. "Oh, yes," he said. "I'll remember." To have you demoted and fined for harassing one of my servants, Azoun added to himself. The ruler of Cormyr bowed fatuously and limped out of the tower into a corridor inside the castle's outer wall.

The king wore the guise of a royal messenger that afternoon: a fine black tunic with a purple dragon sewn across the chest, rough woolen pants, a dark cloak, and low-cut leather shoes. He carried a heavy cloth satchel and a rolled, sealed piece of parchment, official-looking enough to fool almost anyone he met.

Azoun had done a little to change his features, too. With the help of some dye, the king's graying brown hair and beard were now completely white, and some cleverly applied greasepaint had enhanced his wrinkles and paled his skin so that the monarch looked like a veteran of seventy winters instead of fifty. A little well-placed grime covered his normally spotless hands and hid the marks left by the rings he wore as ruler of Cormyr.

It wasn't surprising that the guard didn't recognize King Azoun. Few of his servants and even fewer of his subjects ever got close enough to the monarch to get a good look at his face. Nor was his visage on any of Cormyr's coins.

Even without the simple makeup he now wore, Azoun could stroll into most taverns in Suzail without being recognized.

Still, the king didn't take any chances. Whenever he wished to move about the city unencumbered by his personal guard, he donned a disguise and slipped out of the palace by way of the secret door near the tower he'd just left. His great-great-grandfather, Palaghard II, had ordered the secret door bebuilt so he could rendezvous with his various mistresses. Azoun had never used the exit for that specific purpose, but he had thanked Palaghard's lust more than once when the door allowed him to escape unnoticed into the Royal Gardens, then into the city itself.

The king continued to affect a limp as he moved down the dark, seemingly airless corridor, counting paces for a hundred yards or so. Suddenly he stopped, looked up and down the hallway, and listened for the sound of guards nearby. When he heard nothing, he felt the cool stone walls for a hand-sized indentation. Once Azoun found what he was searching for, he checked the hallway one last time for guards, then pressed a hidden lever.

With a low, muffled rumble, the secret door opened. Sunlight flooded the corridor as a four-by-four stone sank into the ground, revealing a tall, thick, cleanly trimmed hedgerow. Azoun squinted at the sudden burst of light and quickly moved into the concealing shrubbery. He fumbled for the hidden release on the outside of the castle for only a moment, then the door slid shut to the sound of stone faintly rubbing against stone.

"Wait a minute, Cuthbert," someone muttered in a deep voice from a few yards away. "I just heard something moving in them bushes next to the wall."

Azoun crouched down and held his breath. Though the secret door was mechanical, magic kept it relatively silent. Still, the king couldn't hide the sounds of his movement in the hedgerow. A sword poked through the evergreens just above his head.

"There's nothing in there," another voice, probably belonging to Cuthbert, said. "And if it was something, it'd more likely turn out to be a rat than a man.

Castles attract scavengers like that. Why, I once saw a rat the size of-"

"You've told me that story fifty times if you've told it to me once. Anyway, I'm just doing my job," the deep-voiced man told his companion. He thrust his sword into the bushes again. "I've got a duty to the king, and I intend on doing my best to fulfill it."

Azoun smiled at the sincerity he heard in the guard's voice. It was a welcome change from Sergeant Connor's thinly veiled threats. I'll have to find out who that soldier is and have him commended, Azoun noted to himself.

Perhaps I'll even promote him into Connor's job inside the tower.

After a few moments of silence and a few halfhearted sword thrusts into the hedges, the guards moved off. Azoun listened to their footsteps on the gravel path as they walked away. The king also heard one of the guards ask, "I suppose you're going to sign on for that crusade the king's mounting?" The other guard either nodded a reply or had moved too far away, for Azoun never heard his response.

As quietly as he could, the king took off his cape and tunic and unloaded the satchel. Inside the pack was a thin, unlined cloak and a worn, colorless tunic. The livery of a court messenger was fine for getting Azoun out of the keep with few problems, but the king knew that he'd never get honest answers from the townsfolk if he was seen as a member of court.

And honest answers were what Azoun wanted more than anything in the days after the assassination attempt. Of course, Vangerdahast hadn't found it surprising that one of the king's own subjects would try to kill him because of the crusade he proposed. To Azoun, however, the whole affair was mind- boggling.

The Cormyrian king had never doubted that it was his duty to gather thewestern forces under his banner and stop Yamun Khahan and his barbarians before they had a chance to destroy any western cities. The monarch knew that he had a responsibility to protect Faerun and his own kingdom. He was prepared to sacrifice a great deal-even his life, if necessary-to be certain that the horde never reached the heavily populated areas around the Inner Sea. Perhaps foolishly, Azoun assumed that his people would understand the war's necessity, even share his vision of the West united against the invaders.

And he'd dismissed the rumblings from the guilds, for the merchants always complained about any venture that would increase taxes.

The assassination attempt had shown the monarch how wrong he had been to do so. Now Azoun wanted to know if the Trappers' Guild itself had sponsored the attack. And if the guild did foster the attempt on his life, the king wanted to see firsthand how many of his subjects were in unrest. He realized that any strong popular revolt while he was away on crusade might be difficult to quell. Filfaeril was certainly capable of leading the loyalist forces, but the king didn't want to make such a dangerous possibility more likely by ignoring it.

"Reports can't reveal half of what I'll discover myself," Azoun whispered as he stuffed the royal livery into the satchel and hid the bag in the bushes.

Then, as quietly as possible, the king pushed his way through the hedgerow.

"Hey, you!" someone yelled. "Get out of those bushes. You'll not be using the Royal Gardens for a chamber pot!"

Azoun blushed and turned to see the royal gardener, a thin, choleric man, shaking a rake at him. So much for stealth, the king thought. Holding his hands before him, Azoun said, "Sincere apologies, my good man. I dropped a coin, and it rolled into the hedge."

People were beginning to stop and stare at the irate gardener and the red- faced old man at whom he was yelling. The Royal Gardens were open to the public during the day, but usually few commoners strolled around the northeast corner of the keep; the rest of the gardens were far more attractive.

Still, there were enough people gathering to make Azoun nervous. If the guards should come back, he might be taken in for questioning. The king shuddered in embarrassment at the thought of explaining to the captain of the guard why he was skulking in the bushes, dressed as a down-and-out merchant.

"My apologies, sirrah," Azoun called as he pulled his cloak around his shoulders and walked briskly toward the path that lead out of the gardens.

"And don't come back!" the gardener yelled, tossing his rake to the ground.

A few of the half-dozen people gathered nearby laughed, but most just shook their heads and went about their business.

Azoun was soon outside the Royal Gardens, standing on the dirt road that wound through the houses of Suzail's noble families. Unlike the other streets in the city, this one was devoid of garbage. The nobles paid commoners to keep it that way, just as they paid the men to fill the deep, muddy ruts that formed in the dirt street during rainy weather. In all, it was probably the nicest stretch of road in all of Cormyr, and the ancient, landed families-like the Wyvernspurs-didn't allow just anyone to wander down it.

That made the presence of a crowd of average citizens, following what appeared to Azoun at first glance to be a traveling priest, that much more of a mystery. Twenty people, most dressed in dirty, threadbare clothing, walked atthe cleric's heels. The men and women at the rear of the crowd all leaned forward as they moved, straining to hear the priest's words. The gathering soon stopped, however, and the cleric raised his hands high above his head.

"Friends, I come to you with a message from Lady Tymora, the Goddess of Luck, the patron of adventurers and warriors," the cleric said as Azoun moved toward the crowd. When the king got close to the rest of the audience, he reached down and put his hand around the small cloth sack that hung at his belt. Cutpurses and pickpockets often worked crowds like this one, and Azoun knew better than to leave his silver unprotected.

The cleric smiled warmly and continued. "I've gathered you here so that you can see what good fortune may bring." He pointed to the beautiful, three- story facade of Wyvernspur House. "These people have been graced."

A murmur of approval ran through the crowd.

The cleric spun around and pointed at his audience. "Are they better people than you?" he asked, raising his voice slightly. "Are they more worthy people than you?"

"No!" someone yelled.

"Of course not," a man close to Azoun hollered in a deep, rumbling voice.

"They don't even work for what they have," a woman cried. Another murmur ran through the crowd, this one tinged with anger.

"But there you are wrong!" the priest said, pointing at the woman who had spoken last. Again his voice grew a little louder. "The people who live along this street, even the royals who live in the grand palace-" The cleric threw his hands into the air, gesturing toward the castle that stood at the other side of the gardens as if he'd just seen i t. "They've all paid for what they own. Do you know how?"

A few people muttered, "No."

The cleric raised his voice and clasped his hands together in front of his chest. "Do any of you know how?"

"No!" a few more commoners cried. "Tell us!"

Another warm smile crossed the cleric's face, and the man dabbed sweat and pushed a few strands of dark, matted hair from his brow. "Yes," he said softly, "I'll tell you."

Azoun felt a dull anger welling up inside of him as he watched the cleric play the crowd. He'd seen bullfights in the south, and the toreadors had toyed with the bulls in just such a way, forcing the beasts to dance like trained bears. The king couldn't be too angry, though; he'd used some of the same rhetorical tactics himself when giving his speech to the crowd in the gardens.

As the smiling priest paused, waiting for anticipation to build in his audience, the king studied him closely.

The cleric's hair was dark brown, almost black, and combed back from his broad forehead. Deep blue eyes lay under the man's thick eyebrows. His most startling feature was his mouth, which was somehow amazingly expressive.

With just the twitch of a lip, the cleric could convey more than most people could with their entire body. Azoun silently noted that the tongue inside that mouth was most likely gold-plated, probably forked, too.

Whatever else there was of the cleric was hidden in a thick brown robe, which was itself very clean, even newly laundered. That fact alone made the cleric stand out in the crowd of grubby peasants that surrounded him. A small silver disk hung at his throat, a symbol of his devotion to the Goddess of Luck.Since the cleric was facing west, whenever he moved, the late afternoon sun glinted off the disk and flashed into someone's eyes.

The priest finished mopping his brow. "These people have won the favor of the Goddess of Luck because they've helped themselves, taken their destinies into their own hands." He signaled to a young boy in the crowd, who moved forward, carrying a small wooden box.

"But what can we do?" asked a pathetic-looking old woman. She held her bony arms outstretched toward the cleric, and her shapeless gray frock shifted on her thin frame.

Without a word, the dark-haired cleric took the box from the boy's hands, held it out to the woman, and opened it. A large golden coin lay in the velvet- lined case. The coin was a gold lion, if Azoun guessed correctly, and like the cleric's holy symbol, it caught the rays of the afternoon sun and flashed them at the old woman. This time it was a gasp that escaped from the crowd.

Servants from Wyvernspur House now lined the street in front of the manor, and a few noblemen and ladies peered at the gathering from open windows. Azoun knew that it was only a matter of time before a contingent of guards arrived to break up the cleric's meeting.

"Lady Tymora visits the Realms from time to time, and when last she was upon this continent, the Goddess of Luck blessed this coin for our temple."

The cleric picked up the gold lion and flicked it high into the air with his thumb.

The coin arced into the sky, then stopped and spun in the air. Everyone on the street-the crowd, the servants, the nobles, even King Azoun-found himself staring at the gold piece hovering and twirling above them.

"Accept her into your lives, and Tymora will bless you, too," the cleric said to the sea of upturned faces before him. "But only if you prove your worth, only if you tread the way of the faithful."

A few people grunted curses and looked away from the floating coin. "Here comes the plea for copper pieces," a young blond man near Azoun grumbled.

A few commoners simply walked away.

That didn't phase the cleric at all. "Yes," he said to the young man near the king. "One way for you to prove that your heart is ready for the goddess is for you to donate money to her church." A few people nodded, their suspicions confirmed. They started to leave.

"What Tymora really wants from you is a commitment to adventure, a promise to trust in luck and forge your own destiny." The priest paused for a moment and looked into the eyes of the dozen or so people left in front of him.

As he locked gazes with the king, the cleric added, "Tymora wants you to go on the crusade."

The statement hit Azoun like the flat of a sword wielded by a fire giant; his head swam and his eyes blurred for a moment. When the king looked again, the cleric's gaze had moved on, latching on to other people in the crowd. The dark-haired man was still talking, saying things about the crusade and how Tymora would reward anyone who trusted in her enough to face the barbarians. The king wasn't really listening.

Instead, Azoun was trying to reconcile his initial reaction to the cleric with the message he was preaching. Somehow, coming from an overpolished orator, a common manipulator of words like that worshiper of Tymora, the call to arms sounded crude. It was obviously effective, though, for when Azoun focused again on the priest, he saw that a half-dozen men were gatheredaround him, evidently still interested in following his advice.

Before the king could speak to the cleric, however, a patrol of six guards came marching up the street from the east. Without hesitation, Azoun turned to the west and walked away. The soldiers ignored the old man in the tattered cloak and moved straight toward the cleric and his audience. From the windows overlooking the street, the noblemen shouted a few cheers and cries of support for the soldiers.

When Azoun was fifty yards or so away, he looked back at the scene, only to see the cleric in a casual, friendly conversation with one of the guards. After a moment, in which time the priest introduced all of his new recruits to the sol- diers, the worshiper of Tymora held his right hand open, palm up. The spinning golden lion dropped softly into the cleric's grasp. Azoun shook his head and strode toward the waterfront.

Two hours passed as the king wandered through the streets of Suzail, in the general direction of the Black Rat, a tavern near the docks and marketplace. The late afternoon sun was just reaching the horizon, so many of the businesses were closing for the night. Some shopkeepers busied themselves with securing the awnings and heavy wooden shutters on their open-fronted shops. Other merchants-including all the bakers, butchers, and other food peddlers Azoun saw-were still standing in their storefronts, hawk- ing their goods at the tops of their lungs, trying to sell what perishables they could before they closed for the night.

The king walked to a bakery and leaned against the corner of the building.

The white-bearded man who ran the shop scowled at the king, but didn't chase the loiterer away. For the next few minutes, Azoun simply stood on the corner, taking in the relaxing smell of warm bread and watching his subjects as they went about their lives.