The Wyvern's Spur

1 Homecoming

From the journal of Giogioni Wyvernspur:

Giogi laid his quill pen on the writing table and left the journal open for the ink to dry. He didn’t feel it necessary to add that his great-aunt would find his presence comforting only insofar as it would give her something else to criticize. He planned to leave his journal to posterity someday, and there were some things posterity just didn’t need to know.

As far as Aunt Dorath was concerned, Giogi had dishonored the Wyvernspur family last year with his disgraceful—but, as Giogi would put it, dead-on—imitation of King Azoun IV, which had resulted in Giogi’s near assassination by the cursed sell-sword Alias of Westgate and the disruption of an entire wedding reception. Nor had Dorath, the matriarch of clan Wyvernspur, been impressed by her nephew’s tale of his subsequent hair-raising encounter with a red dragon named Mist. To her mind, any young man who could not avoid entanglements with assassins and monsters needed to be sent far away for an extended period. Aunt Dorath had assumed that His Majesty Azoun had exiled Giogi in disgrace for those transgressions.

What Dorath, and most of the general population, had not known, was that King Azoun actually had assigned Giogi a secret mission, to discover the whereabouts of Alias of Westgate, the king’s potential assassin.

Not that I needed to be assigned, Giogi thought. I seem destined to run into the woman—or her relatives—wherever I roam. Yet, after Giogi had spotted her near Westgate that summer, she seemed to have vanished from the Realms entirely.

Giogi rose from his writing desk and stretched. His fingertips brushed against one of the overhead chandeliers. He was a very tall young man, a legacy from both his father and his mother. Last year he’d been slender and clean-cut, but his travels had left him gaunt and his hair in desperate need of a trim. His sandy-brown locks straggled down his sunburned neck in back and into his muddy brown eyes in front. His long face made his features seem less plain than they were. He bore no resemblance, however, to the other living members of the Wyvernspur family, who all had thin lips, hawklike noses, blue eyes, pale skin, and dark hair.

Taking up his goblet of mulled wine, Giogi crossed the parlor to the fireplace, where he warmed his fingers by the flames. It would take a day or two of blazing fires to chase the last of the winter chill and damp from the parlor. Uncertain as to his master’s return, Thomas, Giogi’s manservant, had decided not to waste wood and effort heating an empty house. Giogi shuddered to think of the effect that ten months of such neglect had on the plush wool Calimshan carpeting, the brilliant Sembian satin furniture coverings, and the Cormyrian duskwood paneling. At least, it being the month of Ches, the returning spring sunshine kept ice from forming on the leaded glass windows. It had come as quite a shock to Giogi, though, to find no candle burning in those windows upon his return, neither literally nor figuratively.

The young noble wondered whether a mere fire laid in the hearth could burn off the strange and unwelcome feeling he now sensed in his home. Everything was familiar and in its proper place, but the townhouse felt empty. After months spent at inns, aboard ships, and in traveling with strangers, now being alone left Giogi disquieted. He took a long swig of wine to shake off his gloom.

On the mantlepiece lay the most interesting souvenir of his travels: a large yellow crystal. Giogi had found it in the grass outside Westgate, and he was sure there was something special about the stone besides its beauty and financial value. The crystal shone in the dark like a great firefly, and Giogi felt quite comforted whenever he held it. He considered showing it to his Uncle Drone, but he decided against the idea, afraid that the old wizard would tell him the stone was dangerous and take it away.

Giogi polished off his drink and placed the empty silver goblet on the mantlepiece, then picked up the yellow crystal. Cradling it in both hands, he flopped back into his favorite stuffed chair and propped his feet up on a cushioned footstool. He turned the crystal over in his hands, watching the firelight sparkle in each facet.

The crystal was roughly egg-shaped but far larger than any bird egg—smaller, though, than a wyvern’s egg. It was the color of the finest mead and faintly warm to the touch. Where the facets met, the edges were not sharp but beveled smooth. Giogi held the stone at arm’s length, closed one eye, and tried to divine if it held some secret within its depths, but he could make out only the firelight shining through it and his own reflection broken by the facets.

“Now, what would be the best way to display you?” he asked the crystal. There was no sense in having a case made for it, he realized. Taking it out every time he wanted to handle it would be a bother, but it was too large to wear from a neck chain. On the road, he had kept it tucked in the top of his boot, where most adventurers kept their daggers.

The boots would have to suffice this evening, he decided at last. Although he didn’t plan to show it to Uncle Drone and the rest of his family, he very much wanted to show the stone to his pals at the Immer Inn. With any luck, Aunt Dorath would dismiss him from the family gathering early enough for him to slip back into town before closing hour.

That matter resolved, Giogi bounced back to his feet and wandered from the parlor to his home’s entrance. With the stone tucked awkwardly in his belt, he rummaged through the hall closet under the stairs. He’d left his boots in the front of the closet, but they had somehow vanished. He rustled about the cloaks and capes hanging from their separate hooks, and kicked through a number of shoes that littered the floor. Then he began pulling from the closet all manner of walking sticks, abandoned clothing, and curios—which were gifts from relatives, and so could not be thrown away, but which were too ugly to place anywhere but in the relative darkness of the closet.

Finally, having moved half the closet’s interior into the hall, the young noble gave up and let out a bellow.

“Thomas!” he shouted toward the back hallway. “Where are my boots?”

Alerted by the sound of chests, shoes, and walking sticks being thumped about, Thomas had already decided to investigate the racket and had put aside the silver tureen he’d been polishing. He was just coming out from the kitchen as Giogi called his name. Beneath the archway separating the front hall from what Giogi termed “Servant Land,” the gentleman’s gentleman paused.

Thomas looked askance at the closet’s contents strewn about the hallway and tried not to blanch. He wasn’t more than three years Giogi’s senior, but many more years of responsibility had given him an aged, wiser-than-thou look. It was a look that the servant used now on his employer.

“Is there something that Sir requires?” Thomas asked evenly.

“I can’t find my boots,” Giogi declared. “I know I left them in here.”

From the chaos before him, Thomas drew out a pair of recently polished black boots with narrow heels and sharp, pointed toes. “Here you are, sir,” he said without a trace of annoyance.

“Not those things. I won’t wear them ever again. They pinch my feet. Take them away and burn them. I want the boots I bought in Westgate. The knee-high, brown-suede clodders with wide brims. They’re the most comfortable boots in the Realms.”

Thomas raised a single eyebrow. “Comfortable they may be, sir, but they are hardly a gentleman’s boot.”

“Tish! I’m a gentleman, and they’re my boots, ergo, argumentum ab auctoritate,” came Giogi’s riposte. “Et cetera,” he added.

“I thought, sir, now that your travels are through, that you would wish to dispense with the accoutrements of your journey. I have already retired the boots.”

“Well, bring them out of retirement, and please hurry. I need to leave for Redstone.”

“I understood that your Aunt Dorath was not expecting you until after supper.”

“That’s right, and since I thought I would walk to Redstone and would like to arrive on time, I need to leave now.” Giogi sat on the hall bench and kicked off his silk slippers, anticipating that Thomas would produce his boots out of thin air.

Thomas surveyed his master with disbelief. “Walk, sir?”

“Yes. You know, one foot in front of the other,” Giogi explained patiently.

“But what about your own supper, sir?”

“Supper? Oh, sorry, Thomas. Write supper off. After that magnificent lunch and all those wonderful raisin cakes at tea, I’m completely full up. Couldn’t eat another thing. Thanks anyway.”

Thomas’s look of incredulity turned to one of concern. “Are you feeling all right, sir?”

“Splendid, except that my feet are getting cold,” Giogi said with a grin.

Without another word, Thomas spun about and disappeared through the archway into Servant Land.

Giogi twisted sideways on the bench to keep his stockinged feet off the chilly floorboards. He ran a finger along the smooth parquetry worked into the wooden bench’s high back. One of his earliest childhood memories was of his father explaining to him the picture in the bench. It depicted the moment the family had gotten its patronymic, “way back,” as his father used to say, “in the days before we knew which spoon to use for the soup course.” In the design, Paton Wyvernspur, the family founder, stood before a great female wyvern. Two tiny hatchling wyverns played at the monster’s feet, and behind her lay the corpse of her mate. Bandits had killed her mate and stolen her eggs from her nest, but Paton had tracked down and vanquished the thieves and restored the young wyverns to their mother. In gratitude, the female wyvern had sliced off her mate’s right spur and conferred it upon Giogi’s forefather with the promise that his family line would never dwindle while the spur remained in the family’s possession.

Later, when he was older and had learned that wyverns weren’t considered very nice beasts, Giogi often wondered why Paton had helped the female wyvern. By that time, though, Giogi’s father and mother were both dead, and Giogi couldn’t bring himself to ask Aunt Dorath or Uncle Drone. He sensed instinctively that it would be branded a question only a fool such as himself would ask.

He wasn’t fool enough to part with the bench, though. It had been a wedding gift from his mother to his father, and while the other Wyvernspurs scorned the wealthy carpenter’s daughter that Cole Wyvernspur had wed, they all coveted the bench. The carpentry was solid, and the parquetry picture positively hypnotic. Aunt Dorath had suggested a number of times that the bench ought to sit in the hall of Redstone, the family manor, and last year, before his marriage to Gaylyn Dimswart, Giogi’s second Cousin Frefford had hinted it would make a lovely wedding gift, but Giogi declined to part with it.

Bored by inactivity, Giogi bounced to his stocking feet and began tossing back into the closet all the things he’d tossed out.

Thomas appeared in the archway, holding out the knee-high, brown-suede clodders, which, by his master’s own declaration, were the most comfortable pair in the Realms. “Please, sir,” the servant requested, “don’t trouble yourself with putting those things away. I’ll be happy to do it.”

Giogi halted in midtoss of a lone wool mitten. Something in Thomas’s tone revealed the servant’s anxiety. Giogi noticed that the inside of the closet was now as untidy as the outside. “Sorry, Thomas,” he apologized meekly.

“That’s quite all right, sir,” Thomas said, setting the boots beside the bench.

“Ah, my boots! Excellent!” Giogi sat back down on the bench and pulled the right boot on, then slipped the stone into the brim.

“Are you certain, sir, you wouldn’t rather ride?” Thomas asked.

Giogi, one foot still unshod, looked up at his manservant. “It may surprise you to know, Thomas, that when I was on my mission for the crown, I often walked great distances.” Giogi did not feel it necessary to add that he had walked great distances whenever forced to because some scurrilous cove had stolen his horse or some equally evil beast had devoured his mount.

“Indeed, sir. I did not mean to suggest you weren’t up to the task. I just thought that after your strenuous journey you might prefer the luxury of riding. If not in the carriage, I can saddle Daisyeye.”

“No, thank you, Thomas,” Giogi said, finally pulling on the other boot. “Daisyeye deserves a good, long rest, and I really want to walk.” He rose, whipped his cloak about him with a flourish, and stomped to the front door. “Don’t bother to wait up for me,” he suggested. “I expect I’ll be quite late. Good night,” he called out before he plunged outside.

In town, everything was brown; the buildings, the grass, the muddy roads, the wooden carts, even the horses and oxen, were shades of umber and tan. Townhouses blocked out the late afternoon sun and cast long chocolate shadows on the earth. Women shouted out the windows at dirt-caked children in the streets. It was as if the gods had run out of other colors by the time they reached that part of Immersea, left it etched in one shade, then hadn’t bothered to mix new paint to fill in the color.

Giogi walked east, away from the center of town, then turned south onto a trail that led from town to the Wyvernspur estate. A low wall surrounded the land, and the lanky noble swung his legs over it easily and entered another world, one that the gods had colored. Stalks of winter rye glittered like jade in the setting sunlight; purple-specked crocuses sparkled with gemlike raindrops; a great flock of wild geese honked overhead in the deepening blue sky. Giogi felt his spirits rise and shook off the gloom that had gripped him in his own house.

He struck out along the path through the fields. As the town founders, the Wyvernspurs held title to nearly all the land south of town. Most of the land was set aside for hunting and riding. The highest hill was dedicated to the goddess Selûne, and the temple at its peak was left to the administration of her priestess, ancient Mother Lleddew. The Wyvernspurs resisted, however, cultivating much of the land, felling many trees, or clearing many fields for cattle. They were nobles, not farmers or foresters or ranchers. The Cormaerils—the only other titled family in Immersea—regularly planted nearly a hundred acres, but had been nobility for only four generations. Giogi feared that, after fifteen generations, the Wyvernspurs were too entrenched in relying on the family fortune as their only source of revenue.

As Giogi emerged from the fields of rye, the sun was no more than half a palm’s width from the horizon, and the air was already turning chill. The path wound down into the valley of the Immer Stream. The noble kept up a quick pace to keep warm, but as he approached the northern bank of the stream he was forced to proceed more cautiously. The trail grew marshy, and he picked his way from one tuft of dry grass to the next. His boots were reasonably waterproof, but he didn’t want to arrive at Aunt Dorath’s looking a mess.

Finally, after a long period of testing footfalls and doubling back, he reached the footbridge that crossed the stream. To the west of the trail, the Immer Stream flowed down from the hill dedicated to Selûne. To the south of the stream, the trail climbed onto drier ground and up to Redstone Castle, ancestral home of the Wyvernspurs.

Just as Giogi clomped onto the bridge, a fine white strand of something whipped out in front of him. With a shriek the nobleman leaped backward with visions of giant spiders and a sudden irrational belief in the curse of the wyvern’s spur. The white strand was not followed by others, though, giving Giogi the opportunity to clutch his chest in relief and spot the silhouette of a man on the southern shore.

“Cole?” the silhouette gasped. “No, of course not. It’s Giogioni, isn’t it? You gave me a fright, boy. Looked for a moment just like your old man in that getup.”

Giogi squinted in the gloomy light. The sun had nearly set, but he could make out the tall, broad form of a man on the far bank. The man’s erect stance and bearing reflected a military background. His dark hair was short and just beginning to gray at the temples. He had a warm, perfect smile, which set Giogi at ease. “Sudacar? Samtavan Sudacar, is that you? What are you doing out here?”

“Getting in a little casting. Sorry about the line. My technique’s gotten a little rusty over the winter.” Sudacar tugged at the string hanging from his fishing rod until it slipped off the footbridge and into the water with a small splash. As he jerked the line through the water, tiny minnows chased after the lure.

Giogi crossed the bridge and picked his way along the south bank until he stood beside Samtavan Sudacar, the man appointed by none other than King Azoun himself to defend Immersea, dispense the king’s justice, keep the peace, and, of course, collect taxes. “Taking a break from your pressing administrative duties, eh?” Giogi asked.

Sudacar snorted. “Keeping out of Culspiir’s way is more like it. Behind every local lord, my boy, is a trained herald making him look good. As long as I keep delegating authority to Culspiir, I’ll be a great success at this job.” Sudacar continued casting, watching his lure all the while.

“Why isn’t Culspiir the local lord, then?” Giogi asked meekly.

“If he had my job, who would we get to do his job?”

“Good point,” Giogi admitted.

“Besides, Culspiir never slew a giant.”

“Is that a prerequisite for your job?”

“Got to make a name for yourself at court. Slew a frost giant that was terrorizing merchants in Gnoll Pass. That’s how I got into politics—a service like that has to be recognized officially.”

Giogi nodded in agreement, though he knew not all the other members of his family felt the same way.

Samtavan Sudacar had not been born to nobility, nor was he a native of Immersea. Nonetheless, King Azoun had named Sudacar Lord of Immersea when that position fell vacant by the death of Giogi’s father’s cousin, Lord Wohl Wyvernspur. Wohl’s son, Frefford, had still been a boy, so the family had accepted Sudacar graciously enough. They’d even invited the middle-aged bachelor to make his home with them in Redstone Castle.

When Frefford reached majority, though, His Majesty hadn’t assigned the young Wyvernspur to the post. That’s when Aunt Dorath had begun to consider Sudacar not just an upstart, but an interloper and a usurper as well. Giogi knew, though, that Frefford had been secretly relieved. Aunt Dorath and Cousin Steele had taken the most offense. Pride and loyalty to the king prohibited the family’s asking Sudacar to leave Redstone. When Giogi had left Immersea last spring, an uneasy truce had existed between the Wyvernspurs of Redstone Castle and the Lord of Immersea.

Giogi, since he chose to live in town instead of at the castle, had never really gotten to know Sudacar very well. They didn’t travel in the same circles. Now, though, Giogi realized, he had to learn something more about Sudacar. “If you’re from Suzail originally,” he asked, “how did you know my father?”

“Cole? Met him at court a few times. Slew his share of giants, your father did.”

“He did?” Giogi asked with surprise. His father had died when Giogi was only eight, so he hadn’t known him very well. But he was certain no one had ever mentioned that Cole had slain giants.

“Served His Majesty with honor, like generations of your family before him,” Sudacar said, pulling his dripping line from the water and adjusting it behind his back.

“Aunt Dorath told me he was a trade envoy.”

“He might have been that as well,” Sudacar said, whipping the line out over the stream again.

“As well? As well as what?”

“He was a warrior adventurer. Your aunt never told you that?”

“No,” Giogi admitted. Loyally, he added, “It must have slipped her mind.”

Sudacar snorted. “Wouldn’t have considered that a proper occupation for a Wyvernspur, would she? I’m surprised Drone never mentioned it.”

So was Giogi, though he did not say so aloud.

Drone Wyvernspur was Giogi’s great-aunt Dorath’s cousin and therefore Giogi’s first cousin twice removed, but out of respect and affection, Giogi called him Uncle Drone. When Giogi’s mother had died a year after her husband, Aunt Dorath had taken care of Giogi, but Uncle Drone had been assigned the task of completing the masculine aspects of Giogi’s education. An unmarried wizard of sedentary habits, Uncle Drone had not exactly been the most useful source of information about women, hunting, or horses.

Drone knew a good deal, though, about wine and gambling, and something of politics and religion, and, armed with this learning, Giogi usually managed to hold his own in taverns and after-dinner conversations. The wizard had told Giogi plenty of stories about his mother, Bette, and her father, the carpenter, even though Aunt Dorath had never approved of Cole’s wife’s family. Why, though, Giogi wondered, hadn’t Uncle Drone told me Cole was an adventurer?

“Would you care to walk back to Redstone with me?” he asked Sudacar, hoping to hear more about his father, something he could confront Uncle Drone with.

The lord shook his head. “Everything’s at sixes and sevens up there. Culspiir and I offered our assistance, but your Aunt Dorath as much as told us to keep our noses out of Wyvernspur business. She doesn’t want an interloper like me involved. I’ll tucker in at the Five Fine Fish and creep back to the castle in the small hours. Safer for all involved that way.”

“Oh.” Disappointed, Giogi stood beside Sudacar, racking his head for something else to say to keep the conversation going. His wits failed him, as they were wont to do, so he stood wordlessly beside Sudacar as the shadows lengthened. Sudacar cast his line twice more. Farther upstream there was a hooting and a sudden flurry of wings, followed by a splash. An owl fished the waters as well.

Finally Sudacar spoke. “Thought I’d seen a ghost when I saw you on the opposite bank, in those boots with that cloak. You haven’t got Cole’s face, but you have his shape, his stance, his walk.” Sudacar cast his line again. “If you’d care to talk about your father,” he offered, “stop in at the Fish later, and we’ll raise a mug in his honor.”

Giogi grinned with pleasure. “If I can escape Aunt Dorath’s clutches, I’ll do just that,” he agreed. Just then, a sudden chill made him realize the warmth had gone with the sunlight. He pulled his cloak closer to his body. “I’d better be going. They’re expecting me up at the castle.”

Sudacar nodded without taking his eyes off the lure he tugged through the water.

Giogi left the Lord of Immersea by the water and hurried up the trail. It was dark and cold by the time he reached the walls surrounding Redstone Castle, but he still didn’t relish the thought of entering. The castle was wrapped in shades of gray and black. The reddish pallor of its stonework, which gave it its name, was absent in the darkness. The castle squatted on the low hill overlooking the Immer Stream, the town of Immersea, and the Wyvernwater—a great lake east of Cormyr—beyond, like a dragon watching a merchant road.

Looking up at the brooding monstrosity as he approached, Giogi was reminded again of the dragon that had fallen on Westgate and the earthquakes and underworld power-struggle that had ensued. Having dealt with all those things, Giogi assured himself, coping with this family crisis shouldn’t be too difficult.