Beyond the High Road (14 page)

The ghazneth started forward, keeping a careful eye on the wizard’s hand. Vangerdahast allowed it to herd him back toward the cliff edge, praying the thing did not realize he could fly. There was no reason it should. The creature had been imprisoned inside the web spell when he tumbled over the cliff, and it had been facing the wrong direction when he returned.

Vangerdahast reached the rim of the cliff and stopped. The ghazneth gathered itself to spring, and he pulled the black peacemaker’s rod from inside his cloak. “Last chance to surrender. Otherwise, there won’t be enough left of you to make a good pair of boots.”

He leveled the steel club at the ghazneth, and predictably enough, the phantom brought its dark wing around to absorb the coming fireball.

Vangerdahast flung himself backward off the outcropping and was instantly flying again. He performed a quick reverse roll and came soaring up straight along the cliff face, returning to the same place he had just been. The ghazneth appeared in the same instant, hurling itself over the edge with wings stretched wide.

Vangerdahast smashed the peacemaker’s rod into its mangled chest, then cried, “Go east!”

The ghazneth shot skyward as though launched from a catapult, then banked eastward and streaked off screeching in confusion and rage.

Vangerdahast chuckled lightly, and stepped back onto the outcropping. It would take the creature a good half hour to recover from the rod’s repulsion magic. That would be plenty of time for him to reunite with Tanalasta and be long gone. He returned the peacemaker’s rod to his pocket, then reached for his signet ring.

Crouching behind the last dune before the barren expanse of the Stonelands proper, Tanalasta watched the phantom streak eastward over her head, then slipped her signet ring into a secure pocket in her weathercloak. The last thing she needed was to have Vangerdahast contact her now. The creature had already proven it could hear their ring-talk, and whatever the old wizard had done to the thing, she did not want it venting its anger on her.

The phantom faded to a dot and disappeared entirely, and only then did Tanalasta return to her horse. She started back across the dunes toward the outcropping, taking care to stay in the troughs as much as possible. The first two times she was forced to crest a dune, she saw Vangerdahast searching for her from the cliff top, peering up the mountainside or scrutinizing the caravan as it struggled to put itself back together. The third time, she noticed the wizard’s stallion hiding in the trough below, pressed against the shady side of a boulder and trembling in terror. She guided her own horse over toward it, speaking to the frightened beast in a soft and reassuring voice. The horse regarded her warily, its eyes large and suspicious.

Tanalasta halted a dozen paces from the big stallion. “There now, Cadimus.” She kept her hands on the horn of her own saddle, realizing she would only spook him by trying to rush matters along. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Vangerdahast’s friend.”

The horse pricked his ears forward at the mention of his master’s name. Tanalasta raised her hand slowly and pointed toward the outcropping.

“Vangerdahast,” she said. “You know Vangerdahast, don’t you? Vangerdahast is well. Why don’t we go see him? Vangerdahast is right over there.”

The horse peered around the boulder in the indicated direction. When he did not see the outcropping, which remained hidden behind a low sand dune, he stepped cautiously forward. Tanalasta leaned forward to grab his dangling reins, but he snorted a warning and jerked his head away.

“All right, Cadimus.” Tanalasta pulled her hand back. “Follow me on your own. We’ll go see Vangerdahast.”

She turned her own mount up the trough and started forward, moving slowly so as not to alarm the skittish beast. Whatever had happened up on the outcropping must have been terrifying indeed. Cadimus was a powerful stallion bred for fighting spirit. His brother, Damask Dragon, was her father’s favorite war-horse.

At length, they drew near enough to the outcropping that the summit began to show over the crest of the dune. Cadimus grew more skittish than ever, pausing to snort and scrape the ground with his hoof. At first, Tanalasta tried to reassure him with soft words, but the more she talked, the more determined the stallion became to convince her to turn around.

Finally, she decided to try a different strategy and looked away, then rode on without saying anything. It was a risky strategy and not only because she was reluctant to leave the poor beast wandering the Stonelands alone. Vangerdahast was a portly man. Even if her own horse was strong enough to carry them both, Tanalasta did not look forward to sharing her saddle with the wizard for the next tenday or two.

The princess rode almost fifty paces before Cadimus finally came trotting up beside her, snorting angrily and trying to shoulder her mount around. Tanalasta put up with the stallion’s bullying just long enough to grab his reins and jerk his head around.

“Some war-horse you are!”

Cadimus snorted in disgust, but lowered his ears and stopped pushing against her mare. Tanalasta sighed in relief and led him another dozen paces up the trough, then reluctantly turned to cross the dune crest.

Already in the shadow of the outcropping, they had to start up the mountainside if they wanted to reach the top. Cadimus nickered in protest and pulled against his reins, but Tanalasta angled away from the outcropping and managed to persuade him to keep climbing.

As they started down the other side of the dune, a loud swooshing noise sounded behind them. Cadimus let out a terrified whinny and bolted, nearly jerking Tanalasta from the saddle. She caught herself on her saddle horn, then dropped to the ground and spun around, one hand pointed toward the sound and the other already slapping at her magic bracers.

“Don’t you dare!” snapped Vangerdahast, landing atop the dune in a small sandstorm. “I’ve had quite enough abuse today.”

Tanalasta lowered her arm, only slightly surprised by the sight of the flying wizard. “Perhaps you could give me some warning next time?” She looked down the trough after Cadimus’s fleeing form. “Look what you’ve done.”

“I’ve no time to waste on warnings!” The wizard pointed at the bare finger where her signet ring should have been. “Besides, how was I to warn you? I’ve been trying to ringspeak to you for fifteen minutes!”

“I thought you would.” Tanalasta pulled herself back into the saddle. “That’s why I took it off.”

Vangerdahast’s cheeks darkened to the color of rubies. “What?”

“I was afraid of drawing the phantom’s attention.” Reluctantly, Tanalasta offered her hand to help the wizard into the saddle behind her. “It can hear our ring-talk.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Vangerdahast frowned, then raised his brow and absentmindedly waved her off. “On the other hand…”

Not bothering to finish the sentence, he stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled for his horse.

“On the other hand what?” Tanalasta demanded.

“Come along.” Vangey spread his arms, then leaped into the air and flew over Tanalasta’s head. “We don’t have much time.”

Tanalasta did not need to ask the cause for the wizard’s hurry If he had been trying to ringspeak with her, the phantom would know they had become separated and might well return in the hope of finding her alone. She galloped after the wizard and was quickly joined by Cadimus, who seemed to have regained his proud spirit with the sight of his master.

Tanalasta caught up to the flying wizard and positioned herself beneath him. “Vangey, why are we running from that thing?” She had to crane her neck back to call up to him. “Why didn’t you just kill it when you had the chance?”

When Vangerdahast glanced down, he actually looked embarrassed. “It took me somewhat by surprise,” he admitted. “And to tell you the truth, I really don’t know what in the Nine Hells a ghazneth is.”

“Ghazneth?”

They reached the base of the hill, and Vangerdahast had to fly up out of speaking range. They angled up the slope westward until the slope grew rocky enough to conceal hoof prints from casual detection, then cut eastward away from the orcs still milling about on the battlefield on the Stonebolt Trail. Tanalasta glimpsed the area just long enough to see that Ryban had stayed to engage the swiners. She saw a dozen Purple Dragons lying among the dead, and small bands of orcs were already squabbling over the carcasses of at least twice that many horses. Her stomach grew hollow and queasy, and she prayed the lionar had not stayed to fight because he thought she was in danger-though of course that was the only reasonable explanation.

Once they had ascended high enough that the plain below vanished into the stonemurk, Vangerdahast led the way around the shoulder of the mountain. He guided them into the shelter of a rocky gully, then left Tanalasta to tether the horses and keep watch while he surveyed possible escape routes. When he returned, he pointed up the mountain about three quarters of a mile, to where a large, spirelike rock sat on the crest of a ridge.

“If the ghazneth finds us, use your cloak’s escape pocket to go up there, then slip around the other side and start riding.” He glowered at her from one eye. “You haven’t used it yet, have you?”

Tanalasta shook her head.

“And you do remember how?”

“I’m inexperienced, not daft.” Tanalasta motioned toward the secret pocket inside her weathercloak. “These cloaks aren’t that hard to use. Why all this bother anyway? Just kill the damned thing and be done with it.”

Again, Vangerdahast flushed. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

Tanalasta raised her brow. “I thought you could kill anything.”

“I didn’t want to be hasty,” said Vangerdahast, neatly dodging the question. He pulled a handful of spell components from his pocket and began to lay them out on a boulder, using his work as an excuse to avoid Tanalasta’s gaze. “It knew my name.”

“Of course it knew your name.” As she spoke, Tanalasta continued to keep watch. “It was listening to our ring-talk.”

Vangerdahast said something else, but Tanalasta did not really hear it. A terrible thought had occurred to her, and she was trying desperately to think of a reason it could not be true. When she failed, the princess grasped Vangerdahast’s elbow.

“Vangey, what if that’s the reason Alusair removed her signet?”

Vangerdahast looked confused and said nothing, and the princess realized he had been paying no more attention to her than she had to him. She pulled her signet from her pocket and displayed it in her open palm.

“Vangerdahast, I took this off so it wouldn’t draw the ghazneth to me,” she said. “What if Alusair did the same thing?”

Vangerdahast frowned. “Why should she do that? The ghazneth is here.” The wizard’s eyes lit in comprehension, then he said, “No!”

“We don’t know anything’s wrong,” said Tanalasta, trying to calm him. “Alusair’s silence could mean she’s being cautious. After all, she has no way of knowing where the thing is.”

Looking more concerned than ever, Vangerdahast turned to face Tanalasta. “I wasn’t worried about Alusair, thank you very much.” The wizard’s face was paling before Tanalasta’s eyes. “I told you. The ghazneth said I owed it something. If I don’t pay, Cormyr will.”

“You talked to this thing?” Tanalasta found herself looking at the wizard’s wrinkled face instead of keeping watch.

“It’s not as though we had tea,” Vangerdahast growled. “The thing was bound in a magic web.”

“And you let it out?”

“I didn’t let it do anything. It dissolved my web, or absorbed it, or something. I really don’t know.” The wizard went over to Cadimus and removed a spellbook from the stallion’s saddlebags. “When we get back to Arabel, maybe the Sage Most Learned can tell me what exactly a ghazneth is. I can’t teleport us back until tomorrow, but if we can last the night-“

“Back?” Tanalasta echoed. “To Arabel?”

Vangerdahast opened his spellbook and absently began to flip through the pages. “Of course. You can’t think I intend to keep you out here.”

“And you can’t think I would return until we’ve found Alusair!”

Vangerdahast slammed his spellbook shut. “Enough, Princess! Your games have already cost the lives of too many good men.”

“My games, Vangerdahast?”

“Your games,” the wizard insisted. “Were you not the one who insisted that we destroy the orc tribe ‘like Alusair would?’”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean-“

“And now we have lost Ryban’s entire company.”

“How can you call that my fault?” Tanalasta was genuinely hurt. “They were supposed to loose a few arrows and flee!”

“That does not change what happened,” Vangerdahast insisted. “You have been playing with men’s lives, and I will have no more of it.”

Tanalasta narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry for the loss of Ryban and his men, Vangerdahast, but I am not playing at anything. If you and the king are, tell me now.”

“The king is quite serious, I assure you. He will not have an order of spell-beggars placed in such a position of influence.”

“He won’t, Vangerdahast?” Tanalasta demanded. “Or you won’t?”

“Our thoughts are the same on this matter,” insisted Vangerdahast. “But that has nothing to do with your imminent return to Arabel. It’s treason for you to blackmail the crown by placing yourself-and others-in this kind of danger.”

“It’s only blackmail if the king is bluffing,” Tanalasta said. “And if he is, the treason lies on your head, not mine. I have done nothing but take him at his word.”

“The king does not bluff his own daughter.”

“Then our duty is clear,” said Tanalasta. “The king sent us to find the crown princess, and this ghazneth creature only makes it that much more urgent for us to do so.”

Vangerdahast exhaled loudly, clearly frustrated by the dilemma in which he found himself. Tanalasta turned back to her duties as a watchman, scanning the stonemurk for the first dark hint of wings on the horizon.

“Princess, be reasonable,” said Vangerdahast. “While everything you say is true, even you must admit your father hardly had something like this in mind when he sent you-“

“I can’t know what the king had in mind,” Tanalasta said. “What I do know is that I am here, and that the king himself charged me with finding Alusair.”