Beyond the High Road (42 page)

The wizard was just inches above the surface when a pearly skin of magic appeared over the dark liquid. He barely had time to tuck his chin and twist away before he slammed into it. A terrific jolt shot up his spine, filling him with anguish from neck to knees, and he careened back into the air.

Vangerdahast brought himself slowly under control, then took a moment to shake the shock from his head and inspect himself The impact had left his old body shaken and sore, but relatively unscathed, aside from one slightly separated shoulder. He circled back to the pool and descended more slowly.

When he came to within a foot of the water, the pearly barrier appeared again-no doubt some sort of enchantment designed to repel beings of honorable intents and loyal persuasions.

“It won’t be that easy, Xanthon! Do you hear me?” Vangerdahast was already summoning to mind the words that would dispel the magical barrier. “I’m coming for you!”

After three solid days in the saddle, Azoun could not quite believe his eyes when he rode into the narrow confines of Scimitar Canyon and found a trailworn stallion standing in the open entrance of the secret cavern of the Sleeping Sword. The big horse was glassy-eyed and haggard from many days on the trail, and he was still covered with foam from a hard ride that had left him barely able to stand, but the king would have recognized the noble beast anywhere.

“Cadimus!”

Azoun reined his own hard-ridden mount to a stop, then leaped out of the saddle, passed his reins to one of his weary dragoneer bodyguards, and rushed up to the royal magician’s horse.

“How have you been old boy?” He patted the stallion fondly on the neck.

Cadimus nickered softly, then swung his nose around as though to point to his saddle. There was blood on it-a lot of blood, mostly brown and crusted, but some new enough that it was still sticky and red.

“Kuceon!” Azoun cried, yelling for one of Owden Foley’s young priestesses. “Come quickly!”

The girl trotted her horse to the head of the company and slipped from the saddle while the beast was still moving. Leaving the reins for someone else to collect, she came to Azoun’s side and touched her fingers to the bloody saddle.

“A seeping wound. Probably purulent, no doubt serious.”

The king started to ask if the victim could have cast a teleport spell, then realized that Vangerdahast would never have done such a thing from this particular location-not with the ghazneths at large. With a sinking heart, he selected a dozen dragoneers and two war wizards to accompany them into the cavern, then motioned for a man to strike the torches they had brought along to light their way. He was tempted just to slip on a Purple Dragon commander’s ring and call upon its magical light, but they had spent the last three days riding night and day precisely because he did not want to use any magic that might lead the scourges to the Sleeping Sword. Whatever lay inside, it could wait long enough to strike a fire.

Once the first torch was lit, the king took it and led the way around a recently-moved boulder into the narrow mouth of the cavern. The air reeked of rot and decay, and Azoun knew before he had taken his third step that something terrible had become of the Lords Who Sleep.

“Vangerdahast?” he called.

No answer came, and they rounded the corner into the main chamber of Scimitar Cave.

The place looked like any other crypt he had ever seen, full of moldering bones and shards of rusty armor and tattered bits of cloth-all that remained of five hundred valiant knights who had volunteered to lay in hibernation against the time when they were needed. Only one piece of equipment, the tattered and bloody cloak of a Royal Scout, lay in anything resembling one piece.

“Sire!” gasped Kuceon. She seemed unable to say any more than that.

Conscious of the effect his reaction would have on those around him, Azoun bit back his despair and snatched the bloody cape, then turned to the young priestess at his side.

“See to it that these men have a proper burial,” he said. “Though they never fought, they were heroes all.”

Vangerdahast slowly circled the basin, arms trembling and voice cracking as he waved his hands over the pool’s skin of pearly magic. He had not fought a good death match in decades, and now that victory was near, he found himself so excited he could barely twine his fingers through a simple dispel magic spell. Xanthon was hurt badly, or he would never have fled into the pool and risked showing Vangerdahast how to escape the goblin city. The ghazneth was too smart to trap himself, so there had to be a portal hidden beneath the surface. With any luck at all, the other end would open into Cormyr, and it would be there that Vangerdahast would visit the king’s justice upon his quarry.

The wizard paused above the center of the basin and spread his hands, repeating his spell’s arcane syllables over and over again, calling into play his deepest reserves of magic power. The mystic barrier flickered, hissed, and began to lose its luster, giving Vangerdahast a glimpse into the abyssal darkness of the black waters below. He spoke the incantation one more time and flung his arms wide. The magic skin vanished. The wizard brought his hands together and dived after Xanthon.

A yellow membrane slid across the basin, bringing Vangerdahast’s plunge to a crashing halt. A long series of dull pops resonated through his skull, then he rebounded into the air and found himself tumbling pell-mell back toward the ceiling. His neck and shoulders erupted in pain, his hands turned tingly and weak, and the mace began to slip from his grasp.

“By the purple fang!” Vangerdahast cursed.

He willed his numb fingers to close around the hilt of his weapon and slowly spread his limbs, bringing himself back under control-then he noticed the pit of his stomach reverberating to the pulse of a strange rumbling he could not even hear. At first, he took the sensation to be the aftereffects of crashing into the yellow membrane, but he began to feel the vibrations in his bones and teeth and soon recognized them as a powerful rumbling, too deep and sonorous for a human ear to detect.

Vangerdahast felt hollow and sick. He craned his neck upward, expecting the cavern to come crashing down on him even as he looked. The rumble continued to grow, until it finally became an ominous, barely audible growl that reminded him faintly of a purring cat-or of a distant earthquake. He flew up to the ceiling and found his way blocked by the same spongy substance as before. He touched it. It was as still and motionless as the air in a coffin.

Tanalasta rinsed the sour taste from her mouth, then splashed her face with cool stream water. She was no longer suffering from the fever-under Owden’s care, the health of the entire company had been restored-but it was the third occasion that morning that some innocuous smell had triggered a bout of retching. This time it had been mountain bluebell, the time before that a field of fleabane. She was beginning to wonder if her journey into the Stonelands had given her some strange aversion to flowers.

“Feeling better, my dear?” Alaphondar asked from behind her.

Tanalasta nodded. “I haven’t been feeling bad-it’s all these mountain flowers.” She rinsed her mouth again, then rose and faced the sage. “Their perfume is so cloying.”

“A strange affliction for one of Chauntea’s faithful.” The old sage was sitting astride his horse, eyeing Tanalasta thoughtfully. “Very peculiar indeed.”

“I’m sure it will pass with prayer.” Tanalasta’s reply was almost sharp, for she had noticed the sage watching her with that same peculiar expression many times since departing the marsh. She gestured at his bandaged ribs. “And how are you?”

“Well enough to walk, which is looking increasingly necessary,” He nodded toward a little meadow at the edge of the valley, where Alusair and the rest of the company stood clustered amidst the bed of bluebells that had triggered Tanalasta’s latest bout. “Help me down, will you?”

The princess offered a shoulder, then the sage slipped from the saddle and led the way back to the small gathering. Tanalasta’s qualmishness returned as they approached the bluebells, but with her stomach already emptied, it was not so bad she felt it necessary to retreat.

“…definitely Cadimus’s hoof prints,” Alusair said, making a point of ignoring Tanalasta’s return. “Why Rowen would turn north when he was so close to Goblin Mountain is beyond me.”

After hearing Alaphondar’s description of Cadimus’s escape from the marsh battle, they had concluded that Rowen had taken the stallion and ridden off to carry the sage’s note to the king.

“Perhaps he had no choice,” Owden said. He rose from the middle of the group holding a small sheaf of brown-crusted flower stems. “This is blood.”

“No!” Tanalasta forced her way through the circle. “Let me see.”

Owden allowed her to take the stems, but caught her hands between his. “There isn’t much, and we don’t know what it means.”

“I do,” Tanalasta said. Despite a flurry of spellcasting back at the keep, they had seen no sign of the ghazneths, and the entire company had been wondering for the last three days where the phantoms had gone. “We’ve got to go after him.”

“Not we-me,” said Alusair. “You’ll return to Goblin Mountain with the others.”

“No,” Tanalasta said. “Rowen is my husband, and-“

“My scout.” Alusair glared at Tanalasta. “Don’t argue. If you were anyone else, you’d be returning to Arabel in chains after that stunt you pulled… and I still might change my mind about that.”

Tanalasta returned her sister’s glare evenly. “If I were anyone else, I wouldn’t have had to ‘pull’ any stunts.” Though the princess was boiling inside, she forced herself to continue in a calm and even voice. “Alusair, I apologize for deceiving you, but the time has come for you-and Vangerdahast and the king-to grant me the same privilege you have always claimed for yourself.”

Alusair frowned. “What privilege would that be?”

“The privilege to run her own life, of course,” said Alaphondar. The old sage took the sisters by their arms and guided them away from the others-and, mercifully, also away from the bluebells. “My dears, Cormyr is entering a time of crisis. If the realm is to survive, it will need both of its princesses.”

“And I will be there,” said Alusair.

“Good, but you cannot do this alone,” said Alaphondar. “If the realm is to survive, you and Tanalasta must work together

a thing you cannot do if you don’t trust each other.”

Alusair eyed her sister coldly. “I’m not the one who’s been lying.”

Alaphondar’s retort was sharp. “But you are the one responsible. If you do not grant your sister the respect she deserves and trust her to do as she must, what choice do you leave her except to rebel or manipulate you?”

“Or to leave,” Tanalasta added pointedly. As a youth, Alusair had grown so weary of the burdens of her royal station that she had fled the kingdom altogether. “And now is not the time.”

Alusair shot her sister an annoyed look, but pursed her lips and nodded. “Fine. You can come with me, but the rest of the company-“

“I am not done,” Alaphondar said. He lifted a hand to silence Alusair, then turned to Tanalasta. “As for you…”

“I know. My value to the kingdom does not lie in my sword arm.”

Alaphondar raised his brow. “Very astute, but actually, I was going to say that as a worshiper of Chauntea, I should think you would realize by now it simply won’t do to have you gallivanting off into the Stonelands with your sister.”

“What does Chauntea have to do with it?” Tanalasta asked, confused.

Alaphondar rolled his eyes. “The retching, my dear. This morning it was flowers, the day before my horse, and once it was even the smell of pine trees.”

“I’ve been nauseous,” Tanalasta said. “Of course I have. If you had been fighting the ague and gripes for the last tenday, you might feel a little qualmish, too.”

Alaphondar said nothing, and Alusair simply stared at Tanalasta with a furrowed brow.

“What is it?” Tanalasta demanded. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

The answer came to her even as she asked. She was the only one from Alusair’s company still showing signs of illness, and she really wasn’t feeling feverish or achy, or even very tired. Her stomach had simply grown unpredictable, turning queasy and rebellious at the oddest times-especially in the morning.

“By the plow!” she gasped.

“Yes, I suppose that is one way to describe how it happened,” said Alaphondar. “You really shouldn’t be running around the Stonelands in that condition.”

Tanalasta barely heard him, for her mind was whirling with the ramifications of her “condition.” The timing could hardly have been worse. With Vangerdahast missing and the Scourges about to descend on the kingdom, it would be important for Cormyr to stand as one in the coming months. News of her pregnancy would only make that more difficult. If she named the father, the loyal nobles would be insulted and might prove reluctant to support the crown. If she didn’t name the father, people would doubt the child’s legitimacy and question its status as a royal heir. No matter what she did, the king might well be forced to name Alusair his successor-just when the realm most needed her in the field to battle ghazneths and reassure the people.

Somehow, Tanalasta was surprised to discover, none of that mattered to her. She felt blessed and happy and flooded with warmth, and in her heart she knew she had done the right thing for herself, for her kingdom, and for her people. She had been given the strength to see Cormyr through its crisis, not despite the child growing inside her, nor even because of it-but through it. That had been the true meaning of her vision.

“Why are you smiling like that?” asked Alusair. She laid a hand on Tanalasta’s shoulder. “When the king hears of this, you’ll wish you were in the Stonelands dodging ghazneths.”