Beyond the High Road

21

The sliver rotated in Vangerdahast’s palm, pointing around the corner into the swarming darkness of the lower keep. The wizard floated to the far wall to peer into the next section of corridor. When he found nothing lurking in ambush except more snakes and insects, he eased forward and continued down the passageway. With three different spells shielding him from harm, he was not overly concerned about being attacked-but a wise hunter treated his prey with respect.

The corridor continued past another half a dozen doors, all as rotten and slime-caked as the first. The air was warmer and more fetid than ever, though thankfully it no longer made the royal magician feel quite so ill. Before parting ways, Owden had insisted on casting a few spells of his own, calling upon Chauntea to guard the wizard against the disease, poison, and evil of the place. To Vangerdahast’s surprise, his strength had quickly returned, and even the doors seemed to swirl away from him as it passed. This small service could not make him embrace Tanalasta’s royal temple, of course-but he would not be above saying a prayer or two of thanks when everyone returned to Suzail.

As Vangerdahast approached the next corner, the sliver in his palm stood on end. This perplexed him, until he rounded the bend and the tiny piece of wood fell flat again, then swiveled around to point back into the corner. The wizard turned around and drifted lower to inspect the area. He had traded his glowing wand for Alaphondar’s commander’s ring so his hands would be free to fight, but the ring’s light was even more limited than that of his wand. He had to descend to within an arm’s length of the floor before he noticed the ribbons of yellow fume spiraling down through a tangle of red-banded snakes.

Vangerdahast pressed his borrowed mace to the floor. There was a slight shimmering and a momentary resistance, then the head of the weapon passed out of sight. Vangerdahast frowned, wondering if this was the “marsh door” Xanthon had referred to while impersonating Tanalasta. Clearly, the ghazneth had been trying to lure his “rescuers” into some sort of trap, and the royal magician suspected that had been the purpose of the entire band for some time now-at least since his return from Arabel.

But why? The reason seemed painfully obvious:

Tanalasta’s royal religion was the seventh scourge of Alaundo’s prophecy, “the one that will be,” and only Vangerdahast could stop the princess from opening the “door no man could close.” Determined to be rid of the only one who could stop them, the ghazneths had lured the wizard into an ambush. The explanation made perfect sense to the royal magician, and he was determined that the ghazneths would never have a chance to make the princess one of their own.

Vangerdahast pulled the mace out of the floor and jammed it into his belt, then plucked an apple seed from his cloak pocket and let it fall. As it dropped, he made a quick twirling motion and spoke a few words of magic. A small whirlpool formed in the shimmering floor, then abruptly opened into a dark, man-sized hole. Vangerdahast selected a wand from inside his cloak, flung a quick firebolt through the opening to discourage thoughts of a surprise attack, and followed the flames down into the darkness.

The firebolt seemed to plummet forever, growing steadily smaller as it streaked away. Though Vangerdahast never touched any walls, he had the sense of descending a narrow shaft into a hot, murky depth, an impression compounded by the yellow fume swirling so closely around him. Finally, when the firebolt had shrunk to a mere thumbnail of light, it hit bottom and fanned out into a crimson disk, briefly illuminating a lopsided plaza ringed by walls of rough-stacked stone and little square tunnel mouths.

With the sliver still standing in his palm, Vangerdahast continued his descent until the mordant odor of his own fire spell came faintly to his nostrils and the yellow fume started to swirl away into the darkness. He stopped and found himself hovering a few feet above a smoking mud flat, the plink-plink of dripping water echoing through a constant insect drone. Above his head, there seemed to be nothing but featureless darkness, with no sign of the shaft through which he had descended. He reached up and touched something spongy. When he pushed, it gave way beneath his hand, not quite water and too resilient to be mud, yet far more solid than the passage he had come down.

“There are many ways to enter, but only one way to leave,” hissed Xanthon Cormaeril, sounding as angry as he did pained, “but why worry? Surely a great wizard you can find a way home!”

Vangerdahast spun toward the voice and saw a coarse net flying into the tiny radius of his light spell. He reacted instantly, lowering his wand and speaking the command word. The fire bolt flashed through the net and exploded against the chest of a dark silhouette, hurling the figure into a wall of stacked stone. A tremendous clattering filled the chamber, then the remains of the net entangled the wizard, bouncing him off the ceiling and dragging him down to rebound off a wall.

Vangerdahast landed face down on the muddy floor, bent backward with his feet resting against a wall behind him-a rather painful position for a man of his age. He wasted no time rolling out of it, then pushed his wand through the net and swiveled around, spraying fire.

The flames missed Xanthon, but they did illuminate the entire plaza. It was a muddy circle no more than ten paces across, full of humming insects and ringed by the ramshackle houses of a long-abandoned goblin warren. The compact buildings presented a nearly solid facade of stacked stone, broken only by crooked rows of squinting windows and tilted doorways no higher than a man’s belt. In the heart of the plaza lay a shallow depression filled with stagnant water.

As the glow of Vangerdahast’s fire bolts began to fade, Xanthon rose from the rubble of a demolished building and peered over the jagged remains of a wall. All semblance to Tanalasta had vanished completely. Xanthon’s face had become a skeletal monstrosity, with an arrow-shaped nose and a slender tuft of coarse beard nearly hidden beneath his aura of flying insects. The dagger wound Vangerdahast had inflicted earlier was barely visible, a puffy-edged slit whose edges had already closed.

“Awfully free with that magic, aren’t you old fellow?” Xanthon called.

Vangerdahast leveled his wand and sent another fire bolt streaking across plaza. Xanthon raised his hand and caught the bolt in his palm, disappearing behind the wall as the impact spun him around.

Vangerdahast drew his iron dagger and began to slice at the net and finally noticed that the thing had been made of living snakes. Though their fangs were incapable of penetrating his protection magic, the survivors were striking at him madly. He could not help crying out in shock.

Across the plaza, Xanthon stepped out of the ruins, Vangerdahast’s dying fire bolt displayed in the palm of his hand. “You do know this is ambrosia to me?”

Xanthon tipped his head back and poured the rest of the fire into his mouth. Vangerdahast gave up slashing at the net and pushed off the ground, praying this place did not absorb magic as did the keep. Much to his relief, he rose into the air and bounced lightly off the ceiling.

“Magic will not save you, old fool,” Xanthon said, allowing a stream of excess fire to spill down his chin. “Come down here, and we will settle this like men.”

“One of us is no longer a man. One of us is a traitor… and not only to his country.”

Xanthon shrugged. “I am what the king made me.”

The ghazneth started forward. Vangerdahast raised his iron dagger and, blood boiling in anger, began the enchantment that would send it streaking into the traitor’s eye.

This time, Xanthon was ready for him. The ghazneth dived into one of the little tunnels opening off the plaza and disappeared, leaving the wizard with no target. The royal magician let the incantation trail off half-finished, then cursed profanely. He could use this spell only three times a day, and he had just wasted a casting.

Vangerdahast pulled the mace from his belt and spent the next quarter hour circling the plaza, waiting for Xanthon to return. Finally, he realized the ghazneth’s earlier challenge had been an empty taunt and grew more confident about his chances of success. The traitor was frightened, or he would have returned to finish the battle. The wizard spent another quarter hour finding the sliver he had been using to track his prey, then floated down and followed it into the same cockeyed passage through which the phantom had fled.

The portal led into the confines of a goblin street-a crooked little tunnel not much wider than Vangerdahast’s shoulders and barely half his height. He had to float through the passage headfirst, ribbons of yellow fume streaming past so thick he could see only a few paces ahead. The floor stank of mildew and mud, and the walls resonated with scurrying insects. The wizard tried not to think about the red stuff that dangled down from the ceiling and brushed over his back.

Vangerdahast pursued his quarry around a dozen corners and past a hundred cockeyed doorways, then came to another plaza and realized he did not need to watch his sliver quite so carefully. Unable to fly, Xanthon was leaving a clear trail in the mud. Moreover, some unfelt breeze was drawing the yellow fume through a particular set of tunnels, and the ghazneth seemed to be following the fume. The wizard put the sliver away and crossed the circle into the next passage, holding a wand of repulsion in one hand and his iron dagger in the other.

Xanthon tried to ambush him three plazas later, dropping off a wall to land on Vangerdahast’s back as he exited a tunnel. The wizard simply touched the tip of his wand to the ghazneth’s flank and sent him flying, then followed behind. The second time, he landed a bone-crushing blow with his borrowed mace.

Xanthon barely managed to scuttle into the next tunnel. After that, Vangerdahast was able to remain within earshot of his quarry, following the ghazneth by the slurping sounds he made crawling through the muddy passages. As the chase continued, the sound grew slower and less steady. Finally, it ceased altogether, and when the wizard stopped to consult his magic sliver, the ghazneth’s arm came snaking out of a nearby door and snatched the wand of repulsion from his hand.

Vangerdahast was so startled that he flew backward half a dozen paces. By the time he finally comprehended that the ghazneth was not attacking, Xanthon was slurping down the tunnel again, now moving faster. The wizard found his wand a few hundred paces later, lying dull and brittle in the mud. All the magic was gone, and the phantom was no longer close enough to hear.

After that, the wizard left his magic tucked safely inside his cloak, and the chase continued. Eventually, Vangerdahast had to renew his flying spell, then his protection enchantments, and he realized the hunt was turning into a trek. He almost decided to give up and teleport back to the mud keep, but he could not allow Xanthon to go unpunished for such a vile betrayal.

The pursuit continued until Xanthon began to tire again and Vangerdahast began to hear slurping steps once more. Determined not to make the same mistake twice, the wizard took the initiative and streaked up the passage behind the crawling phantom. He slammed down on its back and reached around to draw his iron dagger across its throat.

As weary as Xanthon was, he was still far faster than the royal magician. He clamped down on Vangerdahast’s arm and dropped face first into the mud, driving the dagger deep into his own collar, but sparing himself the fatal slash across the throat.

A strange tingling came over Vangerdahast as the magic began to leave his protective enchantments. He grabbed Xanthon’s hair and tried to pull the traitor’s head up to free his arm, but his strength was no match for a ghazneth’s. A pair of jaws closed around his forearm, then clamped down. The phantom’s teeth could not penetrate his protective spells, but the wizard knew that would change once his spells were drained.

Vangerdahast rolled to the side, relieving some of the strain on his trapped arm and giving himself room to maneuver. He slipped his hand into his cloak and grabbed a small rod from a pocket, then pressed the tip to the ghazneth’s head and spoke a single mystic word.

A silent flash of golden magic filled the air, momentarily blinding Vangerdahast and hurling him against the tunnel wall. He felt the ghazneth go slack and jerked his arm loose, opening a long gash along Xanthon’s collarbone as he ripped the iron dagger free. Praying that his flying spell had enough magic to hold one more instant, he pushed himself up to the ceiling.

Still trying to shake the magic from his vision, Xanthon rolled onto his back, his arms weaving a black blur as he lashed out blindly mere inches under Vangerdahast’s nose. The phantom’s new wounds were already beginning to heal-thanks, no doubt, to the glut of magic he had just absorbed. Vangerdahast’s protective enchantments were fading fast and his flying spell would soon follow, and he would not be able to renew those particular spells until he had rested and studied his spellbook. Realizing he had lost all hope of defeating the phantom in physical combat Vangerdahast decided the time had come to declare wisdom the better part of valor.

He closed his eyes and brought to mind an image of the courtyard in the Arabellan Palace. Tomorrow he would return for Alaphondar and Owden, then resume his hunt with a fresh company of Purple Dragons. It was sometimes possible to delay the King’s Justice, but never to escape it-not when the royal magician had decided it was his business to dispense it. A little growl of astonishment suggested that Xanthon’s vision had finally cleared, and Vangerdahast cast his teleport spell.

He experienced that familiar sensation of timeless falling, then felt something soft and squishy around his boot soles. The air seemed remarkably stale and musty, and he had a terrible suspicion that he knew the source of that irritating drone in his ears. The wizard shook his head clear and found himself standing in a muddy depression, looking across a dark, stagnant pool of water toward the shadowy facade of a ramshackle goblin building. He thought for a moment he had returned to the same plaza through which he had entered the abandoned city, but a quick circuit of the area revealed no sign of the wall through which he had blasted Xanthon. The royal magician was lost.

“Many ways to enter, but only one to leave.” The ghazneth’s voice rasped out from all the tunnels ringing the plaza, as soft and sibilant as a snake’s hiss. “It is you or me, old fool… and now I am the hunter.”

From somewhere inside the marble keep came a muted thud, then the iron-clad gate swirled open, spinning little whirlpools into the fetid water and sweeping aside the bloated corpses of half a dozen Purple Dragons. The smell of mildew and stale stone filled Tanalasta’s nostrils, giving rise to an unexpected urge to vomit. The need had been coming over her at the oddest times for the last two days-when they found Alaphondar’s horse tethered behind the hill, for instance, but not when they waded into a marsh full of stinking corpses. The princess was beginning to think that lying to Alusair had affected her nerves more than she realized. Despite the return of the fever, no one else in the company seemed to be experiencing such odd bouts of queasiness.

Alusair appeared in the gateway, standing atop a short flight of black stairs and silhouetted in gleaming silver against the tower’s murky interior. “Nothing they’re not in here.”

“Empty?” Tanalasta slapped Alaphondar’s broken spyglass against the surface of the marsh, then said, “None of this makes any sense.”

They had found the spyglass on a boulder not far from Alaphondar’s hungry horse, the broken halves lying neatly side-by-side. It appeared the sage had been watching the keep, which stood not quite a mile from shore, half sunken in the marsh and surrounded by the floating corpses of Vangerdahast’s rescue company. A lengthy examination of the surrounding area had produced no hint of what killed them. Almost as puzzling, the search had failed to produce the bodies of either Vangerdahast, Alaphondar, or Owden. It was as if the trio had simply vanished.

Tanalasta climbed the stairs into the keep and found the mossy, dank place she had expected, with a cramped staircase ascending to the left and a narrow corridor turning a corner to the right. There were plenty of insects and more than a few snakes, but no more than normal in such a place, and none that appeared particularly dangerous.

Alusair’s men were everywhere, banging on walls and inspecting floors for secret passages.

Tanalasta started down the hallway to the right.

Alusair followed close behind, her armor clanking as she brushed against the stone walls. “There’s a common chamber and seven sleeping cells upstairs, and half a dozen storage rooms on this floor. We haven’t been able to find a dungeon entrance-but it would probably be flooded anyway.”

Tanalasta rounded the corner and peered into the first room. Warm afternoon light poured through a large, windowlike breach in the opposite wall. The edges were smooth with age and draped with moss. Not looking at her sister, and trying to keep her voice casual, Tanalasta asked, “Any sign of Rowen?”

“Rowen can take care of himself.” Though Alusair’s tone was neutral, she clapped Tanalasta’s shoulder briefly and said, “He’s probably waiting for us at Goblin Mountain with Vangerdahast and Alaphondar.”

“If Vangerdahast is there, I doubt Rowen still is,” Tanalasta remarked wryly.

As the princess turned away from the room, a sharp hiss sounded behind her.

“Tanalasta?” called a familiar voice.

Tanalasta spun back toward the room only to find her sister already charging through the door, sword in hand.

“Name yourself,” demanded Alusair.

Tanalasta rounded the corner to find her sister standing in the center of the room, reaching up to press the tip of her blade to a disembodied head protruding from a tiny circle of darkness near the ceiling. It was such an odd sight that it took a moment for Tanalasta to recognize the face as that of Owden Foley.

Owden’s eyes remained fixed on the tip of Alusair’s sword. “H-harvestmaster Owden F-foley, at your s-service.”

Tanalasta grabbed Alusair’s arm. “He’s a friend!”

Alusair lowered her sword, but continued to eye the priest suspiciously. Tanalasta stepped forward, placing herself between the two, and Owden finally exhaled in relief.

“Thank you, my dear.” He smiled at Tanalasta, then tipped his chin to Alusair. “I’m honored to make your acquaintance, Princess Alusair. Please consider me at your service.”

Owden pushed an arm out of the floating circle and turned his palm up. Alusair eyed the disembodied limb coldly and did not offer her hand.

“What, exactly, are you?” she demanded.

Owden flushed and looked down, then finally seemed to realize what he must look like. “Forgive me! Vangerdahast told us to wait inside until he returned.”

The black circle behind Owden’s head suddenly grew larger, revealing itself to be the interior of a large pocket floating in midair. The priest withdrew into the interior, then reappeared feet-first and dropped to the floor. He bowed again and turned to Tanalasta.

“By the seed, it is good to see you again!” He embraced her warmly, then looked past her into the hallway. “Where is the old grouch?”

“We were hoping you could tell us.”

Owden’s expression fell. “He went after Xanthon Cormaeril, to stop him from opening Alaundo’s door.”

“How long ago?” Alusair demanded.

Owden shrugged, gesturing vaguely at the dark pouch hanging above his head. “A few minutes after Alaphondar contacted Tanalasta.”

The two sisters exchanged worried glances, then Tanalasta said, “Two days ago.”

“What now?” asked Alusair.

“Assume he is lost, and hope that we are wrong,” said a familiar voice. A moment later, Alaphondar’s old head appeared in the mouth of the floating pouch. His eyes were sunken and weary, his skin as pale as alabaster.

“What other choice is there? You have read my note.”

“Note?” Tanalasta asked.

“In the tube.” He gestured at the spyglass. “Telling whoever found it to awaken the Sleeping Sword.”

“There was no note.” Tanalasta pulled the two pieces of the spyglass apart. “This was how we found it.”

Alusair took the two halves of the tube from Tanalasta and inspected them. “At least we know what happened to Rowen. This was hacked open with a sword.”

“And this Rowen knows where to find the Sleeping Sword?” asked Alaphondar.

Alusair cocked an eyebrow at Tanalasta, who shook her head. “I had no reason to mention it.”

“Then he will be on his way to inform your father,” sighed Alaphondar. “And with Vangerdahast lost, the delay could well mean Cormyr’s doom. We must inform the king.”

The sage’s withered hand appeared briefly, then reached for his throat clasp.

“Alaphondar, wait!” Tanalasta said, realizing her deception would be revealed if the sage conversed with the king. “I reported your fears to His Majesty two days ago.”

“And did he say he would awaken the Sleeping Sword?” asked Alaphondar.

Tanalasta’s stomach sank, for she knew what the sage would say when she answered-and also that there was too much at stake to try to talk him out of it. “No, not exactly.”

“Then we must make certain.”

Alusair barked a handful of commands out the door, ordering to company to prepare itself in case the sending drew a ghazneth, then looked back to Alaphondar.

“Contact the queen instead of the king,” Alusair said. “She’ll know his plans, and we don’t want to draw ghazneths to him if he’s already in the Stonelands. If he hasn’t left already, tell her I can take your horse and be there in a day.”

Tanalasta watched Alaphondar’s eyes close, then, cringing inwardly, turned to her sister. “Alusair, there is something I should tell you.”

Alusair waved her off. “Not now, Tanalasta. This is important.”

“So is this.” Tanalasta steeled herself for the coming storm. “I may have given you the wrong impression-“

“Later!”

Alusair stepped away, precluding any further attempts to admit the truth, and Alaphondar opened his eyes a moment later.

“The queen assures us that King Azoun will reach the Sleeping Sword first.” The sage turned to Alusair looking rather confused. “She was quite upset. She seemed to think you should be somewhere near Goblin Mountain by now.”

“Goblin Mountain? Why would she think that? The king himself told us to investigate…” Alusair let the sentence trail off and whirled on Tanalasta, her face turning white with anger. “I’ll cut out your tongue, you lying harlot!”

Vangerdahast snapped awake without the pleasure of even a moment’s confusion about his whereabouts. He knew the awful truth as soon as he heard the humming swarms and smelled the dank air. His emergency spellbook lay opened to the last spell he had been studying, a powerful wind enchantment he had been hoping to use to clear the insects away so he could sleep in peace. Apparently, it had been unnecessary.

The wizard had no way to tell how long he had slept, but judging by his stiff joints and the cold ache in his bones, it had been a good while. His stomach was growling with hunger and he was almost thirsty enough to drink the stagnant swill in the center of the plaza, but at least the sleep had rejuvenated him mentally. No longer did he feel as dispirited or confused as he had after attempting to return to Arabel, and he had even begun to develop a few theories about how to find his way home. He had either followed Xanthon into a separate plane or through some sort of magic-dampening barrier that prevented his teleport spell from folding space. All he had to do was figure out which, then he could start work on the problem of determining either where he was, or how to bypass the barrier.

And failing that, he always had his ring of wishes to call upon-but wishes were tricky spells to use, and he had learned through bitter experience that it was wiser to avoid them in all but the most controlled of circumstances. If a simple teleport spell would not work down here, he could only imagine what might happen if he attempted to use a wish.

Vangerdahast closed his spellbook and returned it to his weathercloak, then checked his iron weapons and hoisted his stiff body to its feet. As he rose, an unexpected clatter sounded from the other side of the wall against which he had been leaning. He jumped in fright and spun around to see a pair of red eyes peering out through a cockeyed goblin window.

“All rested?” hissed Xanthon.

Vangerdahast forgot about his aching bones and dashed across the plaza, hurling himself headlong into the nearest tunnel. He landed flat on his belly and slid a good five paces on the muddy floor, then spun instantly onto his back. The wizard continued to squirm down the passage as fast as his old legs could propel his ample weight, at the same time hurling a magic blast high and well behind him.

The ceiling collapsed with a deafening crash, filling the tunnel with a black cloud of billowing dust. Vangerdahast started to cough, then caught himself and managed to cast a flying spell before he broke into a fit of hacking. He pushed himself off the ground and flew down the narrow corridor as fast as he dared without his shielding spells. It did not even occur to him until the next plaza that had there been any real danger, he would already have been dead.

One of the last things Vangerdahast had done when he felt himself nodding off last night-or whenever it had been-was to cast a simple enchantment to protect himself from evil, prolonging its duration with a couple of extension spells. He had been counting on the simple enchantment to keep his foe at bay long enough for him to awaken and escape, but the spell had apparently prevented Xanthon from touching him at all, and even a ghazneth could not drain what they could not touch.

Beginning to see how he might defeat the phantom, Vangerdahast stopped to cast another spell to make the protection permanent. No sooner had he fetched the ingredients from his cloak pocket, however, than he heard Xanthon sloshing toward him. The wizard put the ingredients away and fled into another tunnel.

“Wait!” Xanthon called. “We have something to-“

Vangerdahast blasted the ceiling down as he had before, drowning out the ghazneth’s protest in midsentence. He started down the passage toward the next plaza.

Fifty paces later, Xanthon appeared in the intersection ahead. He rolled to his haunches and raised his clawed hands in a grotesque mockery of a truce sign.

“Hold your attack and hear me out. We can always resume fighting in a minute.”

“You have nothing to say I would be interested in hearing.” Despite his retort, Vangerdahast made no move to attack or flee, instead, he quietly began to move his fingers through the gestures for a prismatic spray. “I doubt you are here to yield to the king’s justice.”

“Hardly-and we’ll have none of that.” Xanthon waved a talon at the magician’s moving fingers, then waited until the magician ceased his gestures. “I was thinking of something quite the opposite.”

“Me, surrender to you?” Vangerdahast scoffed. “I thought Boldovar was the mad one.”

This actually drew a smile from Xanthon. “Actually, it wouldn’t be surrender. We have need of a seventh, and Luthax claims-“

“Luthax?” Vangerdahast gasped. Luthax had been an early castellan of the War Wizards of Cormyr-and the only high-ranking member of the brotherhood to ever betray the kingdom. “You have raised him?”

“Me?” Xanthon chuckled. “Hardly. The master… let us say I am but a tool.”

“Of what?”

Xanthon rolled his eyes. “You know the prophecy, ‘Seven scourges, five long gone, one of the day, one soon to come..? Do I really have to spell it out?”

“And you want me?” Unable to believe what he was hearing, Vangerdahast glanced over each of his shoulders in turn. This whole conversation had to be some unbalanced attempt to divert his attention. “This is an insult.”

Xanathon shrugged. “I’d rather kill you, but it you say no, there’ll be someone else. There is no shortage of traitors to Cormyr-you’ve seen to that.”

“Traitor? Me?” Vangerdahast nearly reached for a wand, but forced himself to contain his anger. There was only one explanation for Xanthon’s behavior, he was attempting to goad Vangerdahast into a rash act. “What happened to ‘you or me, old fool’?”

“You’re forgetting ‘many ways to enter, only one to leave,’” Xanthon replied. “You had to see how hopeless it is. There’s only one way out of here-and that’s with us.”

“Or past your dead body!” Vangerdahast hissed, no longer able to stand the insults to his integrity. “You have my answer.”

The wizard retreated down the tunnel, though only because he did not dare attack until he had cast the rest of his shielding magic. Assaulting the ghazneth would dispel the enchantment protecting him from evil, and despite his anger, he remained determined to emerge from this battle alive. When he reached the previous intersection, he picked a tunnel at random and streaked into it at top speed. It hardly mattered to him which direction he fled. He was lost no matter what way he turned.

But it mattered to Xanthon. The ghazneth began to stay close enough for Vangerdahast to hear at all times, yet just beyond the range of the wizard’s glowing ring. Every so often, the phantom would emerge in an intersection to taunt Vangerdahast with saccharin pleas to reconsider. The wizard never bothered to reply. He simply retreated to the previous intersection and tried another path. Xanthon was careful to keep him moving, so that he would have no time to stop and cast spells, and to keep him away from plazas and other places where he would have room to fight with anything but magic.

Vangerdahast tried several times to slow his pursuer by bringing the ceiling down on his head, but Xanthon always sensed these ambushes and rushed ahead to absorb the spell. The sorcerer soon realized he was only feeding his enemy’s magic thirst and put his wands away, concentrating instead on raising his shielding spells. He lost two enchantments to interruption-one defending him from poison and the other from blunt attacks-but he did manage to cast the spell that protected him from fang and claw. He considered it a major victory.

Eventually, the protection from evil spell expired. Xanthon began to grow more bold, sometimes attempting to ambush Vangerdahast as he passed through intersections, sometimes rushing up from behind to repeat his ‘invitation.’ The wizard resisted the temptation to renew the spell. He could sense the ghazneth’s growing excitement and knew the battle was about to come to a head. When that happened, he would need a couple of surprises to win the advantage.

Vangerdahast sensed his chance when the cramped corridors finally intersected a true goblin boulevard, a muddy passage broad enough to hold three men abreast and fully twelve feet high-as the wizard discovered when he climbed skyward and suddenly smashed into the formless black ceiling. Xanthon paused at the mouth of one of the smaller tunnels and glared up at the royal magician with ill-concealed hatred.

“Hide up there as long as you wish,” he hissed. “When you begin to starve, perhaps you will join us.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.” Vangerdahast began to fish through his weathercloak. “I was thinking the time had come to punish your treason.”

The wizard pulled a pinch of powdered iron from his pocket and sprinkled it over his own head, at the same time uttering the spell. Xanathon’s eyes flared scarlet, then he withdrew into the tunnel, hissing and spraying a cloud of droning wasps out into the boulevard. The wizard chuckled and descended to the ground to renew his protection from evil spell-the enchantment required sprinkling a circle of powdered silver on the ground-then added a couple of extensions for good measure and shot into the tunnel after Xanthon. It was his turn to be the hunter.

Xanthon tried twice early in the chase to leap on Vangerdahast and drain the magic from his protective enchantments. Each time, the phantom was thwarted by the protection from evil spell, which prevented him from touching the wizard at all. Vangerdahast stayed close on his quarry’s tail, keeping up a constant patter about punishing him for his betrayals. Within the space of half an hour, Xanthon was reduced to mere fleeing. An hour after that, he was beginning to stumble. He grew desperate and tried to slow his pursuer with insect swarms and snake nets, but this took energy, and the wizard simply brushed them aside with a wave of the appropriate wand.

Finally, Xanthon returned to the goblin boulevard and sprinted straight down the middle in a desperate attempt to simply outrun Vangerdahast. The strategy might have worked, had the parkway not fed into a huge plaza in the middle of the city. The circle was by far the grandest in the city, surrounded by crookedly built edifices with marble pillars and sandstone porticos that had ceilings nearly eight feet high.

In the center of this plaza lay a grand pool, fully five paces across and rimmed in a broad band of golden sand. It was filled with black, shimmering water so stagnant that when Xanthon ran onto it, he did not even sink. The surface merely rippled like obsidian jelly, and his feet stuck to the surface as soon as they touched it. Two paces later, he came to a dead halt in the center of the basin.

Vangerdahast did not even slow down as he passed. He simply pulled Owden’s mace from his belt and swooped down to slam it into the back of the ghazneth’s head. There was a crack and a spray of dark blood. Xanthon pitched forward onto his knees.

Vangerdahast passed over the pool’s golden rim and wheeled around to find his foe still kneeling in the center. Xanthon’s skull had been half-shattered, with a halo of jagged black bone protruding up at wild angles and one eye dangling out on his cheek and his dark lip twisted into a smug sneer.

“Last chance,” said Xanthon. “If you let me go, you can change your mind.”

“What makes you think I’d ever let you go?” Vangerdahast streaked down for another strike.

Xanthon smiled and dived forward, disappearing into the tar headfirst. Vangerdahast managed to knock one foot off at the ankle as the phantom’s legs vanished from sight, then the surface of the dark pool returned to its syrupy tranquility.

Vangerdahast circled around and considered the dark pool for a moment, more angered by Xanthon’s escape than astonished by it. He had already seen the ghazneth vanish through a stone floor, so he supposed he should not be surprised when the creature disappeared into a pool of tar.

Vangerdahast did not even consider letting the phantom go. Xanthon Cormaeril was a traitor of the vilest kind, and, almost as importantly, he was the royal magician’s best chance to find his way back to Cormyr before the scourges ruined it. He fished two rings from his weathercloak, one to let him breathe water-if that was what the black stuff was-and the other to allow him free movement, then streaked headlong toward the center of the pool.

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.