Death of the Dragon

19

As Vangerdahast circled down into the pit, a fork of lightning cracked across the cavern ceiling, illuminating the host of spear-shaped stalactites overhead. An instant later, the chamber was dark again, and a soft drizzle began to fall, deepening the stench of rot and decay that rose from below. Vangerdahast stopped his descent and hovered in place, looking up toward the rim of the pit, where Rowen Cormaeril sat watching.

“Do you mind? This place smells bad enough as it is.” Vangerdahast lowered his light and saw that the tangle of “sticks” he had glimpsed earlier were in fact small bones. “What the devil is this hole, anyway?”

“A goblin grave,” Rowen replied.

A handful of mold-covered lumps that might have been fresh bodies came into view. There was also a glint of gold, buried well down among the skeletons.

Rowen continued, “When goblins become a burden on their clan, their children give them an iron tree. They bring it here, string all their treasures on it, and jump.”

Vangerdahast nodded. “Very practical of them. I take it that’s the reason they never come here?”

“The reason they never leave,” Rowen corrected.

The ghazneth raised his face to the drizzle and closed his eyes in concentration. Though it had only been a short while since Nalavara had bitten him apart, all that remained of his wound was a pale scar across the top of his abdomen. After collapsing to the ground in two pieces, Rowen had pulled himself together and asked Vangerdahast to start pelting him with magic. The wizard had blasted him with magic missiles, lightning bolts, and any other spell he could cast with the components at hand. Some of the magic did stun the ghazneth for a moment, but most of it he simply absorbed and used to regenerate himself. It was the most frightening thing Vangerdahast had ever seen, at least until he recalled the other six phantoms wreaking havoc on Cormyr at that very moment.

The drizzle did not stop, and Rowen opened his eyes. “I can’t stop it.” He shook his head. “All that magic… I’m out of control.”

“Ah, well…” Vangerdahast wanted to say something comforting, but could think of nothing the boy would not recognize instantly to be a lie. “A little rain never hurt anything.”

“A little rain, no, but we both know it won’t stop there. You should kill me now, before I become the Seventh Scourge.”

“We’ll have no talk of that kind,” Vangerdahast said sternly. He felt at more of a loss than he had since Aunadar Bleth had managed to poison Azoun on that fateful hunting trip. “I doubt I could kill you. To become a ghazneth in the first place, you had to betray your duty to Cormyr and rob an elven tomb. Do you think I can just wave a hand and undo that?”

Rowen considered this a moment, then shook his head. “I suppose not. It is the darkness of my betrayal that makes me a ghazneth, and a ghazneth I will stay until that betrayal is forgiven.”

“If that were so, you would be a ghazneth no longer. Your betrayal was small enough as such things go.” Vangerdahast did not add that he himself had made worse mistakes for less cause and still not turned into a ghazneth, but he had never opened an elven tomb either. “I, for one, have already forgiven you.”

“But you do not wear the crown of Cormyr.” Rowen let his chin drop. “That will be the hardest part of this-to admit to Tanalasta that she was the reason I betrayed my oath.” He remained silent a moment, then turned his pearly eyes back to Vangerdahast. “You should have let Nalavara kill me.”

“I couldn’t. The realm still has need of your services,” said Vangerdahast, hoping he had finally hit on a way to lift Rowen’s despair. “We must get the scepter to Azoun.”

“But you wished Nalavara out of existence,” said Rowen, as always too observant for his own good. “Three times. I heard it.”

“And she no longer exists here, wherever here is.” Vangerdahast raised his hand and displayed the ring of wishes. “Unless this damned thing worked better for me than it ever has for any of my predecessors, Nalavara remains a force to be reckoned with, and you may be our only way of getting the scepter to Azoun.”

“Me?”

“When the change takes you,” Vangerdahast explained. “Xanthon could come and go at will. As you become more of a ghazneth, presumably you will, too.”

“And you think you’ll be able to trust me?” Rowen asked. “With the scepter in your hand?”

“That’s the reason I risked what I did, yes,” said Vangerdahast, “though you may have to leave alone if it proves impossible for me to go with you.”

Rowen laughed bitterly and stood. “If I must leave alone, I think it would be wiser for you to kill me.” He began to back away from the edge of the pit, and said, “What good will the scepter be to Cormyr if I have drained all its magic?”