Beyond the High Road

6

The royal wizard was frightened, of course-only a fool wouldn’t have been-but he was also mad with fury. His heart was hammering in his chest, pounding like it had not pounded in seventy years. Every beat urged him to battle, to pelt the phantom with bolt and blaze, to attack and keep attacking until he reduced the thing to a scorch mark on the cliff top.

Never before had Vangerdahast experienced such a combat rage, and he did not understand where it came from now. Vangerdahast had warned Azoun a dozen times that battles were won not through anger, but through cold, emotionless calculation, and now here the wizard was himself, fighting as hard to control his own emotions as to defeat the enemy. It was unnerving, really. The remnants of his last harmless lightning bolt were still tracing crooks of transparency across the phantom’s leathery wing, and the wizard caught himself lowering his staff to cast the same useless spell again. Damned unnerving.

Vangerdahast threw his staff down and slipped a hand into the sleeve of his robe. In the second he needed to find the tiny pocket where he stored his spider web, the phantom peered over its furled wing and sprang. Vangerdahast’s mount bolted, nearly catapulting him from the saddle. The phantom banked, herding the terrified horse toward the rim of the cliff. The wizard pulled his hand from his sleeve, flicking a ball of web in the dark thing’s direction, then yelling his incantation.

At the first sound of Vangerdahast’s voice, the phantom furled its wings and dropped to the ground. As it fell, a huge tangle of sticky fibers blossomed around it, completely engulfing the creature in an amorphous mass of white filaments.

Vangerdahast’s horse drew up short at the edge of the outcropping, pitching him forward out of the saddle. Cursing his mount for a witless coward, the wizard made a desperate grab for the beast’s mane as he tumbled over its head, then found himself plummeting toward a sandy dune a hundred feet below.

Vangerdahast experienced a fierce nettling as his weathercloak’s magic triggered itself, then the cape’s lapels spread outward to create a sort of crude sail. He fluttered to the ground not far from the guard who had been batted off the outcropping earlier. The poor fellow had landed headfirst in the sand, burying himself to the shoulders, then snapping his neck as he fell onto his back. A bloody crease angling across his breastplate marked where the phantom’s powerful wing had struck.

Vangerdahast spun away and pulled a wing feather from inside his robe. Still consumed by his strange fury he uttered a quick spell and extended his arms, then sprang into the air, telling himself that be had a good reason for returning to the battle before checking on Tanalasta. He needed to know where the phantom had come from. He needed to know why it had aided a petty tribe of orcs. He needed to kill the thing before it shredded his magical web. He needed that most of all.

The wizard rose swiftly, flying close to the outcropping so his foe would not see him. As he ascended, he heard clanging swords and whinnying horses farther up the mountainside. For some reason he could not fathom, Ryban had engaged the orcs instead of fleeing them as planned. Cursing the man for an over-brave dunce, Vangerdahast touched the throat clasp of his weathercloak. When the brass began to tingle beneath his fingers, he pictured Ryban’s face.

Unless you are defending Tanalasta already, disengage and go to her! Can’t find the princess, and wouldn’t run if we could, came Ryban’s reply. See you in Everwatch! The throat clasp became cold and dead beneath Vangerdahast’s fingertips, and he grew faintly aware of feeling both mournful and perplexed. It was not like the lionar to neglect his duty, nor to think he could reach Everwatch by disregarding an order. Everwatch was the celestial palace of Helm the Watcher, and only the most faithful guardians could expect to spend eternity there.

Vangerdahast circled around to come up on the opposite side of the outcropping from where he had plunged off, then stepped onto the cliff top. He found his magic web dissolving into a gummy morass of translucent gray silk, beneath which lay the form of a shapely female spine flanked by the bases of two leathery white wings. Little more could be seen of the figure. It seemed to be curled into a ball, with its neck and shoulders hunched forward, its legs drawn up in front of it, and its wings wrapped securely around its body.

Vangerdahast crept forward, fighting to regain control of his emotions before he attacked. The butt of his war staff was sticking out from beneath the gummy mess. The phantom did not seem to be struggling, but the web was dissolving far too quickly, shriveling down around the creature like some sort of cocoon. He summoned to mind the incantation of a spell as deadly as it was quick and stopped five paces away.

The white wings twitched, then a breathy voice rasped, “Well done, wizard. Not many capture a ghazneth and live to tell of it. What is it you wish?”

“Ghazneth?”

“Is that your wish?” the phantom asked. “To know what I am?”

The web continued to contract around the ghazneth-or whatever the monster was.

Vangerdahast aimed his finger at the phantom’s back. “Among other things, yes.”

“What other things?” The ghazneth’s voice was beginning to sound vaguely human-feminine, actually, with an oddly archaic Cormyrean accent. “You receive only one wish, you know.”

“I am not the one with a death finger aimed at my back,” Vangerdahast replied. “Nor do I want any wish of mine granted by the likes of you. I will ask and you will answer. If you are honest, perhaps I will send you back to the hell you came from, rather than allow your rotting corpse to pollute this land.”

The ghazneth’s wings flexed ever so slightly-just enough for Vangerdahast to notice that the thing was not as trapped as it would have him believe-then it said, “A wish for no wish. An odd thing to desire, but granted.”

“I asked for nothing,” Vangerdahast snarled, all too aware of how the phantom was trying to twist his words around. The trick angered the wizard so greatly he nearly unleashed his death spell. “I owe you nothing.”

“Not true.”

The web had contracted now to a mere glove around the ghazneth’s body. Vangerdahast stepped forward to retrieve his war staff, then quickly stepped back when he noticed the black beginning to creep along the edges of the creature’s wings.

“You owe me more than you know, Vangerdahast,” the ghazneth continued, “and you are going to pay-you and Cormyr.”

“Vangerdahast? You honor me too much, ghazneth. I’m just a simple war wizard.”

“Be careful of the lies you tell,” said the ghazneth. “Or you’ll end up like me.”

“As unnecessary as that advice is, I’ll certainly keep it in mind,” Vangerdahast said, more determined than ever to deny his name. The thing was beginning to sound like a demon, and it was never a good idea to admit one’s name to a demon. “Where did you say you knew Vangerdahast from? I’ll be glad to inform him of his debt.”

“I may speak of the matter with Vangerdahast and no other.” The ghazneth’s body began to glisten with a glossy sheen, all that remained of Vangerdahast’s dissolving web spell. “But you may tell him this much: if he doesn’t pay, Cormyr will.”

“How?” When the creature did not respond at once, Vangerdahast snarled, “Answer! My patience is wearing as thin as my web.”

“What a pity-then it is gone!” The phantom rolled toward Vangerdahast, raising one wing to shield itself and another to push against the ground.

The wizard leaped back, placing himself well out of wing’s reach. He had time to glimpse the sour, thin-nosed visage of an older woman, then the ghazneth’s eyes turned from blue to white and its face vanished into a veil of darkness. He pointed his finger at its chest and spat out the command word that unleashed his deadly spell. The ghazneth’s upper wing started to furl down to protect itself, but Vangerdahast had barely spoken before a white circle blossomed in the creature’s torso.

The phantom screeched and clutched at its chest, its long talons scratching deep furrows into its naked breast. The flesh beneath its hand grew pale and soft and began to ooze up between its fingers like hot wax.

The wizard shrugged. “So you were right. I am Vangerdahast.”

He should have known better.

The ghazneth’s hand dropped from its chest, revealing a jagged void where the breastbone had erupted from the inside out, through the hole showed a tangled snarl of veins and a lump of oozing fungus shaped vaguely like a heart. Vangerdahast stumbled back, surprised to feel a rising panic. He could not recall the last time he had experienced such a thing-certainly long before Azoun took his crown.

The ghazneth ambled forward on its waspish legs. Vangerdahast forced himself to think. So the thing’s heart had moldered away. That didn’t mean it was indestructible. It was either undead or demonic, and he had ways to deal with both. All he had to do was guess which and sneak another spell or two past those magic-absorbing wings without letting the thing slit him from groin to gullet first.

The ghazneth scuttled two steps to the side, placing itself between Vangerdahast and the battle still raging between the orcs and Ryban’s Purple Dragons. The wizard wondered whether the time had come to make use of what many war wizards considered the weathercloak’s most useful device: the escape pocket. He reached for the secret fold in the cloak’s lining, then realized fleeing was not an option. Tanalasta was still somewhere nearby, and the creature would be too likely to notice her if it took to the air again.

The ghazneth stretched its wings, cutting off every avenue of escape, save those that involved flying or leaping off the cliff. Vangerdahast’s panic became determination, and he found the peacemaker’s rod sheathed inside his weathercloak. A common tool available to every lionar in the Purple Dragons, the little club was hardly as powerful as many of the slender wands still tucked into their pockets inside his cloak, but it did have the advantage of swiftness.

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.”

Silently, the princess added that she needed to complete her mission precisely because the king had not expected the mission to be dangerous. Allowing the phantom to force her back to Arabel would only confirm his belief that she needed to be protected. But if she actually located Alusair and discovered what was happening in the Stonelands, perhaps he would begin to have confidence in the decisions she would one day make as queen.

After a moment, Vangerdahast sighed. “Very well. If you must pretend not to understand what this trip is really about, I shall explain it to you.”

Tanalasta held up her hand. “That won’t be necessary, Vangerdahast. What you don’t seem to understand is that I do know what this is about. The war wizards are afraid the royal priests will take their place, you’re afraid you’ll soon have a high harvestmaster competing for the monarch’s ear, and the king is afraid of making you both angry.”

“Our reservations are hardly of such a petty nature,” Vangerdahast replied. “I am concerned about the jealousy of the other religions, while the question of divided loyalties is entirely insurmountable-“

“Yes, yes. I know the arguments, and I know you’re only thinking of the realm. You think of nothing else.” Tanalasta paused, then added in an acid voice, “I would never question your loyalty, only your belief that no one else can possibly know what is good for Cormyr.”

Vangerdahast actually flinched. “Milady! That is unfair.”

“It is also true. Maybe you are the only one who knows what is good for Cormyr. Even I must admit that you’re usually right about everything else.” Tanalasta paused to gather her courage, then continued, “What you don’t seem to understand is me. If I can’t be queen in my own way, then I will not be queen at all.”

Vangerdahast regarded the princess as though meeting her for the first time. “By the Weave! You would refuse the throne on account of a handful of priests?”

“I would refuse it on many accounts,” said Tanalasta. “Which is why it falls to me to find Alusair. I seem to be the only one who takes this situation seriously.”

Vangerdahast turned and gazed into the stonemurk.

Tanalasta left him to his thoughts, content to believe she had won the argument. They remained that way, each plotting the next maneuver in their battle of wills, until a blurry black V appeared to the east. The thing was so tiny that had the princess not been looking for it in that very section of sky, she would not have seen it at all.

The distant shape grew larger at an alarming pace, and soon Tanalasta could see the thing’s leathery wings rising and falling as it streaked through the stonemurk. It came parallel to their hiding place on the mountain and continued past without turning, and the princess hoped for their sake the caravan drivers and any survivors from Ryban’s company were long gone.

Once it had disappeared around the shoulder of the mountain, Vangerdahast turned in the approximate direction of the outcropping and stacked three stones on the rim of the little gully. “It will be coming from there.”

“Coming?” Tanalasta asked.

“If you’re right about it hearing our ring-talk,” the wizard explained. He plucked a wand from inside his weathercloak, then added, “Strictly speaking, I will be using a sending, though I doubt it makes any difference. If the thing can hear one form of telepathy, I suspect it will hear another.”

Tanalasta frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Finding Alusair, of course,” said the wizard. “You did say that was what you wanted to do.”

“I meant by looking for her, not inviting the ghazneth to come after us.”

“And where, exactly, do you intend to look?” Vangerdahast asked.

“You don’t know?” Tanalasta asked, disbelieving. “You haven’t even tried to locate her?”

“What’s the use? When she doesn’t want to be found, she takes off her signet and puts on her Hider.” The wizard was referring to the magic ring of privacy Alusair had prevailed upon Azoun to have made. By slipping it on, she could prevent even Vangerdahast’s magic from locating her. “Even if she isn’t wearing the Hider, Alusair moves quickly. There’s no use trying to locate her until you’re in a position to start the chase.”

“And until you’ve had time enough to talk her sister out of her inconvenient ideas,” Tanalasta added dryly.

Vangerdahast shrugged. “Perhaps. It still leaves us with the same dilemma: where to look.”

“Since she was looking for Emperel, sooner or later she would check the Cavern of the Sleeping Sword,” said Tanalasta. The cavern was the secret resting place of the Lords Who Sleep, the company of slumbering warriors whom Emperel was charged with safeguarding. “I thought we could start there.”

“And lead the ghazneth there?” Vangerdahast countered. “That doesn’t strike me as very wise. We are trying to keep the company’s location secret from our enemies, you know.”

Tanalasta narrowed her eyes at his condescension. “So where would you start?”

“Why not by asking Alusair herself?” Vangey replied.

“Because Alusair isn’t wearing her signet,” Tanalasta said, exasperated. “And because we have grounds to believe she has a good reason not to be.”

“True, but that reason is over there looking for us.” Vangerdahast pointed toward the unseen outcropping. “This is probably the only chance we’ll have to contact Alusair without putting her life in danger. Besides, we can test your theory about the ghazneth eavesdropping on our mind talk.”

The wizard did not point out that if Tanalasta was right, they would have to move quickly to avoid a fight with the ghazneth. Judging by Vangerdahast’s preparations, though, he did not really intend to avoid the fight.

“Before I agree, tell me what you’re planning.” Tanalasta gestured at the hodgepodge of knickknacks arrayed on the boulder. There was a clove of garlic, a sprig of rosemary, a vial of holy water, and several other strange items. ‘What’s all that for?”

“Just a small experiment.” Vangerdahast gave her one of those innocent smiles that had been making Tanalasta nervous since she grew old enough to speak, then he picked up a dove’s feather. “Without knowing exactly what a ghazneth is, it’s hard to guess what it despises, but I bet this will work. I haven’t met a demon yet who likes feather of the dove.”

“You’re going to banish it?”

“If you’re right about this mind-speak business, yes.” Vangerdahast picked up a rock, then began to trace a pentagram on top of the boulder. “I’ll send it straight back to the hell it came from-wherever that is.”

“And if you don’t?”

Vangerdahast waved a gnarled finger toward ridge, gesturing at the spirelike stone he had pointed out earlier. “That’s what escape plans are for. Are you going to help me or not?”

Tanalasta nodded. “I just hope you’re doing this for more than your pride.” After lecturing the wizard earlier about their duty, she could hardly decline to aid him now. “What do you want me to do?”

Vangerdahast outlined her part in his plan, then turned to continue his preparations while she untethered the horses. By the time she returned with the beasts, the wizard had completed his protective pattern and was ready to proceed. He climbed onto the boulder and stepped into the center of the star, the strange assortment of spell components grasped securely in one hand.

“You can watch from the ridge,” he said. “If this works, you’ll see a portal open and suck the ghazneth back to its home hell.”

“And if the ghazneth doesn’t go?” Tanalasta asked.

“Then I’ll join you on the ridge-and don’t waste any time getting us out of there.” He nodded to her, then turned to face the three stones he piled on the edge of the gully. “I’m ready”

Tanalasta turned toward the ridge and pictured Alusair’s ash-blonde hair and dark-eyed visage in her mind, then touched the throat clasp of her weathercloak. The metal tingled under her fingers, and her sister’s head suddenly cocked to one side.

Vangey is with me on Stonebolt Trail, at the edge of the Storm Horns. Phantom after us. Need to find you.

Tanalasta? Alusair’s weathered face betrayed her irritation. Orc’s Pool-Vangey knows it. And no more magic, or you’ll never make it!

Alusair’s visage faded with that. Tanalasta shook her head clear, then glanced back at Vangerdahast. “You know some place called Orc’s Pool?”

“I’ve been there many times.” The wizard continued to study the sky above the stones he had piled on the gully edge. “Now off with you.”

Tanalasta did not reach for the escape pocket. “She said no more magic.”

“What?” Vangerdahast glanced down aghast. “How does she expect us to find Orc’s Pool?”

Tanalasta had a sinking feeling. “I was more concerned about our plan. She said no more magic or we’d never make it.”

It was difficult to say whether Vangerdahast’s expression was more puzzled or irritated, but it was definitely not alarmed. “It’s too late to change plans now.” He glanced back toward the outcropping, then made a shooing motion. “Off with you. Here it comes already.”

Tanalasta’s gaze rose involuntarily, and she glimpsed a dark figure streaking over the mountain’s shoulder. She spun in her saddle, looking toward the spire on the next ridge and thrusting her hand into the weathercloak’s escape pocket. Her arm went numb, then there was a sharp crack, and a door-sized rectangle of blackness hissed into existence in front of her.

Cadimus whinnied in alarm and tried to shy back, threatening to pull his reins free of the princess’s grasp.

“Not now, you coward!” Tanalasta jerked the stallion forward and urged her own mount through the doorway.

The world went black, and the princess experienced a strange, timeless sense of falling she thought would last forever. She grew queasy and weak, and a sudden chill bit at her fingers and nose. Her ears filled with a hushed roaring, at once overpowering as a waterfall and as soft as a whisper, and her stomach reverberated as though to the roll of a thousand drums. Then, in less than the instant it had taken her to blink, she was back in the light, her head spinning and the wind whistling around her ears.

Cadimus nickered behind her, sounding as confused as he was alarmed, and Tanalasta recalled with a rush where she was and what she was doing. She kicked her own mount’s flanks urgently, and the poor horse stumbled forward blindly, as dazed and reeling as her rider. The princess let the mare continue on until she felt the ground sloping away beneath them, then dismounted and tethered both glassy-eyed horses to a scraggly hackberry bush.

By the time Tanalasta returned to the ridge, her head had stopped spinning. She lay down beneath the tall spire of granite and peered over the crest. Across the way, the ghazneth was already swooping down the gully toward Vangerdahast.

As the phantom neared him, it suddenly veered and pulled up. For one awful instant, she thought it was coming for her, then it wheeled on a huge black wing and extended its talons to attack the wizard from behind. Vangerdahast whirled, wand in. hand, but the ghazneth was already on him. Tanalasta knew the wizard’s spell would never go off before the creature’s talons tore him gullet to groin. She was on her feet before she knew what she was doing, one hand disappearing into her weathercloak’s escape pocket and the other reaching for her peacemaker’s rod.

Fortunately for both the princess and the royal magician, Tanalasta remained where she was. Like the message-sending throat clasp, her weathercloak’s escape pocket could only be used once a day. She dropped back to the ground, then watched in amazement as the ghazneth ricocheted away from the wizard’s protective star and slammed into the mountainside.

Vangerdahast’s shoulders slumped with relief, then his voice began to echo off the rocky slopes as he bellowed his incantation and tossed his strange assortment of knickknacks into the air. The ghazneth circled the boulder where he stood, hurling itself at him time and again, only to bounce away and crash into the mountain with stone-splitting force. A shimmering spiral of light appeared in the air behind the creature and began to shadow its movements like some strange tail it did not know it had.

When the ghazneth finally grew tired of slamming into the mountainside, it alighted in the gully next to Vangerdahast. It seemed to say something, then squatted down and wrapped its arms around the boulder. The stone began to tremble, and Tanalasta could tell by the sudden tension in the wizard’s shoulders that he had not anticipated the possibility of having his perch ripped out of the very ground.

Vangerdahast’s echoing voice rumbled off the mountains more urgently, and he stooped down to fling his knickknacks directly onto the shoulders of his attacker. The tornado at the ghazneth’s back grew larger and faster, sucking the thing’s leathery wings backward toward the whirlpool’s spiraling depths. The creature glanced nervously over its shoulder, then a small eye appeared in the heart of the tornado. From Vangerdahast’s description, Tanalasta expected to see some sort of flaming hell or blood-drenched wasteland, but the small circle resembled nothing quite so much as the Stonelands themselves.

The ghazneth let out a great roar and gave a tremendous twist. A sharp crack reverberated off the mountainside, then the boulder rose out of the ground and Vangerdahast’s legs went out from under him.

Tanalasta was on her feet again, yelling for the wizard to use his escape pocket, though she knew he would never hear her over the rumble of the cracking stone. As Vangerdahast tumbled from the boulder, he reached out with the dove’s feather and struck the creature on the head.

A terrible shriek reverberated across the slope. The ghazneth vanished into the whirlpool, dragging Vangerdahast’s boulder along with it. The wizard landed facedown in the gully and lay there trembling, then the spell whooshed in on itself and there was silence.

Tanalasta let out a joyful whoop, then saw a familiar shape in the sky and dropped to her belly. Vangerdahast raised his head, and she rose to her knees to point behind him. The wizard stood and turned to face the shoulder of the mountain, where the ghazneth was already streaking down out of the stonemurk.

Vangerdahast stood there looking for what seemed an eternity, but in fact may have been less than a second. Tanalasta started to rise and yell, but she did not even make it to a crouch before the wizard turned and was suddenly beside her, swaying and blinking with teleport daze and blindly reaching out to catch hold of her sleeve.

“Get us out of here!”