Troy Denning: Beyond the High Road

“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.”