Beyond the High Road c-2

by Troy Denning

  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 toge
ther. 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?’”