Beyond the High Road c-2

by Troy Denning

  Rowen vanished under the surface for a moment, then emerged three paces to the left with a raised sword.

  When he saw Vangerdahast standing in the moonlight, he lowered his weapon. “It was you?”

  “It was,” Vangerdahast growled. “And you may consider yourself lucky to escape with a dunking. Spying on a royal princess’s bath could be deemed a crime against the crown.”

  Rowen’s jaw fell. “I wasn’t spying!”

  “No? Just peeping?”

  “Vangerdahast!” Tanalasta swam over and stood, crossing her arms in front of her breasts. “You owe Rowen an apology. I asked him to keep watch while I bathed.”

  “I doubt you asked him to watch you,” growled Vangerdahast, though he suspected the possibility had at least occurred to Tanalasta. The wizard glowered in Rowen’s direction. “Had you been guarding the princess instead of leering at her, you would have heard me coming.”

  “I was watching the horizon,” Rowen protested. Though Tanalasta was still covering herself with her arms, he took care to avert his eyes as he spoke. “Milady, you must believe me. Why I didn’t hear him-“

  “Pay him no heed, Rowen,” said Tanalasta, still covering herself with her arms. “Old Snoop is famous for skulking about the palace halls. One does not dare hold a personal conversation without first examining every garderobe and alcove within twenty paces.”

  Though twenty paces was actually something of an underestimate, Vangerdahast feigned hurt. “Even were that true, Princess, I was not skulking this time.” He stepped to the edge of the water and opened Tanalasta’s weathercloak. “I was speaking with your father.”

  Rowen’s face grew as pale as the moonlight, then he glanced across the circle of boulders. “The king is with you?”

  “Hardly.” Vangerdahast motioned the ranger out of the water, then averted his own eyes so Tanalasta could slip into the cloak. “Will you hurry? We may not have much time.”

  “Time?” Rowen climbed out of the pool, being very careful not to look back. “Why not?”

  “The king is in Mabel,” Tanalasta explained, slipping into the weathercloak. “They were far-speaking.”

  Rowen spun on Vangerdahast. “Magic? Alusair warned you!”

  “It was the king she didn’t warn, young man,” Vangerdahast bristled. “Now, be a good lad and fetch the horses.”

  “Of course.” Rowen’s expression changed from anger to chagrin. “You’re right, we don’t have much time.”

  The ranger sheathed his sword, then snatched up his saddle and rushed off in the direction of the horses. Tanalasta started to follow, but Vangerdahast caught her by the arm.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Princess?” He pointed toward her neatly folded tunic and trousers. “You really shouldn’t tempt poor Rowen. It’s unfair to vaunt a prize he has no chance of winning.”

  “Who says he doesn’t?” The princess snatched up her clothes and stepped behind a boulder.

  Vangerdahast groaned inwardly. He pulled a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it into the air, then spoke an incantation as it started to fall. The coin stopped at about eye level.

  “Vangerdahast, have you lost your mind?” Tanalasta peered out from behind her rock. “That’s what attracts it!”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Vangerdahast plucked the coin out of the air and began to rub it between his palms. A faint green aura appeared around the coin, barely brighter than the moonlight illuminating it against his palm.

  “Now, watch and learn, my dear, watch and learn.” Vangerdahast waited until Rowen returned with the horses, then asked, “Which way will we be traveling, young man?”

  When Rowen pointed into the hills, Vangerdahast turned and flicked the coin in the opposite direction. It whistled down the gulch and sailed out over the flatlands, vanishing from sight like a shooting star.

  “A false trail?” Rowen asked.

  Vangerdahast nodded. “It should buy us an hour or two.”

  “You may be underestimating the ghazneth’s speed.”

  Rowen crouched behind a boulder, then pointed toward the mouth of the gully, where the distant silhouette of a moonlit ghazneth was wheeling out over the plain.

  “How long will your coin stay in the air?” Tanalasta asked.

  “About as long as it takes the ghazneth to catch it,” Vangerdahast continued to stare out over the empty plain, astonished at how quickly the dark creature had faded from sight. “How long that will be, who can say?”

  “But sooner than we’d like,” concluded Tanalasta.

  The princess stepped from behind her boulder, now fully clothed, both bracers clasped on one arm and the weathercloak thrown unclasped over her shoulders. The bracers would not radiate magic until she transferred one to her bare wrist, but closing the cloak’s clasp would automatically activate several magics sure to draw the ghazneth’s attention. Vangerdahast pulled his own weathercloak over his shoulders, leaving it unclasped, then they mounted and quietly left Orc’s Pool behind.

  9

  The slope lay blanketed in shadow as thick as ink. Vangerdahast rode in silence, keeping a careful watch on the dark sky behind them, cringing inwardly at the constant clatter of horse hooves on shifting stone. He expected to see the ghazneth come streaking out of the mists above Orc’s Pool at any moment, but his greatest fear was that he would not see it at all, that it would swoop in from some unwatched corner of the sky and disembowel them all before he could cast a single spell. His fingers kept tracing patterns of protection. Only the knowledge that the magic would draw the phantom like a signal fire kept him from uttering the incantations to activate the enchantments.

  Finally, the companions crested the top of the hummock and began to traverse a barren, moonlit clearing lacking so much as a boulder to hide behind. They did not have even the stonemurk to conceal them, for the rolling hill lands made the wind too erratic and scattered to sustain its load of sand and loess. The trio urged their mounts across the clearing at a trot.

  Vangerdahast finally began to relax when they reached the other side of the hillock and descended into the sheltering shadows of the adjacent gulch, but not so Rowen. The ranger continued to push hard, leading them up a sandy creek at a near gallop for several long minutes, then abruptly dismounting to double back along a dangerous slope of blond bedrock. When they reached the summit, they mounted again and trotted across another exposed summit, then repeated the process three more times before Rowen finally dropped into a winding gulch and stayed there.

  The ranger scanned the sky one last time, then waved Vangerdahast and Tanalasta up beside him. “We’ll follow this gully up onto Gnoll Flats,” Rowen said, “then turn south toward the Storm Horns. The stonemurk could be pretty bad up there, but it’ll die down for a while about dawn. We’ll be looking for a pair of mountains Alusair has been calling the Mule Ears.”

  “We’ll know them when we see them, I take it,” Vangerdahast said. He did not bother asking Rowen’s reason for detailing the route. With the ghazneth on their trail, being separated was one of the more pleasant reasons it was wise for everyone to know the way. “Is that where we’ll meet Alusair?”

  Rowen shifted in his saddle and was a little too careful to keep his eye on the trail. “Actually, no. That’s where she was three days ago, when she received Tanalasta’s sending.”

  “And where is she now?” Vangerdahast was all too confident he would not like the answer.

  Rowen shrugged. “We’ll have to see.” He turned to Tanalasta. “You can follow a trail, can’t you?”

  “I can,” said Tanalasta.

  Rowen nodded as though he had expected no less and drew a somewhat surprised smile from Tanalasta. Not seeming to notice the effect he had on her, he continued to address the princess, ignoring Vangerdahast entirely.

  “Alusair was somewhat, er, reluctant to suspend her search,” the ranger explained. “We’ll return to the last camp and track her from there.”

  “Then she ha
sn’t found Emperel.” Vangerdahast leaned on his saddle horn and stretched over to infuse himself into the conversation. “So what has she been doing up here?”

  “Following him, obviously,” said Tanalasta. “Will you let the man speak, Vangey?”

  Vangerdahast shot a scowl at the princess, but she did not seem to notice. Her gaze was fixed too sternly on the ranger.

  “Continue, Rowen.”

  “As you command, Princess.”

  “She asked you to call her Tanalasta,” grumbled Vangerdahast. The cad was winning her favor far too quickly with that respectful act of his. “And why not? You’ve already seen the crown jewels.”

  “Vangerdahast!” Tanalasta gave him a withering scowl, then looked back to Rowen. “Must I call on Rowen to remind you who is the royal here?”

  Rowen’s eyes grew bright and white in the moonlight. He glanced between the princess and Vangerdahast, allowing his sword hand to drift uneasily toward his sword pommel. The wizard started to utter a dark warning, then caught himself and thought better of it. The more he picked on the boy, the more determined Tanalasta would be to like him.

  Vangerdahast looked away, preparing himself for a distasteful task. “I hope the princess will forgive me. I was only trying to put the boy at ease.”

  “His name is Rowen,” said Tanalasta.

  “Please, if the Royal Magician wants to call me a boy, I won’t be offended,” said Rowen. “To tell you the truth, it’s been so many years since I’ve been called that I find it funny.”

  “Then I am happy to make you laugh, Rowen,” said Tanalasta. “From henceforth, the Royal Magician may address us as ‘boy’ and ‘girl,’ and we will call him ‘grandfather.’”

  “I am sure the royal court will find your decision most amusing,” Vangerdahast replied, finding himself grinding his teeth. As trustworthy as Rowen might be, Vangerdahast could not have the princess falling in love with a Cormaeril. After the Abraxus Affair, that would be tantamount to bedding a Sembian. “If we are done making young Cormaeril laugh, perhaps he could tell us about Emperel?”

  Rowen looked to Tanalasta, and when she nodded, began. “There really isn’t much to tell. We picked up his trail a few miles east of Halfhap and followed him across the Stonebolt Trail toward Shouk’s Ambush, then he suddenly found someone else’s trail and followed it south to a tomb in the foothills.”

  “A tomb?” Vangerdahast asked.

  “How old?” Tanalasta asked. “What type?”

  “It was very old, Milady,” said Rowen. “As for the type-I’m no expert on such things. It was set beneath the roots of a great twisted oak, black of bark and so filled with rot that it’s a wonder the thing was still standing. There were old glyphs carved into the trunk such as I have never seen.”

  “Glyphs?” Tanalasta asked, growing excited. “Were they Elvish?”

  Rowen shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. They were very sinuous and graceful.”

  Tanalasta said, “They sound Elvish.”

  “As does the tomb,” Vangerdahast agreed.

  “You’re thinking Tree of the Body…”

  “But twisted and black?”

  Rowen’s head pivoted back and forth between his escorts, not quite keeping pace with the exchange.

  “Twisted and black,” said Tanalasta. “Yes, that is interesting.”

  “No elf would sprout such a thing, and if it’s rotting…”

  “There are evil elves.”

  “True, but drow grow mushrooms, not trees,” Vangerdahast said. “And they live underground.”

  “I’m talking about wood elves, not drow. Don’t you recall the Year of Distant Thunder?”

  Rowen turned to Tanalasta and said, “If I may-“

  “The Bleth family, of course,” said Vangerdahast, cutting the cad off, “but Mondar was in the wrong there.”

  “They could have told him that before they killed his whole family,” Tanalasta said. “It was a massacre-an elven massacre.”

  “Excuse me!” Rowen said, raising his voice loud enough to be heard. “But I am sorry to disappoint you. The elves have nothing to do with this tomb.”

  Vangerdahast and Tanalasta both frowned, then asked together, “You’re sure?”

  “We found some garish old rings, a silver hair comb,” said Rowen, “and a lady’s stiletto hidden in the handle of a brass fan.”

  Tanalasta raised her brow. “That’s certainly not elven.”

  “Nor were the vambraces in the next tomb,” said Rowen.

  “The next tomb?” Vangerdahast gasped. “There were two?”

  Rowen shook his head. “Three… so far, all opened. Emperel followed whoever he was tracking to each of them. We think that’s where be ran into the ghazneth.”

  Vangerdahast and Tanalasta fell silent, trying in their own ways to make sense of what the ranger was telling them. The tombs Rowen described did not belong to the Sleeping Sword. Vangerdahast visited that cavern periodically to inspect its condition and renew the stasis spell that kept the young lords in suspended animation, and he knew for a fact there was not a tree within two miles of it.

  “These tombs,” Tanalasta said. “Were they all similar?”

  “Some seemed older than others,” said Rowen. “Or at least the trees were larger, and they had the same glyphs carved into the trunks. But the things we found in. each one were different. In the last one, it was a war wizards’ throat clasp.”

  The ranger gestured to the unfastened clasps at the throats of his two companions.

  Vangerdahast raised his brow. “I don’t suppose you have that clasp with you?”

  “Sorry. Princess Alusair said-“

  “I can imagine what she said,” Vangerdahast replied.

  “Quiet!” Tanalasta hissed.

  The princess guided her horse over in front of her companions, forcing them to a stop. Vangerdahast’s eyes went instantly to the sky and his hand to his throat clasp. If the ghazneth had found them anyway…

  Tanalasta’s shadowy hand reached out to catch him by the arm. “Orcs,” she whispered.

  Vangerdahast almost sighed in relief, then realized it would be impossible to scatter the orcs without using magic and alerting the ghazneth to their location. He scanned the gully slopes, already plotting a devastating sequence of fire spells. If Tanalasta could see the swiners, then the swiners could see her. Orc eyes were so sensitive they could see a creature’s body heat in the dark.

  When Vangerdahast detected no sign of the creatures, he asked, “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” Tanalasta replied. “I smell them.”

  “Smell them?” Vangerdahast hissed. “If they were close enough to smell, we’d be dead by now.”

  “If we were relying on your nose, yes,” whispered Rowen, “but Tanalasta has taken a bath. She can smell something other than herself.”

  The ranger dismounted and scraped a fistful of dirt from the gully floor, letting it pour from his hand. Once he had determined that the breeze was blowing across the gully, he led Vangerdahast and Tanalasta over to the windward side of the ravine and motioned for them to dismount. The trio spent the next half hour stumbling along in the shadows without seeing any sign of the orcs. Vangerdahast was about to insist that they mount again when a distant clatter began to echo up the gulch behind them. They paused to listen until the orcs had passed, then returned to their saddles and continued up the gully.

  The companions remained silent for another half hour, until they reached the head of the gulch and ascended onto the moonlit expanse of the Gnoll Flats. Despite Rowen’s earlier warning, the stonemurk was not bad-at least not compared to the plains closer to the Stonebolt Trail-and Vangerdahast could barely see the dark wall of the Storm Horns in the far distance. Try as he might, he could find no peaks that reminded him of mule ears.

  They stayed close to the edge of the flats, ready to duck down the nearest ravine at the first sign of orcs or the ghazneth. After the sheltering confines of the gully, the empty expanses m
ade Vangerdahast feel exposed and cranky, and only the thought of crossing the barrens in full daylight prevented him from suggesting they make camp in the shelter of one of the many ravines they were passing.

  If the lack of cover made Tanalasta or Rowen nervous, they did not show it. The pair rode side-by-side for the rest of the night, their legs almost touching. Despite his weariness and petulant mood, Vangerdahast found he did not have the heart to intrude on the moment-not even for the good of the realm. Clearly, the ranger respected the princess for her knowledge and talent, and she seemed to return that respect with genuine fondness. Outside of Alaphondar and her own family, Tanalasta had experienced little enough of either in the palace. If she had found it in the Stonelands with Rowen Cormaeril, then the royal magician could put Cormyr’s interests aside for a few hours. Despite the trouble she was causing him, Vangerdahast loved the princess like a daughter, and he wanted to see her as happy as it was possible for a queen to be.

  Vangerdahast could never let them marry, of course. Allowing the child of a Cormaeril to ascend to the throne would insult the families who had stayed loyal during the Abraxus Affair, and invite mischief from those who had wavered, but marriage was not the only trail to carnal happiness. If their fondness continued to grow, perhaps he could talk to Tanalasta about working out a discreet arrangement. He had certainly done the same thing often enough for Azoun, and it might provide just the leverage he needed to disabuse her of this royal temple nonsense.

  The eastern horizon was beginning to brighten with predawn light when Vangerdahast heard the pair murmuring quietly. He slumped forward and allowed his chin to drop onto his chest, then urged his horse slowly forward until he was close enough to hear their conversation. His eavesdropping spells were far more effective and convenient, but with the ghazneth flying about, he had no choice except to resort to conventional methods.