“My magic is powerful enough to see us both to safety in Arabel.” Vangerdahast jerked his arm away. “Which is exactly what we should do, now that we have established that Alusair is safe.”
“We have established that she’s alive, not safe.” Tanalasta’s tone grew sharp. “Nor do we know what she has discovered about Emperel’s disappearance or the ghazneth, which I suspect to be related. Most importantly, we have not yet informed Alusair that she is the new crown princess. You may stop talking to me about your teleport spell and start riding.”
Tanalasta urged her horse past Vangerdahast’s, then turned perpendicular to the wind and began to trot in what she hoped was a westerly direction. The wizard started after her.
“If you insist on this foolishness, will you at least ride in the right direction?”
“This is the right direction.” Tanalasta recalled a pamphlet on sea navigation one of the Dauntinghorn ancestors had written a hundred years before, then stopped and turned to the wizard. “If I can prove it, will you stop badgering me about teleporting back to Arabel?”
Vangerdahast’s bushy brow furrowed. He studied her without answering, and Tanalasta began to fear he had thought of the same thing she had.
When the wizard finally spoke, it grew clear he had not even considered the possibility that she might be right. “And when you can’t prove it, you will return to Arabel in all due haste and let me see to this matter properly.”
“Agreed.”
Vangerdahast could not quite keep from smirking. “Very well, then. Prove away.”
Tanalasta smiled and patted the wizard’s cheek. “I have a feeling we’re going to be a lot better friends after this.”
She dismounted and transferred her belongings to one side of her saddlebags. After the compartment was empty, she refilled it with fist-sized stones and walked to the front of her horse.
“Lead on, Vangerdahast. We’ll set our course by your lodestone for a few minutes.”
Vangerdahast eyed her saddlebags as though she meant to stone him to death, but nodded and lifted his rein hand to let the lodestone beneath it dangle free. He started forward at a right angle to the tiny rod, being careful not to stray off course. Tanalasta followed on foot, leading her horse and pausing every ten steps to stack one of the rocks from her saddlebag atop a larger stone along Vangerdahast’s trail.
The royal magician kept looking back, watching first with scorn, then with puzzlement, bewilderment, and-finally-chagrin. By the time the saddlebag ran out of stones, his cheeks were crimson with embarrassment. He shook his head in disgust, then pulled the lodestone from his wrist.
“We’ve been riding in circles!” The wizard raised his arm to throw the tiny rod away.
“Wait-it’s not the lodestone!” Tanalasta turned to look back along their course and saw that the stones traced a gentle, but distinct curve. “Cecil Dauntinghorn noticed a similar effect about a hundred years ago, when he found himself sailing around a tiny island in the Sea of Fallen Stars. As it turned out, his lodestone was pointing at a strange cliff of black rock. It started to point north again after he was far enough away.”
Vangerdahast eyed the stone-strewn plain sourly. “Don’t I look the fool. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“Not really.” Tanalasta began to redistribute the load in her saddlebags. “Well, maybe just a little bit, but I wasn’t trying to make you feel foolish. I just want you to trust my judgment.”
Vangerdahast cocked an eyebrow. “I’d trust it more if you would let me teleport us-“
“Vangey-“
The wizard raised his hand. “Not to Arabel, to Orc’s Pool. I’ve no doubt Alusair is fuming at our tardiness already, and now it’ll take us twice as long to find it-if we ever do.”
“Alusair can wait a few hours longer. I suspect she’d be even angrier with us if we led the ghazneth into the middle of her company.” Tanalasta fastened her saddlebags, then wiped another gob of brown grime from her eyes. “Besides, I doubt we lost much time. I’d have noticed if we had veered into the wind earlier.”
The princess mounted and turned perpendicular to the wind, now confident that she was heading westward. They rode for another three hours, and twice they noticed small bands of stoop-shouldered silhouettes skulking through the stonemurk. Both times they swerved away and rode briefly in the opposite direction, then resumed their westward travels. At last, the yellowish sky began to grow brown and dim, and Tanalasta was about to suggest that they make camp for the night when the wind suddenly filled with the overpowering scent of old death.
The princess pulled up short, and the odor vanished as quickly as it had come.
“Did you smell that, Vangerdahast?” She felt certain that her face had gone pale.
“Something like rancid blood?” He pointed into the wind. “From somewhere up there?”
Tanalasta nodded.
“No, I didn’t smell anything.”
The wizard turned Cadimus into the wind and urged him forward, leaving Tanalasta to puzzle over his rash behavior. She followed a few paces behind, wishing she had some way other than magic to defend herself. The odor returned again, this time stronger, then began to vanish and return at increasingly frequent intervals. Vangerdahast kept altering his course until the stench grew more or less constant. The princess began to notice mats of green moss and rich grass growing between the stones. Finally, a curtain of white steam appeared ahead, silhouetting a column of scraggly smoke trees arrayed along a chain of low, rocky hummocks.
Vangerdahast stopped beneath a wispy bough and peered down at the base of the hummocks. Tanalasta joined him, nearly gagging on the smell of brimstone and iron as she approached, then found herself looking down into a steep-sided ravine of raw red ground. Through the bottom of the gulch ran a steaming brook of blood-colored water, gurgling northward over a bed of jagged, rust-stained boulders.
“Crimson Creek?” she asked.
Vangerdahast nodded. “Right where you said it would be.” He turned upstream and started to ride along the rim of the gulch. “Come along. We’ll make camp at Orc’s Pool.”
“You know where we are?”
Vangerdahast shook his head. “Never seen this place before.”
“I think we’d better make camp here.” Tanalasta glanced at the dimming heavens, then added, “It’ll soon be too dark to ride.”
“We have time.” Vangerdahast continued to ride. When Tanalasta made no move to follow, be stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Perhaps you’d like to bet? Double or nothing?”
“Double what?” Tanalasta studied the steaming creek and shook her head. For the water to be that hot, the source had to be nearby. “No deal, Old Snoop. I see your game.”
“Do you now?” Vangerdahast smiled, then urged his horse forward. “I guess you’re just too smart for me, Tanalasta, too smart by far.”
The pool turned out to be even nearer than the princess expected. She followed Vangerdahast along the ravine for a quarter mile, then the steam began to thin, and the creek suddenly grew as colorless as air. They spent several minutes staring into the ravine in puzzlement, then finally dismounted and started to lead their horses down the embankment. As they descended, a scarlet ribbon appeared in the steam opposite them, curling down between the nebulous bulges of two rocky hummocks on the far shore.
Tanalasta pointed toward the ribbon. “I assume Orc’s Pool is rather bloody looking?”
“That would be correct. Are you certain those spell-beggars in Huthduth didn’t make a diviner out of you?”
Tanalasta frowned, trying to decide whether the wizard was mocking her or trying to compliment her. “It’s just common sense.”
“I’ve heard that’s all priestly divination is,” the wizard replied. “Now, real magic-“
‘Would do us no good, under the circumstances,” said Tanalasta. “And I would like you to stop referring to my friends as ‘spell-beggars.’”