“No.”
“What?” Owden dropped down from the ceiling and started to push the door open Vangerdahast caught him by the arm and pulled him back. “Princess? Is something wrong?”
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” came the reply.
“You can’t help me, so leave me alone. I command it.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Vangerdahast pushed the door open and saw a dark figure crouching in the darkness, staring up at him with red-tinged eyes and a slender face framed by a cascade of jet-black hair. So harsh were the features-the sharp cheeks, the dagger-blade nose, the beestung mouth-that it took the wizard a moment to recognize them as Tanalasta’s. Even then, he could not help bringing his wand up between them.
The princess spun away, revealing a pair of small, fanlike wings running alongside her spine. “I warned you! Now leave me to the fate I deserve.”
Owden was far faster to recover than Vangerdahast. He pushed the wand aside and floated into the cell.
“You don’t deserve this.” The priest spread his arms and reached to embrace the princess. “What makes you think that?”
“Don’t touch me!”
Tanalasta leaped away as quickly as a striking snake, then was suddenly squatting in the arrow loop at the back of her cell, naked, trembling, and glaring at them with wild red eyes. Her figure was a gaunt, heinous mockery of the one Vangerdahast had glimpsed at Orc’s Pool, and he could not help feeling sick. She crossed her arms in front of herself and looked down.
“If you touch me, I’ll absorb your enchantments.” She pointed her chin at the slithering floor. “You know what will happen then.”
“Yes, we do.” Vangerdahast started to unclasp his weathercloak, then recalled what would become of all the magic stored in its pockets and thought better of it.
“We can’t leave you here. Come what may, you’re coming with us.”
He jerked the weathercloak off Owden’s shoulders and held it out for the princess, but she made no move to accept it.
“Tanalasta Obarskyr! I did not lose an entire company of the king’s soldiers to let you become a ghazneth.”
Vangerdahast threw the cloak at her. “Now put that on and come along. Whatever becomes of you, it will become of you in Cormyr-even if I must teleport you back to Arabel in a web.”
Tanalasta’s eyes flared red. “I doubt you are that fast, old man.” Despite her words, she slipped the cloak over her nakedness and closed the throat clasp. The sheen immediately faded from the brass clasp, and she stepped down to the floor. The insects and snakes paid her little attention, save to scurry aside or slither across her bare foot. “Lead on, Snoop.”
So relieved was the royal magician to have Tanalasta back-in any condition-that he would have liked to grab her and teleport back to Arabel that instant. Attempting such a thing from inside the keep did not seem wise, however. Given the building’s magic-absorbing nature, they might well end up trapped inside its walls. Vangerdahast returned to the main room and floated up toward the murky ceiling.
“Do you know if there’s a door up here?” he asked. “There must be some way onto the roof.”
“No!” Tanalasta barked the word as though it were a command. “I mean, we can’t use it. That’s their door.”
She pointed to the far corner of the room, and Vangerdahast soon saw the problem. The door was centered above the stairs, so that the only way to use it was to fly. If he tried to hold Tanalasta long enough to carry her through the opening, she would drain the magic from his flying spell and trap them both.
“We can use the marsh door.” Tanalasta passed beneath Vangerdahast and started downstairs. “They won’t expect that.”
As they descended, Tanalasta’s weathercloak began to disintegrate, the fabric turning dingy and dusty, the edges fraying and the seams opening.
Vangerdahast noted the decay and decided it would be prudent to arrive in a secluded part of the palace and gave no more thought to the matter. The excitement of finding the princess was fading, and his headache had returned with a vengeance. His temples pounded and his vision was blurring. His joints ached and his stomach had turned qualmish. By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, he felt as weak as an old woman.
“Is anyone else feeling sick?” he asked.
“It’s the keep,” said Tanalasta. “This place holds the ghazneths’ evil like a closet-the swarms, the darkness, the plague, all of it.”
Owden laid a hand on Vangerdahast’s arm. “If you are not averse to a little help from the goddess, I can help.”
“Later.” Vangerdahast started around the corner “Let’s get out-“
A frightened voice cried out from the next room, “Vangerdahast, help! Are you there?”
Owden withdrew his hand. “That sounded like-“
“Alaphondar!” Vangerdahast finished. Forgetting his headache for the moment, Vangerdahast flew around the corner and peered across the chamber through the breach in the keep wall, where he saw Alaphondar’s gaunt figure standing outside, silhouetted against the bright exterior light. The sage was swatting wasps away and turning in blind circles as he tried to shake off the afterdaze of using his weathercloak’s escape pocket. A few dozen paces beyond him, the last remnants of the Royal Excursionary Company lay on the ground writhing beneath black blankets of wasps-easy prey for the orcs and ghazneths rushing across the peninsula toward them.
Vangerdahast pushed Owden toward the breach. “Get him in here!”
As the priest flew to obey, Vangerdahast jammed his glowing wand into one pocket and fished a small square of iron from another. He rubbed the sheet between his palms and began a long incantation.
Owden entered the breach behind Alaphondar, and the wasps scattered instantly. The priest reached down and touched the sage’s shoulder. “Here we are, my friend.”
Alaphondar turned toward his savior. The sage’s venerable face was a mottled mass of wasp stings, already so red and distended that his eyes were swollen completely shut.
“Owden?” Alaphondar asked. Outside, the ghazneths sensed what was happening and launched themselves into the air. “Tell me Vangerdahast is with you!”
“He is, and he’s not the only one,” Owden answered.
This drew a puzzled frown from Alaphondar, but the expression quickly changed to astonishment as Owden plucked him off the ground and retreated into the keep. By the time Vangerdahast took their place in the breach, the ghazneths were streaking past the remnants of the Royal Excursionary Company and angling down toward the keep. Vangerdahast turned the iron sheet edge-down and dropped it, then spoke the last word of his spell.
The peninsula vanished behind an iron wall, then a series of deafening clangs reverberated through the chamber.
Vangerdahast retreated into the room with his ears still ringing and one eye fixed on the iron wall. The barrier was illuminated inside by a few stray light rays filtering down between its dark surface and the keep wall, but the space was far too tiny for a ghazneth-or so he hoped. When no more sounds came from the other side, he withdrew his glowing wand from his pocket and turned to the others.
“Could they have broken their necks?” Owden asked. “The wall was iron.”
“Do you really believe we’d be that lucky?” Tanalasta asked. “The wall is also magic. They are only drinking it.”
“Tanalasta?” Alaphondar gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“The idea was to rescue me.” Tanalasta’s tone was acid. “You do remember-or have you gone daft?”
Vangerdahast raised his brow. He had heard the princess address him in such a manner often enough, but never Alaphondar. The sage was like a father to her.
Alaphondar’s hurt showed even in his swollen face. His white eyebrows tilted inward, and he started to explain himself-then he hesitated.
“My mistake.” He looked around the room blindly. “I thought you were with Alusair for some reason. She just told me that she has learned the names of the ghazneths from the glyphs at the other crypts.”