Its waters danced away from the crippled ghazneth, then slid back over her like an eager blanket, leaving no trace of her but a few bubbles that soon slowed, then stopped.
Not dead, Azoun knew, just down out of battle for a time and probably not a long time. He’d best be away from here in haste, and without using more magic than he had to, either, not with a dragon gliding along just above the trees sniffing for it.
Healing was needful right now, though he probably required more than he was carrying. Azoun drained the two steel vials that rode in his boots, hefted his no-longer-magical blade, and set off through the damp green depths of the forest in the direction of the army he’d left behind such a short time ago.
The King of Cormyr felt surprisingly cheerful, despite the small concerns of a ghazneth behind him, a dragon lurking somewhere above, his kingdom hanging in the balance as orcs and goblins raided, the very real possibilities of meeting with a forest predator or just failing to meet with his troops in the vast and trackless trees ahead-and, of course, the danger that the rotting brought on by the talons of the ghazneth would claim him before he reached any aid, or leave him staggering when he did find a foe.
The very thought brought a fresh spasm of weakness in his cooling, trembling limbs and sent him staggering sideways against a tree. His smile, however, was a real one as he concentrated on Filfaeril’s image, bringing his queen to mind as he liked to remember her best, arching to meet his chest a-bubble with laughter, lusty fingers tugging at his hair…
He felt the wry warmth of her awareness as she shared and appreciated that memory. Faery, he said silently into her mind, I’ve been, as courtiers say, unaccountably delayed-but I’m alive, I’m coming, and never doubt, dying to see you.
19
As Vangerdahast circled down into the pit, a fork of lightning cracked across the cavern ceiling, illuminating the host of spear-shaped stalactites overhead. An instant later, the chamber was dark again, and a soft drizzle began to fall, deepening the stench of rot and decay that rose from below. Vangerdahast stopped his descent and hovered in place, looking up toward the rim of the pit, where Rowen Cormaeril sat watching.
“Do you mind? This place smells bad enough as it is.” Vangerdahast lowered his light and saw that the tangle of “sticks” he had glimpsed earlier were in fact small bones. “What the devil is this hole, anyway?”
“A goblin grave,” Rowen replied.
A handful of mold-covered lumps that might have been fresh bodies came into view. There was also a glint of gold, buried well down among the skeletons.
Rowen continued, “When goblins become a burden on their clan, their children give them an iron tree. They bring it here, string all their treasures on it, and jump.”
Vangerdahast nodded. “Very practical of them. I take it that’s the reason they never come here?”
“The reason they never leave,” Rowen corrected.
The ghazneth raised his face to the drizzle and closed his eyes in concentration. Though it had only been a short while since Nalavara had bitten him apart, all that remained of his wound was a pale scar across the top of his abdomen. After collapsing to the ground in two pieces, Rowen had pulled himself together and asked Vangerdahast to start pelting him with magic. The wizard had blasted him with magic missiles, lightning bolts, and any other spell he could cast with the components at hand. Some of the magic did stun the ghazneth for a moment, but most of it he simply absorbed and used to regenerate himself. It was the most frightening thing Vangerdahast had ever seen, at least until he recalled the other six phantoms wreaking havoc on Cormyr at that very moment.
The drizzle did not stop, and Rowen opened his eyes. “I can’t stop it.” He shook his head. “All that magic… I’m out of control.”
“Ah, well…” Vangerdahast wanted to say something comforting, but could think of nothing the boy would not recognize instantly to be a lie. “A little rain never hurt anything.”
“A little rain, no, but we both know it won’t stop there. You should kill me now, before I become the Seventh Scourge.”
“We’ll have no talk of that kind,” Vangerdahast said sternly. He felt at more of a loss than he had since Aunadar Bleth had managed to poison Azoun on that fateful hunting trip. “I doubt I could kill you. To become a ghazneth in the first place, you had to betray your duty to Cormyr and rob an elven tomb. Do you think I can just wave a hand and undo that?”
Rowen considered this a moment, then shook his head. “I suppose not. It is the darkness of my betrayal that makes me a ghazneth, and a ghazneth I will stay until that betrayal is forgiven.”
“If that were so, you would be a ghazneth no longer. Your betrayal was small enough as such things go.” Vangerdahast did not add that he himself had made worse mistakes for less cause and still not turned into a ghazneth, but he had never opened an elven tomb either. “I, for one, have already forgiven you.”
“But you do not wear the crown of Cormyr.” Rowen let his chin drop. “That will be the hardest part of this-to admit to Tanalasta that she was the reason I betrayed my oath.” He remained silent a moment, then turned his pearly eyes back to Vangerdahast. “You should have let Nalavara kill me.”
“I couldn’t. The realm still has need of your services,” said Vangerdahast, hoping he had finally hit on a way to lift Rowen’s despair. “We must get the scepter to Azoun.”
“But you wished Nalavara out of existence,” said Rowen, as always too observant for his own good. “Three times. I heard it.”
“And she no longer exists here, wherever here is.” Vangerdahast raised his hand and displayed the ring of wishes. “Unless this damned thing worked better for me than it ever has for any of my predecessors, Nalavara remains a force to be reckoned with, and you may be our only way of getting the scepter to Azoun.”
“Me?”
“When the change takes you,” Vangerdahast explained. “Xanthon could come and go at will. As you become more of a ghazneth, presumably you will, too.”
“And you think you’ll be able to trust me?” Rowen asked. “With the scepter in your hand?”
“That’s the reason I risked what I did, yes,” said Vangerdahast, “though you may have to leave alone if it proves impossible for me to go with you.”
Rowen laughed bitterly and stood. “If I must leave alone, I think it would be wiser for you to kill me.” He began to back away from the edge of the pit, and said, “What good will the scepter be to Cormyr if I have drained all its magic?”
20
Alusair let her arm fall and nodded in grim satisfaction as the banner beside her dipped for the last signal.
Obediently, at the head of the valley, a banner dipped in answer.
“Positions,” Alusair murmured almost absently, her eyes on that distant height.
Men moved to their bows and the bristling “flowers” of arrows standing ready in the turf, the few hopeless shots taking up bills and pikes behind the archers. They’d step forward only when the charging foe were mere paces away.
It seemed to take only a few quick breaths before the first smoke drifted up. Alusair smiled grimly.
“Welcome to our cookfires, you eaters of men,” she said aloud, reaching for her own bow. It shouldn’t take long now.
Orcs had no more love of smoke than men and could no more resist ready food and water. Alusair’s men had driven the few stray sheep they’d found down to the ponds in this valley the day before, setting the perfect lure.