He folded his hands behind his back. “Of course, Highness,” he said. “Ask me anything.”
Tanalasta hesitated, then said, “When I contacted you, I was trying to reach Rowen.”
“So I gathered.”
She fingered the silver amulet that hung from her neck. “We were using Rowen’s holy symbol as a focus.”
Vangerdahast raised his brow. “How very unusual that you contacted me, then.”
“Yes, isn’t it? And both times before I saw you, there was a shadowy face first-a shadowy face that resembled Rowen, but with white eyes.”
Vangerdahast put on a concerned frown. “And what did Owden say about this face?”
“That he didn’t know what to make of it,” said Tanalasta. “Any more than why Rowen’s symbol should have led me to you.”
“And so you are asking me?” Vangerdahast shook his head sagely. “Souls are Owden’s concern, not mine.”
Tanalasta sighed. “Of course they are, but I was wondering if you might not have been there alone.”
“I was hardly alone, Highness.” Vangerdahast tapped his iron crown. “There were plenty of Grodd. They made me their king, if you’ll recall.”
“I’m not talking about goblins.”
“Then I guess I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vangerdahast shrugged. “I can assure you, I was the only man there. My, er, subjects would certainly have brought it to my attention if there were others.”
“The thing is, if Rowen was there, he might not have looked like a man.” Tanalasta looked at the corner, then continued with a catch in her throat. “Before I destroyed Xanthon, he said something cruel.”
“That’s hardly surprising. I hope you made him suffer for it.”
“Nothing I could have done would have been enough,” she said. “He claimed that Rowen had betrayed Cormyr.”
“Rowen?” Vangerdahast tried to sound surprised.
Tanalasta raised a hand. “He said that Rowen was one of them.”
“What? A ghazneth?” Vangerdahast shook his head in mock disappointment. “Princess, I’m surprised at you. I’d have thought you understood by now how evil feeds on doubt.”
“I know,” said Tanalasta, “but there was that face. It looked so much like Ro-“
“Because that is what you wanted to see,” Vangerdahast interrupted. He took the princess by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Rowen would never betray Cormyr, or you. I know that, even if you do not.”
Tanalasta’s face softened. “Thank you, Vangerdahast.” She wiped the tears from her eyes, then said, “You’re right. I do know it.”
“Good.” The sigh under Vangerdahast’s breath was not quite one of relief. The princess had given up a little too easily, perhaps because she really did not want to know the truth. He took her hand and started toward the center of the room. “We should see to our ghazneth.”
Tanalasta looped her arm through Vangerdahast’s elbow. “By all means. And, Vangerdahast, why did you never ask me who fathered my child?”
“I didn’t?”
Tanalasta shook her head. “You didn’t seem curious at all.”
Vangerdahast assumed a gruff voice. “I assumed it to be Rowen. It would be too much to hope you had married somebody appropriate.”
“Really. And who said I was married?”
Vangerdahast cursed under his breath. The girl was too smart for her own good. “You’d better be,” he said. “The last thing Cormyr needs now is a succession war.”
He stopped in the center of the room and took the Scepter of Lords from the nervous guard, then pointed the man to the balcony. “Young man, in a handful of moments I’m going to come streaking through that window like a flaming star. You and two men of your choosing are to slam and bar the doors behind me-and do it quickly, for all our lives will depend on it.”
Tanalasta looked nervous. “Vangerdahast, if there is any risk to this plan…”
“Risk? There’s no risk if this boy does as he’s told-and is quick about it.” Vangerdahast motioned the guard off, then started to the balcony doors. “The royal magician has returned.”
With Tanalasta following along behind, Vangerdahast went to the balcony entrance. He pulled a pinch of powdered iron from the pouch he was using to carry spell ingredients and rubbed it over the doors, at the same time uttering one of the spells he had fashioned to make the best use of his burdensome crown. His head erupted into white pain as it always did when he made iron, but he was prepared for the shock and managed to endure it with no more than a long grunt. A gray-black darkness spread over the doors, then a long series of creaks and pops echoed through the room as the wood and glass changed to thick, heavy iron.
The ghazneth bell clanged to life, filling the bailey with a deep, insistent knelling.
“Your magic seems to have caught our visitor’s interest,” said Tanalasta.
“It’s not Boldovar come to join us?”
“That would be a different bell,” answered the princess, “and I would be much paler.”
“Well then, let’s have at her and be done with it.”
Vangerdahast stepped out onto the balcony and saw that Suzara had circled down to within a hundred yards of the palace roof. She was close enough to see what was happening, yet high enough to make her a difficult target for the archers’ iron-tipped arrows. He could just make out the red flush of her oblong eyes glaring down at him, and for the first time he wondered if his boasts about how easily he would subdue her had been somewhat overstated. From such a low height, she would be on him almost the moment he was in the air.
“Is something wrong?” Tanalasta asked.
Vangerdahast glanced back and saw not only the princess studying him, but Owden and the guards as well. If he changed plans now, their confidence would go the way of Korvarr and his company.
“Just planning my route.” He shooed Tanalasta back into the room. “To your hiding place.”
“Be careful, Old Snoop.”
“I will be quick.” Vangerdahast drew a crow’s feather from his spell pouch. “That is better.”
As he started his flying spell, the ghazneth dipped a wing and began to circle lower. Vangerdahast brushed the feather over his arms and finished the incantation in a flurry, then took the Scepter of Lords in both hands and sprang into the air. Even as he banked toward Lake Azoun, he felt the iron crown drawing his spell’s magic into itself, robbing him of precious speed and flight time. It might have been wise to warn the princess about this particular handicap, but then again maybe not. She would probably have insisted on doing things her own way.
The ghazneth bell began to clang madly, and Vangerdahast knew Suzara was coming after him. He dropped down below the crest of the outer curtain and banked hard toward Etharr Hall. A sharp thump sounded behind him as his pursuer hit the wall and dropped to the ground. The erratic clatter of firing crossbows echoed across the bailey, and Vangerdahast glanced back to see a cloud of iron quarrels descending on the ghazneth from the ramparts above.
Though more than a few bolts found their mark, Suzara spread her wings and launched herself, dodging and weaving, after Vangerdahast. Even as she flew, her wounds began to close. The quarrels dropped from her body and clanged to the cobblestones below, and only a handful of new ones took their place. Vangerdahast soared over the roof of Etharr Hall, then dropped low and skimmed the ground, circling around the building back toward Palace Hall.
The ghazneth shot over the roof of Etharr Hall in the opposite direction but saw Vangerdahast and dipped a wing to wheel around. Praying he had the speed to outrun her for just fifty more paces, he soared back toward Tanalasta’s balcony. A flurry of bowstrings throbbed from the windows along both sides of the bailey. Dark streams of arrows zipped through the air behind, tracing the ghazneth’s progress as she closed the distance to him.