the politics of the thing. His cousin tried to overthrow the king, for heaven’s sake.”
“Don’t you think I know the politics?”
“Sure, if they’re in a book somewhere, but…” Alusair shrugged and let the sentence trail off. “Look, all I’m saying is I’m not going to be queen. If you can work this out with Vangerdahast and the king, I’m happy.”
“But you won’t help me.”
Alusair spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness, then took Tanalasta’s waterskin and kneeled down to fill it from the stream.
“Fine.”
Tanalasta was about to remark that Alusair would have to live with the consequences when an image of Alaphondar Emmarask appeared in her head. The old sage was staring downward and huffing for breath, and Tanalasta had the distinct impression he was frightened silly. The words of a sending began to hiss through her mind.
Tanalasta, open no doors! Ghazneths are scourges. Devil making himself Vangerdahast and Owden inside, everyone else dead. Wait, or jump into marsh! Answer, please, please…
“Tanalasta?”
Now it was Alusair’s voice, and Tanalasta felt her sister holding her arm. She motioned Alusair to wait, then concentrated on Alaphondar’s voice and sent her reply.
Alaphondar, safe with Alusair in mountains, two days from marsh. Understand ghazneths are scourges. Know four names: Suzara, Boldovar, Merendil, Melineth. Xanthon Cormaeril released them.
“Tanalasta!”Alusair was not quite shaking her sister. “What is it?”
“I think we’d better risk a few curing spells,” said Tanalasta. “That was a sending from Alaphondar.”
“What?”
“He seems to be at the Farsea Marsh with Vangerdahast and Owden Foley.” Tanalasta quickly repeated the message, then said, “He seemed to think Alaundo’s prophecy is coming to pass. You know, ‘Seven scourges…’”
“‘Five long gone, one of the day, and one soon to come,’” Alusair finished. “Of course I know. I looked it up as soon as I heard we were looking for Emperel.”
“We should inform the king,” Tanalasta said, closing her weathercloak’s throat clasp. “You’d better ready the men. It sounded like all the ghazneths were busy with Vangerdahast, but we’d better not take a chance.”
Alusair nodded and turned to start barking out orders, then paused and looked back to Tanalasta. “See what he wants me to do. My company can probably follow Vangerdahast’s trail and reach the marsh in two days. That may be the best anyone can do.”
“I’ll ask.”
Tanalasta took a moment to compose as succinct and complete a message as she could in a few words, then closed her eyes and pictured her father’s face. When the image suddenly pulled off its crown and looked to one side, she sent her message.
Father, Alaphondar reports seven scourges here. Vangerdahast’s company destroyed at Farsea Marsh, Vangey and Owden alive. Alusair and I two days away, going to aid.
The king’s face betrayed first his relief at hearing his daughters were alive, then his shock at the unthinkable news. He shook his head urgently.
No, can’t risk crown princess. War wizards and dragoneers will find battlefield soon enough. Return to Arabel at once. Your mother safe but shaken.
The image faded, and Tanalasta found herself staring at her own feet.
“Well?” Alusair demanded.
Tanalasta ignored her, pretending she was still in contact with the king, and took a moment to plan out her next few actions. Alusair came and stood beside her impatiently.
Tanalasta looked up. “He says mother is safe but shaken.”
“What does that mean?”
Tanalasta shrugged. “He seemed to think we would know.”
Alusair considered this a moment, then shook her head helplessly. “Well, I suppose that’s good news. What were his orders for me?”
Tanalasta answered quickly, not giving herself time to reconsider ” ‘The realm can’t afford to be without Vangerdahast and Alaphondar at this time of crisis.’ ” It was more of an opinion than a lie. ” ‘You must do what you can to save them.’ “
Alusair closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded and looked to her sister. “And what am I to do with you?”
Tanalasta spread her hands helplessly. “Take me along, I suppose. He didn’t have time to say.”
20
The chamber was darker than a grave and so thick with orc stench it sickened Vangerdahast to breathe. Tangles of snakes slithered across the floor in wet, hissing snarls, while clouds of droning insects hovered just beyond the light, kept at bay by some magic Owden had worked. The corpses of charred swiners lay strewn along the walls, shrouded under blankets of clicking beetles and humming flies. Ribbons of yellow fume swirled through the air, hot, acrid, and moist with the smell of the swamp.
When no more orcs presented themselves for execution, Vangerdahast fluttered his arms and led the way slowly forward. The darkness of the place seemed to compress the light around his glowing wand, squeezing what would normally be a twenty-foot sphere into a misshapen egg barely a quarter that size. A low, constant groan rumbled through the keep, as though the unnatural radiance were an affront to the building itself. The terrible heat made Vangerdahast sweat heavily, and a steady stream of perspiration dribbled from his old brow to the floor. The snakes hissed and struck at the salty beads.
As they drew nearer to the doorway, Vangerdahast saw that the lintel and hinge post were rotting apart, while the surrounding walls were covered with the ashen residue of some foul-smelling fungus. The door itself hung open into the next room, dangling by the tattered remnant of a single leather hinge. Vangerdahast motioned for Owden to be ready, then floated through the doorway.
He found himself in the corner of a narrow corridor, one branch turning left toward a marble stairwell and the other leading straight ahead toward a closed door. The walls were coated with the same white moss he had seen in the blighted fields of northern Cormyr. A steady flow of sweltering yellow fume poured down the stairs to swirl around the corner and disappear down the dark hall, and the air was even warmer and more fetid than in the previous room.
Vangerdahast drifted down the passage and tried the door. The latch came off in his hand, tearing a gaping hole in the rotten wood. Brown scorpions began to swarm through the cavity and drop onto the floor.
Vangerdahast discarded the latch. “Perhaps we’ll try upstairs first.”
“It would seem more likely,” agreed Owden.
Neither of them mentioned the obvious fate of anyone trapped in a room full of scorpions. The royal magician drifted around the corner into the stairwell. It was cramped and narrow and just as slime-caked as the keep’s lower level, and so filled with hot fume that Vangerdahast heard Owden gag on its rotten smell. The wizard covered his own mouth and floated up the stairs without breathing. Even then the stench made him feverish and dizzy.
As Vangerdahast neared the top, a pair of crude arrows hissed out of the darkness to ricochet off his magic shielding and thud into the moldy walls. A guttural voice barked a command, and bone-tipped spears began to poke their way through a dozen fungus-choked murder holes hidden along the inner wall. Though the points snapped off against the wizard’s weathercloak, the attacks did threaten to shove him into the stairwell wall and drain his magic.
Vangerdahast touched his wand to the nearest spear and sent a fork of lightning crackling into the murder hole. The thunderbolt ricocheted down the ambush passage, filling the stairwell with blue flashes and muffled squeals as it danced from orc to orc. The air grew thick with a smell like scorched bacon, and the offending spears clattered harmlessly out of sight. If any swiners survived the wizard’s reprisal, they were wise enough to fall silent
