Owden scowled, clearly insulted by the question. “Of course, but I will need a safe place to work-and for him to rest.”
“Then I will give you one.” Leaving Owden’s mace hanging half out of its belt ring, Vangerdahast reached into Alaphondar’s weathercloak. “Pardon me, my friend.”
He grabbed a pocket by the outside lining and tore it free, then held the resulting pouch in the air. Keeping one eye on the door lest Xanthon return, he spread the pocket and spoke a long incantation. When he finished, the pocket mouth expanded to the size of a trap door. Vangerdahast released the pouch, and it continued to hover in the air.
“You can take refuge in there. Pull the mouth in after you and no one can touch you-they won’t even know you’re there.” Vangerdahast drew the mace from Owden’s belt. “And don’t come out until you hear me calling-even if it seems like tendays. Time will be strange inside, so it may be that only a matter of seconds has passed out here.”
Owden glanced at his mace and cocked a brow. “And what are you going to do?”
“Avenge a betrayal,” Vangerdahast said. “And stop a scourge.”
“No!” Alaphondar’s voice was barely a whisper “The door no man can close… you’ll open it!”
“It appears Xanthon has already opened that door.”
Vangerdahast looked away, peering through the chamber’s profane darkness into the adjacent passageway.
“And I am going to slam it in his face.”
21
The sliver rotated in Vangerdahast’s palm, pointing around the corner into the swarming darkness of the lower keep. The wizard floated to the far wall to peer into the next section of corridor. When he found nothing lurking in ambush except more snakes and insects, he eased forward and continued down the passageway. With three different spells shielding him from harm, he was not overly concerned about being attacked-but a wise hunter treated his prey with respect.
The corridor continued past another half a dozen doors, all as rotten and slime-caked as the first. The air was warmer and more fetid than ever, though thankfully it no longer made the royal magician feel quite so ill. Before parting ways, Owden had insisted on casting a few spells of his own, calling upon Chauntea to guard the wizard against the disease, poison, and evil of the place. To Vangerdahast’s surprise, his strength had quickly returned, and even the doors seemed to swirl away from him as it passed. This small service could not make him embrace Tanalasta’s royal temple, of course-but he would not be above saying a prayer or two of thanks when everyone returned to Suzail.
As Vangerdahast approached the next corner, the sliver in his palm stood on end. This perplexed him, until he rounded the bend and the tiny piece of wood fell flat again, then swiveled around to point back into the corner. The wizard turned around and drifted lower to inspect the area. He had traded his glowing wand for Alaphondar’s commander’s ring so his hands would be free to fight, but the ring’s light was even more limited than that of his wand. He had to descend to within an arm’s length of the floor before he noticed the ribbons of yellow fume spiraling down through a tangle of red-banded snakes.
Vangerdahast pressed his borrowed mace to the floor. There was a slight shimmering and a momentary resistance, then the head of the weapon passed out of sight. Vangerdahast frowned, wondering if this was the “marsh door” Xanthon had referred to while impersonating Tanalasta. Clearly, the ghazneth had been trying to lure his “rescuers” into some sort of trap, and the royal magician suspected that had been the purpose of the entire band for some time now-at least since his return from Arabel.
But why? The reason seemed painfully obvious:
Tanalasta’s royal religion was the seventh scourge of Alaundo’s prophecy, “the one that will be,” and only Vangerdahast could stop the princess from opening the “door no man could close.” Determined to be rid of the only one who could stop them, the ghazneths had lured the wizard into an ambush. The explanation made perfect sense to the royal magician, and he was determined that the ghazneths would never have a chance to make the princess one of their own.
Vangerdahast pulled the mace out of the floor and jammed it into his belt, then plucked an apple seed from his cloak pocket and let it fall. As it dropped, he made a quick twirling motion and spoke a few words of magic. A small whirlpool formed in the shimmering floor, then abruptly opened into a dark, man-sized hole. Vangerdahast selected a wand from inside his cloak, flung a quick firebolt through the opening to discourage thoughts of a surprise attack, and followed the flames down into the darkness.
The firebolt seemed to plummet forever, growing steadily smaller as it streaked away. Though Vangerdahast never touched any walls, he had the sense of descending a narrow shaft into a hot, murky depth, an impression compounded by the yellow fume swirling so closely around him. Finally, when the firebolt had shrunk to a mere thumbnail of light, it hit bottom and fanned out into a crimson disk, briefly illuminating a lopsided plaza ringed by walls of rough-stacked stone and little square tunnel mouths.
With the sliver still standing in his palm, Vangerdahast continued his descent until the mordant odor of his own fire spell came faintly to his nostrils and the yellow fume started to swirl away into the darkness. He stopped and found himself hovering a few feet above a smoking mud flat, the plink-plink of dripping water echoing through a constant insect drone. Above his head, there seemed to be nothing but featureless darkness, with no sign of the shaft through which he had descended. He reached up and touched something spongy. When he pushed, it gave way beneath his hand, not quite water and too resilient to be mud, yet far more solid than the passage he had come down.
“There are many ways to enter, but only one way to leave,” hissed Xanthon Cormaeril, sounding as angry as he did pained, “but why worry? Surely a great wizard you can find a way home!”
Vangerdahast spun toward the voice and saw a coarse net flying into the tiny radius of his light spell. He reacted instantly, lowering his wand and speaking the command word. The fire bolt flashed through the net and exploded against the chest of a dark silhouette, hurling the figure into a wall of stacked stone. A tremendous clattering filled the chamber, then the remains of the net entangled the wizard, bouncing him off the ceiling and dragging him down to rebound off a wall.
Vangerdahast landed face down on the muddy floor, bent backward with his feet resting against a wall behind him-a rather painful position for a man of his age. He wasted no time rolling out of it, then pushed his wand through the net and swiveled around, spraying fire.
The flames missed Xanthon, but they did illuminate the entire plaza. It was a muddy circle no more than ten paces across, full of humming insects and ringed by the ramshackle houses of a long-abandoned goblin warren. The compact buildings presented a nearly solid facade of stacked stone, broken only by crooked rows of squinting windows and tilted doorways no higher than a man’s belt. In the heart of the plaza lay a shallow depression filled with stagnant water.
As the glow of Vangerdahast’s fire bolts began to fade, Xanthon rose from the rubble of a demolished building and peered over the jagged remains of a wall. All semblance to Tanalasta had vanished completely. Xanthon’s face had become a skeletal monstrosity, with an arrow-shaped nose and a slender tuft of coarse beard nearly hidden beneath his aura of flying insects. The dagger wound Vangerdahast had inflicted earlier was barely visible, a puffy- edged slit whose edges had already closed.
“Awfully free with that magic, aren’t you old fellow?” Xanthon called.
Vangerdahast leveled his wand and sent another fire bolt streaking across plaza. Xanthon raised his hand and caught the bolt in his palm, disappearing behind the wall as the impact spun him around.
Vangerdahast drew his iron dagger and began to slice at the net and finally noticed that the thing had been made of living snakes. Though their fangs were incapable of penetrating his protection magic, the survivors were striking at him madly. He could not help crying out in shock.
Across the plaza, Xanthon stepped out of the ruins, Vangerdahast’s dying fire bolt displayed in the palm of his hand. “You do know this is ambrosia to me?”
Xanthon tipped his head back and poured the rest of the fire into his mouth. Vangerdahast gave up slashing
