plaza in the middle of the city. The circle was by far the grandest in the city, surrounded by crookedly built edifices with marble pillars and sandstone porticos that had ceilings nearly eight feet high.
In the center of this plaza lay a grand pool, fully five paces across and rimmed in a broad band of golden sand. It was filled with black, shimmering water so stagnant that when Xanthon ran onto it, he did not even sink. The surface merely rippled like obsidian jelly, and his feet stuck to the surface as soon as they touched it. Two paces later, he came to a dead halt in the center of the basin.
Vangerdahast did not even slow down as he passed. He simply pulled Owden’s mace from his belt and swooped down to slam it into the back of the ghazneth’s head. There was a crack and a spray of dark blood. Xanthon pitched forward onto his knees.
Vangerdahast passed over the pool’s golden rim and wheeled around to find his foe still kneeling in the center. Xanthon’s skull had been half-shattered, with a halo of jagged black bone protruding up at wild angles and one eye dangling out on his cheek and his dark lip twisted into a smug sneer.
“Last chance,” said Xanthon. “If you let me go, you can change your mind.”
“What makes you think I’d ever let you go?” Vangerdahast streaked down for another strike.
Xanthon smiled and dived forward, disappearing into the tar headfirst. Vangerdahast managed to knock one foot off at the ankle as the phantom’s legs vanished from sight, then the surface of the dark pool returned to its syrupy tranquility.
Vangerdahast circled around and considered the dark pool for a moment, more angered by Xanthon’s escape than astonished by it. He had already seen the ghazneth vanish through a stone floor, so he supposed he should not be surprised when the creature disappeared into a pool of tar.
Vangerdahast did not even consider letting the phantom go. Xanthon Cormaeril was a traitor of the vilest kind, and, almost as importantly, he was the royal magician’s best chance to find his way back to Cormyr before the scourges ruined it. He fished two rings from his weathercloak, one to let him breathe water-if that was what the black stuff was-and the other to allow him free movement, then streaked headlong toward the center of the pool.
The wizard was just inches above the surface when a pearly skin of magic appeared over the dark liquid. He barely had time to tuck his chin and twist away before he slammed into it. A terrific jolt shot up his spine, filling him with anguish from neck to knees, and he careened back into the air.
Vangerdahast brought himself slowly under control, then took a moment to shake the shock from his head and inspect himself The impact had left his old body shaken and sore, but relatively unscathed, aside from one slightly separated shoulder. He circled back to the pool and descended more slowly.
When he came to within a foot of the water, the pearly barrier appeared again-no doubt some sort of enchantment designed to repel beings of honorable intents and loyal persuasions. “It won’t be that easy, Xanthon! Do you hear me?” Vangerdahast was already summoning to mind the words that would dispel the magical barrier. “I’m coming for you!”
After three solid days in the saddle, Azoun could not quite believe his eyes when he rode into the narrow confines of Scimitar Canyon and found a trailworn stallion standing in the open entrance of the secret cavern of the Sleeping Sword. The big horse was glassy-eyed and haggard from many days on the trail, and he was still covered with foam from a hard ride that had left him barely able to stand, but the king would have recognized the noble beast anywhere.
“Cadimus!”
Azoun reined his own hard-ridden mount to a stop, then leaped out of the saddle, passed his reins to one of his weary dragoneer bodyguards, and rushed up to the royal magician’s horse.
“How have you been old boy?” He patted the stallion fondly on the neck.
Cadimus nickered softly, then swung his nose around as though to point to his saddle. There was blood on it-a lot of blood, mostly brown and crusted, but some new enough that it was still sticky and red.
“Kuceon!” Azoun cried, yelling for one of Owden Foley’s young priestesses. “Come quickly!”
The girl trotted her horse to the head of the company and slipped from the saddle while the beast was still moving. Leaving the reins for someone else to collect, she came to Azoun’s side and touched her fingers to the bloody saddle.
“A seeping wound. Probably purulent, no doubt serious.”
The king started to ask if the victim could have cast a teleport spell, then realized that Vangerdahast would never have done such a thing from this particular location-not with the ghazneths at large. With a sinking heart, he selected a dozen dragoneers and two war wizards to accompany them into the cavern, then motioned for a man to strike the torches they had brought along to light their way. He was tempted just to slip on a Purple Dragon commander’s ring and call upon its magical light, but they had spent the last three days riding night and day precisely because he did not want to use any magic that might lead the scourges to the Sleeping Sword. Whatever lay inside, it could wait long enough to strike a fire.
Once the first torch was lit, the king took it and led the way around a recently-moved boulder into the narrow mouth of the cavern. The air reeked of rot and decay, and Azoun knew before he had taken his third step that something terrible had become of the Lords Who Sleep.
“Vangerdahast?” he called.
No answer came, and they rounded the corner into the main chamber of Scimitar Cave.
The place looked like any other crypt he had ever seen, full of moldering bones and shards of rusty armor and tattered bits of cloth-all that remained of five hundred valiant knights who had volunteered to lay in hibernation against the time when they were needed. Only one piece of equipment, the tattered and bloody cloak of a Royal Scout, lay in anything resembling one piece.
“Sire!” gasped Kuceon. She seemed unable to say any more than that. Conscious of the effect his reaction would have on those around him, Azoun bit back his despair and snatched the bloody cape, then turned to the young priestess at his side. “See to it that these men have a proper burial,” he said. “Though they never fought, they were heroes all.”
Vangerdahast slowly circled the basin, arms trembling and voice cracking as he waved his hands over the pool’s skin of pearly magic. He had not fought a good death match in decades, and now that victory was near, he found himself so excited he could barely twine his fingers through a simple dispel magic spell. Xanthon was hurt badly, or he would never have fled into the pool and risked showing Vangerdahast how to escape the goblin city. The ghazneth was too smart to trap himself, so there had to be a portal hidden beneath the surface. With any luck at all, the other end would open into Cormyr, and it would be there that Vangerdahast would visit the king’s justice upon his quarry.
The wizard paused above the center of the basin and spread his hands, repeating his spell’s arcane syllables over and over again, calling into play his deepest reserves of magic power. The mystic barrier flickered, hissed, and began to lose its luster, giving Vangerdahast a glimpse into the abyssal darkness of the black waters below. He spoke the incantation one more time and flung his arms wide. The magic skin vanished. The wizard brought his hands together and dived after Xanthon.
A yellow membrane slid across the basin, bringing Vangerdahast’s plunge to a crashing halt. A long series of dull pops resonated through his skull, then he rebounded into the air and found himself tumbling pell-mell back toward the ceiling. His neck and shoulders erupted in pain, his hands turned tingly and weak, and the mace began to slip from his grasp.
“By the purple fang!” Vangerdahast cursed.
He willed his numb fingers to close around the hilt of his weapon and slowly spread his limbs, bringing himself back under control-then he noticed the pit of his stomach reverberating to the pulse of a strange rumbling he could not even hear. At first, he took the sensation to be the aftereffects of crashing into the yellow membrane, but he began to feel the vibrations in his bones and teeth and soon recognized them as a powerful rumbling, too deep and sonorous for a human ear to detect.
Vangerdahast felt hollow and sick. He craned his neck upward, expecting the cavern to come crashing down on him even as he looked. The rumble continued to grow, until it finally became an ominous, barely audible growl that reminded him faintly of a purring cat-or of a distant earthquake. He flew up to the ceiling and found his way blocked by the same spongy substance as before. He touched it. It was as still and motionless as the air in a coffin.
