handsome. They were also more gaunt and pronounced than Vangerdahast remembered, so that the overall effect was one of power and domination.
“Do I look like a royal scout to you?” Rowen’s hand seemed to twitch. Vangerdahast found his wrist locked in the ghazneth’s grasp. “The time when I must take orders from you is long past.”
“No one has released…” Vangerdahast had to swallow to wet his dry throat. “No one has released you from your oath. I am the king’s Royal Magician and superior to every soldier in the land. You will do as I as command… unless the blood of all Cormaerils runs treasonous.”
Rowen’s eyes grew white with anger. His grasp began to tighten, and Vangerdahast’s fingers came open of their own accord. The ghazneth glared at him for a long moment, perhaps debating whether to continue squeezing, then plucked the glowing stone from Vangerdahast’s hand and began to absorb its magic.
“For someone reputed to be the most cunning man in Cormyr, you are certainly the fool,” said Rowen. “I would think you would know the consequences of using magic by now.”
Vangerdahast began to breathe easier. “I do, but you have made yourself difficult to reach. It was the only way to find you.”
“You have found me now.” Rowen absorbed the last of the light from Vangerdahast’s rock, then dropped it into the water. “And I pray you are done mocking me. Do not be so bold again.”
Ignoring the menace in the ghazneth’s words, Vangerdahast reached out blindly and caught his arm. The flesh was firm and cold and as slimy to the touch as that of an eel.
“I did not come to mock you,” the wizard said. “To kill you, perhaps-or to ask your aid, depending.”
Rowen’s eyes continued to glow white. “Depending on what?”
“On what became of Tanalasta,” Vangerdahast said.
The anger faded from Rowen’s gaze. He turned away, plunging the cavern into total darkness.
Thinking his quarry was slipping silently away, Vangerdahast sloshed forward-and ran headlong into the ghazneth’s back.
“I left her with Alusair,” said Rowen. “I was leaving the company to find you, and they were on their way to Goblin Mountain. That was the last time I saw her and knew it to be certain.”
“And knew it to be certain?’” Vangerdahast echoed.
Rowen grabbed the wizard by the shoulder and led him up the passage, guiding him onto a slick incline that climbed up onto the ledge where he had been earlier.
“It was perhaps a day after the battle at the Farsea Marsh,” Rowen began. “Your company lay floating and bloated in the water, and the orcs were still looting the bodies. I discovered a note in Alaphondar’s spyglass charging whoever found it to report to the king that the scourges of Alaundo’s prophecy were awakened. I took the note and was about to start for Goblin Mountain when your horse, Cadimus, broke out of hiding in some willows at the edge of the marsh.
“As Cadimus crested the hill, the ghazneths noticed him and left their keep. It was all I could do to get mounted and into the woods before they were on us. They hunted me the rest of the day. One even ambushed me as I crossed a clearing and latched its talons into my shoulder before I dragged it into a tree. That night, I decoyed the monsters by activating my cloak’s throat clasp and sending it downstream on a log. I slipped away and was no more than a day from Goblin Mountain when I heard her.”
“Tanalasta?”
There was a pause in which Vangerdahast could imagine the ghazneth nodding, then Rowen continued, “She was screaming and begging me to kill her, and… and I couldn’t bear it. I knew Alaphondar’s message to be even more important than Tanalasta’s life, but I was in love, and I went after her.
“The ghazneths turned northward and started to play games, scraping her along the treetops above my head, landing on the other side of a meadow and making her beg for death until I used my escape pocket to reach her, then snatching her away and flying off before I came out of the afterdaze. By then, I knew they didn’t want to kill me. They were just luring me northward into a trap, but what could I do? I was too exhausted to think straight and terrified of letting her suffer. Even if I had turned back they would have killed me on the spot.”
“No doubt,” said Vangerdahast, trying not to sound unsympathetic. “But what of Tanalasta?”
“I… I don’t know,” Rowen said. “Before I knew it, we had crossed to the north side of the Storm Horns again. The last I saw her, King Boldovar had her on the far rim of gorge, and he was… he was doing something unthinkable to her. I went mad and used my escape pocket to reach his side of the canyon. But when I came out of the afterdaze, she wasn’t there-only my cousin Xanthon, laughing and holding me over the canyon by my collar, threatening to push me in after Tanalasta.”
Though he was already in the dark, Vangerdahast closed his eyes and whispered, “Very good.”
“Very good?” echoed Rowen, sounding less surprised than he might have. “Then it was a decoy?”
“Our own trick used against us,” Vangerdahast confirmed. “Boldovar can create illusions. He did the same thing to us at the Farsea battle, and it nearly cost Alaphondar his life.”
“It has cost me more than that, I fear,” Rowen continued. “I slipped my iron dagger out and managed to plunge it into Xanthon’s stomach, then held on as he stumbled back from the edge of the rim. Boldovar started after me, then the others appeared, and I took Cadimus and fled into a grove of the largest trees I can ever recall seeing.
“The ghazneths stopped at the edge and stood there hurling the vilest curses I’ve ever heard, and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t come after me until I looked around and saw the elven glyphs. They were similar to the glyphs we found on those twisted trees over the tombs Boldovar and the others came from-except these trees were not twisted and diseased. They were all beautiful and healthy, and when I ran my finger along the letters, the songs made me cry. Even the ghazneths fell quiet until the music was done.”
“A whole copse of Trees of the Body?” Vangerdahast gasped.
A Tree of the Body was a sort of memorial created by the ancient elves who had inhabited Cormyr before men. According to Tanalasta-and the princess was known for being well read on such things-when an esteemed elf died, his fellows sometimes inscribed his epitaph on the trunk of a small sapling and buried the body beneath the roots. Vangerdahast did not understand all of the subtleties of such commemorations, but he had never before heard of even two of the majestic trees being found in a single location, much less a whole copse.
“You are sure they were Trees of the Body?” Vangerdahast asked.
“Later I became sure,” Rowen said. “There were hundreds of them, and the ghazneths kept me trapped among them for nearly a tenday. They watched me constantly and were there waiting every time I tried to leave. One night, I decided the time had come to die or escape, and I was riding out when the ghost of a handsome elf lord rose from the ground before me. He wore a three-spiked circlet set with a single purple stone, and in his hand he carried a golden staff with the haft twisted in a ropelike pattern, and he spoke to me harshly.
” ‘Nine days have thou forsaken thy duty hiding here, human, and nine days have we sheltered thee, but ere thou leave, know thy death atones nothing. To undo thy betrayal, a greater amends must thou make at a cost greater to thee than death.’
“I did not need to ask what betrayal, for I still carried Alaphondar’s letter close to my heart and knew well how I had failed. I had let my love for Tanalasta blind me to my duty, and I knew that Cormyr would pay dearly for my failure. What could I do but bow my head and reply, ‘Milord, I would redeem myself. My only question is how.’
“The elf warned me again of the terrible cost, and again I told him I would gladly pay. The elf smiled then and took Cadimus’s reins from my hand. He whispered something in the horse’s ear that caused him to nicker and nuzzle me on the cheek, then turn and flee to the far side of the grove.
“The elf spoke again. ‘Know, human,’ he said, ‘that I am Iliphar, King of Scepters, and this grove is my burial place, where a thousand treasures have lain hidden for more long ages than I can count. Follow me that I may bestow on thee the greatest of all, the Scepter of Lords.’
“King Iliphar led me to the center of the grove, where stood an ancient oak the size of a castle keep. The ghost pointed at the base of the tree and said, ‘Take my scepter and give it to thy king. Tell him that when wielded with compassion, it has the power to smite any elven-spawned evil-but only given that all the wrongs that spawned that evil in the first place have been set right. By surrendering the scepter to a human, I am righting the first. It will be for he who wields this weapon to right the other.’
“And that was all King Iliphar said,” said Rowen. “He stepped away and faded back into his tree. I drew my dagger and began to dig where he had pointed. No sooner had my blade touched the soil than the ghazneths
