• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

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 after-daze. 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 after-daze, 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