When the princess closed the book, she discovered that her concentration had given her a pounding headache. Her hands were trembling, and she could feel trails of sweat running down her body. She returned the journal to Emperel’s satchel and began to reroll the rubbings. It did not occur to her to wonder how long she had been sitting in the tomb until Alusair’s voice sounded from the entrance passage.
“Shave my bones!” It was a favourite curse among knucklebone gamblers whose luck had run out. “What are you doing? I thought the fever had taken you!”
“I feel fine.” Tanalasta looked up and noticed, for the first time, the guttering flame atop her torch. It did not occur to her that her aching and nausea were due to anything but the strain of reading by such dim light, or the awful stench of the place. “I’ve been reading Emperel’s account of his death.”
“He recorded it for posterity?” Alusair dropped unsteadily into the tomb, looking little better than Tanalasta felt. “That doesn’t sound like Emperel.”
“I never met the man, so I wouldn’t know.” Tanalasta motioned at Emperel’s message pouch, then said, “But I assure you, he was very thorough. This account will save us a tenday’s of investigation.”
“Investigation?” Alusair scoffed. “There isn’t going to be an investigation. With all these ghazneths flying around, I’m not taking any chances with your life. We’re going home.”
Tanalasta shoved a silk roll into the pouch. “It’s not me we should be concerned with.”
“Not on your life!” Alusair shook her head vehemently. Tanalasta had already given her sister their father’s message, only to be laughed at and roundly rebuked. “I told you not to drag me into this. It’s between you and the king.”
“It is between the king and whoever he says it is.”
“What’s he going to do? Order me to be queen?” Alusair staggered over and kneeled down beside Tanalasta. “The next thing you know, he’ll be telling me to marry some buffoon with a long title and a short… sword.”
The long crawl through the entrance passage had left Alusair coated with mold and slime from Emperel’s body, but she did not seem to notice. She grabbed the torch and looked into her sister’s eyes, then placed a palm to Tanalasta’s brow.
“You’re on fire!” She grabbed Tanalasta and pulled her roughly to her feet, leaving more than a dozen silks unfurled on the floor. “I should never have let you come in here.”
“Someone had to do it, Princess.” Rowen slid out of the entrance, crowding the little tomb to the point of bursting, “Tanalasta is the most knowledgeable about what all is means.”
“She is also the crown princess.” Alusair pushed Tanalasta past Rowen toward the exit. “Help me get out of here so Gaborl can see to her.”
“Wait!” Tanalasta stretched her hand toward the silks. “We need those rubbings.”
“Not as much as we need to get out of here. Come along.”
Alusair pushed her sister’s head down and tried to shove her into the exit, but Tanalasta countered by grabbing hold of the sides of the wall. “You don’t understand. They are our ancestors.”
“She must be delirious,” Rowen said. He picked up one the blank silks and inspected it. “There’s nothing on him.”
Tanalasta still refused to enter the passage. “I’m not delirious. Some of the silks have rubbings of the tree glyphs, they name the ghazneths-Suzara Obarskyr, King Boldovar, Mirabelle Merendil, Melineth Turcasson.”
“Mirabelle Merendil is no ancestor of ours.” Alusair tabbed Tanalasta’s arm and wrenched it around behind her back. “I don’t have time for this. The ghazneths will be back soon.”
She pulled the other arm free, then shoved Tanalasta headlong into the passage.
Tanalasta craned her neck around and shouted, “And Xanthon Cormaeril is the one setting them free!”
“We don’t have time for this.” Alusair stopped nonetheless, then pulled Tanalasta out of the hole and eyed her warily. “You’re sure?”
Tanalasta nodded, then dropped to her knees and rifled through the silks until she found one with a rubbing. She showed it Rowen. “You recognize the glyphs?”
He nodded. “But what does Xanthon have to do with them?”
“Unless I miss my guess, he is the one digging the ghazneths out of their tombs,” Tanalasta explained.
She went on to recount the story of Xanthon’s appearance in Halfhap and Emperel’s subsequent efforts to track him down, then completed the story by reading the journal’s final cryptic entry.
“Their pride is our doom?” Alusair repeated. “What’s that mean?”
“And who etched the glyphs in the first place?” Rowen added. “Certainly not Xanthon.”
Tanalasta could only shake her head. “We won’t know that until we catch Xanthon-or find the rest of the trees.”
“Or until we let Vangerdahast sort it out,” Alusair said. “Which is exactly what we’ll do. We’ll head over Marshview Pass to Goblin Mountain Outpost. Then, the instant we have a few dragoneers to hold off the ghazneths, well do a sending and tell him to come get us.”
Tanalasta and Rowen glanced at each other nervously-a gesture that was not lost on Alusair.
“What?”
It was Rowen who answered. “During your uh, discussion about who’s really the crown princess, there was one thing we had no chance to mention.”
Alusair frowned. “Are you going to tell me now?”
“We probably shouldn’t count on Vangerdahast,” said Tanalasta. “It might not be safe to contact him.”
Alusair narrowed her eyes. “You said he had returned to Arabel.”
“He did.” Tanalasta summoned enough of her fading energies to raise her chin. “But we didn’t want to go with him.”
“And we pulled away at the last second,” said Rowen. “It was more by accident than-“
“You what?” Alusair whirled on Rowen like a lionar on an insolent underling. “You took it upon yourself to endanger the life of the crown princess in defiance of the royal magician?”
“It was my decision.” Tanalasta interposed herself between Alusair and the ranger. “I was the one-“
Alusair shoved Tanalasta aside, then continued to berate Rowen. “Are you just stupid, or are you conniving with Xanthon?”
Rowen’s face grew stormy, but he merely clenched his jaw.
“You have no right to talk to Rowen that way!” Tanalasta shoved Alusair away, then stepped forward to stand toe to toe with her sister. “Vangerdahast was the one who was out of line. He has no right to teleport me anywhere against my wishes.”
Alusair studied her sister for a moment, then raised a brow and looked to Rowen. “Don’t tell me you two-“
“Oh no!” Rowen said. “Nothing like that.”
“Not that it’s fitting for you to ask,” Tanalasta said. “Anymore than it is for Vangerdahast to pop me about the realm like some sort of pet blink dog.”
Alusair studied Rowen a moment longer, then looked back to Tanalasta. “So when did you desert poor Vangerdahast?”
“Seven days ago,” said Tanalasta. “In the canyons below Boldovar’s tomb.”
“The sycamore,” Rowen clarified.
Alusair frowned. “You’ve been on foot. He should have teleported back and caught up to you by now.”
“Unless…” Tanalasta could not bring herself to say it.
“Unless what?” demanded Alusair.
“Unless he followed our horse,” said Rowen. “There were two ghazneths hunting for us. We had to set up a decoy, and Vangerdahast may have followed it instead.”
Alusair closed her eyes. “Which way?”
“South through the Mule Ears,” said Rowen. “I believe that would bring him out somewhere just west of Redspring.”
Alusair could only shake her head in disbelief. “What were you two trying to do-elope?” She glanced in Tanalasta’s direction, then added, “That’s not a suggestion.”
“I wouldn’t need one,” said Tanalasta.
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Alusair. She thought for a moment, then turned to Rowen. “The Mule Ears must be two days out of our way.”
Rowen nodded grimly. “I understand.”