by Troy Denning
Galaeron nodded. "Of course. They would know we're watching."
"Our watchers would know if they were simulacrums or magic images," Telamont said. "Perhaps this is no diversion, after all."
"We cannot know what the phaerimm make of the shadowshell," Hadrhune said, smirking down at Galaeron. "It may be that they fear it is the Chosen's doing, and this army is part of their plan."
"Or it may be that the Myth Drannor phaerimm have a part to play in this," said Lord Terxa, whom Galaeron had not even realized was listening from the shadows. "What remains of the mythal there interferes with the shadow-watchers, and they are not even certain they have found them all."
Galaeron recalled how Melegaunt's shadow magic had failed inside Evereska's mythal but frowned and shook his head. "A good thought, but phaerimm are not social. They work together only when each one benefits personally, and there's no reason for the Myth Drannor phaerimm to think that helping the others would be worth their trouble."
Terxa's expression grew uncomfortable, and he peered into the darkness under Telamont's cowl. "Perhaps he should know, Most High?"
"Know what?" Galaeron was instantly resentful. "Now you are keeping secrets from me?"
Telamont's eyes twinkled as though he was amused- or satisfied. "Have you told us all your secrets, elf?"
He raised a sleeve, and a sleepy forest hamlet appeared in the world-window. Not too long past, a battle-or several-had been fought around it, for several new meadows had been burned into the woods around its boundaries. In front of a high tower not far from the heart of the village, a strange seam of distortion hovered in the air, emitting wisps of flame and dark fume.
"Many things are better kept secret," Telamont said. "Among them, deeds of shame done in moments of necessity."
Hadrhune moved to interpose himself in front of Galaeron and asked, "Most High, is this something-"
Galaeron stepped forward to block Hadrhune. "It is, unless you wish to let the phaerimm have their way with your legions." "He needs to know," said Terxa.
Telamont spread his sleeves. Flames and smoke sprang up in the charred clearings, and Galaeron began to see familiar cone shaped bodies drifting through the trees. A moment later, Elminster's familiar figure appeared over the village and began to circle.
"After Melegaunt summoned his brothers to the Karsestone," Telamont began, "Elminster was proving most difficult to locate. In order to find him, the princes found it necessary to slay a few of the Myth Drannor phaerimm-"
"And leave the smell of Elminster's stinkweed in the air," Galaeron finished.
"As I understand, it was not necessary to leave anything," Telamont said, almost chuckling. "The thorn-backs could not imagine anyone else capable, and went to take their vengeance on Elminster."
"And when he returned to see what was happening, the princes ambushed him and sent him to the Nine Hells?" Galaeron demanded. "How could you-" "It was an accident," Hadrhune said firmly.
"In any case, its not relevant to the question at hand," Telamont said. "What is relevant is that the Myth Drannor phaerimm may have learned who was actually responsible-"
"And made a pact with their fellows to be rid of you," Galaeron finished.
He was growing angrier by the moment, and not just because of what they had done to Elminster. He saw how Telamont had manipulated him as well, deliberately drawing his shadow out by showing him the shadow blankets and telling him he must choose between saving Evereska or the whole west. Though Telamont remained silent, the force of his unspoken question pressed down like a boulder. So infuriated was Galaeron that he wanted not to answer, to deny what he saw so clearly, or lie about it, or do something to make the Shadovar pay-but he could not hold the knowledge inside. The pressure of the Most High's will was insufferable, as though he had somehow brought the entire weight of Shade Enclave to bear on that one pressure point. At last, Galaeron had to ask, "You have a mythal?"
The air grew even more still and cold than usual next to Telamont. "Of a sort There is a mythallar here, as were found on all the enclaves of Netheril." "That's what they'll attack."
"Impossible," Hadrhune said. "They'd never make it through the shadow moats."
Galaeron shrugged. "Then you have nothing to worry about" Hadrhune looked to Telamont.
The Most High turned to Galaeron and said, "You know our defenses. Can the phaerimm breach them?"
"They already have, or your sentries would be sounding the alarms by now." Then, in answer to what the Most High wanted to know next, Galaeron said, "It's likely a small company of infiltrators. If it was only one or two, they would have relied on stealth instead of trying to lure your strength away."
"An entire company?" Hadrhune shook his gaunt head. "Impossible." "It would not hurt to be certain," Telamont said.
Hadrhune's amber eyes vanished beneath their lids, but Telamont was not waiting. He started for the throne room, motioning Galaeron to follow-and many others as well, judging by the cold swirl of darkness that accompanied them.
Hadrhune appeared at Telamont's side, his eyes opened again. "A veserab patrol did return unexpectedly, Most High. The officer cannot be found, and the mounts have burns where they were harnessed with Weave magic." "Not impossible," Telamont said. "Recall the princes."
They were in the throne room, striding through the whispering shadows toward the reception hall, surrounded by a throng of increasingly substantial figures. Several of the silhouettes drifted apart long enough for Vala to emerge and step to Galaeron's side. "What happened?"
"Phaerimm infiltrators," Galaeron explained. "They're after the mythallar."
Vala raised her brow, but said, "That's not what I was asking about" "No?"
"You, Galaeron," Telamont said, speaking from a dozen paces ahead. "She wants to know what happened to you."
Galaeron frowned. "My shadow?" He glanced over at her. "You can tell just by looking?"
Vala nodded. "Galaeron, I don't even have to look anymore," she said, "and I don't much like that." "Ready weapons!" Hadrhune called.
Vala reached for her darksword and asked, "They're coming here?"
They were somewhere else, dropping out of the shadows into a huge obsidian basin, sliding down the glassy slopes with purple sheets of light burning all around them, voices screaming, bolts cracking, air reeking of charred flesh. It took Galaeron a moment to recall where he was and why, a moment longer to realize the pain in his arm was Vala's free hand digging into his biceps, then he finally began to make sense of what he was seeing.
At the bottom of the basin sat a huge ball of obsidian, easily a hundred and fifty feet in diameter, with pale, ghostly shapes gliding about inside and a halo of deepening darkness radiating from its surface. A flight of phaerimm were descending out of the gloom above, flinging spells of fire and light as they came, trying to fight their way through the swarm of teleport-dazed Shadovar tumbling and sliding down the slopes of the glassy basin along with Galaeron and Vala.
An orb of darkness streaked up out of the basin and drilled a fist-sized hole through a creature close over their heads. It dropped onto the slope above and started to slide down toward them, roaring its pain in a swirling tempest of winds and lashing out with a wild flurry of lightning and burning light. Galaeron took a white fork of energy in the shoulder and went rigid, biting down on his tongue so hard that his teeth met through the flesh.
Vala hurled her sword, slicing off one of the phaerimm’s arms and a good portion of its sinewy shoulder. The creature rolled away, then whistled something in the phaerimm wind language and vanished.
Galaeron felt Vala catch him by the collar, then their descent began to slow as they reached the bottom of the basin and the slope lost its steepness. She called her darksword back to her hand, and only after it had returned did she turn her attention to the smoking hole in his shoulder. "How bad?"
Galaeron managed to unclench his jaw and, with a mouthful of blood, said, "Stiff, but all right."
He tried to rise
, making it as far as his knees before discovering his muscles would not obey. Vala moved his leg into a stable kneeling position, then they both scanned the area. The battle appeared to have ended as quickly as it had started. Shadovar warriors and pieces of Shadovar warriors were sliding down the slope toward them, accumulating in groaning, knee-deep piles. Half a dozen phaerimm-or rather sections of half a dozen phaerimm-lay interspersed among the smoking bodies.
Telamont Tanthul stood a quarter of the way around the basin, Hadrhune at his side as always, calling for his princes and ordering the survivors to arrange search parties. There were no thornbacks in sight; once a battle started to turn against them, it was phaerimm instinct to teleport away. Galaeron knew the enclave defenses would prevent them from leaving the city via translocational magic-but he also knew the phaerimm would have anticipated that and picked a safe rallying point. Galaeron grabbed Vala's arm and pulled himself up. "Take it easy," she said. "You're not looking so good."
Though he was still angry with Telamont for drawing out his shadow and at that moment truly wanted to see the Shadovar mythallar destroyed-considering the number of deaths that would mean, he hoped that particular desire was his shadow's instead of his own- Galaeron also knew that Evereska's fate depended on Shade Enclave's continued survival.
"It's not done," Galaeron said. "They're still in the city."
Vala wrapped him in a supporting arm and started toward the Most High. "Telamont isn't going to like this. Didn't he order you to stay out of fights until you're able to pass on Melegaunt's knowledge?"
Galaeron nodded at the huge sphere of obsidian they were circling past. "He seems to have made an exception for the mythallar."
Vala glanced at the orb and raised her brow. "That's the mythallar? I was sort of expecting it to be the Karse-stone." "Me, too," Galaeron said.
After unleashing the phaerimm, they had journeyed into the Dire Wood, fighting liches and other undead guardians in order to help Melegaunt recover the famed Karsestone and use its "heavy" magic-from a time before the Weave and Shadow Weave split-to return Shade Enclave to Faerыn.
"I guess they only needed the stone to open a large enough gate between the dimensions," he said. "Apparently, the Shadow Weave can still support spells powerful enough to levitate a city." "The Weave can't?" Vala asked.
"It hasn't," Galaeron answered, shrugging. "Not since the fall of Netheril."
If Vala saw the danger in that, her expression didn't show it. "That is good news for Evereska, if it means the Shadovar are more powerful than the phaerimm."
Galaeron nodded, but didn't say what it might also mean. If the Shadovar were more powerful than the phaerimm, then they were also more powerful than most of the great wizards of the realms. Only the Chosen themselves, or perhaps an entire circle of high mages, could rival their power.
They were almost to Telamont and Hadrhune when the first of the princes, with half a dozen Shadovar lords at his back, stepped out of the murk at the rim of the basin and began to descend the slick wall. Galaeron recognized Brennus by his large, crescent-shaped mouth and the orange tinge of his iron-colored eyes. Not slipping on the steep obsidian slope, he and the others began to angle more or less in Telamont's direction, their faces showing no reaction at all to the carnage around them. When they reached the body piles at the bottom they began to clamber across without drawing so much as a moan or disturbing even one arm. "Vala, do you see that?" Galaeron asked. "What?" she asked.
Like almost everyone else in the basin, Vala was focusing her attention on the murk near the rim, blithely awaiting the arrival of the rest of the princes. "Lower. Look at Brennus's feet."
Vala looked, then frowned at the way no one seemed bothered that Brennus was stepping on them. "That's just wrong." "So I thought," Galaeron said.
They were still thirty paces from Telamont, perhaps half that from Brennus and his companions. He stopped and pulled a small flake of obsidian from his robe pocket. "Galaeron, no." Vala grabbed his arm. "You're-"
"Let go!" Galaeron ripped his arm free, then began to scrape the flake over his palm. "If that's really Brennus, he'll never know."
Galaeron began the incantation of a shadow divination-a more powerful one than he should have been using but necessary if he was to dispel a phaerimm's disguise magic. A surge of cold shadow magic rushed into his body, chilling him down to the marrow in his bones and filling him with a cold, bitter resentment at… well, everyone: Melegaunt and the other princes, Telamont, Hadrhune-even Vala.
The spell ended as the "prince" and his escorts were stepping over the last of the casualties onto the basin floor. The shadow drained from their bodies like water, revealing six phaerimm and a strange, three-eyed, three-tentacled orb with a huge, finch like beak. "Impos That was as far as Vala's warning got before the basin erupted into flying shadow balls and sizzling fans of light. Two of the phaerimm and fifty Shadovar fell in the battle's first breath, and the three-eyed creature spun toward Galaeron, its tentacles whirling like the scimitars of a drow blademaster. Vala intercepted it, her darksword rising to meet the spinning tentacles-and fell back as the thing beat down her guard, slashing her up the cheek, above the eye, and then across the neck.
Galaeron pulled her back and drew his own sword, his elven steel severing one hooked tentacle as it struck at the hollow of her throat, then falling to his back as the thing's wicked beak clacked at his head. Another hook came whipping down toward Galaeron's unarmored heart-and was intercepted by Vala's darksword. She twined her black blade into the tentacle and pulled the creature toward her, bringing her iron dagger up to meet it The blade sank a finger's depth, and the third tentacle came around, burying its hook in the back of her knee and trying to jerk her off her feet Vala was too nimble. She gave it a dead leg, letting her foot rise while she pushed and twisted the dagger. The blade sank perhaps another knuckle.
Galaeron pulled a strand of shadowsilk from his pocket and wadded it into a ball, beginning the incantation for a shadow ball.
"Galaeron!" Vala yelled, hopping on one foot as the thing whipped her impaled leg to and fro. Somehow, during all this, she still managed to knock the shadow-silk from his hand. "No more-" "Shut the hell up and fight!"
Galaeron kicked the thing's beak off of him and rammed his sword up through its body. Leaving it buried there, he pulled a small cylinder of glass from his pocket and rolled through the incantation for a normal lightning bolt and felt nothing.
Well, not nothing, exactly. There was a cold prickling as the shadow magic tried to rise into him where his body was touching the ground, but he pushed this down and opened himself to the Weave so he could cast a normal, bright, searing lightning bolt-and there was nothing. He had lost the Weave.
Vala exchanged her dagger for his sword's hilt, pushed, twisted, slashed, then cried out in alarm as the thing wrapped its dehooked tentacle around her ankle. Instead of allowing it to pull her foot out from under her, Vala dropped to her back, pulling Galaeron's sword from the creature's body and bringing a cascade of entrails with it.
The thing screeched in anguish and exploded into a bloody cloud as a huge shadow ball burst through its center. What remained plopped down between Galaeron and Vala, its slimy tentacles still twined around Vala and her darksword. She quickly used Galaeron's sword to cut herself free, then flipped it around and shoved the hilt at him.
"Don't ever-I don't care how darkly shadowed you are-don't ever tell me to shut up."
"And don't you ever-ever-interrupt a spellcasting," Galaeron snapped back. "Or the next time, I'll let it snap your head off."
"Better a…" She looked at the three-eyed thing and curled her lip in disgust, then continued, "… a monster I don't know than one I do."
She dropped his sword in the mess, then rolled to her feet and limped off through the carnage, leaving Galaeron to face Telamont and Hadrhune as the pair came up behind the monster's disemboweled body. The Most High nudged it with a dark boot.
"Our enemies from the shadow p
lane attack us even here," he said. "The 'monster' is called a malaugrym. You did well to unmask it. One might even say that we all owe you our lives."
"One might," Galaeron said, struggling to his feet, "but it seems a simple 'thank you' is too much to ask."
Telamont's eyes sparkled. "If that is what your shadow needs to hear."
"My shadow?" Galaeron growled. "It's just common courtesy."
Then, remembering how Vala had saved his life when his lightning bolt failed, he realized Telamont was right. Vala had been, too. His shadow had been completely in control-perhaps it still was.
Telamont motioned to Hadrhune, and both kneeled before Galaeron-causing every shadow lord who happened to be looking in the direction to do likewise.
"Galaeron Nihmedu, on behalf of Shade Enclave," Telamont began, just a hint of mockery in his voice, "please accept our most sincere-"
"Not necessary," Galaeron said, realizing how ignoble he was to be demanding thanks when so many had died. "Forgive me for asking."
Telamont did not rise. "You see, you can live with your shadow."
"Sure I can," Galaeron scoffed, looking past the Most High's shoulder. He owed someone an apology. "Where'd Vala go?"
Telamont rose and turned, then said, "There are some things even I do not know."
"Have no fear for her comfort," Hadrhune said, looking in the same direction as Galaeron. "Vala saved Prince Escanor's life. She will always be welcome in his villa."
CHAPTER SIX
15 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic
With Boareskyr Bridge hidden somewhere beneath the brown lake that had once been the plains north of the Trollclaws, Laeral's relief army was crossing the Winding Water on a fleet of rain-soaked log rafts. Laeral herself had flown three magic guidelines across two miles of muddy water, and along with her hippogriff-mounted scouts and several dozen of her best battle mages she was standing guard on the western shore, expecting a phaerimm attack at any moment.
This was the last river they would cross before reaching Evereska, and if the enemy meant to stop them, it would be there, and Laeral knew there was a good chance that they would.