by Troy Denning
A quarter hour later, Vala emerged from the servant's passage into the dusky lobby outside the prince's private wing. The great anteroom doors were closed and guarded, as they had been since his return from the battle on the High Ice, and for a moment she despaired of making her plan work. There was no other way into the wing-at least that she had ever seen-and even invisible, she could not best a dozen of Escanor's shadow lords.
But, as Vala had hoped, the prince's duties could not be ignored even when he lay half-dead in his bed. It was not long before a courier approached the great doors bearing a shadow-filled message bottle. Vala fell in on his heels, following so closely that when a guard ordered him to stop three paces from the doors, she had to dodge around his side to keep from running into him. The guard took the message bottle and dismissed the courier, waiting until he had vanished down the corridor before he turned and knocked softly on the door.
Vala stood at the guard's side for a seeming eternity, barely daring to exhale lest her breath tickle the hair on his arms. Finally, a steward opened the door just far enough to lean out and take the message bottle. It would probably have been wise to wait for a serving maid or some other domestic whose duties would require opening the door more than a shoulder's width, but there was precious little time to make the decision, and Vala knew that the deaths in the confinement tower would not go unnoticed for long. She dropped to her haunches, pivoting around in front of the guard, and duck-walked sideways through the narrow opening, trying so hard not to step on his heels that the closing door caught her foot.
The guard called something to the chamberlain, who was already a step away, then shoved with his shoulder. Vala's foot seemed to fold along the length, but the heavy door bounced back enough for her to pull her foot into the room after her.
The door clicked shut, and Vala dropped to her seat, at once sighing in relief and opening her mouth in an unvoiced scream of pain. It would have been nice to set aside one of the weapons in her hand and check for broken bones, but such indulgences killed more warriors than they saved. She rolled to her knees and came up facing the interior of Escanor's large anteroom, where half a dozen clerks sat attending to the prince's private business.
Vala started across the chamber on her hands and knees, angling for the dark corridor that led deeper into the prince's inner sanctum. There, she had to slip under the crossed glaives of another set of guards.
Once inside the murky passage, she rose and put some weight on her foot. The pain was dull and general, more like a bad bruise than a break. She took a few steps. Finding the foot would support her, she continued through Escanor's private study into his dressing room, and passing another pair of guards and a small clique of servants at each stage, from his dressing room into his large and opulent bedchamber.
Escanor lay alone in his bed, little more than a man-shaped shadow cleaving to a cage of black ribs. His beating heart was visible inside, still glowing faintly with the light of the Weave flames that had nearly consumed him. He was attended on one side of the bed by a servant and on the other by a black-robed priestess wearing the purple mask of Shar. Two of Escanor's battle lords were standing at the foot of the bed. Vala's darksword was on display in a rack above the prince's headboard, locked behind a pair of crystal doors.
Vala! Khelben's voice came to her inside her head. In the name of the Weave, what are you doing?
Vala did not answer. She had not told the Chosen about this part of her plan, but it was as necessary to their success as finding the mythallar. She stepped over to the foot of the bed, and in a single spinning stroke, slashed the throats of both guards.
The men had barely fallen before the priestess raised her hands and began a wispy prayer to her hidden goddess. Vala cut this short by lashing out with the whip in her other hand. The cord wrapped itself tightly around the woman's throat, and the prayer ended in a strangled gasp as Vala jerked the priestess off her feet. The servant started for the door, his jaw working in shock, but emitting only strangled gasps. She spun past the end of the bed, bringing her sore foot up in a hook kick that caught him square in the nose with the hardest part of her heel. He flew off his feet so hard that the back of his head hit first and made a sickening crack on the stone floor.
Giving up on her spell, the priestess charged blindly forward, using one hand to pull against the whip around her throat and the other to slash her dagger blindly through the air. Vala waited for the next stroke to sweep past then she stepped forward and snapped the outside of her hand into the hinge of the woman's jaw. The priestess went instantly limp, her eyes rolling back in her head and the dagger slipping from her hand.
Vala dropped the whip and turned back to the bed. In Escanor's shadowy eye sockets were a pair of copper flames, faint and flickering as he struggled back to consciousness.
Vala! If you're counting on us to help you kill-
"Quiet."
Though Vala spoke the word aloud, she heard the word only in her mind. She started forward toward the display case. The flames in Escanor's eyes brightened, and she knew the prince was returning to his senses. She hurled her sword, reached for her dagger, and leaped onto the bed.
A wisp of shadowy arm rose through the covers. Her tumbling sword ricocheted upward and smashed a crystal door, and something hit her in the chest like one of Aris's hammers. She fell off the bed backward and landed facedown on the floor.
"Guards!" Escanor's voice was barely a croak, but a croak loud enough to cause a stir out in the dressing room. "Help!"
Vala raised her hand and called silently to her darksword. She heard the tinkling of shattered crystal, and the weapon came sailing over the foot of the bed. The hilt slipped into her palm like the hand of an old friend. The blade was trailing a wisp of shadow where it had brushed Escanor's body.
You have your sword-time to go! Storm urged. Out onto the balcony.
Vala rolled sideways to her knees and came up with her arm cocked to throw. When she saw Escanor swinging out of the opposite side of the bed, she did just that. The blade caught him between the shoulder blades, slicing through two ribs and the faintly pulsing heart.
The prince died without a scream. His ribcage simply dropped to the floor in two pieces. The guards from the dressing room rushed into the chamber to find the cleaved heart dissolving into a cloud of shadow.
"Now if s time to go."
Again, Vala heard her words only in her own mind. As the guards rushed to their dying prince, she called the dark-sword back to her hand. She would have liked to stay and find the magic ring given to her by Corineus Drannaeken in the catacombs beneath Myth Drannor, but a search of that magnitude was out of the question. She raced toward the double doors and leaped into the air-then barreled into two more guards as they came rushing in.
Vala planted one foot on each of their shoulders-she was aiming for their throats, but had not jumped high enough- and she managed to drive enough of a seam between the startled Shadovar for the rest of her body to pass through. She thumped down on her side with her head barely a sword's length from either one, then she gathered her feet beneath her and dived forward, rolling across the balcony in a series of somersaults. The guards shouted the alarm and blindly clinked their swords on the stone only inches behind her.
At last, Vala came to the end of the balcony and found the balustrade blocking her path. She finished one more somersault, gathered her feet beneath her, and sprang over headlong.
Vala was within a dozen feet of the street before a magic hand finally reached out to stop her fall.
Next time, young lady, we won't catch you, Khelben warned. That was nothing but a vengeance killing.
"So it was," she said, "and if I hadn't done it, no one would have believed my escape was my own. Not after the things that devil did to me."
Vala's feet touched the street, and she started toward Shade's lower warrens at a sprint.
The Vaasans sat together on one side of the table, laughing and dribbling and whacking each other on the
back mightily as they ate and drank and described the day's combat to their jealous comrade, Dexon. To listen to the men talk, battling phaerimm was no more dangerous than stalking forest roth? save that the phaerimm made it all much more exciting by hunting back. Had Takari not been along and seen for herself the humans' deadly effectiveness that day-and many others-she would have believed the wine was stretching their tongues.
But it had all happened just as they described, and they had indeed added three tails apiece to their belts. Armed with Dexon's darksword, Keya Nihmedu had claimed two for her own growing collection. Takari had taken only one, but that was with nothing but her own elven steel. Had she been wielding a darksword of her own, she would have killed more phaerimm than anyone.
Takari took the ewer and refilled it from the wine cask in the scullery, then stopped in the doorway and eyed the two healthy Vaasans from behind. With their massive shoulders and braided black hair, they looked more like thkaerths to her than humans, but she had spent enough time fighting at their sides to know that neither man was entirely the brute he seemed. She had seen Burlen risk his life several times to protect Keya without ever allowing her to notice, while Kuhl had returned from one patrol with a litter of orphaned raccoons tucked inside his cloak.
After a moment of deliberation, Takari settled on Kuhl and came up behind him with the ewer. They always stopped to wash the blood and soot off in Dawnsglory Pond before returning home to Treetop, so she knew that Kuhl was both a little leaner and less woolly than Burlen. It was still going to be like wrestling a bear, but she saw no reason to make it any more distasteful than it had to be.
"More wine, Kuhl?"
Without waiting for an answer, Takari pressed herself to Kuhl's burly back and reached around his shoulder to refill his goblet.
She was wearing only the thinnest of shifts, so she knew he could feel her as well as she could feel him, but he only nodded and voiced his thanks without so much as a glance in her direction. Seeing that Dexon's goblet was almost empty, Takari took the opportunity to make her point more clearly by plastering herself to Kuhl's shoulder as she stretched forward to refill it Lingering there rather longer than was necessary, she turned and smiled.
Kuhl looked away, a crimson flush rising up his cheeks.
Burlen pushed his goblet toward the ewer and said, "I'll take another swallow myself, if you don't mind."
Takari banged the ewer down and peeled herself off Kuhl's shoulder.
"Why should I mind? I'm sure you can pour."
This drew a roaring laugh from Dexon and a hurt expression from Burlen. Kuhl's face grew even redder. Takari wondered whether all humans were as dense as the one she had picked, or if there was something about Kuhl she did not understand. She had seen him casting hungry looks her way as they bathed.
Takari circled around to Kuhl's other side and found Keya Nihmedu studying her with a thoughtful frown. After learning how Keya had acquired the ability to hold Dexon's darksword-by allowing him to get a child on her-Takari had made the mistake of asking whether the other Vaasans had families at home. Keya seemed to have guessed her plan.
Takari ignored the condemnation she sensed in the younger elf's gaze and pulled a chair close to her quarry.
She ran a finger up Kuhl's forearm, and his brow grew shiny with human-smelling sweat.
"I'd like it if you showed me how you did that rollover on the bugbear today," she said.
A expectant silence descended over the room, and Dexon and Burlen studied Kuhl with wolfish grins.
"It was a good move," Keya broke in. She kept her gaze fixed on Takari. "Maybe you could show us all tomorrow."
"Now would be better for me," Takari said.
She had spent a tenday and a half praying to the Winged Mother to make her ready, and she could sense by the warmth in her womb that she was. It had to be this evening. She rested her fingers on the inside of Kuhl's meaty elbow and applied a little pressure.
"You can show the others tomorrow," she whispered.
Kuhl seemed to melt under her touch, but was somehow still oblivious to what she was suggesting.
"I can show you now. It won't take long," he said, rising and gesturing at the floor. "Lie down and be me, and I'll get on top and be the bugbear."
Dexon cringed and said, "I don't think this is something I want to see."
"Nor I," Keya agreed. 'Takari, this isn't fair-"
"Fair?" Takari interrupted. "Galaeron made his choice when he left me in Rheitheillaethor and ran off with Vala. If I decide to try a human, too, that’s no business of his-or yours."
Keya's mouth fell open, and Takari could see by the confusion in the younger elf's eyes that she had succeeded in muddling the issue. Whatever Keya had guessed, she could not know whether Takari was using the human for pleasure, revenge, or access to a darksword.
"Uh, Takari?" Kuhl asked. "What do you mean, 'try a human?'"
"What do you think I mean?" Takari rolled her eyes and said, "I've seen the way you stare at me when we bathe."
Kuhl looked guilty. "You have?"
"It's hard to miss," Takari said.
"It's all right?" Kuhl gasped. "I thought it bothered elves when we peeked."
"It is a little unsettling, to tell the truth," Takari said. Seeing the look of confusion that came to Kuhl's eyes, she decided that it would be best to state the matter as plainly as possible. "I'm giving you a chance here to do more than stare, Kuhl. Are you interested or not?"
"Interested."
"Good."
Takari took him by the wrist and started for the contemplation, but they were quickly intercepted by a disapproving Keya Nihmedu.
"Kuhl," she said, "you do realize she's using you?"
A grin the size of the crescent moon spread across Kuhl's face and he said, "I sure hope so."
He picked Takari up and slipped past Keya at a near charge, and a moment later Takari found herself wrestling the bear. The experience was not as unpleasant as she had feared, in large part because it was over so quickly.
The second time lasted a little longer. She was surprised to find that she was no longer disgusted at all, save for near the end when he really did start growling like a bear.
The third time, she actually started to enjoy it, and that was when Lord Duirsar's messenger flew in through the open window. Oblivious to what was happening, the snowfinch began to flit around their heads, chirping and tweeting as though the world were coming to an end.
"Manynests," Takari gasped. "Not… now!"
The bird landed on her shoulder and shrieked into her ear. The mood vanished instantly, and Takari extended a finger.
"Bird, this had better be good."
Manynests broke into a long series of whistles.
"What?" Takari asked. "When?"
She freed herself of Kuhl's embrace and swung her feet onto the floor. The snowfinch peeped in reply, then chirped a query.
"Of course!" Takari said, rising. 'Tell him we'll meet them at the Livery Gate."
Kuhl propped himself on an elbow and asked, "Meet who?"
She snatched Kuhl's weapon belt off the floor and tossed it to him without touching the darksword's hilt She didn't want Kuhl to know why she had bedded him, not until she knew the seed had been planted.
"The phaerimm," Takari replied. "They've breached the mythal."
Somewhere in the Palace Most High, Galaeron hung swaddled in velvet murk, immobile, able to breathe and scream but no more. Shadovar voices hissed in the distant gloom. Shadow seeped into his pores, permeating him with every breath, doubt and suspicion and anger steadily darkening his heart How long he had been there was impossible to say. No one ever came to feed him or give him water or attend to his broken hand, or even to ask if he was ready to cooperate, but he never seemed to grow hungry or thirsty, or have need to answer nature's call. He hung there suspended in the moment, a throbbing pain-filled moment without beginning or end, without limit of any kind.
It seemed to Galaeron that the
mythallar should have been destroyed long before, that the Chosen should have found it and sundered it, and brought Shade crashing down into the desert. Maybe they had. Trapped as he seemed in a single moment, how would he know? Or maybe he had been there only an instant after all. Maybe all his thoughts since Telamont hung him there had rushed through his mind in a single instant, and Khelben and the others were still awaiting their chance to escape into the city.
Or perhaps the Chosen had abandoned him, wherever here was, content to believe the shadow inside him would never escape to darken Faer?n. That would be just like them, to sacrifice an individual for the sake of the many-as long as that individual was not one of their number. Galaeron thought back to his capture and recalled how quick they had been to abandon the caravan, how cleverly they had arranged things so that none of them had been called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. The cowards would not hesitate to leave him there alone to suffer for all eternity.
And that was exactly what Galaeron-the real Galaeron- would want, he reminded himself.
His shadow had all but taken him. Every thought contained a hidden doubt, every emotion was colored by suspicion. It would not be long before he yielded. He had only to grab a handful of shadowstuff and use its dark magic to cast a spell, and he would be free to seek his vengeance on all who had wronged him. Telamont had said as much when he'd imprisoned him, had promised that that was how Galaeron's struggle would end, that all Galaeron controlled was when it ended.
Galaeron believed him. If the timing was all he could control, then control it he would.
The hissing of the distant voices faded to silence, and the air grew heavy and chill. Galaeron's heart climbed into his throat, and he began to search the darkness ahead for the burning disks of Telamont's platinum eyes.
The air only grew colder and more still.