The Sorcerer rota-3

by Troy Denning

  The thornbacks themselves were standing watch on the slope above, hiding among the tangles of blast-toppled trees that covered the hillside. So far, Aris located only three on this side of Cloudcrown, spaced at even intervals in a semicircle just out of arrow range. Their mind-slaves-and more than a few of their fellow phaerimm-lay scattered over the killing zones beneath the palace's hidden arrow loops, a decomposing testament to the ferocity of the battle that had ended in stalemate.

  The undulating speck of a tiny finch rounded the palace wall at what would have been treetop height, had there been any trees still standing, then disappeared in the direction of the statue of Hanali Celanil. Though Aris had not yet visited that particular work, he had been assured by everyone who had that it was among the city's finest. Rumor had it that it was also as old as Evereska itself, which would make it one of the few surviving examples of high elven religious art from the Pre-Netheril period.

  Something sharp pricked his knee, and he looked down to see Storm Silverhand slipping her dagger into its scabbard. She did it without looking, for she was scowling up at him with a worried expression.

  Red eye? Her fingertalk was as fast as Galaeron's, which made it difficult to follow. That's the sigil.

  Sigil? With his long fingers, Aris suspected his reply seemed to Storm like he was drawling or stuttering. There's a sigil?

  Fur the tackle!

  Storm pointed at the palace, and Aris finally realized what she was trying to remind him of. Manynests' departure was the signal.

  Sorry, he signed. I'm a little nervous.

  What's to be nervous about? Storm replied. This plan has to be better than the last one.

  That should make me feel better?

  Aris removed the two largest hammers from his tool belt, and fixed his eye on a nose-shaped burl about twenty feet off the ground. The hardest part of his job would be keeping that knot in sight. If he went to the wrong one, Galaeron's plan would fall.

  An immense roar erupted on the opposite side of the hill, and fans of gold and crimson blast magic spread across the sky behind the palace. The three phaerimm rose from their hiding places and stirred the air into a 'tempest as they hurled questions back and forth, but none of them showed any sign of departing their posts. Heart rising into his throat, Aris raised his hammers and prepared to make a run he knew he could not survive.

  Storm laid a restraining hand on his knee.

  Aris looked down to find her shaking her head. She raised a single finger, then looked back up the slope.

  The battle continued to rage on the other side of the palace. The hill shuddered beneath their feet and sheets of flame licked around the walls of the palace, and still the phaerimm remained on post Aris cocked his brow. They had only a minute or two before the thornbacks realized that all of the noise was being made by just two Chosen. After that, it would be only seconds before they realized the attack was a diversion and returned to his side of the palace.

  As the largest target on the hill, Aris knew what would become of him if he was still on the battlefield then. He wouldn't even mind-not much-except that would mean that Galaeron's plan had failed. Evereska's art would be lost forever.

  Storm took her hand from Aris's knee. Aris nodded, she nodded back-and two of the phaerimm flew off toward the other side of the hill.

  Storm's jaw fell. She closed it, then flashed the quick fingertalk sentence: Told you so!

  She pointed at the last phaerimm, her finger darkening to black as she whispered an incantation so softly even Aris couldn't hear it

  The last phaerimm left his hiding place and raced after his fellows.

  For a moment, Aris was too shocked to react. There was nobody between him and the burl. All he had to do was run up there, reach through the antimagic shell, and knock a hole in the wall. Then Lord Duirsar and Kiinyon Colbathin and the High Mages and the Long Watch would start pouring out on their ropes, leaping across the antimagic shell into the battle-torn meadow, where Storm would by then have laid a teleport circle that would take them straight to the statue of Hanali Celanil that Aris wanted so desperately to see.

  "What are you waiting for?" She pulled a packet of amber dust from inside her cloak, raised her arms so Aris could pick her up and carry her up to the palace, and said, "Plans don't work any better than this."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  2 Eleasias, the Year of Wild Magic

  Galaeron and Takari arrived at the statue of Hanali Celanil to find a small circle of phaerimm using all four hands to pull golden strands of magic off the hem of the goddess's gown. They were feeding the threads out behind them, filling the air with a shimmering snarl of loops and whorls so dense and bright that it was difficult to see the thornbacks themselves. Where the tangle touched the ground, it passed through the paving stones as sunlight passes through water, leaving the impression that the great statue stood upon the surface of a dark, still pond rather than a courtyard of granite cobble-stones. Galaeron counted twelve phaerimm pulling thread, with a thirteenth watching from beneath a tree at the edge of the plaza.

  That's the one Manynests told us about" He did not bother with fingertalk. Though the phaerimm could undoubtedly eavesdrop into the Shadow Fringe where he and Takari were hiding, they could not do it without using Weave magic-and in the Shadow Fringe, Weave magic would shine like a beacon light for Galaeron. Tm fairly sure that*s their leader. It's the only one we absolutely have to kill, so if something goes wrong-"

  "Nothing's going to go wrong, now that you've come to your senses and decided to bring me along." Takari let a hand drop the hilt of her borrowed darksword. "I only wish Keya would've given me Kuhl's sword. That one I can hang on to."

  "Kuhl's sword is not Keya's to give," Galaeron said. "And Kuhl has need of it himself."

  It was the fifth or sixth time he had reminded her of that, and his patience was giving way to alarm. There was a dark familiarity in the way that simple fact kept eluding her, in how every conversation seemed to return to Kuhl's dark-sword.

  "Our need is greater." She pointed at the phaerimm leader and said, "You said yourself we absolutely have to kill that one."

  "That is what we absolutely have to do. Kuhl and the others have to destroy the defensive perimeter-absolutely. If they fall, our success means nothing."

  As he spoke, Galaeron looked Takari full in the eyes. Though hardly veiled hi darkness, the irises were shot through with tiny streaks of shadow. She had to be told; it was her only chance of controlling her hunger for the sword.

  "Takari, I didn't come to my senses. We thought it best to keep you away from Kuhl and his darksword."

  "What?" she asked. "Why would you keep me away from something that is mine by right?"

  "Because it isn't yours by any right. You only think it is because you've been shadow touched."

  "Shadow touched!" Takari objected. "I earned that sword!"

  "If s an heirloom. How could you earn…" Galaeron let the question trail off as he realized what Takari was saying. He looked at her stomach, which had not yet begun to bulge, and asked, "You did that on purpose?"

  Takari raised her chin and said, "Of course it was on purpose. Do you think I would lay with that roth? by accident?"

  "Of course not, but neither did I think you had done it to steal his darksword."

  "'Steal' is such a human word," Takari said, rolling her eyes. "I just wanted to use it and maybe keep it after he died."

  "After you killed him," Galaeron corrected. He turned to keep an eye on the tree branch. Manynests would be arriving soon. "You always meant to keep it"

  "How do you know what I meant-"

  "I know a shadow when I see it, Takari," Galaeron said.

  The phaerimm leader sent an angry gust whirling across the cobblestones, and the SpellGather began to pull threads twice as fast That would be word of the attack on Cloud-crown Hill. Galaeron did not have much time to convince Takari of her peril. The way she was thinking, once the battle started she would run down to ta
ke the darksword from Kuhl.

  "There's a shadow in your eyes," Galaeron continued. "You wanted a darksword for yourself, and Keya showed you how to get what you sought."

  "That doesn't mean I was going to kill him," Takari retorted. "Humans have short lives-especially around here-and I'm patient"

  "Maybe that was what you intended, before you touched the sword, but you were going to kill him at the Floating Gardens."

  "He was charging me!"

  "You could have scrambled up any of a dozen trees. I saw how you were standing, Takari-and the way you held the sword. It was a double-hand stack."

  "You don't know how quick Kuhl can be," Takari said. "I had to defend myself."

  Galaeron risked turning his attention from the phaerimm long enough to lock gazes with Takari.

  "When he grabbed for the sword, you were going to fall and let the blade swing up in his groin." There was no accusation in his voice, only insistence and certainty. "It would have looked like an accident."

  Takari met his gaze for only a moment before her eyes flicked away, her defenses finally starting to crumble. She retreated to the edge of the Shadow Fringe and peered out through snarl of magic threads.

  "Hanali’s gown is starting to look ragged," she said. "If we don't attack the SpellGather soon-"

  "You can't ignore this, Takari," Galaeron interrupted. "Think back to when you borrowed Kuhl's sword at the Floating Gardens. You took the time to turn him face up."

  "I didn't want him to drown." She sounded as though she were remembering, not explaining. "He's not so bad, for a human."

  "But after you borrowed the sword…"

  "I didn't borrow it You can't borrow what's s already…" Takari let the sentence trail off, then raised a hand to her mouth and turned to look at Galaeron again. "And now I want him dead!"

  "If s the sword. That one carries a curse." Galaeron took her by the arm and gently pulled her away from the Fringe edge. "It opens you to your shadow."

  "My shadow?" Takari gasped. It was the first time Galaeron could recall seeing true terror in her eyes. "Will I turn into one of them?"

  "That will depend on how you react, I think," Galaeron said. "I'm not sure, but I do know you mustn't take Kuhl's sword from him again. If you fall in that, you'll have to kill him, and if you kill him, you will be lost."

  "Great." Takari's eyes slid away from his, focusing some-where beyond his shoulder. "Manynests…"

  Galaeron turned around to find the little bird flying into the tree above the phaerimm leader's head. In his beak, he carried something pointed and twice as long as he was.

  "What's that he has?" Takari asked.

  Galaeron twisted a few strands of shadowsilk together at the top, then uttered a spell and began to whisk himself with the brush end.

  "I don't know," he said. "It's not part of the plan."

  Manynests landed on the lowest branch over the phaerimm's head-disk. He stretched his neck forward, letting out a sharp chirp, and released what he was carrying. The pointed end dropped first, spinning slightly so that the long spine rising along one side of the shaft grew visible.

  "It's a tail barb!" Takari gasped.

  The barb hit the phaerimm on the rim of the mouth and bounced off its missile guard. The creature puffed in surprise and tipped forward to retrieve the barb. It held the thing over its open mouth for a moment, then raised its head-disk toward the branch where Manynests sat scolding it in peeptalk.

  "Ithinkthat'soursignal" Galaeron's words came out in a rush, for the spell of speed he had cast upon himself had already taken effect "Remembertheplan."

  Without awaiting a response, Galaeron floated to the edge of the Fringe and sent two dark bolts hissing into the phaerimm leader. The first burned a fist-sized hole through the middle of its chest and sent it wobbling back into the tree trunk. The second clipped it along the rim of its mouth, gouging a long furrow along the side of its head-disk and lopping an arm off at the shoulder.

  Takari's booted feet landed squarely in Galaeron's back as, executing her part of the plan, she caught him with a flying drop kick that sent him tumbling tall-over-arms out into the courtyard. He did not pass through the strands of Weave magic so much as they passed through him, burning like nettles and engulfing him in a crackling halo of green sparks. That was not part of the plan. He glimpsed the leader of the phaerimm wrapped around the base of the tree. Its three remaining arms rested limply on the ground and black gore oozed from the hole in its body. Galaeron brought himself to a halt and spun to face Hanali's statue.

  The members of the SpellGather had stopped pulling magic and were already starting to drift away from the circle. Galaeron pointed two arms back toward the shadow from which he had emerged. Takari was already retreating into the shadows, her legs and the tip of her borrowed darksword just disappearing into the Fringe as planned. Galaeron gestured wildly in her direction, his arms throwing off huge sheets of green sparks as they sliced through the air.

  "After her!" He used his magic to howl in Winds, "She's getting away!"

  Whether it was his accent or the sweeping lines of green sparks, the phaerimm were not falling for it. They raised their arms in his direction, and even with his speed magic, Galaeron barely had time to raise a shadow shield before a hundred golden bolts came streaking in his direction. He huddled down behind the circle and tried not to scream. The hiss of the approaching bolts rose to a sizzle, and the sizzle to a roar, and the roar to a deafening crash as the missiles reached his shield and vanished down into the shadow plane. The crash disappeared into a ringing silence that left the ground shaking and Galaeron's eardrums throbbing, his nostrils tingling with the rainwater smell of spent magic.

  Galaeron did not wait He nipped the shield around and dived through it into the shadows, and even then he was very nearly caught by the storm of fire magic and disintegration rays that converged on the place he had been kneeling. He remained a moment to see if any of his attackers would be foolish enough to pursue him into the dark circle, then he closed it behind him and streaked through the shadows back to Takari's side.

  "That plan worked about as well as a pixie ladder," Takari said. "I don't think they were fooled by your disguise."

  She was peering out into the courtyard, watching two trios of phaerimm work their way toward the shadow where she and Galaeron stood watching. “It doesn't look like it," Galaeron replied, "but my plan did work."

  Galaeron dispelled the illusion magic that made him look like a phaerimm, then took an arrow from Takari's quiver and began to rub it with shadowsilk.

  "Really?" Takari sounded more than doubtful, she sounded distrustful. "I don't see that"

  "They stopped attacking the mythal, didn't they?"

  Galaeron plucked a death arrow from her quiver and rubbed the head with shadowsilk. He uttered a piercing spell and passed the missile back to her.

  Takari nocked the arrow and raised her bow, but turned to Galaeron before firing and tipped her head back, lips slightly parted.

  "In case this one doesn't work either-"

  "It will work."

  Galaeron took another arrow from her quiver, and Takari rolled her eyes.

  "Same old Galaeron." There was genuine disgust in her voice. "Won't ever give a wood elf a chance."

  She set the tip of her arrow on the closest phaerimm, which was no more than twenty paces away, and pulled the bowstring back.

  Galaeron laid his free hand over her draw arm.

  Takari turned, her expression one of irritation.

  "I do love you," Galaeron said.

  Takari's jaw dropped. Had Galaeron not tightened his grasp, she would have let slip the arrow.

  "You're only saying that because we're about to die."

  Galaeron shook his head, then looked back to the approaching phaerimm. They had closed to fifteen paces. He cast another piercing spell on the arrow in his hand.

  Takari ignored the thornbacks and continued to study Galaeron.

  "You always
did have a lousy sense of timing," she said, "but I'll take what I can get"

  She loosed her arrow, and the shaft took its target square in the body. Galaeron's shadow magic allowed it to penetrate the phaerimm's missile guard and sink to the fletching. The thornback squalled in pain and teleported away, though not so quickly that Galaeron failed to notice the black disintegration crater forming around Takari's arrow.

  The five survivors attacked with a veritable spell-storm of flames, meteor stones, lightning, and half a dozen other kinds of magic death. As the spells entered the shadow where Galaeron and Takari were hiding, they were tunneled through a shadow door that opened on the opposite side of the courtyard, and the phaerimm were blasted from behind by their own spells.

  Two died instantly, and two more teleported away to safety. Galaeron handed the death arrow to Takari. She nocked and loosed it into the remaining thornback even as it flicked its fingers at their hiding place. Galaeron's dimensional door shimmered once, then crackled out of existence. By then, the phaerimm who had dispelled it lay motionless on the ground, a black hole expanding around the arrow buried in its head-disk.

  Galaeron grabbed Takari's hand and guided it to his belt

  "Hold tight," he said.

  "You can be sure."

  He turned and raced into the deep shadows. Though his power was great enough to keep at bay most of the lesser creatures they were likely to stumble across on such a short journey through the Deep, Galaeron was careful to keep moving and moving fast. Shadow-touched though she was, Takari was still enough a creature of the Weave that Galaeron could feel her radiating heat against his back… warm and distinct… and if he could feel it, so could the shapeless mouths that preyed on the hapless visitors who wandered too far from the Fringe.

  They had traveled about a dozen heartbeats when a terrible gurgling growl erupted in the distance behind them. Takari stopped, her hand pulling on Galaeron's belt as she turned to look over her shoulder.