The Sorcerer (29 page)

Even a prospect that terrible was not enough to keep Khelben from cocking his eyebrow.

“You know I can never lie,” Malik reminded him.

“We’re listening,” Laeral said.

Malik’s bulging eyes appeared to focus on the tip of Ruha’s boot as he planned what he would say next. Given what he had already told them about the pitfalls, Galaeron could not believe the Chosen were even interested in hearing the suggestion.

Finally, Malik looked back to Khelben and said, “What good will it do me to save the world if I am not here to see it?”

Ruha dropped a knee into the middle of his back and used a cuckold’s antler to pull his head up, then wrapped the chain connecting their manacles around his neck.

“What makes you think I would ever let you tell them something that would destroy Anauroch?” Ruha asked. “I would rather see you dead and stand before the judges of Twilight Hall myself!”

She tightened the chain until he began to gasp. “Ruha!” Khelben shouted. He seemed as surprised as Galaeron was by the witch’s behavior. “Let him speak.”

“Never!” she replied, pulling until Malik’s eyes began to bulge. “If you want to know—”

Ruha’s exclamation came to an abrupt end as Storm plucked her off Malik’s back.

“Harper hag!” Malik croaked. “I ought to tell them just for spite!” Again, his face contorted into a conflicted mask, and he added, “Except that after what happened in Shadowdale, I know no Chosen would ever be foolish enough to fling a bolt of silver fire into a being of pure shadow essence.”

Galaeron did not realize Ruha’s threat had been a ruse until he saw her exchange congratulatory glances with each of the Chosen.

Laeral said, “Not very helpful, Malik.”

“Actually, we’ve already tried silver fire,” Storm said. She didn’t explain that the attack had only been a ruse designed to buy time for Vala. “Telamont blocked it with a shielding spell.”

“Though that hardly matters,” Khelben added. “I no longer have much influence with the Harpers anyway.”

“Harpers?” Malik screeched. “I am talking about Ruha.”

“In exchange for revealing that Telamont Tanthul is pure shadowstuff?” Galaeron scoffed. He was beginning to understand the game the Chosen were playing. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want me to set you free.”

“There is no use listening to him, Malik,” Ruha warned. “That will never happen.”

The anger in Ruha’s eyes was convincing, and it occurred to Galaeron that the others might not realize he had joined their game.

“Perhaps not while you live,” Galaeron said, keeping his tone even. He dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. “It makes no difference to me.”

Malik’s eyes lit like a pair of torches.

“Kill her?” asked Malik. He considered the situation for a moment, then grew doubtful. “You are too much of a coward. You would never do such a thing.”

“To save Evereska?” Galaeron responded. “What do you think I wouldn’t do?”

It did not escape Galaeron’s notice that Khelben, Vala, and all the rest were inching in his direction—nor did it escape Malik’s. He considered the proposal only a moment.

“You have already won!” Malik blurted. “There is no need to destroy the mythallar or even to slay Telamont” He would have stopped there, but for Mystra’s curse. “They cannot make their shadow blankets without the magic of the Karsestone, and the Karsestone is gone!”

“What?” This from Vala, who was finally beginning to seem interested in the discussion. “Gone how?”

“Into the lake,” Ruha explained. “It was attached to his other wrist and fell free. A waterspout reached up to take it.”

“It was Shar’s hand,” Malik explained in a dismal voice. “She has had control of the Shadow Weave all along.”

This was enough to make Galaeron draw his sword and press the blade to Ruha’s throat. Storm and Vala drew their own blades and stepped over to defend the witch, and it was not clear to Galaeron whether they were warning him off or just supporting his act. In fact, he was no longer sure that he was acting. Doing his best to seem as though he might be worried about the possibility of fighting two of the best

swordswomen in Faerűn, Galaeron kept his blade pressed to Ruha’s throat

“Before I set you free,” he said to Malik, “tell me how you know all this.”

Malik eagerly recounted how, while chained to the Karsestone in Shar’s hidden temple, he came to the realization that it was the symbol of her control over the Shadow Weave. Then he told of how, when the city began to fall, the stone had pulled him down into one of the looming chambers, and of how hard he had struggled to steal the stone for Cyric so that he would one day rule the Shadow Weave— and perhaps the Weave itself, since if there was any god capable of putting the two back together, it was the One and All.

By the time Malik finished, Galaeron was not only sure that the seraph was telling the truth, but also that he had correctly interpreted everything he’d seen. Even Khelben seemed convinced.

“I’m willing to grant that Shar caught the Karsestone,” Khelben said, “and even that the stone is the symbol of her control over the Shadow Weave, but if the Shadovar need it to create more shadow blankets, I don’t see what’s to stop her from returning it”

“Nothing,” Galaeron answered. “Except that Shar is the goddess of unrevealed secrets. After Prince Yder allowed the seraph of an arch rival to not only discover the Karsestone’s role and location, but to come so close to stealing it, I am sure she will find a safer place to hide it.”

“And let the Shadovar suffer for their sins,” Laeral said. “I agree.”

This drew a broad smile from Malik, who looked up at Galaeron and said, “I am waiting.”

“I would do many things to save Evereska,” Galaeron said, “and one of them is lie.”

“Lie?” Malik screeched. “The One will punish you for this—though I will surely be the one who suffers in your

place! After the many times I have saved your life, how can you do this to me?”

“Because it is necessary.”

Though Malik had never done anything to hurt Galaeron and it pained the elf to betray an old friend, he lowered his sword. He stepped back, and with the little man still hurling invectives at his back, he turned to Storm.

“It seems our plan worked for most of Faerűn, if not Evereska,” he said. “I thank you for trying.”

“As we thank you,” Khelben said, slapping a hand on Galaeron’s shoulder, “but we are not done yet. Did I not overhear you telling Telamont that you now have a complete understanding of the phaerimm?”

Galaeron nodded, not daring to believe Khelben would say what he hoped Khelben was going to say.

“You did.”

Khelben glanced over his shoulder toward Shadow Lake, where the erratic torrent of debris falling from the gloom-cloaked enclave had finally dwindled to a sporadic rain. Instead of fleeing the city, most veserabs seemed to be trying to find a safe route back, and even the crash of collapsing buildings was growing more intermittent and muted.

“Laeral, Storm, what say you?” he asked. “Have we done enough damage here?”

“Not enough,” Storm said, “but all we can.”

“Yes,” Laeral said. “I think it is high time we returned to Evereska.”

She held out her arms, inviting Galaeron and the others to join hands with her for an instantaneous return to the Shaeradim. Aris kneeled down and extended a pinky for her to hold, but Vala made no move to join the circle. Galaeron was surprised—and perhaps just a little relieved—to discover he had a sinking feeling in his chest If his heart was breaking, then sorrow could not be a weakness his shadow had overcome. He went to stand close to Vala.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Galaeron began, “especially after

what I put you through, so I won’t If you want to come to Evereska with us, you and your sword are more than welcome.”

Vala grunted what might have been acceptance, refusal, or simply an acknowledgment of the question, then said, “One thing. Were you watching when Yder and Aglarel chased me out of the mythallar?”

Galaeron nodded.

“And you didn’t come after me?”

Galaeron shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because I wanted to destroy the mythallar, and I knew our chances would be better if Aris and I remained in hiding until Telamont showed all of his tricks.” Galaeron swallowed, then added, “And because I knew you could take care of yourself.”

“Knew, Galaeron?” she asked.

“Hoped, anyway.”

Vala pushed her upper lip into a half-hearted sneer, then shrugged and smiled.

“At least you’re honest.” She grasped his hand, stepped over to Laeral’s teleport circle, and said, “Of course I’m coming. Do you think I’d dare go back to Vaasa without my men and our darkswords?”

________CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After Ruha departed for Twilight Hall with Malik chained to her wrist, Khelben used his sending magic to advise Lord Duirsar of their imminent arrival. The spell failed. Nor did he receive any reply when he tried to contact Kiinyon Colbathin, and when Galaeron tried to contact Keya, the only response he experienced was a fleeting impression of terror. The six of them wasted a few more minutes hazarding uninformed guesses as to how the phaerimm might be interfering with communication magic based on the Shadow Weave as well as the Weave. Able to imagine only dire scenarios, they finally concluded that they simply could not know what was happening and divided themselves into two traveling groups.

A few moments later, Galaeron was lying between

Vala and Khelben on a sooty terrace high in the Vine Vale, staring down a staircase wasteland into the crater-pocked pasture inside the Meadow Wall. The once-lush grass was gone, burned off or blasted away by battle magic or withering beneath the rotting corpse of one of the thousands of elf warriors scattered across the field. In the center of the meadow, the marble cliffs of the Three Sisters were speckled around the base with stars of soot and sprays of crusted blood. Atop the hills themselves, curtains of black fume were rising out of the great bluetop forest, coalescing into a single dark cloud that left visible only the lowest reaches of Evereska’s majestic towers.

As Galaeron watched, a leaden light erupted in the woods beneath the Groaning Cave, and a deafening crack reverberated across the entire vale and echoed off the looming cliffs of the High Shaeradim. As Galaeron blinked the flash from his eyes, he noticed a ring of falling trees expanding outward, their crowns all pointing away from the center of the explosion. By the time the blast played itself out, the circle of destruction was more than a mile across.

“It is safe for Laeral and Storm to come ahead with Aris,” Galaeron said. He spoke without turning to look at Khelben. “You can be sure there are no phaerimm within a mile of us.”

“That’s awfully quick to be so certain of their positions,” Khelben observed. “We haven’t been here a minute.”

“A minute is all I need,” Galaeron said. He rose to his knees and waved a hand in the direction of the burning city. “The phaerimm are down there, looting Evereska of its magic.”

“And their servants?” Khelben asked. “All it takes to sound the alarm is a beholder or even a gnoll.”

The phaerimm think they have won,” Galaeron explained. “They will have their servants with them, carrying their plunder and helping to claim and defend their new lairs.”

“They have no fear of a counterattack?” Khelben asked.

“At the moment, they fear us less than they fear each other.” Though the words were Galaeron’s, the knowledge came to him in the form of a strange half-thought, closer to a premonition or a feeling than something he actually remembered. “They will know how preoccupied Faerűn has been with the problems caused by Shade, and how impossible it would be for anyone to send an army against them.”

“True as that may be,” Khelben said, “it does not always require an army to defeat one.”

“They are certainly worried about the Chosen,” Galaeron said, picking up on Khelben’s meaning, “but I doubt they have a choice in the matter. It is not in the nature of the phaerimm to work together. Now that the prize is in hand, everyone must claim his share or watch another steal it from beneath him.”

As Galaeron explained this, the tiny shape of a stick figure elf tumbled out of the smoke cloud, hit the edge of the cliff summit, and pin wheeled all the way down into the meadow. Had the mythal been functioning properly, it was not something that would have happened. A protective spell would have caught the victim and lowered him—or her—gently to the ground.

The death made Galaeron wonder what had become of his sister, Keya. The last he had heard, she was doing well with her pregnancy and also as a warrior, joining Vala’s men on hunting forays and claiming half a dozen tails for her own belt, but that had been before the mythal fell. Could she be one of the bodies lying down in the meadow or perhaps the one he had just watched plummeting out of the smoke? He longed to try another thought sending, but knew that would be foolish. Assuming she remained alive, there was a good chance that she was fighting at the moment, and the distraction of an unexpected thought popping into her head might well prove fatal. Galaeron could only hope that the moment of fleeting terror he had experienced the first time meant she was still alive—and that his intrusion had not changed that

“How long will the phaerimm remain at each other’s throats?” Khelben asked.

“A tenday, at least,” he answered, “but not much longer. Their internal squabbles are swift and deadly.”

“A tenday.” Khelben’s discouragement was hard to miss. “What then?”

“By then, they will have settled matters and prepared their individual defenses.” Galaeron did not like the drift Khelben’s questions were taking. They will be impossible to root out”

The Shadovar did it at Myth Drannor,” Khelben countered.

“At the cost of their other ambitions in Faerűn,” Vala pointed out. “And there were only a few dozen at Myth Drannor. Here, there will be hundreds.”

Khelben sighed and said, “We have lost Evereska.” His fist thudded into the ground, raising a small cloud of ash and dust. “It will be all we can do to contain them in the vale.”