The Siege

CHAPTER TEN

19 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic

The white elf turned his back to Vala and the dead Shadovar and started down the murky corridor. "Come."

Vala stood where she was and didn't move. She didn't even lower her sword.

"Come?" she gasped. "After you killed Parth and everyone else?"

"I did not kill them, woman. I saved you." The elf continued away, but his head turned to face her, his neck giving a mushy crackle as it traveled the last few inches to sit backward on his shoulders. "From what I saw, I will be of more use to you than they were." "Doing what?" Vala asked, starting after him. "Surviving."

The elf rotated his head forward again. Deciding there was truth in what he said, Vala lowered her guard and moved to within four paces of him, where his chill aura grew so uncomfortable she began to shiver. She had seen enough undead in the past six months to recognize him as some sort of lich, but his presence did not engender the same sense of fear and corruption she had experienced back in Karsus when she and Galaeron and their companions had fought the lich Wulgreth. What she wouldn't have given to have Galaeron at her side, with his Tomb Guard's knowledge of all things unliving-but the old Galaeron before he fell victim to the corrupting influence of the Shadow Weave. Gods, how she missed that one, the Galaeron who had been so steady and earnest and noble.

The lich-elf turned down a smaller side corridor- still so wide three Vaasans could have stood abreast- and sent a spider the size of a pony skittering along the wall. Hanging in its web overhead were several silk-wrapped packages, some with clawed feet or beastly snouts poking out. From one dangled a halfling-sized boot, the toe still twitching. As she passed beneath this cocoon, Vala slowed and raised her sword to cut the halfling free. "Leave him."

Vala looked up to find the lich-elf's head turned backward on his shoulders again, watching her.

"He is a relic thief and has met a relic thief's end," the lich-elf said.

Vala lowered her sword. She knew firsthand how elves felt about treasure thieves, and the last thing she needed was an angry lich… of any sort. She mouthed a silent apology to the halfling and followed her guide a hundred paces down the corridor to an iron door, which he opened by means of an ancient bronze key and a word of passing. They descended a long iron staircase filled with dog-sized rats and knee-high centipedes, all of which fled before the chill aura of the white elf.

"I'll say this, you make this place a lot safer," Vala observed. The elf didn't respond.

The staircase descended into a natural cavern filled with limestone formations. The place stank so foully of offal and mold that Vala had to cover her mouth and nose to keep from retching. When they stepped onto the floor of the chamber, she recognized a strange regularity to many of the largest formations, where the stalactites and stalagmites met to form a wall of cage like columns. Peering out from between many sets of bars were glowing red eyes of various shapes and sizes, some the size of Vala's fist, some no larger than pinheads. One of the nearest cages had no eyes, only a mold-covered skull with six ebony fangs propped against the bars with the tip of one dark horn poking out to touch the ground.

A chorus of low groans and rasps arose from the nearest cages, gradually mounting toward a din of bestial growling and rumblings. Though Vala was holding the hilt of her darksword, she could see nothing beyond the stone bars but red eyes.

"Mind the prisoners," the lich-elf warned. "They'll be hungry."

Vala eased away from the cage she had been peering into, only to hear a wet plop as something struck her armored thigh. The lich-elf cursed in some ancient language she did not understand, then spun toward the source of the saliva and loosed a flight of golden energy-darts. When the bolts passed through the bars and exploded into her attacker, Vala glimpsed a bristly muzzle with long curved tusks, a pair of fan-shaped ears, and a set of folded wings rising up behind its shoulders. The creature roared and tore at the inside of its cage with four huge claws. When the energy bolts faded, it vanished back into the darkness inside its prison.

The lich-elf pointed at a glob of green mucus bubbling on the surface of Vala's armor. "Wipe that off before it takes root," he said. "The last thing I want is you spreading devil spawn through my Irithlium."

"Your Irithlium?" Vala tore a strip from the hem of her undertunic and wrapped it over the back of her dark-sword, then scraped the stuff off and flung the cloth into the creature's cage. "Who were you?" The lich-elf's eyes brightened. "Were?"

"No offense meant," Vala said. "It's just that I'm not friends with many undead."

Nor was she friends with this one, as the lich-elf made clear when he turned and continued through the chamber without speaking. Taking care to avoid the occasional glob of mucus that came flying her way, Vala followed as closely behind as her tolerance for cold allowed. They passed through the strange prison and wandered the dark caverns beneath the Irithlium until her legs grew weary with exhaustion. Periodically, she would try to learn more about her guide by engaging the lich-elf in conversation, but he only spoke to utter a word of passing or warn her about some deadly hazard into which she had nearly stumbled. Twice they were ambushed by spell-flinging dark nagas, one of which actually succeeded in wrapping the lich-elf in a web spell before Vala diced it into six three-yard pieces. Before continuing on, her guide was grateful enough to inform her that his name was Corineus Drannaeken.

Finally, they ascended a vertical shaft into the sub-basement levels, emerging in what had once been the central fountain in an elaborate two-story complex of work chambers. Clambering past a giant constrictor snake that had been immobilized by Corineus's aura of cold, they slipped out of the basin and sneaked down a narrow service corridor. Near the back, the white elf stopped and pulled a loose wall stone out of place. A section of stone wall grated open and rumbled aside. He uttered a word of passing, then motioned Vala through the opening.

Ever the cautious one, she dropped to a knee and peered around the corner-and found herself looking underneath a floating beholder into a large room filled with wands, crowns, bracers, and other items even she recognized as magical. There was also a mind flayer, whirling toward Vala's door, and half a dozen confused bugbears scrambling for their weapons.

Cursing herself for a fool and Corineus for a faithless double crosser, Vala whipped her darksword at the mind flayer. Waiting only long enough to see that the spinning blade was flying toward its target, she launched herself forward and rose beneath the beholder, pinning it against the ceiling of the opening while she drew her dagger.

"Ressamon, you idiot!" the beholder screamed. "Stun it-stun it before-"

Vala drove her dagger into the monster's underside. The resulting shriek was more angry than pained, and the mordant smell of powdered stone filled the air as the beholder began to spray the rock above with its disintegration ray. "Ressamon!"

But Ressamon, if that had been the mind flayer's name, was already lying on the floor beside its amputated head. Finally gathering their wits, the bugbears sprang over the illithid's body to charge Vala.

Driving her dagger into the beholder's underside again, she extended her free hand to summon her sword. It flashed between two of the charging bugbears, slashing open a furry knee and buckling the leg. The astonished brute collapsed in front of two companions and sent them sprawling, prompting the rest of the band to stop and whirl around to see who was attacking from behind.

The darksword arrived in Vala's hand, and the beholder's disintegration ray finally cut through the keystone of the hidden archway. With a thousand tons of stone settling on her shoulders, she had no choice except to leap into the chamber ahead and let the wounded eye tyrant escape behind her. She tucked into a diving somersault, taking a bugbear's legs off at the knees as she rolled past, then came to her feet and brought her dagger over her head, driving it to the hilt in the nearest furry back.

The roars of the wounded bugbears were lost to the sound of the collapsing doorway. Vala ducked a massive axe as the quickest of the bugbears whirled to attack, then removed the arm holding it and opened its chest on the backstroke. She glimpsed another axe coming and barely managed to pivot away, though not before the blade slashed along her chest, denting steel scales and hurling her into a pair of hairy arms as big around as her waist. With her arms pinned at her sides, Vala brought her feet up over her head and smashed her booted feet into her captor's face.

The blow was not sufficient to drop a bugbear, but it did startle it. The creature's grasp loosened enough for her to bring her sword around beneath her. So weak was the attack that not even the sharpest steel would have penetrated the bugbear's thick hide, much less the apron of leather armor it wore over its loins.

The darksword's glassy blade slashed through the leather like gossamer. The bugbear bellowed in shock and started to squeeze, and Vala cocked her wrist, driving the tip of her weapon deep into its abdomen. The hairy arms went limp and dropped her on her shoulders, her captor's huge body doubling over above her face. Reaching up behind it, she grabbed a handful of fur and pulled herself through its legs and to her feet.

A huge hand axe came tumbling through the air and smashed into her helmet, breaking one of the horns off and knocking it from her head. Sure of only the direction the attack had come from, Vala spun around to the opposite side of the bugbear she'd just wounded and found another big axe swinging toward her throat. Barely flipping her darksword up in time, she caught the weapon near the top, using the attack's own momentum to cleave the shaft and send the head spinning off to lodge itself in one of the attacker's wounded companions.

Faster than the others, this bugbear followed its first attack by slamming a huge fist into Vala's armored ribs, launching her across the room into a shelf full of artifacts. She dropped to the ground in a limp heap, still holding her sword and struggling to get the wind back in her lungs.

Snorting in triumph, the bugbear snatched a weapon from a wounded companion and stomped toward Vala. Behind it, she saw a spherical form float out of the dust cloud rising from the collapsed doorway. Of Corineus, there was no sign.

Vala bounced to her feet and raised her darksword to throw. The bugbear pivoted away and brought its big axe around to block. Vala hurled the blade anyway. As the weapon sailed past the astonished brute to split the beholder down the center, she charged after it. Seeing its mistake too late, the bugbear swung back into the attack, but Vala was inside the arc of its weapon by then, her boot heels driving for its face in a flying side kick.

The bugbear leaned aside in an attempt to slip the blow. Vala kicked her feet apart and caught its head between her ankles. As she swung into its torso, she scissored her legs and swung herself around to the side. Though the bugbear was easily three times her size, the weight of her body acted like a pendulum, pulling it down face first. It slammed to the stone floor with a heavy thump and immediately began to push itself up again.

Vala's sword was already returning to her hand. She brought it down on the back of her attacker's neck, then leaped up and dispatched the wounded bugbears in a series of cautious, darting attacks from the rear. By the time she finished, the dust in the fallen doorway had cleared enough for her to see Corineus standing in the service corridor on the other side of the rubble.

"Well done, woman." he said, pointing past her toward an iron door on the adjacent wall. "Above the door, you will find a holy symbol painted in black blood. Break it."

Vala turned in the direction he pointed. When she'd had a chance to examine the room, she could see that it was divided into two sections. She had entered the front area, which the bugbears, beholder, and illithid all shared with the assortment of magical items she'd noticed earlier. In the back, opposite the door Corineus was pointing at, an assortment of gem-studded scepters, rods, rings, tomes, and other powerful artifacts of magic-even a diamond ball the size of a halfling's head-floated inside a field of green spell light. Vala's throat went dry, for she understood the phaerimm well enough to realize when she was standing in one of their lairs-and to know that had the creature been present, she would have been too busy fighting to take in all that she was seeing.

"What are you waiting for?" Corineus demanded. "Break the seal."

"Not so fast," Vala said, retrieving her helm. She had no idea whether it would still protect her from the phaerimm mind control with only one horn, but it was worth a try. "Not until you answer a few questions."

"The phaerimm who claims this laboratory lair will soon realize it has been broken into and return," Corineus replied. "That is the only question you need answered."

"Afraid not," Vala replied. "You surrendered your right to claim my trust when you sent me through that door without warning." "You had to be tested."

Vala bit back the rage she felt rising inside and said, "I passed."

She turned toward the nearest shelf and picked up a pair of fabulously decorated silver bracers.

"Put that back!" Corineus started forward, only to encounter a field of flashing blue energy that hurled him back against the wall. "You've no right!"

"No?" Vala raised her brow and considered threatening the lich-elf, then recalled how touchy elves could be about their ancestral treasures and decided to try a different tactic. "Consider these a token of good faith." She tossed the bracers through the door.

Corineus's eyes went wide, and he nearly let the bracers fall. "The symbol, woman! You've no idea what you just did."

Vala's mouth went dry, but she managed to meet the white elf's gaze without shaking. "Don't be too sure."

Corineus's white eyes glared at Vala for a moment, then drifted to the symbol over the door.

"Have you ever heard of a baelnorn?" the white elf asked. Vala shook her head. "I take it I'm looking at one." "Sworn to a duty more sacred than you can know." A dull clunk sounded from the other side of the door.

"The time has come for you to choose," he said. "Without my help-"

"One moment," Vala interrupted, jerking the iron door open.

A teleport-dazed phaerimm tumbled into the room, its four spindly arms windmilling wildly. Vala brought her darksword down across the thick part of its body and clove it cleanly in two, then stepped back and opened both halves along their length. When she was certain the thing was dead, she cut off the wicked tail barb, then finally reached up with her sword and broke the holy symbol painted above the door.

Corineus rushed into the room, his white eyes shining bright with rage. "How dare you disobey-"

"How dare 7?" Vala tossed the tail barb into the baelnorn's face, then touched the tip of her darksword to his throat. "Let's get something straight, White Eyes. I need you as much as you need me, but lf you ever send me into a lair again without warning me, it'll be you I'm carving into little pieces. Clear?"

The baelnorn moved closer, enveloping her in his chill aura. "I do not think you understand who you are talking to."

Vala stepped even closer, so close that her face and hands began to ache with cold. She laid a bloody palm on his flesh-freezing face.

"Oh, I understand," she said, "but what you need to know is I mean to see my son again, and I'll gut anything that makes that less likely."

A low groan rolled from beneath the roots of the smoke tree, where Aris lay hidden in an undercut carved out of the dry riverbank by some long-ago flood. Galaeron, standing watch outside, dropped to his haunches and peered inside, where Ruha kneeled beside the unconscious giant's head, using a wet rag to drip water onto his cracked lips. His broken arm was stretched out beside him, splinted to the straightest pair of branches Galaeron had been able to find in a mile of dry riverbed. A shield-sized circle of charred flesh on his chest marked where the dragon's lightning bolt had entered his body, and a blackened foot marked where it had left. Of the most concern to Galaeron, however, were the giant's black and sunken eyes, which Ruha said were signs of the head injury he had suffered.

Aris groaned again, and a gray tongue appeared between his lips. Ruha squeezed the cloth hard, dribbling water directly onto the tip of the tongue, then tilted her head at the pair of empty waterskins resting on the shadow blanket beside the giant. "More water," she said.

"More?" Each skin held two gallons, and Galaeron had filled them twice already since the dragon attack. "That's a good sign, isn't it?"

Ruha shrugged. "How much would a healthy giant drink in a day? I don't know." She placed the rag in a small hollow she had lined with dragon skin and filled with water. "It takes water to heal, and I would say the matter remains uncertain."

The witch did not look at Galaeron as she spoke, and her voice remained cold. He reached into the undercut and pulled the waterskins off the shadow blanket, then left the scant shade of the smoke tree to creep along the edge of the dry riverbed. Ruha's manner had been much the same since she'd used her air magic to float Aris into the shelter of the undercut. She clearly held Galaeron responsible for the giant's injuries, and he was not so sure he disagreed.

The shock of seeing Aris pinned beneath the dragon had jolted his conscience into asserting itself again, driving his shadow self back down into the dark realm beneath his conscious mind, and he had instantly realized how his actions must have seemed to someone else. Even given the spell he had cast to confuse the dragon when it wheeled on Aris, preventing the witch from attacking the dragon's belly must have reeked of cowardice. If Galaeron doubted his own motivations in that first instance, he did not in the second, when he had used a shadow snare to drag the dragon back to ground. At that point, his only concern had been for the shadow blanket, and it had not even occurred to him that Aris would be further injured when the wyrm crashed into the ground.

The dragon's corpse still lay out on the Saiyaddar, surrounded by a ring of glutted predators and blanketed beneath a mountain of flicking feathers. Galaeron longed to move beyond sight of it, and not only because looking at it reminded him of his terrible selfishness. If a Shadovar patrol or another of Malygris's dragons happened across the corpse, he and his companions were certain to be found. Ruha lacked the magic to move Aris a long distance, and Galaeron was determined never again to use his own. He could no longer touch the Weave at all, and he recognized he was far past the point where he could wield shadow magic without yielding control of himself to his shadow. The next time he cast a spell, he feared, even causing a friend's injury would not be enough to bring him back.

Galaeron reached a clump of giant featherwoods growing along the outer curve of a bend in the riverbed and kneeled beside a deep hole nestled down among the tree's roots. Though the bottom was concealed in shadow, there should have been enough light for an elf to see whether it contained any water. Galaeron saw only murk.

He was not even all that surprised. Since touching the Shadow Weave, he had gradually started to become less and less of an elf. He had lost the ability to enter the Reverie and started to sleep just like a human, and even to dream. He was awakened by nightmares almost nightly and occasionally talked in his sleep, and he no longer felt any mystic connection in the presence of other elves. He could no longer see in dim conditions. It was, he had decided, a symptom of his shadow's growing hold over him. Elves were born with a special bond to the Weave and his connection was being weakened by the Shadow Weave's power over him. The only thing that remained was for his senses to grow as dull as those of a human. He thought of himself running around with a three-day sweat, thinking he smelled as fine as a spring rain, and shuddered.

Galaeron dropped a pebble into the hole and heard only a wet thud. The hole had not yet refilled. He gathered himself up and wandered half a mile down the riverbed to the next well-also in the roots of a feather-wood-and found water. Ruha had explained that it was only worth digging under a featherwood, and only when they grew on the exterior curve of a river bend.

Though even this short trip in the hot sun was enough to make Galaeron thirsty, he filled both waterskins first, and by then there was barely a handful of muddy liquid left for him. He quaffed it down gratefully, then shouldered the waterskins and climbed out of the well to find a tall, silver-haired woman in elven chain mail, elven boots, and an elven cloak standing before him, her hand resting on the hilt of a fine elven long sword. The woman, however, was definitely human-and one he recognized from an ancient portrait hanging in the halls of Evereska's Academy of Magic.

"Well met, Lady Silverhand," Galaeron said, holding out one of the waterskins. "If you're not my dying hallucination…"

"You should be that lucky, elf," Storm said, not taking the waterskin. "After the evil you brought into the Realms, I'll send you to the Nine Hells to look for Elminster before I let you die a peaceful death in Anauroch."

"The Mage Masters at the Academy always said you were the merriest of the Seven Sisters," Galaeron retorted, concealing the hurt the words caused him behind a facade of cynicism. He hefted the waterskins onto his shoulders and started for the undercut. "If you are about to open a hell-mouth beneath my feet, at least wait until I deliver this water. My friend Aris is in danger of dying."

"I didn't come here to punish you, elf," Storm said, ignoring Galaeron's attempt to elicit her concern for the stone giant. "That is not my place-even were you worth the trouble."

Galaeron glanced up at the blazing sun and licked his cracked lips, then asked, "Well then, if you didn't come to help and you didn't come to punish, what are you doing here?"

"Delivering a message on behalf of Khelben Arun-sun," she said. "He asks that I inform you that your sister Keya is well."

Galaeron nearly dropped the precious waterskins. "Keya is safe?" he gasped. "The siege has been lifted?"

"Not exactly," Storm replied, "but the shadowshell has weakened the phaerimm deadwall. Khelben is in the city."

Galaeron was so astonished he couldn't quite think of what to say. The Chosen of Mystra seldom took an interest in the affairs of individual people-how could they, when they were so few and those who needed them so many? — yet here was Storm Silverhand, delivering a message from Khelben Arunsun about his younger sister Keya. It was so far beyond likely that Galaeron grew convinced he was suffering heat hallucinations.

Resolving to waste no more of his energy on illusions, he clamped his jaw shut and fixed his attention on the undercut where Aris lay resting.

The hallucination walked along at his side. "That's all?" she asked. "Not even a 'thank you for your trouble'?"

Galaeron ignored her and continued toward the undercut.

"Well, you would at least be wise to thank Khelben," the illusion said. "He's going to a great deal of effort to undo the trouble you and that shadow wizard unleashed."

"That may be true," Galaeron said, speaking aloud in the hope that the sound of his own voice would lend impact to his logic, "but why would Khelben Arunsun trouble himself to deliver a message about my sister?"

The hallucination made a lifting gesture with her hands, and both waterskins rose off Galaeron's shoulders. Thinking he had dropped them and was simply imagining this to conceal the fact, he cried out and dropped to his knees and began to run his fingers through the sand. The dry sand.

The hallucination came over to stand in front of Galaeron, holding both waterskins.

"He feels obligated," she said. "Your father saved his life at the Battle of Rocnest." "My father?" Galaeron asked. "Did he…"

The hallucination shook her head. "He died in the battle." For the first time, a soft look came to her eyes. "I'm sorry."

Galaeron let his shoulders slump and was relieved to feel himself crying. At least he was still that much of an elf.

"None of that, elf-from the looks of it, you don't have the water to spare," Storm said, starting down the riverbed with the waterskins in hand. "Why didn't you levitate these? That's what magic is for."

"Not for me, not any longer," Galaeron said, rising. "I've a friend lying in there injured because I couldn't control my shadow magic, and I'll not insult him by using it now." Storm glanced over. "Really? Even to save his life?" Galaeron shook his head. "He wouldn't want it."

"You sound awfully sure of that." She studied him for a moment, then added, "Or maybe awfully scared."

Leaving Galaeron to ponder the truth of her words, Storm stepped into the air and flew the rest of the way to the undercut. She poked her head through the smoke tree's root and began to speak with Ruha. By the time Galaeron arrived, Storm was already inside dribbling her third healing potion into Aris's half-open lips. Though the giant's eyes were open, he remained as pale as a pearl and looked too weak to lift his head, even had there been room.

Storm tossed the empty vial aside, opened a fourth, and began to dribble it into the giant's half-open mouth.

"This is the last one for now, my large friend. They said five would be too many, even for a giant."

"Even for a giant?" Galaeron echoed, starting to realize that there was more to Storm's appearance than she had told him. "Milady Silverhand, exactly how did you know where to find us?"

Instead of answering, Storm exchanged glances with Ruha, and Galaeron suddenly knew the answer to his own question.

He looked at the witch and asked, "Was it Malik you were watching, or me?"

"You have a very large opinion of your value, don't you, elf?" Storm asked, her eyes sparkling in amusement. "It was the Shadovar we sent her to watch. You, we know already."

Galaeron found himself smiling, then-to his own surprise-he began to do something he had not done in a very long time. He began to laugh.

Keya was in Treetop on her Reverie couch, reliving in her mind the last homeagain embrace she had shared with her brother, when a white snow finch appeared outside her room's theurglass window and politely fluttered its wings. Rousing herself from her daze, she uttered the command word to make the theurglass passable, then swung her feet to the floor and extended her finger to form a perch. On the way across the room, however, the bird noticed Dexon slumbering on the floor and circled the Vaasan's hairy mountain of a body, nearly coming to a bad end when his wingtip brushed the sleeping warrior's nose and a massive hand rose up to swat at the disturbance.

The finch dived to safety, then flew up and, chirping in indignation, landed on Keya's finger.

"That is no concern of yours, Manynests," Keya said sternly. "Besides, he has to sleep somewhere." Manynests warbled a question. "That is none of your business," Keya retorted, "and I don't want you spreading it about Evereska that we are." He chirped an assurance.

"I'm serious about this," Keya warned. "I'm sure you wouldn't want your mate to learn the real reason Lord Duirsar calls you Manynests."

The finch ruffled his feathers, then repeated his promise in a lower tone that, from what Keya understood of peeptalk, indicated a solemn vow. Given what a compulsive gossip Manynests was, she suspected her secret had about even odds of remaining secret.

"Are you here just to spy on me, or does Lord Duirsar require something?"

Manynests ruffled his wings and asked about Khelben’s whereabouts. "Did you try the contemplation?" she asked.

The bird chirped his thanks and flew out the door- then circled back into the room and tweeted a suggestion that she fetch the other Vaasans and join them there. His speech was urgent and rapid, as though he had just recalled the importance of his errand. "Very well," she said. "We'll be there in a minute."

She roused Dexon and told him to fetch the others, then pulled on a robe and went down to her father's old contemplation, which was serving Khelben as a study and magic laboratory. By the time she arrived, the arch-mage was interrogating Manynests in peeptalk too rapid for Keya to follow. His battle cloak was spread open on the table, and Khelben was furiously stuffing gem powders, balls of brimstone, glass cylinders, and other spell ingredients into its component pockets. The archmage did not even look up as Keya entered the room.

"Lord Duirsar is calling the city to arms," Khelben said. "The phaerimm are massing outside the mythal."

Manynests tipped his head in Keya's direction and chirped something too fast for her to follow.

"Slow down, bird!" she admonished. "Master Colbathin what?"

"Says you are free to fight in my company, if I have a place for you," Khelben translated. "Welcome."

Manynests added another series of peeps, this time slow enough that Keya understood that the Long Watch would be assembling for battle in the meadow outside the Livery Gate. "So I am free to choose?" Keya asked.

Manynests chirped a confirmation and took wing, circling toward the window and warbling about all the other messages he had to deliver.

Keya uttered the command word to open the theurglass, then said, "I'll fetch my armor and weapons."

"Good," Khelben said. "We'll assemble in the foyer-I want to conserve my teleport magic for battle."

"Battle?" Dexon echoed, leading Kuhl and Burlen into the room. "What battle?" "The phaerimm are massing-"

That was as much as Keya said before the Vaasans turned and pounded off to armor themselves. She returned and pulled on her own armor-a hauberk of fine Evereskan chain mail and her father's magic helmet-then gathered her weapons and rushed down to the foyer. Khelben and the three humans were already waiting, looking out the door at the great sheets of spell-light already flashing across the surface of the mythal. As they watched, golden meteors began to rain down into the Vine Vale as the mythal activated its most ferocious-and best-known-defense. The phaerimm assault only intensified.

"What're the Hill Elders thinking?" Dexon growled. "I'd wager my shield arm that shower of magic bolts is what the thornbacks want." "The mythal is a living thing," Keya explained. "The Hill Elders know better than any of us that the phaerimm are trying to drain it, but no one can prevent it from defending itself-or Evereska."

"Which is all the more reason we should hurry." Khelben stepped through the door and continuing to speak over his shoulder, led the way head-first down the exterior of the tower. "Their success is not certain, but it is very possible. The more we kill-and the faster-the better the mythal's chances of holding."

"We're attacking?" Dexon gasped from a few feet above and behind Keya.

"That's what I intend to recommend to Lord Duirsar, yes," Khelben said. He reached the bottom of the tower and dropped off the wall into the Starmeadow, then turned to face Dexon. "Unless you know of a better way to kill phaerimm."

Dexon frowned, then swung his feet around and dropped to the ground beside Khelben. Armed and armored elves were rushing past on all sides, descending toward the juncture of trails at Dawnsglory Pond and continuing from there toward their assigned mustering points.

"I was thinking of Keya," Dexon said. He spoke quietly- though not quietly enough for Keya's keen elf ears to miss. "There's no reason she has to go, is there?"

"Only that this is my home we are defending," Keya said, jumping to the ground beside him. "You wouldn't be trying to rid yourself of me, would you Dex?" The big Vaasan blushed. "No, of course not."

"Then you must think me incapable of carrying my weight in such an elite band of phaerimm killers." She grabbed one of the barbed trophy tails tucked into his belt and gave it a flick. "Perhaps you think I am not brave enough." "I know you are brave enough," Dexon said, looking to his fellows for help-and finding nothing but amused grins, "b-but you don't have a darksword." "Neither does Khelben," Keya pointed out.

Dexon rolled his eyes. "Khelben is one of the Chosen."

"Dexon just couldn't stand to see you hurt." Kuhl grabbed them by the arms and led them after Khelben, who was already halfway down the trail to Dawnsglory Pond. He leaned closer to Keya, then added in a quiet voice, "If you ask me, I think all those moonlight swims have gone and made him sweet on you."

Keya blushed and, unsure whether Kuhl was joking or really had not noticed how close she and Dexon had become, disengaged herself and glanced over at her Vaasan lover. As large and hairy as a bear, his emotions were in many ways just as alien to her. She had no doubts about the depths of his feelings-she would have known that by the way Khelben frowned whenever he saw them together, if nothing else-but it had never occurred to her that his passion would manifest itself in such a protective streak. To an elf, such paternalism implied that he believed her incapable of making her own decisions, and elves were not in the habit of falling in love with those whom they held in such low regard.

But humans were different. She had seen the way Dexon glowered when the other Vaasans looked at her during their swims, and she had noticed how he often tried to keep them away from her when the water games began. His affection for her seemed to manifest itself as though she were a treasure he feared someone might steal-and, with a sudden rush of comprehension, she understood that was almost true.

Their love was a treasure-and humans viewed treasure not as beautiful artwork to be shared with others, but as coins and gems to be hidden safely away. They were like dragons that way-and they would fight just as ferociously to protect their hoard. If, on the battlefield, Keya were to be threatened, Dexon would forget all else-his own safety, his duty to help Khelben, even the many thousand Evereskans whose lives were at peril-and rush to defend her.

They reached Dawnsglory Pond, where Khelben turned uphill toward Cloudhome, Lord Duirsar's citadel. Burlen and Kuhl started after him at once, but Keya stopped and turned down the slope toward the Livery Gate.

Dexon caught her arm and motioned up the hill. "Lord Blackstaff went this way."

"I know," Keya said, pointing down the hill, "but I must go that way."

"Then you're not coming with us?" Dexon looked almost as confused as he did relieved.

Keya shook her head. "My place is with the Long Watch."

"The Long Watch?" Dexon gasped. "But they've no training!"

Keya frowned. "More than you know," she said, raising her chin. "Our hearts are brave. We'll give a good accounting of ourselves."

"For as long as it takes the phaerimm to cast one spell!" Dexon objected, trying to pull her up the hill. "The Long Watch is fodder. You're coming with us."

Keya twisted her arm free. "No, Dex, you were right. I don't belong in Khelben's company."

She grabbed his shoulders and pulled herself up to kiss him on the lips, then let go and dropped back to the ground a pace away. "I'll see you after the battle," she said.

"If we win," Dexon said, shaking his head and starting after her. "I can't let you-"

"Yes, Dexon, you can, and you will." Khelben's strong hand caught him by the shoulder and pulled him back. "Say your farewells."

Dexon's eyes grew a little glassy, then he kissed his beefy fingers and turned them toward Keya. "Till swords part."

Keya smiled and returned the gesture. "Back soon for soft songs and bright wine."

Khelben pushed Dexon into the arms of his waiting companions. He made a shooing motion and mumbled something Keya did not quite catch. "I'm sorry," she said. "What was that?"

"Just the usual," Khelben said, turning away. "Sweet water and light laughter."

To Keya, that didn't sound like what he'd mumbled. Not even close.