The Sorcerer

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

2 Eleasias, the Year of Wild Magic

Galaeron arrived in a tangle of arms both human and elf, Vala clasping his shoulders on one side, Takari tucked against his ribs on the other, Kuhl standing opposite, encompassing them all in a great bear hug and glaring down as though he wasn't quite convinced that Galaeron's transformation from phaerimm to elf was a return to true form.

The air reeked of brimstone and charred flesh, and it resounded with booms and cracks and wails. Still struggling with teleport afterdaze, Galaeron recalled he had been somewhere else trying to flee some impending cataclysm. The air had smelled the same there, and the battle din had been just as loud. He began to fear they had not escaped after all, that they were about to suffer the consequences of whatever terrible event they had been fleeing.

Galaeron glanced up at the canopy of a bluetop forest and cringed at the familiarity of it.

"I think the mythal rebuffed-"

He was about to say "my teleport spell" when a leaden brilliance filtered through the wood. He was jolted by a tremendous concussion-a concussion that erupted in the pit of his stomach and blasted outward. His palms and soles went numb, his eardrums thumped, and pain filled his head.

He found himself on his hands and knees with Vala, Takari, and Kuhl, thinking they were all going to die and wondering why the mythal had interfered with his magic when it normally deflected translocational spells only when they crossed its perimeter. Of course, Galaeron had used shadow magic. Months before a healthy mythal had prevented Melegaunt from touching the Shadow Weave, but in its weakened state, it had not obstructed any of the shadow spells Galaeron cast outside the Groaning Cave.

This was as far as Galaeron's thoughts went before it occurred to him that he had already survived the shock wave. The roaring in his ears was actually a deafening silence, he realized, and the ground beneath him had not shuddered once with the impact of a falling bluetop. He rose to his knees, glancing around, and saw that while the wood was familiar, it was not the one beneath the Groaning Cave. The undergrowth had been allowed to offer shelter to the birds and animals, and the terrain was not as steep.

Perhaps they had reached Starmeadow after all. Galaeron started to rise… and was pulled back down by Kuhl's meaty paw. The Vaasan used fingertalk to call for silence, then slipped back into the underbrush as stealthily as any elf. When Vala and Takari did the same, Galaeron dropped to his belly and followed, then turned and peered through a bush.

Starmeadow lay directly ahead, its small expanse layered in acrid fume and its lush grasses blackened from battle. At the far end, Dawnsglory Pond had turned pink with spilled blood and was still boiling from some blast of magical heat. Bodies both elf and otherwise lay strewn along the far side, where the Chosen and the Company of the Cold Hand had been attacked while still dazed. Like Galaeron and his companions, those out on the battlefield were already starting to recover and rise. Both sides seemed to have been unprepared for the fighting, with the elves and their allies caught out in the open and the phaerimm and their mind-slaves strewn haphazardly along the meadow edge adjacent to Galaeron and his companions.

An elf in tattered armor picked up a darksword and used it to lop off the tentacled head of a mind flayer. A phaerimm floated up and countered with a black ray that left a melon-sized hole in the warrior's chest. Another elf sprang up, catching the sword before it hit the ground, and charged the killer. The battle burst into full rage, silver bolts and white flashes tracing brilliant streaks through the air, flames bursting up from the blackened ground, heads and chests and bodies rupturing from no visible cause. Even the mythal exerted itself to join in, pelting Evereska's enemies with a hail of slushy pellets that dissolved on their shoulders and had no effect except to make the elves fight harder.

Galaeron thought of Keya and wanted to charge out onto the field to find her, but the calmer part of him-the darker, more cunning part-held back. Foolish heroics would accomplish nothing except a foolish death, and Keya needed him alive. The entire Company of the Cold Hand needed him, as did Khelben and the other Chosen, as did all of Evereska. He was the only one who understood the phaerimm, who knew how to defeat them. He had to work toward his purpose and trust his sister to keep herself alive. To do anything less was to betray the warrior spirit in her… and that of Evereska herself.

Galaeron found the Chosen near Dawnsglory Pond, still in their phaerimm disguises and hurling spells back into the main body of the Company of the Cold Hand. At first, he thought they were just trying to protect their identities and escape until they could execute his plan. It took a moment of careful observation before he realized that their spells were all flash and thunder, and that they were carefully positioning themselves to catch the phaerimm in a flanking attack. Seeing they could do even better, he backed deeper into the underbrush, then motioned for the others to arm themselves and follow.

Kuhl moved more like a forest cat than the cave bear he so resembled, and the four companions slipped around the phaerimm flank guard. Galaeron sprang out of a bush behind an illithid, and the thing's heart stopped beating before it realized someone had driven a sword through it. As Galaeron was dropping back out of sight, Takari's death arrow droned past his head and killed the illithid's beholder partner, then Vala and Kuhl charged out of the underbrush to attack four astonished bugbears. The closest pair raised their battle-axes to block. The Vaasans' darkswords slashed through the thick oak shafts like bread, then opened the throats of both creatures. The second pair of bugbears, alarmed as well as stunned, thought better of fighting and turned to roar the alarm.

It was a bad mistake. Galaeron hurled a dark bolt, Takari fired two more death arrows, and the Vaasans threw their darkswords. Only Vala targeted the nearest one, but her black blade sank to the hilt between the monster's shoulder blades. He took three more steps, then crashed to the ground in a lifeless heap. The other bugbear fell where he was, head lost to Galaeron's magic, heart burst by Kuhl's darksword, legs shriveling around Takari's black arrows.

The first sign of a counterattack came when a huge blue-top trunk burst into flaming splinters. A terrific cracking echoed down through the boughs, and Galaeron looked up to find what seemed an entire sky of leaves and trunk crashing down toward him. He flicked a wad of shadowstuff up at it and shouted a word in ancient Netherese. A web of dark strands appeared overhead, anchoring itself to surrounding trees to catch the falling bluetop.

The swirling crackle of meteor stones reverberated through woods from somewhere ahead. Galaeron dived behind the nearest bluetop and glimpsed a smoke trail bending toward him as the pebbles adjusted course. They struck the tree with a series of staccato bangs. He scrambled forward and peered around the other side of the trunk and almost lost his head to a black ray. He rolled back in the other direction and was flash-blinded by a fork of oncoming lightning.

Galaeron dropped flat and bit dirt as the bolt cracked past overhead. With time passing at the same rate for everyone, he was no match for a phaerimm. He pulled back, readied a shadow shield, and barely had time to raise it before the undergrowth parted a dozen paces away and a thornback head rose into view.

Vala emerged behind it, ran her darksword down the length of its back, and disappeared back into the brush just before a beam of green radiance disintegrated the foliage where she had been standing. Takari's bow sang, and the ray vanished. Vala leaped up, waving a severed phaerimm tail in Galaeron's direction, and started through the forest again.

Before following, Galaeron said, "Khelben, they're trapped between us. We're coming from the opposite end."

By the time he rolled out from behind the tree, Kuhl had already killed a second phaerimm rushing to aid the one that Vala had slain. Galaeron returned to his place in the battle line, and they sneaked through the undergrowth, slaying several more bugbears and two more illithids before Takari threw her voice into the trees overhead and gave a warning bird whistle.

A conflagration of fireballs and lightning bolts streaked up toward the sound, setting two bluetops ablaze and showering the forest floor with burning boughs and broken limbs. Galaeron followed one of the spells to its source and spied what appeared to be a cone-shaped log standing suspiciously upright in the heart of big honey bramble about twenty paces ahead. He sent a flight of shadow arrows streaking toward the log, then dived for cover and started rolling. He was helped along the way by several concussion waves and a wall of magical heat.

By the time Galaeron stopped, the forest ahead was disintegrating into splinters and flame. He came to his knees and found an illithid stumbling in his direction, its tentacled head looking wide-eyed back over its shoulder. Galaeron barely had time to draw his sword before the thing ran onto the point and impaled itself. He finished the job with a few blade flicks, then shoved the illithid away.

The situation was much the same along the rest of the battle line, and Galaeron had no doubt that it was because the Chosen were behind the enemy, attacking. The phaerimm mind-slaves were blindly fleeing the inferno, running headlong into Vala and Kuhl. The Vaasans were taking a terrible toll, spinning and whirling, cutting in two any monster that came within reach of their darkswords and using their pommels to knock unconscious the occasional elf mind-slave.

But there were only two of them and easily a hundred mind-slaves. Dozens slipped past and crashed off through the brush. Takari did her best to stop the monsters, emptying her quiver into their backs and slowly working her way forward so she could conserve arrows by plucking once-fired shafts out of dead bodies. Galaeron used shadow bolts to cut down a pair of bugbears and a beholder angling toward her back, then Takari felled a fleeing illithid, and there were no more enemies.

The patter of falling rain sounded behind Galaeron. He turned to find a small torrent deluging the battle line, dousing the fire and filling the wood with billowing steam. The storm would do nothing to save the trees already burning, but it would at least prevent the flames from spreading.

When a trio of phaerimm emerged from the steam cloud, Galaeron found himself preparing a shadow bolt. He knew by how the forest murk seemed to cling to their bodies that they were the Chosen, but that didn't prevent him from cringing. The disguise was more convincing than he had realized, and he suddenly understood why it had been so hard to convince Keya of his identity back at the Groaning Cave.

"A sad thing to lose so many bluetops," Khelben said, twisting his head-disk around to look back toward the battle line. "Most are older than I am."

"Evereska has been invaded," Galaeron said. "The trees must pay along with the rest of us."

Takari's jaw dropped in outrage. She started to rebuke him for saying such a thing, then reconsidered and simply cast an accusing look in Vala's direction.

Vala shrugged and said, "Don't look at me. I'm not the one who told him to embrace his shadow."

"I'm not saying we should let the forest burn," Galaeron retorted. "Only that we should remember what will become of Evereska's forests if we let the phaerimm take Evereska."

"Sometimes the lesser of two evils is the only good possible," Laeral agreed. She started toward the edge of the meadow. "Let's see if Keya needs help, shall we?"

But the Company of the Cold Hand had the situation well in hand. Without their phaerimm masters to guide and intimidate them, most of the mind-slaves had already lost interest in fighting and started to withdraw. It required only a couple of thunderbolts from the flank to turn the retreat into a rout, and Evereska's forces were alone in the field only a few minutes later.

Keya gave orders to gather the wounded and retrieve the darkswords, then waved Aris out of his hiding place on the opposite side of the meadow and came over to join Galaeron and the others. With a battle-jaded face and worry lines in her brow as deep as field furrows, she looked immeasurably older and grimmer than when Galaeron had last seen her, but stronger as well. With Burlen at her back, she stopped and gave Vala a warm-though weary-embrace, then stepped back and studied her brother.

There was a hardness in her eyes that made Galaeron worry she blamed him for what had happened in Evereska, and he began to fear their reunion would be less than a joyful one. He was more than willing to accept responsibility for his blunders, but the thought that his mistakes might drive a wedge between him and his sister was more than he could bear. It was bad enough that the war he started had taken their father from them; that it should also destroy the little that remained of his family would be a punishment worthy of Loviatar.

Finally, Keya dropped a hand to her protruding belly and said, "You heard, I suppose?"

Wondering what her pregnancy had to do with his mistakes, Galaeron replied, "Storm told me."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Keya moved her hand back to the hilt of the darksword hanging in her scabbard and said, "You might as well say it and be done with it."

Galaeron frowned, puzzled.

"What is there to say?"

Keya cringed, but tightened her lips and visibly began to gather herself.

"I know this isn't something you expected, but I'm over eighty years old. I can make my own decisions-and it's not like there was anyone here to ask."

"Ask," Galaeron repeated. "About what?"

Vala nudged him the back with her elbow. "The baby."

"You roth?!" Takari hissed. "Have you gone completely human?"

Finally, Galaeron realized that Keya did not blame him for what had happened in Evereska, that she was not even thinking about the war. She was frightened, not angry, and she only wanted the same thing from him that he wanted from her. He started to laugh, which only made Keya set her jaw.

"Is that all you're worried about? What / think?" Galaeron asked. He took her by the shoulders. "I can't tell you how happy that makes me!"

Now it was Keya who looked puzzled.

"Why wouldn't I care what you think?"

Before Galaeron could answer, Takari interposed herself between the two.

"Galaeron is very happy for you," she said, "and he thinks Dex will make a wonderful father… for a human. Right, Galaeron?"

"Of course," Galaeron said. "I only thought-"

"And Keya is happy to have you back," Takari said. "No matter what the Golds say, she knows this isn't your fault. Isn't that true, Keya?"

"Even the Golds know the Shadovar tricked you," Keya said. "They've been planning this for centuries."

Takari nodded to Burlen and said, "Let's s get out of here before the phaerimm come back to finish the job."

"Come back?" Galaeron repeated. "That’s s the one thing we don't have to worry about. No phaerimm survivor is ever going to admit he was defeated."

Keya and Takari exchanged looks, then Keya said, "Galaeron, they always come back."

"They're determined to wipe out the Company of the Cold Hand," Takari added, "but we're making them pay."

"Determined?" Galaeron did not like the sound of that "You mean they're still fighting an organized battle?"

Burlen scowled down at Galaeron and grumbled, " 'Course they're organized. You want to kill a wolf pack, you'd better be more organized than they are."

"So they're all working together?" Galaeron asked. This felt wrong to him, contrary to all Melegaunt had learned about the phaerimm during his century of spying. "None are fighting over Evereska's magic? None are trying to claim the best lair?"

Keya said, "They're too busy hunting us." She turned to Burlen and said, "Have the war mages lay some death wards. Well rendezvous at the Floating Gardens to plan our next strike."

Burlen had barely turned to pass the order along before the Company of the Cold Hand began to melt into the woods. Keya took Galaeron by the hand and, motioning for the others to follow, started through the forest toward the back side of Dawnsglory Pond.

"Glad homeagain, brother-such as home is these days." Keya threw a disgusted scowl in the direction of the Chosen, then quietly asked, "Why the phaerimm costumes? We almost killed you."

"My idea," Galaeron said. "I expected the phaerimm to be at each others' throats by now. We were going to fan the flames, make it look like they were killing one another and stealing each other's plunder. We'd hoped to start an all-out battle between them."

They reached the near bank of Dawnsglory Pond. Keya paused to send Takari to scout ahead with Kuhl and Burlen, and Vala decided to go along. As they had vanished into the undergrowth, Keya looked back to Galaeron.

"What made you think they'd fall for something like that?"

"I was wondering the same thing," Khelben said, speaking over their shoulders. He and the Silverhand sisters remained disguised as phaerimm. "Clearly, Galaeron's source was mistaken."

"No. The information was correct That's why Telamont wanted me back."

"It would not be the first time the Shadovar have fooled you-or me," Laeral said, laying a pair of spindly phaerimm hands on his shoulders. They are never playing the game we think. That’s s what makes them so hard to defeat"

"Or maybe something's changed," Storm added. "Whatever.

But these disguises have served their purpose. If the phaerimm are coordinating their efforts, I doubt we're going to fool them again-and, to tell the truth, I'm tired of dressing like an overgrown slug."

"As am I," Laeral agreed. "The next time I'm attacked, I'd rather it not be by elves."

Galaeron dispelled the disguise magic but remained convinced that the information Melegaunt had worked so hard to gather would not simply grow outdated. There was something about the situation he did not yet understand.

They started through the forest after Takari and the other scouts, and Galaeron said, "Keya, hunting the Company of the Cold Hand can't be the only thing the phaerimm are doing in Evereska. What else are they doing?"

"That we know about?" Keya replied. "For one, they're keeping Lord Duirsar and Kiinyon Colbathin trapped in the palace on Cloudcrown."

"Alone?"

Keya shook her head. "Lord Duirsar has a circle of high mages from Evermeet, and Zharilee is there with what remains of the Long Watch."

"How do you know all this?" Khelben asked, walking along on Keya's far side. "I've tried to reach both Lord Duirsar and Kiinyon with magic and heard nothing back."

"The phaerimm have besieged the palace with an antimagic shell," Keya reported, "but Manynests comes and goes as he pleases."

"They're holding Lord Duirsar prisoner?" Galaeron asked.

"Isolating him," Keya corrected. "They couldn't breach the palace wards, so they prevented him from leaving."

"More likely the High Mages," Laeral observed. "If the Company of the Cold Hand is giving them trouble-"

"That*s it!" Galaeron burst. "The high mages!"

"What about them?" Khelben asked.

Instead of answering, Galaeron stopped and took his sister by the shoulders.

"You said 'for one thing,' the phaerimm were keeping Lord Duirsar trapped," he said. "What are the other things?"

"Aside from the fighting you'd expect in any battle, there's really only one other thing," Keya said. "About ten of them have gathered at Hanali Celanil's statue. We haven't tried to penetrate their security perimeter, but Manynests says they're using a lot of magic."

"I'll bet they are," Khelben said.

Keya appeared perplexed by this remark, but Galaeron had a feeling he knew exactly what Khelben meant

"That's where the mythal was cast?" Galaeron gasped. This was a secret so closely guarded that, aside from Lord Duirsar and the city's high mages, only Evereska's most loyal friend among the Chosen would be privy to it. "At the statue of Hanali Celanil?"

"I doubt there was a statue there when it was cast," Khelben said. "And I wasn't there, you understand."

"But that's what you've been given to understand," Galaeron concluded. Conviction and excitement began to well up inside him as half-formed thoughts raced through this mind, fitting all the pieces of the puzzle into place. "That would explain why they haven't fallen into quarreling yet"

"It does?" This from Aris, who had been creeping along behind them. "They're feeding off the mythal?"

"Not feeding," Galaeron said. "Feeding would cause fights."

"Dismantling, then," Khelben said, following the line of Galaeron's reasoning. "They're taking it apart spell by spell."

"So the magic will return to the Weave?" Keya asked. "Why would they do that?"

"Because the magic won't return to the Weave," Storm said. "It's not raw anymore. It can't"

"The magic will stay here, inside the boundaries of the old mythal," Laeral explained. "It'll infuse the whole area."

They came to the path that led from Dawnsglory Pond up to Starmeadow Tower. Hearing Takari's all-clear warble, they crossed to Goldmorn Knoll and traversed the slope, the woods more open and therefore more dangerous.

Once the entire group was safely across, Khelben looked down over Keya's head and said to Galaeron, "It seems the phaerimm have learned to share. That hardly sounds like the creatures you claimed you could have warring with themselves inside a day."

"It doesn't," Galaeron agreed, "but if they have learned to share, it's only because a leader has emerged who is strong enough to dictate terms."

"If a strong leader has emerged among the phaerimm," Laeral said, "we dare not let them have Evereska."

Storm nodded and made a fist, which she touched lightly to Galaeron's shoulder.

"Not if we value the rest of Faer?n, we don't"

•©••©•• • •©•

The snowfinch was up in the tree again, peering down through the bluetop boughs at the ring of phaerimm hovering around the statue of the elf goddess. It did not peep either in alarm or complaint and in fact seemed to be spying on their progress, but Arr did not dare blast the feathered nuisance. The SpellGather had finally found a thread of loose magic and was about to pull the first spell from the mythal, and the last thing she wished to do was disrupt their concentration.

Even with Zay and Yao, and eight more of the finest spell artists of her race-or any other-working nonstop since they entered the city, her plan had yet to yield a breath of magic. Already, two young softthorns had violated the War-Gather's edict against plunder-taking, and she had been forced to promise Tuuh a service gift to hunt them down and pin their skins to the GatherStone as a warning to others. And now there was talk of four longbarbs at the Cave-that-Taunts attacking their own kind shortly before the killblast

The members of the WarGather were beginning to doubt her plan, especially her ability to prevent loot-taking. She could sense that much in their frequent inquiries about the SpellGather's progress and in the gusts with which they warned one another away from the great armory at the Academy of Magic. Her plan had to start freeing the mythal's magic soon, or the WarGather would dissolve around her. Arr had no illusions about what would befall her then. She had promised too many gifts, and forgiveness was not a virtue of the phaerimm.

Ryry emerged from the forest behind Arr and floated to her side.

"How goes it?" Ryry asked.

"You shall have your spell crown," Arr gusted. "What news from the Cave-that-Taunts?"

"After the killblast, now it is calling us flatworms," Ryry reported. "It claims the spell was its doing."

Arr found herself curling her tail. She forced it straight again, then decided that had to be a lie. Who had ever heard of a cave that could cast spells?

Then I am certain," Arr began, "that you asked why it killed so many elves along with our dozen and a half."

"Of course."

Several of the SpellGather phaerimm began to work their four arms over each other as though pulling a long rope. Arr put a hand out to silence Ryry and went still as stone, praying that they finally had a thread, even a small one, to demonstrate the progress she had promised the WarGather.

The finch peeped.

The arms of the spell artists fell motionless one after the other, and they returned to pluck at the strand they had found. Arr gnashed her pointed teeth and checked again to see if there was any magic on the bird, but it seemed as null as a rock. Another peep like that, she vowed, and it would be a rock, and she didn't care how many days of concentration the spellcasting shattered.

Calming herself, Arr turned her attention back to Ryry and asked, "What was the cave's reply?"

"It had none," Ryry answered smoothly. "Its claim was a lie, I am sure."

"No doubt," Arr answered. It was almost certainly Ryry who was lying-to cover for her oversight-but Arr would only alienate a fellow member of the WarGather by making the accusation. "It is an insult that a hole in the ground speaks our language."

"Indeed."

"What of the four betrayers?" Arr asked.

"They are not betrayers."

Ryry's thorns bristled with pride. Arr waited in stillness, for she had learned the value of allowing allies their moment

"They are impostors," Ryry said at last "Impostors who escaped the killblast and fought with the blackswords at the Starmeadow."

There was a fight at the Starmeadow?"

"Only just completed," Ryry said. "I have sent a killtroop, but you know how quickly the blackswords vanish after they attack."

Arr was still thinking about the betrayers.

"Impostors?" she asked, openly skeptical. "And no one saw through their magic?"

Ryry grew less proud of herself. "They may be shadow pullers," she said. "One of the softhorns who survived saw dark bolts."

"Dark bolts?" Arr repeated. "Did our spies not say Shade had fallen?"

"Nearly fallen," Ryry corrected. "The Chosen have some-how anchored the city over the north end of the lake, but Shade is now stable. It isn't going to fall, not until we bring it down ourselves."

Arr was so shocked she nearly let herself sink to the ground. Tricking the Chosen into destroying Shade for them had been a cornerstone of her plan, but somehow the

Shadovar had prevailed. Could it be true? Could the Shadow Weave be stronger than the Weave?

"Arr?"

Arr did not realize she had let herself sink again until she found herself looking up at Ryry. She used her tall to push herself back into the air.

"Why was I not told of this earlier?"

Ryry angled her thorns back in anger and replied, "If Xayn fails to abide by his promise, I am not to blame."

"Xayn?" Arr repeated, finally getting hold of herself. The blackswords killed Xayn this morning. It is nothing to concern ourselves about"

Ryry's stillness was an accusation.

Arr gestured at the statue of the elf goddess.

"The SpellGather has loosened a strand," she said. "It would take all the princes of Shade to stop us now, and they sent only four."

Ryry brought her four hands together over her dished head and quoted Arr*s oft-repeated refrain, "Together, all things are possible." She steepled her sixteen fingers into a single pyramid, causing the finch overhead to take wing and flee. "Is there a way I can be of service?"

"Yes." Though it would mean the promise of another service gift, Arr pointed after the bird and said, "Kill that finch."