The Summoning

CHAPTER ELEVEN

26Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp Even with a veil of storm clouds sliding along the cliff tops and a snow squall blasting through the gorge, Thousand Faces was more museum than pass. At the entrance stood the statues of two stone giant warriors, so lifelike that their chests seemed to rise and fall with breath. Beyond these guardians stretched the sculpture of an entire stone giant steading, carved into the canyon wall in high relief. There was a smith hammering an axe blank, a hunter carrying a pair of mountain elk by their ankles, a mother watching two sons wrestle, and a hundred other figures farther in, increasingly obscured by the howling blizzard. Above the giants wheeled sculpted snow finches and boulder hawks, the finches darting through a breathtaking maze of tree limbs, the hawks soaring across sublime mountain peaks. There were no beholders in sight, but neither were there any stone giants-at least none of flesh and bone.

"Where did you see these beholders?" whispered Melegaunt.

The wizard was lying between Galaeron and Malik, peering into the canyon from beneath the ground-hugging branches of a spruce tree. Vala was on Galaeron's other side, her body touching his at shoulder and hip.

"Find the law keeper," said Malik. "Look into the door on the right."

Galaeron searched the canyon until he came to an elderly stone giant holding a tablet in one hand and a dagger in the other. Next to him stood a doorway flanked by two columns. It ran only a couple of paces before ending in a wall at the same depth as the rest of the sculpture background, cleverly concealing the portal as a relief of itself. So convincing was the effect that had Galaeron not noticed a swarm of tiny eye-shaped reflections gleaming out of one shadowy corner, he would never have guessed the entrance to be real.

Armed with this insight into the wonder of the giants' art, he reexamined the canyon wall and spotted several other openings. There were two more doorways-one actually disguised as a door and another as the hollow between two trees-and half a dozen windows. A swarm of beholder eyes peered from most of them. "Malik, you saved our lives," said Galaeron. "Thank you."

"I don't know that he saved our lives," grumbled Melegaunt, "but he did save us some trouble. There are more beholders than I expected."

"How can there be so many?" asked Vala. "All the beholders 1 have fought were solitary"

"You live far from beholder civilization," said Melegaunt. "The phaerimm have enslaved a whole city."

"Phaerimm?" gasped Malik. The little man backed out from beneath the tree. "Perhaps it is not so far around the mountains after all."

Melegaunt grabbed the newcomer's cloak. "There aren't any phaerimm here, and I can sneak us past the beholders."

He started to back out from beneath the tree, and Vala said, "You're just going to abandon the stone giants?" Melegaunt did not stop. "They're dead or gone." "Not all of them." Vala pointed near the cliff top, where a distant pair of gray legs extended down out of the clouds to balance on the stone wing of a sculpted eagle. As the companions watched, one foot moved up the cliff in search of a foothold, but found none and reluctantly returned to its former place.

"That complicates things." Melegaunt pushed himself out from beneath the tree. "Well have to hurry, if we are to save him."

"I beg a thousand pardons, but you have clearly lost your mind." Malik crawled after the wizard. "Dead men save no lives!"

"You're free to try another way, of course." Melegaunt stood and started around the shoulder of a small hill. "But there's nothing to worry about. You and the others will go through as I planned. Ill just take a small detour and help the giant off the mountain."

Galaeron found himself racing both Malik and Vala as he scrambled after the wizard into a sheltered draw where they had left their gear and Malik's horse. "You can't do that," Galaeron said.

Melegaunt faced him frowning. "I'll not abandon anyone to become a beholder's plaything, not when it's within my power to prevent it."

"Granted, but you're the only one who knows where we're going and who we're looking for," said Vala, all but taking the words out of Galaeron's mouth. "If something should go wrong…"

Melegaunt looked insulted. "We're only talking about a few beholders." "I can't let you take that chance, not when the fate of' Evereska hangs in the balance," said Galaeron. Despite the objection, Melegaunt's determination to rescue the giant quelled many of the doubts the elf had been having about the wizard. "Ill rescue the giant, unless you'd rather tell me how to find whoever it is we're looking for."

The wizard's expression turned darker than usual. "Be careful what you wish for, young elf." He looked from Galaeron to Vala, then back to Galaeron again. "Very well, we'll do it your way, provided you can still use the other magic I showed you."

Malik's ears perked up at this. "What do you mean, 'other magic?'"

"It doesn't concern you." Melegaunt turned his back on the little man. "And even if it did, there's no time to explain now."

"I understand completely." Malik slipped around to place himself directly between Galaeron and Melegaunt "Only, I have always been given to believe that the Weave is the only source of magic."

Melegaunt scowled at him. "Why should this interest you? Are you a wizard?". "I am a man of many interests," said Malik. "And magic is among them, for my master-" "We'll talk later," interrupted Melegaunt.

He glanced in Vala's direction. She grabbed Malik by the collar and, even as he tried to explain his interest, dragged him away. Her treatment was rough enough to draw a low whinny of warning from the sad-eyed horse.

Melegaunt turned back to Galaeron. "About the other magic-"

"Still available to me," said Galaeron, deciding to keep to himself for the moment just how available. "Here's what I was thinking." Galaeron outlined his plan.

When he finished, Malik called, "You can cast the same spells twice?" He asked this from near his horse, where Vala had dragged him. "How did you know to study those spells more than once? Or can you do this because of the 'other' magic?" "Quiet!" Melegaunt hissed.

He turned to glower, but Vala was already locking an arm around Malik's neck. She slapped her other hand over the newcomer's mouth and deftly put him between herself and his horse when the beast turned to nip at her. "Are you trying to give us away?" she asked. Malik's face paled, and he shook his head.

Melegaunt returned to Galaeron. "Remember, the beholders are less able to detect your shadow magic than the phaerimm, but they can still dispel it. If they notice your presence, stay clear of the rays from their central eyes."

"That lesson I learned from the first one we fought," said Galaeron.

"Good." Melegaunt reached into his sleeve and produced a small wisp of what looked like black fog. "This is shadow silk, the primary element of much shadow-shaping magic. Let me show you a spell that may prove useful, and we'll be on our way."

The wizard started to run through the gestures, then noticed Malik watching. He turned his back to the little man, confiding to Galaeron, "There's something about him I just don't trust."

"Yes, mysterious humans do have a way of raising suspicions," said Galaeron, resisting the temptation to comment on his own uneasiness with the wizard. "You were showing me a variation on a web spell?"

Melegaunt cocked his brow. "I hadn't really thought of it as a web, but yes, I suppose that's the heart of the matter."

The wizard finished his demonstration. Galaeron repeated the words and gestures to make certain he understood them correctly.

"Amazing." Melegaunt could only shake his head. "Magic shouldn't be that easy for anyone."

"It isn't, really," Galaeron confided. "1 must practice like anyone else to learn something new. But when it's basically a spell I already know, it's no big trouble to understand a few changes and what they do."

"A few changes?" Melegaunt shook his head incredulously. "No big trouble indeed!"

He went over to Malik and Vala, then circled his hand over the ground, creating a floating shadow disk similar to the one they had used to transport the wounded elves. Malik watched with interest, then undid the girth strap and placed the saddle in the center of the floating circle.

When the little man removed the bit from her mouth, Melegaunt said, "It's not necessary to leave your horse behind. If we cover her eyes, shell never know we're moving."

"You misunderstand. Kelda needs no blinders," Malik grabbed the mare by the soft halter and had no trouble convincing her to jump onto the disk. "But she has always been a faithful horse, and if you madmen are determined to see us all dead on account of one cowardly giant lacking the courage to die with the rest of his tribe, then I will not have her starving in these mountains because I was too stupid to remove her saddle and bit."

The little man clambered onto the disk and kissed his horse full on the snout Galaeron looked to the other humans and saw by their expressions that they found this behavior as puzzling as he did. Melegaunt and Vala climbed up with Malik, and the wizard cast another spell, turning the platform and everything on it invisible. There was a startled whinny, followed by a whispered request from Malik to please be silent and not get them all killed. A puff of wind stirred the blowing snow into a white eddy, which started down the draw toward the trail and vanished into the general blizzard.

"Well see you on the other side, Galaeron," called Vala. "And be careful."

'You may count on it," said Galaeron. "But if something happens-" "You'll be on your own," said Melegaunt. "Don't worry."

"And that is the most sensible thing any of you have said since I saved you with my fire," added Malik.

Galaeron allowed them another minute to drift safely ahead, then cast two spells on himself. To his surprise, he discovered that the cold magic did not rush into him as it had during the bugbear attack. To make it come, he had to think of his shadow self-to embrace it, really-and open himself to the cold magic's presence. Whether this sluggishness was due to the lack of shadows in the blizzard or because he was not presently overcome by the heat of battle, he did not know. He was just happy to discover he retained more control over his magic than he had thought

Galaeron launched himself over the spruce tree with a gentle leap, then swung toward Thousand Faces well above the heads of the two stone giant guard statues. To avert the possibility of colliding with each other, they had agreed that Galaeron would fly higher than a giant and Melegaunt would stay lower. This put the wizard and the others more directly in the area watched by the beholders, but there was no avoiding it The platform would float no more than a dozen feet off the ground.

Galaeron paused at the canyon entrance and used a spell to search for magic wards. He could see a dozen beholders lurking in the grotto's shadowy portals, the reflections of their eyes flitting about like swarms of golden fireflies. With so many eyes turned in his direction, Galaeron was nervous enough that the cold magic came to him very easily. Though the presence of two sculpted guardians would suggest defensive wards in most elf communities, not so with stone giants. The statues were just that, decorative artworks designed to greet-or perhaps intimidate-anyone entering the canyon.

Galaeron flew on, climbing toward the rim of the gorge. The giant's legs were completely hidden behind a low cloud sliding along the cliff tops, but the elf could still see the stony eagle his feet stood upon. Twenty paces from the great bird. Galaeron was astonished to see a swarm of eyes peering out from a window hidden beneath the bird's great wing. Perhaps the little human had been right, after all. By Tomb Guard doctrine, at least, Galaeron should not even try to rescue the giant. The saving of one life simply did not justify the risking of four. It was good thing no one followed that particular precept.

Galaeron reached the wall and ascended into the clouds, running a hand along the cliff to orient himself in the gray haze. He felt the eagle's wing pass beneath his fingertips, then rose past the blurry silhouette of a foot as long as his forearm. How the enormous toes could cling to such a small ledge he could not imagine, but the huge ankle was trembling with fatigue. Galaeron ascended alongside the giant leg to a giant waist, where he had to swing around a tool belt hung with steel hammers of various sizes, then continued up the giant's flank. He circled away from a cavernous armpit, looped over gnarled biceps, passed a neck as thick as a pillar, and found himself staring into a pair of eyes as big as dinner plates.

Galaeron took a piece of copper filament from his pocket and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. The shadow magic flooded into him, then he pointed at the giant's head and began to whisper. "Don't cry out, giant. You have nothing to fear."

The giant flinched, lost a toe hold, and groaned. Galaeron cursed the big fellow's lack of self-discipline, then slipped a few arm lengths across the cliff and grabbed the shadow silk Melegaunt had given him. A glimmer of hope appeared in the grant's face, and his big eyes roved about in search of his savior.

"Be careful!" Though the giant's whisper seemed as loud as rushing wind, Galaeron did not worry about it being overheard. The spell he had cast would prevent that. "Where are you?"

Before Galaeron could answer, a beholder floated up between him and the giant. The thing was close enough to kick, with several of the small eyestalks waving in the elf's direction, but the creature did not seem to notice Galaeron's invisible presence.

A cone of blue light shot from its huge central eye and began to sweep over the stone giant's body. Galaeron raised his hands to cast the spell Melegaunt had taught him, but stopped when the giant continued to cling to the cliff and showed no more fear than previously. Clearly, neither the giant nor the eye tyrant were surprised to see each other, and Galaeron realized their foes knew Melegaunt better than the wizard thought

The beholder shifted its beam to the cliff and swept it back and forth at random. Keeping a careful watch on the creature's many eyes, Galaeron floated around behind it. By all rights, he should have left instantly, for he knew better than to think he could escape any trap designed to capture Melegaunt. But it was too late. He had already seen the hope in the giant's eyes.

The beholder finished its scan of the cliff face and spun around, flashing its beam back and forth through the cloud. Galaeron tucked in the other side of the giant's torso.

Finally, the beholder gave up and turned to the grant. "What was that groan for?" "1 slipped," the giant said.

"You wouldn't lie to poor Kanabar would you?" As the beholder spoke, one of its smaller eyes swung toward the giant. "Not when Kanabar told the others he had a use for you? You wouldn't lie to Kanabar when he saved your life, would you?" "No, 1 wouldn't lie."

The giant's body tensed as he tried to resist the eye tyrant's charm magic, and Galaeron began to worry. Vala's beholder had slain one of his best scouts with nine eyes cloaked. What hope did he have against one able to use all eleven? The giant spoke again, this time in a higher, almost singsong voice. "Aris would never lie to his friend Kanabar."

Galaeron pushed away from the cliff, then looked across the giant's broad back in time to see a crooked smile come to the beholder's toothy mouth. "That's right," the beholder said. "So, why did Aris groan?"

The giant's body trembled visibly "B-b-because his foot slipped."

"And why did his foot slip?" asked the beholder. 'Tell your friend Kanabar."

As the eye tyrant said this, Galaeron flung a strand of shadow silk in its direction and spoke the incantation Melegaunt had taught him. The beholder's eyes swung toward the sound of his voice, but the spell was a quick one, and in an instant, Kanabar was cloaked in a gummy mass of shadow.

"Hey!" Aris thundered. He turned his head and looked directly at Galaeron, who had turned visible the instant he attacked. "What'd you do to my friend, you stupid elf?"

"He's not your friend," Galaeron said, trying to figure out how he would rescue a becharmed giant. "I am."

Galaeron started to reach for his sword, then had a better idea when he saw the beholder's magic-destroying ray burn through the gummy shadow over its central eye. He rattled off a series of vaguely mystic syllables and tucked in behind the giant's body Desperate to interrupt Galaeron's spell, the beholder swung toward him and ran its blue beam across the giant's back.

The beam flashed across Galaeron's shoulder. He began to fall, but spared himself a long plummet by catching hold of Aris's tool belt. The beholder tried to cry the alarm, but, with its mouth full of shadow gum, managed only a garbled babble.

Looping one arm through the giant's belt, Galaeron drew his sword and braced himself to fight the monster-then gasped as Aris's far hand descended out of the haze and grabbed Kanabar. The beholder looked like a riys melon in the giant's palm. "Friend indeed!" growled the giant.

The beholder mumbled something unintelligible as Aris smashed it into the cliff.

'Thank the leaflord!" Galaeron gasped. "I didn't know if his ray would work on his own charm magic."

"It did," said Aris. "But I fear you have doomed yourself for naught, elf."

The giant pointed to a trio of round forms drifting toward them out of the haze. Galaeron looked behind him and saw another pair, and yet two more rising into the cloud beneath them. He sheathed his sword, then plucked two more threads off the shadow silk Melegaunt had given him. "This seemed like a better idea from down there."

"1 imagine so," said Aris. "Should they becharm me again…"

"No offense taken," said Galaeron. "Do as I say, and it won't come to that."

He dropped first one, then two shadow threads and repeated Melegaunt's spell twice in rapid succession. Though he had learned to do multiple castings at the Academy of Magic, it was the one technique that had not come easily for him-and that had prompted him to practice it until it came even more naturally than everything else. The two enchantments worked perfectly though he was starting to grow tired and felt like the coldness of the new magic would crack his bones.

An alarmed gurgle rose from the beholders as they were engulfed in shadow morass, then they collided with each other and stuck fast. Without waiting to see what effect this would have on the others-though he prayed it would give them pause-Galaeron pointed toward the far end of the pass and cast his most powerful spell. A numbing wave of cold magic rushed through his bones, then a black square appeared just below him and to the side. "Through the door!" he ordered. Aris peered down. "I can't fit-"

"Now!" Still holding onto the belt, Galaeron leaped for the square and hoped the giant would follow. "Jump!"

With a deep bellow, Aris released the cliff and obeyed. Galaeron glimpsed a blue ray sweeping through the clouds toward his magic door, then they plummeted into darkness.

A sudden chill bit at his flesh, and there was a dark eternity of falling. Galaeron grew queasy and weak, heard the stillness of his own heart. His head reeled, his thoughts dissolved into a jumble of ill-defined fears, and he was back in the world, plunging through a howling tempest of white. A deafening bellow filled the air behind him. Galaeron glanced back to find a huge gray figure plummeting alongside him, then a circle of treetops flashed past and the world erupted into a cacophony of cracking and snapping. They tumbled groundward, flipping first one way, then another as they were snagged by passing branches. Galaeron tried to push away from the mountainous figure and found he could not.

In the next instant, he crashed down on the giant and lay in a daze, struggling to recall where he was and where he had come from. A low groan shook the air around him, then he started to swing groundward as the enormous body rolled to its back.

The spell's afterdaze vanished in a flash, and Galaeron knew instantly where he was-and who he was with. "Aris, wait!" The giant gave a startled cry and stopped mid roll. "Elf?"

"The very one." Galaeron pulled his arm free and dropped into the snow. "Are you all right?" "For now." The giant pointed into the storm.

Galaeron scrambled up and peered over Aris's hip. The moon-shaped silhouette of a beholder was careening toward them through the storm, coming so fast it was bouncing into tree trunks. "Do something!" Aris urged. "Another spell!"

"I don't think 1 can." Galaeron was so exhausted from the cold magic that had already passed through him that he could not stop shivering. "I'm too tired."

'Tired?" Aris boomed, clawing through the snow in search of a boulder. "Rest when you're dead!"

Seeing the wisdom in the giant's argument, Galaeron plucked another thread off his ribbon of shadow silk. He tossed it the beholder's direction and started the spell-then cried out in shock as the cold magic gushed into him. His entire body went icy numb and puffed up to half-again its normal size. When he continued the spell, his skin went as rigid as marble and turned as pale as snow. He choked out another word, and his lips grew so stiff and cold that he could barely utter the last syllable.

The beholder instantly became a massive ball of gummy black shadow-then returned to normal when a cone of blue light shot through the blizzard to engulf it from behind.

"There!" Arts pointed at a smaller, more indistinct silhouette trailing the first "Do two, like you did before!" "1–1 can't."

Even as Galaeron said it, he was pulling two more strands off the shadow silk. This time, when he opened himself to the new magic, it blasted straight through him, and his body erupted into molten pain. Galaeron hurled himself screaming into the snow and rolled back and forth. There was no sizzle of melting snow nor hiss of rising steam, but the world suddenly turned very gray and dark, as though he were looking at it through a veil of smoke.

"Elf?" Aris glanced back and gave a bewildered frown, then rolled to his knees with a boulder in his hand. "Elf, do you have a friend here?"

Fighting through the pain, Galaeron pushed himself up and looked in the direction of the beholders. His smoky vision made everything look doubly hazy in the blizzard, but even given that, the first eye tyrant was so close the eyestalks were visibly writhing atop its head. The second was close enough that he could make out the shape of its big central eye, and behind it-for behind-was a figure on horseback. It was hardly a ghost, too faint to tell whether it was Vala or Melegaunt, but one of them.

"The fool!" He struggled to his feet and drew his sword. "Yes, that would be my friend-a friend who shouldn't be here, but a truer one for it."

"What very good news." The giant sounded less exhilarated than he might have. "Then all we must do is survive until he arrives."

Aris hurled his boulder, which soared through the woods and arced down toward the lead beholder. An eye swiveled on the top of its head, then a ray of silver light shot up to intercept the attack. The rock exploded into a spray of pebbles. Judging that they had about two seconds until the creature was close enough to use the ray on them, Galaeron lurched over behind a tree. His legs were numb and sluggish, and the sword in his hand felt more like an awkward orcish blade than one forged in elven fire.

"Keep attacking!" said Galaeron. "Keep their attention focused on us." "That shouldn't be hard."

The giant hurled another boulder, only to have it demolished by another silver ray. Galaeron dashed forward and took shelter behind a slender canyon spruce, then nearly lost his head as a silver beam slashed through the trunk. The top crashed down in front of the beholders, creating a small camouflage barrier. Galaeron hurled himself beneath the boughs and lay very still, relying on the camouflaging magic of his cloak to conceal him until he could attack. "Elf!" Aris sounded panicked. "What are you doing?"

Galaeron didn't answer, until the blue light of an anti-magic ray washed over his shoulder and neutralized his cloak's concealing magic. He rolled out on Aris's side of the fallen tree just as the large beholder sank down on the other side, now using its silver ray to disintegrate a ten-foot swath of boughs.

Galaeron sprang back at the beholder, crashing through the boughs atop the trunk, touching down long enough to spring over and come down on top of the beholder. He brought his sword around and cut half a dozen eyestalks off the head, then whipped the blade around in an arc and drove it into the eye tyrant's skull.

The blade sank to the depth of his thumb, then stopped cold.

"Elf!" Aris let out a sharp huff as he hurled another boulder, then bellowed, "Are you mad?"

Galaeron felt more than saw the boulder sailing past his head, then, heard it crackle into a thousand pieces and realized the second beholder was close on him. He flung himself off the first, pulling his weapon free as he dived. His arm skipped over a rock, then he landed headfirst, rolled, came up beneath a big spruce, and found both beholders facing him. If the big one was troubled by the green gore pumping from its severed eyestalks, it showed no sign.

Galaeron raised his sword-and promptly found his view blocked by Melegaunt's broad back. There was just enough time to notice how strange it seemed that the wizard had a dark, well defined shadow in the flat blizzard light before both beholders blasted the dusky man with their silver rays.

"No!" Galaeron raised his sword and sprang forward to avenge what he knew would be the end of Evereska. Something snagged his foot as he tried to cross Melegaunt's shadow, and he fell flat on his face. "By the Red Moon!"

Quite certain the next instant would be his last, he looked down and found the wizard's shadow holding his ankle. "You've done your part," said Melegaunt's familiar voice.

No sooner had the wizard spoken than a set of muffled hoof beats came pounding through the forest. Instead of attacking Galaeron, the big beholder spun to face the sound- then died without a shriek as Vala's black sword came flying from the opposite direction and cleaved it down the center.

The smaller beholder spun all ten eye tentacles in the direction from which the sword had come, only to be driven to the ground when Malik came flying off his horse from behind and began slashing eyestalks with his dagger. Galaeron scrambled to his feet and rushed to help, but by then Vala was already on the creature. She extended one hand to summon her sword, used the other to crush an eye when the stalk swung in her direction, then caught the weapon and drove the tip through the beholder's skull. Unlike Galaeron's blade, hers sank to the hilt.

"Elf?" Aris's looming figure peered over the fallen tree, a big boulder grasped in each hand. "Elf, are you alive?" "For now."

Galaeron turned to see Melegaunt's mangled body dissolving into shadow, and his shadow coalescing into a healthy body.

"Melegaunt, you were not to risk your life," Galaeron said. "We agreed for the sake of Evereska."

"Aye," said the wizard. "But after you troubled yourself so dearly to save him, how could I let the giant die?"