The Siege

by Denning, Troy

  “Let me make certain I understand,” he said. “If she killed the giant, then you will execute her, and I will remain in Shade Enclave living like a king?”

  Hadrhune nodded. “Did she kill him?”

  Malik raised his hand. “But if she did not, you will banish her and execute me?”

  Hadrhune nodded. “Yes. When someone is murdered, someone must pay. That is the law.”

  “My miserable life is only one unfair circumstance after another,” Malik complained. He took a deep breath, then said, “I have no wish to die, but the truth is this: No one killed Aris. He and I staged this whole thing so that he and Galaeron could escape into the desert.”

  “Malik!” Ruha gasped. “I should have known you would—”

  “Silence!” Hadrhune raised his hand toward her. The shadow web rose to cover her mouth. The seneschal glared at Malik for a moment, then said, “As you wish, little man.”

  Still pointing at the Harper, Hadrhune swept his hand toward the jagged hole, and Ruha flew from the room and arced down toward the desert. When her black cocoon finally tumbled out of sight, he pointed at Malik and whispered something arcane. Malik found himself swaddled in sticky black shadow.

  “Now you will stand before the Most High and answer for the giant’s death,” Hadrhune said. “To think, I nearly believed Galaeron when he said you could not lie.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  16 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic

  Escanor’s army cascaded from the Cave Gate in a long river of flapping wings and shadowy pennants that curved down toward the east and vanished into the umbral mists beneath the city. Galaeron waited until the last rank of riders was well past the Livery Most High, then walked his veserab out to join the rear of the great formation. When no one objected—or even seemed to notice—he waved to Aris, who drifted into the Marshaling Court kneeling on a flying disk so overloaded with waterskins that it wobbled under the giant’s slightest gesture.

  Aris leaned down toward Galaeron, tilting the dish so precariously that it would have spilled its cargo had he not lowered a massive arm to hold the waterskins in place.

  “You’re sure the guards won’t notice?” asked the giant.

  “They’ll notice,” Galaeron replied, wincing at the gusty volume of the giant’s whisper, “but we’ve traveled with Escanor before. A pair of gate guards isn’t going to question our presence now.”

  “That I know, but this they would question,” Aris said. He pointed at his knees, which were resting on a section of shadow blanket Galaeron had stolen as he left the looms. “You are certain we must take it?”

  “I’m certain—very certain,” Galaeron said. “That’s how I repay them.”

  “Repay who?” Aris asked.

  “All of them,” Galaeron hissed. “Telamont, Escanor, Vala … everyone who’s betrayed me.”

  “This is your shadow speaking, Galaeron,” Aris said. “No one has betrayed you—especially Vala.”

  “Then where is she?” Galaeron hissed. “Why is she not here to keep her promise?”

  “Because not being here is the only hope she sees of not having to keep it,” Aris answered calmly. “You must leave this place before you are lost, and that would be impossible if she deserted Escanor to come with us. I am sure she will track us down later—especially if it proves necessary for her to keep her promise.”

  Galaeron shook his head. “You are too trusting, my large friend. Once we’re gone, she will have no way of knowing when it becomes necessary.”

  “But she will,” Aris said. “I will tell her.”

  They came to the watch balconies, and Aris clamped his mouth shut and stared ahead so rigidly that he looked suspicious even to Galaeron. The guards’ gem-colored eyes fixed on the giant and followed his advance until they had passed under the great portcullis and launched themselves out into the sky, then they were curving down under the enclave with the rest of Escanor’s army. Once they had passed out of view of the Cave Gate, they began to lag behind the others, and Galaeron used his shadow magic to make them both invisible. He was not really surprised to find the familiar chill of the Shadow Weave quenching a thirst that had lain buried just beneath the surface of his subconscious.

  They dropped out of the shadow haze to find themselves over a mazelike warren of deep ravines and sheer pinnacles that marked the transition between the rolling sea of sand dunes over which the city had been drifting for most of the past tenday and the jagged spine of desert mountains toward which it was floating. Escanor’s army was flying more or less in the same direction as the enclave but angling just a little bit south straight into the rising sun. Whistling an elven tune to help Aris keep track of him, Galaeron turned in the opposite direction—west toward Evereska.

  “Galaeron?” Aris called.

  “Here. Can’t you hear my song?”

  “If one can call that lip-trilling music, yes,” Aris replied, “but shouldn’t we have a look down there? It looks like someone might be in trouble.”

  Galaeron searched the sands ahead and saw nothing. “Where?”

  “South of our bearing,” Aris said. “Lying in the hollow on the crest of that dune, perhaps a mile back.”

  Galaeron looked and saw nothing but golden sunlight shining on the eastern faces of an endless chain of sand walls. “Where?”

  “Follow me,” Aris said.

  The sonorous purr of stone giant humming arose beside Galaeron. He reined his veserab back and fell in behind his invisible companion, then followed the sound down toward the desert at a gentle angle. After a few moments, he saw the tiny dimple toward which they were descending, a circle the size of his fingertip with a minuscule fleck of darkness in the center. The fleck gradually grew large enough so that Galaeron could see it was indeed wriggling about like a chrysalis struggling to escape its cocoon.

  “He lied!” Aris boomed.

  “Who lied?” Galaeron called.

  “Malik!” the giant exclaimed. “He told me Ruha would come to no harm.”

  Galaeron eyed the dark cocoon. It was about as long as his hand, and he could see that it had a vaguely human shape, with a head-shaped lump on one end and a feet-shaped tail at the other.

  “How do you know that’s Ruha?” asked the elf.

  “How could it not be?” Aris demanded. “How many dark-haired women in veils do you expect to find lying about in this desert?”

  “More than you might think,” Galaeron replied. The giant’s description could fit any Bedine woman Galaeron had ever seen, though it would have been an unthinkable coincidence to find one lying about trussed up beneath Shade Enclave’s path. “But if you say it is Ruha, I will trust to your eyesight. It is obviously better than an elf’s.”

  “Oh yes, it is definitely the witch,” Aris said. “I recognize her now.”

  To Galaeron, she was still an indistinguishable lump of darkness. They descended to the crater in silence, and a minute later, Galaeron recognized Ruha’s dark eyes peering out above her customary purple veil. Judging by the size of the crater in which she lay, she had hit the dune with a fair amount of speed, but she either had magical protections or was exceptionally resilient even for a Bedine. Swaddled in a cocoon of shadow web that would have dissolved in another hour anyway, she was writhing about, rolling back and forth in an effort to work her hands free so she could dispel the magic that held her bound.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” Galaeron called. “We’re here.”

  “It is about time!” Ruha rolled onto her back and looked more or less toward Galaeron’s voice. “I was beginning to think you meant to leave me out here to die.”

  “Meant to?” Aris said, speaking from the side opposite Galaeron. “We did not mean to do anything. It is a lucky thing we saw you at all. How did you end up here?”

  “Do not feign innocence with me, Gray Face. You are not much better at lying than Malik.”

  “Lying?” Aris gasped. “He said that you would not be harmed.”

  “And
so I am not,” Ruha said, “but your plan has miscarried.”

  “What plan would that be?” Galaeron dismounted and tried to dispel the shadow web. To his astonishment, the spell failed—and even that felt good. “Who cast this on you? One of the princes?”

  “As if you didn’t know!” Ruha scoffed.

  Galaeron had a sinking feeling. “I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think our plan was?”

  “To make it look like I had violated the Shadovar’s guest guard, of course,” Ruha said.

  “Why would we do that?” Galaeron asked.

  “To have me exiled, so I would have to serve as your guide.” Ruha was beginning to look less angry and more perplexed. “But Malik could no more keep your secret than he could neglect an untended purse.”

  Galaeron glanced eastward and finding Shade Enclave little more than a dark diamond barely visible against the shadowed slopes of the distant mountains, dispelled his invisibility spells. He found Aris looking more than a little chagrined.

  “Aris, what happened?” Galaeron asked. “You were only to create a distraction.”

  “We did create a distraction,” the giant said. “We made it look like Ruha had attacked Malik and knocked me out of the enclave.”

  “That much worked,” Ruha said, “but Hadrhune isn’t naive. He knew Malik was hiding something, and eventually Malik had to admit that you and Aris had left the city.”

  Galaeron and Aris immediately looked toward the city.

  “You have a little time,” Ruha said. “Hadrhune didn’t believe him. But sooner or later, they’re going to discover that you’re gone—and when that happens, Malik will be in trouble.”

  “As will Vala,” Aris said. “It won’t take them long to realize we were all part of the plan.”

  “Unless we return to the city at once,” Ruha said. “Hadrhune still believes that I killed Aris while trying to capture Malik. If we return to the enclave with Aris alive, matters will be confused, but there will be no crime. Things will be as before. You will be able to bide your time and escape when it is safe for Vala.”

  Galaeron shook his head. “Except for the shadow blanket.” He pointed at Aris’s bronze flying disk. “Once they realize that is gone, they’re not going to believe anything we say.”

  “Shadow blanket?” Ruha asked.

  Aris pulled a corner up from behind his waterskins. “Galaeron’s vengeance,” he said. “It will be the undoing of us all.”

  Ruha frowned. “What is that?”

  Galaeron explained about how the Shadovar were using the blankets to melt the High Ice and upset the weather all along the Savage Frontier and Sword Coast.

  “Once they realize I’ve taken this, I doubt they’re going to trust us much further.”

  “I believe that time has come,” Aris said. He pointed toward the floating city, where a single dark line could be seen descending beneath the enclave. “They seem to be turning in our direction.”

  “In the name of Kozah!” Ruha cursed. Still encased in her shadow web, she began to roll toward the shadowy side of the dune. “Quick, send your veserab and flying disk into the west. We will hide beneath the sands, then sneak away after they pass by.”

  Galaeron nodded and sent his veserab into the sky, then turned and rushed across the crater to where Aris was unloading his waterskins.

  “Leave the water. There is no time!” he said, jumping onto the disk. “Get the blanket!”

  “The blanket?” Aris gasped.

  “The blanket!” Galaeron said, hurling the heavy shroud into the crater. “Water, we can find later.”

  To the eye of Keya Nihmedu, the silver magicstar drifting past the window of the Livery Gate watchtower looked even brighter than the sun that once blazed down on Evereska from high above the craggy peaks of the Sharaedim. It hurt her eyes even to look under it to the yellowing meadow that surrounded the city cliffs, and its light flooded the cramped chamber with a white brilliance that brooked no shadows.

  The magicstar was no sun. It hissed and sputtered like a guttering torch and drizzled a constant trail of cinders in its wake, filling the air with the acrid stench of brimstone and lamp oil. When Keya closed her eyes, she could not sense it at all, could not see its glow shining through her eyelids or feel its heat sinking into her skin. It was as though the magicstar cast only the illusion of light or that its radiance simply lacked the true substance of sunlight.

  It lacked something. Though there were more than a hundred of the spheres floating in and around Evereska, the grass continued to yellow, the great bluetops and sycamores still dropped their leaves, and the liliap blossoms withered and grayed. Even Zharilee and the other sun elves were beginning to lose their color and turn sickly shades of saffron and ocher.

  Something would have to be done to bring real sun to the Vale, and Keya was not the only one who thought so. Khelben Arunsun was standing at the next window with Kiinyon Colbathin and Lord Duirsar, staring out at dying lands within the mythal and quietly arguing for an assault on the enemy shadow mantle.

  “We need only a company of spellblades, a dozen Long Watch sentries, and the Cloudtop Magi Circle,” Khelben was saying behind her. He motioned at Dexon and the other Vaasans, who had become a more or less permanent escort—when they were not at Treetop, eating and drinking the Nihmedu larder into nothingness. “We just need to hold our position long enough to attach a magicstar—”

  Lord Duirsar raised a finger to interrupt. “Did you not say the shadow mantle was outside the deadwall, my friend?”

  “I did.”

  Keya turned just enough to see Khelben nodding as he spoke. While she was honored that Lord Duirsar and the others felt comfortable speaking of such matters in her presence, she was acutely conscious of the disparity in their ranks and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible in her eavesdropping.

  “The shadow mantle’s appearance suggested an interesting possibility,” Khelben continued. “I’m beginning to think that the deadwall is actually three walls, a sphere of imprisoning magic sandwiched between two layers of dead magic.”

  Duirsar nodded eagerly. “That would explain why no spells can pass through it.”

  “Exactly,” Khelben said. “So I may be able to burn through with my silver fire.”

  “Surely you’ve tried that before,” Kiinyon Colbathin said, his too-gaunt face sneering in disapproval.

  “I have,” Khelben confirmed. “I’ve noticed a disturbance, but the imprisoning layer has always remained intact—the silver fire has no effect on normal magic—and the phaerimm have always come to chase me off before I had a chance to dispel it.”

  “Which is why you need assistance,” Lord Duirsar surmised, “to hold the enemy at bay long enough for you to cast a second spell.”

  “A little longer than that,” Khelben admitted. “The Cloudtop Circle would need enough time to cast a magicstar and attach it to the shadow mantle.”

  “I don’t like it,” Kiinyon said, shaking his sharp-featured head. “That will take easily a quarter hour. By then, my spellblades will be trying to hold off a hundred phaerimm. The circle would be doing good to finish its spell before they were all dead.”

  “The Vale is dying, Kiinyon,” Lord Duirsar said. “We must do something, or the mythal will die with it. Keya, what do you think?”

  Keya felt like her heart had leaped into her throat. “Milord?”

  “About Khelben’s mission!” Kiinyon snapped. “This is no time to play coy, Watcher. If we didn’t want you to hear, we would have sent you to the rooftop.”

  Keya felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “Of course, Swordlord.” She turned to address Khelben and found him looking at the ceiling with his head cocked and a vacant expression in his eyes. Eager to avoid another rebuke, she spoke anyway. “If Lord Blackstaff feels that our lives would be well-spent, I am sure I speak for Zharilee and the others in the Long Watch—”

  Khelben raised a silencing palm, then spoke to the ceiling. “Laeral? Was that you
?”

  Lord Duirsar and Kiinyon exchanged astonished glances. They knew as well as Keya that while all Chosen heard the next few words when their name was spoken anywhwere on Faerûn, the deadwall had limited the range of Khelben’s ability to the Sharaedim. If he was in contact with Laeral, either she had entered the Sharaedim or something had weakened the phaerimm’s barrier.

  “Laeral, of course I’m alive,” Khelben said. “I’m in Evereska.”

  The excitement was too much for the others in the room. Lord Duirsar and Kiinyon began to call Laeral’s name and bark requests for weapons and magic, while the Vaasans inquired about Vala and whether the phaerimm had attacked their homes. Even Keya could not restrain herself from asking for news of her brother.

  Khelben turned a dark eye on them all. “Do you mind?”

  The room fell as silent as a tomb, then Keya and the others spent the next few minutes listening to a strange, one-sided conversation punctated by the use of Laeral’s name every few words.

  After establishing that she was still well outside of the Sharaedim, struggling through the Forest of Wyrms, the two Chosen spent a few minutes filling each other in on events inside and outside of the Sharaedim. Once they each had a basic idea of what the other had been doing for the four months or so, they began to test the extent to which the deadwall had been weakened, trying various forms of communication magic. When all of their spells proved unable to penetrate the barrier, Khelben decided to try another tack and used a spell to send his dagger to Laeral’s hand. The weapon vanished when he uttered the incantation.

  “Laeral, it’s on its way.” Khelben was silent for a moment, then frowned. “It didn’t—er, Laeral, it didn’t?”

  A loud thunk reverberated through the ceiling, then an astonished Watcher cried out, “Hey, who’s dropping daggers?”

  Khelben closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “Laeral, no good. We’ll talk later.”

  Khelben continued to stare at the ceiling, then turned to Lord Duirsar. “How much were you able to glean from my end of the conversation?”