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 featherwood—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 Arunsun,” 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 ri
verbed 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 archmage 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 f
ellows 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.
The Siege Page 19
