The Sorcerer

by Denning, Troy

  Takari lost count of the times she and Grimble took turns rushing up the slope, but her breath began to come in ragged gasps, and her hair grew so sweaty it made squishing sounds under the helm. She kneeled behind a broken boulder and wiped her eyes on the shoulder of her cloak, then watched the slope above as Grimble raced ahead and kneeled behind a fallen smokethorn. His battle cloak turned the same pearly gray as the bark, a pair of streaks across his shoulders matching a band of furrows in the trunk. Half wishing she had picked a slower partner, Takari scrambled across the broken ground on all fours, emerged from behind a square boulder, and began her dash.

  Takari had taken no more than three steps before her eye was drawn back to Grimble’s hiding place. His cloak had turned dark and dappled, and so had his hair, ears, and boot soles—all she could see from behind. As she drew nearer, she could see that both he and his cloak seemed oddly rigid and were covered with tiny flecks of black and red.

  Takari dropped behind a knee-high outcropping ten paces below Grimble, then used her helm to call the company to a halt. Without looking out from behind her cover, she pictured Grimble’s handsome face.

  “Grimble?” she whispered.

  There was no reply.

  Takari’s pulse began to pound in her ears—just when she really needed to hear. She closed her eyes, set her weapons aside, and took a few calming breaths. When the noise finally died away, she picked up a good-sized rock, and rising from behind her outcropping, threw it at Grimble’s back.

  It struck with a stony clink.

  Takari dropped back into her hiding place and activated her helm’s sending magic.

  “Reconnaissance company, watch yourselves. We’re under attack—something turned Grimble into a statue.”

  Wyeka, too, Wagg whispered. Didn’t see what happened.

  “Me either,” Takari answered. “Anybody?”

  No one reported anything. Takari was not all that surprised. The phaerimm cast their spells entirely with their thoughts—no gestures or words required—and the eye-magic of their beholder servants was just as silent.

  “We need to figure out where this is coming from,” Takari said. She lifted her head just high enough to peer over the outcropping. “I’m just below Grimble, and I can see half a dozen good places to hide, starting with a clump of daggerhedge off to the left and ending with a three-boulder pile on the right.”

  I’m even with Wyeka, Wagg said through her helm. I can’t see the daggerhedge on the left, only the roots of the overturned smokethorn.

  “Then it’s somewhere between the roots and the boulder pile,” Takari said. “Everyone who can’t see that keep advancing and circle a—”

  Wait. An image of Alaya Thistledew’s rosy-nosed face came to Takari’s mind along with her voice. Something’s hissing. Maybe it’s nothing, but I’ll take—

  Her image vanished from Takari’s mind.

  “Alaya?”

  Turned to rock, said Alaya’s partner, Rosl Harp.

  Though the two were lovers, Rosl didn’t sound overly frantic. With a hundred battle wizards and three circles of high mages in the elven army, there were worse things that could happen to a warrior than being turned to stone.

  It got her when she looked around the boulder, he continued. She couldn’t have seen any of the cover you were talking about.

  It’s moving around, then, Wagg said.

  You mean walking around, Rosl said, his voice coming to Takari’s mind as a barely audible whisper.

  “You’re sure?” Takari asked. “Phaerimm float. Beholders, too.”

  I hear it, Rosl said. Moving away.

  “A lot of feet?” Takari asked. She was beginning to think she knew what they were facing. “Maybe a tail dragging?”

  Sounds like it, Rosl said. I can’t see anything, though.

  Takari rolled her eyes and replied, “You might have to risk a look, Rosl.”

  I am looking, Rosl spat. I can’t see anything but rocks and …

  “It’s invisible!” Takari and Rosl reached this conclusion at the same time, then Takari asked, “You’re sure you’re behind it?”

  I’m sure, Rosl said. What do you think I am, a human? Be ready to cover, everyone. I’ll do a cast-and-run.

  Rosl’s voice vanished as he prepared his spell. Takari looked to her right. Fifty paces away, Wagg was turning in Rosl’s direction, his bow slung across his back so his hands would be free to use his own magic. Though Takari could see none of the other scouts, she knew that everyone within two hundred paces of Rosl’s position would be doing the same.

  She was just beginning to wonder what was taking so long when a spark of silver cracked down the slope from somewhere above and flashed out of existence. An instant later, a low boom rumbled across the ridge.

  “Rosl?” Takari asked.

  He’s down, Jysela Whitebark, appearing in Takari’s mind, said. Her copper-colored eyes were opened wide in shock and horror. Lightning bolt, I think. It wasn’t that powerful. He’s still smoking, and alive enough to be thrashing around.

  “Did you see where it came from?” Takari asked.

  Jysela shook her head. Though she was undoubtedly the closest elf to Rosl, she did not volunteer—and Takari did not suggest—going to his aid. Their unseen attacker was waiting for just that, and Jysela would only have ended up lying on the ground beside him.

  Moonsnow? Lord Ramealaerub’s sharp features appeared in Takari’s mind. We heard a bang.

  “We’ve run into trouble,” Takari reported. “An invisible basilisk, I think, and something protecting it.”

  Just one protector?

  “Possibly.”

  Probably. Gwynanael Tahtrel and her rangers are having trouble with a phaerimm on the other flank. It keeps falling back, fighting to delay the advance. We think they’re trying to buy time to recover their magic. You can’t let that happen.

  “Easily said, milord,” Takari replied. “Not so easily done. We don’t even know where it’s at.”

  Find out, Ramealaerub ordered. We’re moving into the valley now, and we need you to stay ahead of us.

  “We’re taking casualties.…”

  And you’ll continue to take them until you eliminate the problem! Ramealaerub’s voice softened when he added, You’re a reconnaissance company, Moonsnow. You’re supposed to take casualties. Move up.

  The Lord High Commander’s face vanished, leaving Takari’s curses to fall on no ears but her own. She peered over her outcropping and studied the slope above but could find no hint of where their attacker might be lurking. Were she the one up there, she would be hiding in the dark cavities within the boulder pile, but she was not. She was not even of the same race. She was an elf, and they were … she had no idea what they were facing. It was rare that beholders used lightning bolts, but the attacker could easily be a mind-slave from Evereska or Laeral Silverhand’s relief army. Or it might be a phaerimm, as Gwynanael and her moon elves were facing.

  Takari found no hints on the slope above.

  She pictured Jysela in her mind and said, “Jysela, can you …?”

  When her memory of the face did not coalesce into a solid image, Takari realized there was no one there and let the sentence drop. She felt bile burning her throat and tried to swallow it back down. It returned two breaths later.

  Hoping her voice did not sound too shaky, she had the entire company report by name. Only Jysela was missing, but as she took the roll call, the basilisk—or whatever it was—turned another scout to stone. Ramealaerub was right about one thing, at least. Hiding in the rocks was not going to spare them any casualties.

  “I’m afraid we have to do this like the Golds would,” Takari announced.

  You mean a charge? Wagg asked.

  More accustomed to hunting than fighting, wood elves preferred stealth and ambush to speed and ferocity—especially when speed and ferocity meant charging into the teeth of the enemy’s defense.

  “Advance in two waves,” Takari clarified, “and k
eep a careful watch up that slope. There isn’t much point in this if we don’t see where the enemy’s hiding. First line, go!”

  The first wave had barely left their hiding places before another bolt of lightning crackled down the slope. This one was a little stronger than the first, loud enough that Takari actually felt the crack in the pit of her stomach. It struck about a hundred paces away, just close enough that she saw it blast one of her scouts off his feet. The injured elf’s partner left her hiding place to help and was instantly struck by a flight of golden bolts of magic.

  Both attacks came from somewhere far to the right of the ridge. Takari focused her attention in that direction but did not bother bringing her arrow to her cheek. Even if the angle were good—and it was not—she still had only a vague idea of where to aim.

  The rest of the wave advanced only ten paces before the enemy struck again, this time with a lightning bolt powerful enough that the tip blasted through the victim’s body and came out the other side. To Takari, it seemed that the flash had danced down the jagged ridge crest on the far right side, but she still failed to catch exactly where it had come from.

  The elves managed another dozen paces before Takari finally saw a ball of red flame appear in the middle of a small cliff’s jagged silhouette and streak over the ridge crest to strike a target somewhere beyond. She started to call the location out over her helm, but then a steady stream of dark shafts started to fly back toward the cliff, and she knew the target had been found.

  Not that it did them a lot of good. By the time the first wave finished its leg of the advance and began dropping behind cover, an elf in the second wave had been turned to stone by the basilisk, and the hidden attacker had slain yet another in the first.

  Each attack seemed just a little more powerful than the last, and Takari didn’t think it was only because the victims kept moving closer. The lightning cracked more loudly, the magic bolts grew more numerous, the balls of fire grew larger and burned more brightly. The Weave was repairing itself in the Shaeradim, and as it did so, the enemy was growing stronger.

  Their attacker had to be a phaerimm.

  Takari’s turn to advance came. She crawled a few paces on her hands and knees, then started up the slope at a run. As with the first wave, a lightning bolt lashed down the slope the instant they rose and blasted Yaveen Greeneedle—Takari’s closest friend from Rheitheillaethor—into scorched pieces. Takari screamed, not only for Yaveen, but for all of the company’s lost elves. These were more than the scouts she had trained to fight phaerimm. These were her childhood friends, her dancing partners and would-be lovers, the sons and daughters of parents who had begged her to bring their children home safe. Each time one died, a little of her died with them, but there was nothing to be done about it except kill the phaerimm and lose more friends doing it.

  By the time Takari’s wave was ready to find cover, she had lost three more friends. She was also close enough to their attacker to see that it had hidden itself in a rift in the cliff face. Her company’s arrows were ricocheting off the opening one after the other, no doubt because the occupant had sealed the crevice with a missile guard and spell shield so it could watch over its invisible pet from safety. A crooked line of elven statues was angling up the slope toward the left side of the ridge, where the attacker’s view would soon be blocked by the lip of its own hiding place.

  The phaerimm was sending the basilisk to guard its flank. Like Ramealaerub, it was worried about what it could not see.

  Again, the first wave of elves rose to renew their charge, and again the phaerimm took one of their number the instant he left cover, sending a ball of fire smoking and hissing into a big smokethorn tree. Young Harla Elmworm came staggering out of the conflagration, engulfed in flames and screaming in agony.

  The spells were coming faster, a sure sign that the enemy was recovering all too quickly.

  The attack on Harla was also a sign, Takari realized, that her company’s camouflage was of little use against this foe. Phaerimm could literally see magic, and given all the magic her scouts were wearing they had to be about as obvious to the enemy as a lantern in the Underdark.

  Takari activated her helm’s sending magic and said, “Company halt! Find good cover and take it. Here’s what I want you to do …”

  As she explained her plan, Takari was unclasping her cloak and removing her boots, slipping off her rings and bracers, and shedding everything else that carried the faintest dweomer of magic. By the time she was finished, she was stripped down to her leather armor and not much more.

  “I’ll try to be fast,” she finished. “Just keep the enemy’s attention focused on you until you see me on top of the cliff, and in the name of the Leaflord, if you hear that basilisk creeping up behind you, don’t look! Just fling a magic bolt at the sound and run the other way. I’m sure our good Lord High Commander thinks he has better uses for his battle wizards than turning us all back into people.”

  The last thing Takari removed was her helm. She bundled it with her cloak and other magic. Wagg and a dozen others began to pelt the phaerimm’s hiding place with blasting spells, and the rest of the company began to crawl—very slowly and very cautiously—toward the rift.

  The phaerimm countered by targeting its own spells at those advancing on its hiding place. Though scouts took care to stay behind solid cover as much as possible, their enemy was a deadly one, and all too many of its spells struck home.

  When Takari judged the assault to be blinding enough, she stood and raced up the hill in her bare feet, carrying no magic at all and little else aside from her weapons. Twenty steps later, a solemn-faced wood elf startled Takari by suddenly falling in at her side. He was a century or two older than Takari, and like her he was stripped down to armor and weapons.

  Takari cocked a brow and said, “This is a job for one, Yurne. Two only doubles the risk of being noticed.”

  “You hear me coming?”

  “No,” Takari admitted.

  “Well, then.”

  Yurne took the lead, and that was the end of the matter. One of the hermit elves who lived alone in the depths of High Forest, Yurne had wandered into Rheitheillaethor after the reconnaissance company had completed its training and announced he would be coming along. Lord Ramealaerub’s officer had made the mistake of suggesting it was too late then promptly found his sleeve pinned to a tree by one of Yurne’s throwing daggers. The hermit had stepped over very close and began to quote the officer’s lessons word by word, then asked the sputtering Gold what business he had leading a company of wood elf scouts when he could not even tell when he was training one.

  After that, no one ever dared tell Yurne what he could or could not do, and a steady chorus of Green elf snickers had driven the affronted Gold elf back to the main army where he belonged. Lord Ramealaerub had transferred command of the company to Takari—who, as a ranger in Galaeron Nihmedu’s Tomb Guard patrol, was the only one in the group with any experience that could be considered remotely military.

  The conflagration outside the phaerimm’s hiding place continued at no small cost in elf lives as Takari and Yurne ascended the slope. As soon as they were higher than the phaerimm’s hiding place, Takari dropped to her haunches and, determined to put an end to the costly spell battle as quickly as possible, began to creep toward the little cliff.

  Yurne continued up the hill, and Takari flashed an order for him to follow, but he did not see her fingertalk—or chose to ignore it—and proceeded as before. She cursed the hermit’s stubbornness and resumed her advance, until she recalled the ease with which he had spied on the reconnaissance company during their training.

  Takari cursed the hermit again, this time for his reticence, and followed him up the slope.

  Several minutes later, they dropped to all fours and crept across the slope to a fallen smokethorn about twenty paces above the little cliff. They spent a few moments studying the rift from above, though Takari could see nothing in its depths except the constant flash
of battle magic.

  Yurne closed his eyes and began to sniff the air, and she finally understood why the hermit had insisted on approaching from above. There was not much of a breeze, but what there was came up the slope from Anauroch’s hot sands.

  Takari could smell nothing but the stench of brimstone and charred flesh, but Yurne’s nose was more discerning. Eyes widening, he dropped behind the smokethorn and began to fingertalk in the clumsy gestures of one who seldom practiced the art.

  Mime flamer guard!

  Mind flayer? Takari asked. An illithid?

  Yes! The gesture was sharp. That’s wham I seed!

  Where?

  How should I nose? I smelled it, not seam it.

  Takari peered over the log and saw only rock and dead scrub brush, though that meant nothing. The illithid could be in hiding or simply invisible, and using a spell to find it would be like shouting their presence to the phaerimm. On the other hand, the spell battle was continuing unabated and had diverted the attention of the sentry as well as that of the master. Takari dropped back behind the log.

  Anything else down there we can’t see? she signed.

  A hare, paralyzed by fear, Yurne answered. Nodding else.

  Really? Takari raised her brow. That’s some nose you have.

  Why do you thing I lib alone?

  Recalling what a hundred wood elves could smell like after three days of drinking and dancing, Takari made a face and nodded her understanding, then turned to the matter at hand.

  I don’t think the illithid has noticed us. We need to keep it that way, or the phaerimm will just teleport up the hill and keep attacking.

  You have a plant?

  Takari nodded and explained her idea.

  I lick it, Yurne said. Except the captain shouldn’t go first.

  With that, he slipped over the smokethorn’s trunk and crawled down the slope, moving so quickly and gracefully that Takari barely had time to ready her bow before he was at the rift. He dropped to his belly and peered over the edge, doing a convincing job of pretending not to know there was an illithid lurking somewhere nearby. When nothing happened, he rose to a knee and took his bow from his shoulder.