The Sorcerer

by Denning, Troy

  “Now it’s time to go.”

  Again, Vala heard her words only in her own mind. As the guards rushed to their dying prince, she called the darksword back to her hand. She would have liked to stay and find the magic ring given to her by Corineus Drannaeken in the catacombs beneath Myth Drannor, but a search of that magnitude was out of the question. She raced toward the double doors and leaped into the air—then barreled into two more guards as they came rushing in.

  Vala planted one foot on each of their shoulders—she was aiming for their throats, but had not jumped high enough—and she managed to drive enough of a seam between the startled Shadovar for the rest of her body to pass through. She thumped down on her side with her head barely a sword’s length from either one, then she gathered her feet beneath her and dived forward, rolling across the balcony in a series of somersaults. The guards shouted the alarm and blindly clinked their swords on the stone only inches behind her.

  At last, Vala came to the end of the balcony and found the balustrade blocking her path. She finished one more somersault, gathered her feet beneath her, and sprang over headlong.

  Vala was within a dozen feet of the street before a magic hand finally reached out to stop her fall.

  Next time, young lady, we won’t catch you, Khelben warned. That was nothing but a vengeance killing.

  “So it was,” she said, “and if I hadn’t done it, no one would have believed my escape was my own. Not after the things that devil did to me.”

  Vala’s feet touched the street, and she started toward Shade’s lower warrens at a sprint.

  The Vaasans sat together on one side of the table, laughing and dribbling and whacking each other on the back mightily as they ate and drank and described the day’s combat to their jealous comrade, Dexon. To listen to the men talk, battling phaerimm was no more dangerous than stalking forest rothé, save that the phaerimm made it all much more exciting by hunting back. Had Takari not been along and seen for herself the humans’ deadly effectiveness that day—and many others—she would have believed the wine was stretching their tongues.

  But it had all happened just as they described, and they had indeed added three tails apiece to their belts. Armed with Dexon’s darksword, Keya Nihmedu had claimed two for her own growing collection. Takari had taken only one, but that was with nothing but her own elven steel. Had she been wielding a darksword of her own, she would have killed more phaerimm than anyone.

  Takari took the ewer and refilled it from the wine cask in the scullery, then stopped in the doorway and eyed the two healthy Vaasans from behind. With their massive shoulders and braided black hair, they looked more like thkaerths to her than humans, but she had spent enough time fighting at their sides to know that neither man was entirely the brute he seemed. She had seen Burlen risk his life several times to protect Keya without ever allowing her to notice, while Kuhl had returned from one patrol with a litter of orphaned raccoons tucked inside his cloak.

  After a moment of deliberation, Takari settled on Kuhl and came up behind him with the ewer. They always stopped to wash the blood and soot off in Dawnsglory Pond before returning home to Treetop, so she knew that Kuhl was both a little leaner and less woolly than Burlen. It was still going to be like wrestling a bear, but she saw no reason to make it any more distasteful than it had to be.

  “More wine, Kuhl?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Takari pressed herself to Kuhl’s burly back and reached around his shoulder to refill his goblet.

  She was wearing only the thinnest of shifts, so she knew he could feel her as well as she could feel him, but he only nodded and voiced his thanks without so much as a glance in her direction. Seeing that Dexon’s goblet was almost empty, Takari took the opportunity to make her point more clearly by plastering herself to Kuhl’s shoulder as she stretched forward to refill it. Lingering there rather longer than was necessary, she turned and smiled.

  Kuhl looked away, a crimson flush rising up his cheeks.

  Burlen pushed his goblet toward the ewer and said, “I’ll take another swallow myself, if you don’t mind.”

  Takari banged the ewer down and peeled herself off Kuhl’s shoulder.

  “Why should I mind? I’m sure you can pour.”

  This drew a roaring laugh from Dexon and a hurt expression from Burlen. Kuhl’s face grew even redder. Takari wondered whether all humans were as dense as the one she had picked, or if there was something about Kuhl she did not understand. She had seen him casting hungry looks her way as they bathed.

  Takari circled around to Kuhl’s other side and found Keya Nihmedu studying her with a thoughtful frown. After learning how Keya had acquired the ability to hold Dexon’s darksword—by allowing him to get a child on her—Takari had made the mistake of asking whether the other Vaasans had families at home. Keya seemed to have guessed her plan.

  Takari ignored the condemnation she sensed in the younger elf’s gaze and pulled a chair close to her quarry.

  She ran a finger up Kuhl’s forearm, and his brow grew shiny with human-smelling sweat.

  “I’d like it if you showed me how you did that rollover on the bugbear today,” she said.

  A expectant silence descended over the room, and Dexon and Burlen studied Kuhl with wolfish grins.

  “It was a good move,” Keya broke in. She kept her gaze fixed on Takari. “Maybe you could show us all tomorrow.”

  “Now would be better for me,” Takari said.

  She had spent a tenday and a half praying to the Winged Mother to make her ready, and she could sense by the warmth in her womb that she was. It had to be this evening. She rested her fingers on the inside of Kuhl’s meaty elbow and applied a little pressure.

  “You can show the others tomorrow,” she whispered.

  Kuhl seemed to melt under her touch, but was somehow still oblivious to what she was suggesting.

  “I can show you now. It won’t take long,” he said, rising and gesturing at the floor. “Lie down and be me, and I’ll get on top and be the bugbear.”

  Dexon cringed and said, “I don’t think this is something I want to see.”

  “Nor I,” Keya agreed. “Takari, this isn’t fair—”

  “Fair?” Takari interrupted. “Galaeron made his choice when he left me in Rheitheillaethor and ran off with Vala. If I decide to try a human, too, that’s no business of his—or yours.”

  Keya’s mouth fell open, and Takari could see by the confusion in the younger elf’s eyes that she had succeeded in muddling the issue. Whatever Keya had guessed, she could not know whether Takari was using the human for pleasure, revenge, or access to a darksword.

  “Uh, Takari?” Kuhl asked. “What do you mean, ‘try a human?’ ”

  “What do you think I mean?” Takari rolled her eyes and said, “I’ve seen the way you stare at me when we bathe.”

  Kuhl looked guilty. “You have?”

  “It’s hard to miss,” Takari said.

  “It’s all right?” Kuhl gasped. “I thought it bothered elves when we peeked.”

  “It is a little unsettling, to tell the truth,” Takari said. Seeing the look of confusion that came to Kuhl’s eyes, she decided that it would be best to state the matter as plainly as possible. “I’m giving you a chance here to do more than stare, Kuhl. Are you interested or not?”

  “Interested.”

  “Good.”

  Takari took him by the wrist and started for the contemplation, but they were quickly intercepted by a disapproving Keya Nihmedu.

  “Kuhl,” she said, “you do realize she’s using you?”

  A grin the size of the crescent moon spread across Kuhl’s face and he said, “I sure hope so.”

  He picked Takari up and slipped past Keya at a near charge, and a moment later Takari found herself wrestling the bear. The experience was not as unpleasant as she had feared, in large part because it was over so quickly.

  The second time lasted a little longer. She was surprised to find that she was no longer di
sgusted at all, save for near the end when he really did start growling like a bear.

  The third time, she actually started to enjoy it, and that was when Lord Duirsar’s messenger flew in through the open window. Oblivious to what was happening, the snowfinch began to flit around their heads, chirping and tweeting as though the world were coming to an end.

  “Manynests,” Takari gasped. “Not … now!”

  The bird landed on her shoulder and shrieked into her ear. The mood vanished instantly, and Takari extended a finger.

  “Bird, this had better be good.”

  Manynests broke into a long series of whistles.

  “What?” Takari asked. “When?”

  She freed herself of Kuhl’s embrace and swung her feet onto the floor. The snowfinch peeped in reply, then chirped a query.

  “Of course!” Takari said, rising. “Tell him we’ll meet them at the Livery Gate.”

  Kuhl propped himself on an elbow and asked, “Meet who?”

  She snatched Kuhl’s weapon belt off the floor and tossed it to him without touching the darksword’s hilt. She didn’t want Kuhl to know why she had bedded him, not until she knew the seed had been planted.

  “The phaerimm,” Takari replied. “They’ve breached the mythal.”

  Somewhere in the Palace Most High, Galaeron hung swaddled in velvet murk, immobile, able to breathe and scream but no more. Shadovar voices hissed in the distant gloom. Shadow seeped into his pores, permeating him with every breath, doubt and suspicion and anger steadily darkening his heart. How long he had been there was impossible to say. No one ever came to feed him or give him water or attend to his broken hand, or even to ask if he was ready to cooperate, but he never seemed to grow hungry or thirsty, or have need to answer nature’s call. He hung there suspended in the moment, a throbbing pain-filled moment without beginning or end, without limit of any kind.

  It seemed to Galaeron that the mythallar should have been destroyed long before, that the Chosen should have found it and sundered it, and brought Shade crashing down into the desert. Maybe they had. Trapped as he seemed in a single moment, how would he know? Or maybe he had been there only an instant after all. Maybe all his thoughts since Telamont hung him there had rushed through his mind in a single instant, and Khelben and the others were still awaiting their chance to escape into the city.

  Or perhaps the Chosen had abandoned him, wherever here was, content to believe the shadow inside him would never escape to darken Faerûn. That would be just like them, to sacrifice an individual for the sake of the many—as long as that individual was not one of their number. Galaeron thought back to his capture and recalled how quick they had been to abandon the caravan, how cleverly they had arranged things so that none of them had been called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. The cowards would not hesitate to leave him there alone to suffer for all eternity.

  And that was exactly what Galaeron—the real Galaeron—would want, he reminded himself.

  His shadow had all but taken him. Every thought contained a hidden doubt, every emotion was colored by suspicion. It would not be long before he yielded. He had only to grab a handful of shadowstuff and use its dark magic to cast a spell, and he would be free to seek his vengeance on all who had wronged him. Telamont had said as much when he’d imprisoned him, had promised that that was how Galaeron’s struggle would end, that all Galaeron controlled was when it ended.

  Galaeron believed him. If the timing was all he could control, then control it he would.

  The hissing of the distant voices faded to silence, and the air grew heavy and chill. Galaeron’s heart climbed into his throat, and he began to search the darkness ahead for the burning disks of Telamont’s platinum eyes.

  The air only grew colder and more still.

  “You are stronger than I thought, elf,” the Most High’s wispy voice hissed into Galaeron’s ear. “You are beginning to anger me.”

  Galaeron smiled. He tried to turn toward the voice, but his whole body seemed to pivot with him, and Telamont remained just beyond his peripheral vision.

  Galaeron had to settle for speaking into the shadow.

  “At least there’s that,” he said.

  “Oh, there is more,” Telamont said. “Much more. My son Escanor is dead.”

  Galaeron started to say something spiteful then realized that to express such malice to a grieving father—even this grieving father—would be to invite his shadow in.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  A deep chuckle sounded beside Galaeron’s ear.

  “Lies are of the shadow, too, elf.”

  “It was compassion—not a lie.”

  Galaeron’s thoughts were racing. Had the city fallen and Telamont come to take vengeance? Did he see a way to use his son’s death to force Galaeron completely into shadow? Or was he simply there to take out his anger on Galaeron?

  “Whatever I may have thought of Escanor,” the elf said, “whatever I would have liked to do to him myself—I’m sure you loved him.”

  Telamont was quiet for a moment, not using his will to press for an answer as usual when he fell silent, but genuinely seeming to contemplate Galaeron’s words.

  “Perhaps I did, at that,” the Most High said. “What a pity Vala was not so charitable as you.”

  A cold knot formed in Galaeron’s stomach. Telamont’s cold presence pressed closer to him.

  “She escaped her cell,” the Shadovar said. “She killed him in his sick bed.”

  The knot in Galaeron’s stomach grew as heavy as lead.

  “Did his guards …?” He could barely bring himself to voice the question, “Is she dead?”

  “That would make you angry, would it not?”

  A cloaked form coalesced in the murk before Galaeron. With the Most High already whispering into his ear, it took Galaeron a moment to realize that the figure in front of him also belonged to Telamont.

  “I could tell you she is, and you would fly into a rage.” Telamont’s eyes grew bright and angry, but his voice continued to whisper into Galaeron’s ear, “And with rage would come your shadow. It would claim you for all time.”

  “Then she’s not dead.” Nor had the mythallar been destroyed, Galaeron realized. Had Shade fallen, Telamont would be more interested in killing him than claiming him. “You don’t know where she is.”

  “And with hope comes strength,” hissed the disembodied voice. “The strength to defy me. What am I to do?”

  He fell silent, and the air grew heavy with expectation.

  Fearing that one answer would lead to another and another until he betrayed their plan, Galaeron tried not to answer. Telamont remained silent, and his will pressed down on Galaeron all the more fiercely. Eventually, he could resist no more, and the words tumbled out of their own accord.

  “Tell me the truth.”

  The purple crescent of a smile appeared in the hood beneath Telamont’s eyes.

  “The truth? What is ‘truth,’ really?” Telamont’s voice whispered into Galaeron’s other ear. “The truth is that she will be.”

  The lump in Galaeron’s stomach began to grow lighter. Vala was still alive.

  “If you catch her.”

  “When we catch her,” Telamont corrected. “Where can she go? It’s a thousand feet to the ground.”

  He paused, and Galaeron feared for a moment that Telamont meant to force an answer that would betray the attack on the mythallar, but Telamont had something else in mind.

  “She will be caught. My other sons are tracking her even now.”

  Galaeron fought not to smile. He had said nothing about the Chosen yet, and if the princes were busy searching for Vala, they would not be watching the mythallar. Perhaps they had even helped her escape to create a diversion. That would be just like those cowards, to sacrifice a helpless woman so they wouldn’t have to risk their own lives. It occurred to Galaeron that he might save Vala’s life by warning Telamont about their plan. That was what those traitors deserved.

&nb
sp; “You do not care?” Telamont asked. “I thought you loved this woman. I thought she was the reason you betrayed us.”

  Telamont grew quiet, and again the weight of his will slowly crushed Galaeron’s resolve.

  At last, Galaeron admitted, “That’s true. I do love her.”

  “A pity, then,” Telamont said. “The things that will happen when we recapture her.…”

  He fell silent, leaving Galaeron to imagine the horrors that would be visited on her. Given the punishment Vala had suffered just for aiding in his escape, he could not bear to think of the death she would meet after killing a prince of Shade. He began to feel Telamont’s will pressing down on him, compelling him to speak what he was thinking. Time and again, Galaeron found himself ready to blurt out his plan, to reveal how he had tricked Telamont into bringing the Chosen into Shade.

  Somehow, he resisted. Deep down inside, part of him wanted to believe it was honor that stopped him, that something inside him was strong enough to resist the will of the Most High of Shade. But the truth was that he had again fallen into the grasp of his shadow self, and it simply did not believe Telamont could be trusted.

  Every time Galaeron started to say he would trade Shade’s life for Vala’s, or that he could deliver five Chosen in exchange for her freedom, his shadow refused. It reminded him that Telamont had once offered to teach him how to control his shadow—as if that could be done—and of how badly that bargain had turned out. It reminded him of how powerful the Most High was. Galaeron had only to hint at the attack on the mythallar and Telamont would begin to pressure him for answers. The Shadovar would know everything within minutes, Vala would be condemned to a lingering death anyway, and Galaeron would be left with nothing for his betrayal.

  For once, Galaeron’s shadow self was right. Telamont had done nothing but betray him. Telamont deserved what was going to happen to his city. All of the Shadovar did. And Vala? He wanted to save Vala, but he could not do it by yielding to Telamont.

  Finally, Telamont said, “Love is not as strong as I imagined.” The pressure did not relent, but his voice came from the hooded shape before Galaeron’s eyes. “You do not wish to save Vala?”