The Sorcerer

by Denning, Troy

  “I would do anything to save Vala,” Galaeron said, “but I am no fool.”

  “No?” Telamont’s voice sounded like cracking ice. “Then you know she will not escape.”

  “And you know I can help you.”

  A dark voice inside Galaeron screamed for him to hold his tongue, that he was a fool if he thought he could bargain with Telamont Tanthul.

  Galaeron ignored the voice and continued, “The phaerimm continue to trouble you. Take me to the world-window. When I see her at home in Vaasa, I’ll help you with them again.”

  Telamont drifted closer, until Galaeron could see nothing in front of his face but two platinum eyes. He forced himself to hold the gaze, and eventually he saw that the eyes were silver coronas burning around two disks of shadow blacker than darkness. The pressure of his will grew crushing, and still Galaeron did not look away. Finally, the shining coronas flickered with something like amusement, and Telamont drew back a little.

  “Love is not as strong as I imagined.”

  The Most High’s eyes resolved themselves back into disks, and his dark form began to melt back into the darkness.

  “But hope …” the shade said. “That is so much stronger.”

  The crushing burden of his will remained. Galaeron waited, expecting the compulsion to answer some unspoken question to arise inside him at any moment. There was only the intangible weight—and a different pressure, rising from inside, a feeling that was closer to fear and uncertainty, perhaps grief. Finally, when the shape of Telamont’s body had dissolved back into the darkness and there was only the pale light of his fading eyes, it was this pressure that forced Galaeron to break his silence.

  “Wait!” Galaeron said. “What about Vala?”

  “I accept.” The eyes vanished, but Telamont’s voice hissed from the darkness all around, “If you wish to save her, you have only to grasp the shadows and free yourself.”

  Before Galaeron could object, voices began to hiss again in the distant gloom, and the crushing weight of Telamont’s will was gone. Galaeron found himself torn between pride in having matched wills with the Most High and apprehension over his comment about hope. What had he meant about hope being so much stronger? Probably, it was just some ploy to make Galaeron yield to the Most High’s will, to surrender himself to shadow, but there had been something about the way it was said that made him feel otherwise, a note of revelation in Telamont’s voice that suggested a flash of insight. His tone in agreeing to trade Galaeron’s cooperation for Vala’s life had been one of ridicule, as though he knew the offer would never be accepted.

  A dark voice whispered that Telamont was playing him for a fool. There was only one way to escape, and Galaeron refused to use it. Half the Shadovar in the enclave had to be laughing at him at that very moment. Galaeron resisted this line of thought by reminding himself of what happened the last time he used the Shadow Weave, of how he had alienated Vala and nearly gotten Aris killed. If Telamont had provided an easy escape, it was because it was no escape at all. Galaeron had sworn an oath never to use shadow magic again, and it was an oath he intended to honor.

  Galaeron occupied himself for what seemed the multi-verse’s next eternity, arguing back and forth with the dark voice inside his own head, knowing there was only one escape and knowing as well that a fate worse than death awaited him if he took it. Had he been confident that he would know when the Chosen shattered the mythallar and the city fell, perhaps he would have had the fortitude to wait.

  As it was, the uncertainty was more than he could bear: the fear that Shade would crash into the sands of Anauroch and be fifteen centuries buried with him still there in that dark moment wondering if his plan would ever succeed, wondering if Vala would live to see her son again, wondering if Takari had ever forgiven him for the selfish fear that had made him turn her away. The image of a black, drop-shaped body appeared his mind and began to grow larger. The thing had three bulbous protrusions that, considering the fang-filled mouths at the end, might have been heads. A trio of arms, each ending in three hands with a single eye in the palm, sprouted from its body in three unlike places. The phantasm—for he had no doubt that that was what it was—reminded Galaeron vaguely of the sharn he had freed when they destroyed the first lich Wulgreth.

  I have been looking for you, Elf.

  Galaeron’s jaw dropped. For once, his shadow self seemed too stunned to take advantage of the situation, and he experienced a moment of internal silence that he had not enjoyed since making the mistake that had allowed his shadow to invade him in the first place.

  What, no “hi ho, old friend?” the sharn asked. No, “well met, Xrxvlayblea?”

  “W-hat, uh, how …?”

  “That will do, I suppose.”

  The sharn—Xrxvlayblea—was floating in the shadows before Galaeron, all ton and a half of him, or it, or them, or however one referred to a blob of three-headed … stuff. It waved the eyes in several of its palms over Galaeron.

  “Y-you’re real?” Galaeron stammered.

  One of the heads shot up close to Galaeron’s face and spewing drool from its fangs, snapped, “Did I not say I would return to repay the favor you did me in Karsus?”

  “You did,” Galaeron gulped.

  “Now is when you need me most, is it not?”

  Galaeron managed a nod.

  “Of course it is,” another head spat. “Or I wouldn’t be here.”

  Galaeron shook his head and wondered if he had begun to hallucinate.

  “There you have it, then,” the third head said. “You’re ready now. Favor repaid.”

  The sharn turned and started to float away into the shadows. Galaeron tried to pull an arm free and found that he was as stuck as ever. He debated the wisdom of talking to a hallucination. A dark voice asked what could it hurt, and he decided nothing.

  “Wait!”

  The sharn stopped, but did not turn.

  “Ready for what?” Galaeron asked.

  “Ready to do what you were not ready to do then,” the sharn replied.

  Galaeron frowned. “But I’m still caught.”

  “Whose fault is that?” asked one of the heads—from behind, it was impossible to see which. “You’d better get unstuck.”

  “You don’t understand,” Galaeron said. “I can’t use the Shadow Weave. I swore an oath.”

  “An oath?”

  The sharn swung back around and shoved two palms in Galaeron’s face so it could stare at him eye-to-eye.

  “Why’d you do a witless thing like that?” it asked.

  “I’ve been having a shadow crisis,” Galaeron explained. “When I use the Shadow Weave, my shadow self takes over. The next time, it may be permanent, so I vowed not to cast any more shadow magic.”

  “Breaking a vow is bad business.” The eyes in the palms blinked, and it said, “But don’t be angry with the Shadow. That’s what he wants—and it’s not his fault, anyway. You made a promise you can’t keep.”

  The sharn turned and started to float away again.

  “That’s it?” Galaeron cried. “That’s your big favor?”

  One of the heads twisted around to glance back over its body.

  “Look, I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. You can do it now, or you can do it later, when it doesn’t matter. Your choice. Favor repaid.”

  “One more question,” the second head added, “and you owe me.”

  “You don’t want that,” the third head said. “Really.”

  “No,” Galaeron said. “I’m sure I don’t. My thanks, and fare you well.”

  “No doubt of that,” the sharn said, and it vanished into the whispering gloom.

  More than a hundred heartbeats passed before the dark voice inside suggested that maybe they should ignore the sharn, that maybe it had been an illusion conjured up by Telamont Tanthul to trick him into using the Shadow Weave. Maybe, after all, they should hang there in the murk for a while longer. Galaeron realized that maybe his shadow self was saying
the opposite of what of it truly wanted, that maybe it really wanted him to escape and was just suggesting the opposite because it knew he would do the opposite of that …

  “Maybe,” Galaeron said. He closed his eyes, then grasped a handful of shadow and closed his fist as well. “And maybe not.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  2 Eleasias, the Year of Wild Magic

  To Aris’s dismay, elegance had not returned with strength. With Malik gone, the giant found himself secretly in the service of Prince Yder. He stood over the High Altar in Malik’s Temple of the One and All, cutting a relief of Shar’s Black Moon around the oblong skull-and-starburst he’d done when the temple still belonged to Malik.

  He could hardly ask for better working conditions, even were he a free giant. He had only to ask, and whatever he wanted to eat or drink would be brought from any far corner of Faerûn. A company of assistants attended to his every need, and he worked at his pleasure and was free to do whatever he wished at other times. He was not even much of a captive, as he was free to wander the city of Shade at will—so long as he did not mind an escort of several armed shadow lords.

  His tool control had returned to normal after he’d slept off the effects of hiding the Chosen in his body, and the Dark Moon was cut shallowly enough so that it did not draw attention to itself. Still, there was something intrinsic to the goddess’s hidden nature that he was not quite conveying. A viewer had only to look at Cyric’s skull-and-starburst to see that it floated inside Shar’s Dark Moon, and that would not do at all. She was more subtle than that, more mysterious.

  Aris stepped away to gain some perspective, barely noticed as he sent a dozen attendants scrambling for cover, and decided he would have to rethink the whole thing. He dropped his hammer and chisel into the tool bag on his belt and backed out of the chancel area.

  “Go to my workshop,” he said, motioning the attendants toward the door in the north transept. “Bring a stack of sail canvases and a barrel of sketching charcoal.”

  The attendants rushed to obey, leaving only four shadow lord guards who did their utmost to remain quiet and out of sight. Yder had apparently ordered them to avoid reminding Aris that he was a captive, but it made no difference. He always knew they were behind him. He could feel them there, just out of sight.

  A throaty rasp came up the nave’s center aisle as someone pushed open the Black Portal. Aris waved an absentminded hand in the direction of the sound and kept his attention fixed on the object of his frustration. A pair of guards rushed off to send the visitor away. There followed the hiss of whispered conversation, then a scuffle, a few syllables of magic, and the clatter of armored bodies hitting the floor.

  “What’s wrong with you oafs?” Aris snapped, too absorbed in aesthetics to register anything but an annoying disturbance. “Can you not see I’m trying to think?”

  The other two guards were already stomping down the aisle to intercept the intruder. This time, the incantation ended in a sharp crack. The flash of lightning lit the chancel, and at last Aris saw the solution to his problem. The entire High Altar would become the Dark Moon, with the upper hemisphere forming a semicircular back panel at the rear and the lower hemisphere descending down into the choir. The trick would be to get the right foreshortening where the level changed, and to find a way to round the staircase toward the bottom. Growing ever more excited, Aris dropped to his knees and began to search his belt bag for a nubbin of sketching charcoal.

  “Difficult to tell who’s the slave here and who are the guards.” The voice registered vaguely as a familiar one. “You weren’t this difficult back in Arabel.”

  “Do you have something to sketch with?” Aris lowered a hand without looking. “I must get this down while I still have it in mind.”

  “Aris!” the voice barked. “Leave it. You’re done here.”

  “Done?”

  Scowling at the interruption, Aris shook his head and found Galaeron standing at his side. The elf looked much as he had when they were separated at the Cave Gate, save that his face was lined with fatigue and his eyes veiled behind a glossy darkness.

  “Galaeron …”

  Aris could feel the details of his idea slipping away even as he spoke, but he was so happy to see his old friend alive that he didn’t care … much.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” Galaeron retorted. “I escaped.”

  “Escaped? From the Palace Most High?”

  Galaeron nodded. “I had to use the Shadow Weave,” he said, looking back down the main aisle of the nave, where Aris’s four guards lay in various forms of death. “I’m sorry.”

  Aris’s heart went out to his friend.

  “You have not failed anyone.” He laid two fingers on the elf’s shoulder and said, “I am proud you did not yield before this.”

  “I didn’t yield,” Galaeron said. “I chose. Telamont is after Vala.”

  Aris went hollow inside.

  “Then he knows?” asked the giant.

  “Knows?”

  “About the Chosen,” Aris said. “They couldn’t find the mythallar, so I sent them to Vala.”

  A shadow descended over Galaeron’s face.

  “The Chosen must have freed her,” he said. Galaeron motioned Aris to his feet and turned toward the Black Portal. “I gave them away. That’s what he meant.”

  Aris rose, but made no move to follow.

  “What who meant?”

  “The sharn,” Galaeron answered as he continued down the aisle. “He appeared to me in the Palace Most High. He said he had come to repay the favor he owed us, and told me I had a choice to make.”

  “And?”

  “And he left, and I made my choice,” Galaeron replied. “I couldn’t bear the thought that Telamont would capture Vala again, but now I see he was talking about more—much more.”

  Seeing that Galaeron was not going to wait, Aris caught up to him with a single step. He plucked Galaeron off the floor and held him at head height.

  “The sharn from Karse came to you in the Palace Most High?”

  “Isn’t that what I just said? Put me down. We need to go find Vala and the Chosen.”

  Aris continued to hold Galaeron and said, “The sharn left you there to free yourself? He left you and told you to use the Shadow Weave?”

  If Galaeron saw the reason for Aris’s alarm, he showed no sign.

  “The sharn was warning me,” the elf said. “Telamont had just been there, trying to convince me to use the Shadow Weave to save Vala. When I refused, a strange look came over him. Telamont said hope was stronger than he had imagined and left.”

  “That was what the sharn was warning you about?”

  Galaeron shook his head and replied, “I think Telamont knew I was defying him because I expected something to happen soon. It must have dawned on him that Vala had help escaping, because he left in a hurry. We have to find the Chosen and warn them.”

  “All very plausible,” Aris said. “But the sharn left you there with no way to escape except to use the Shadow Weave.”

  Galaeron shrugged and said, “I had to accept the inevitable, and I’m the stronger for it.”

  He peeled Aris’s thumb back and slipped free, landing on the floor in an easy crouch.

  “Who is stronger?” Aris asked, a little frightened by how easily Galaeron had broken his grasp. “How can you be certain it was the sharn you saw and not some trick of Telamont’s?”

  “Because we beat him,” Galaeron replied, starting toward the Black Portal again. “My shadow and I matched wills with Telamont Tanthul, and we beat him.”

  “Galaeron, listen to yourself,” Aris said. He stepped over the elf, then spun and stooped down to block his way. “Telamont Tanthul has been trying to trick you into yielding to your shadow since the day we arrived in Shade. You finally do it, and suddenly you’re stronger than he is?”

  “Yes,” Galaeron said simply. “The Shadovar thrive on deception and subterfuge,
I know that, but the biggest fraud they ever committed on me was when Melegaunt tricked me into fighting my own shadow. He filled me with doubt, and doubt made me weak.”

  “And now you are sure,” Aris said, filling his voice with mockery and mistrust. “Now you are strong.”

  “Now I am whole,” Galaeron snapped back. “That makes me strong. I have no time to explain it now.”

  He whispered a mystic word and waved his hand at Aris’s foot, and the foot started to slide across the floor.

  “I am going to the mythallar,” Galaeron said, stepping under Aris toward the Black Portal.

  “Wait!” Aris turned, growing ever more suspicious, and said, “Back in Arabel, you told me you didn’t know how to find the mythallar.”

  “Not on this plane.”

  Galaeron pressed a palm to the Black Portal and spoke a few words in ancient Netherese. The door dissolved into shadow mist.

  The elf turned to Aris and said, “I hope you’ll come with me. One way or the other, I don’t think Shade will be safe for you very much longer.”

  Aris’s mind was whirling with suspicions, foremost among them the fear that Telamont was using Galaeron to reveal Vala and the Chosen to the Shadovar. But for that to be so, Galaeron could not be under the Most High’s sway, for if he were Telamont would have only to ask to learn what he wished to know.

  “I’ll come,” he said, stepping toward the shadowy portal, “but first you must promise that when this is done, you will never touch the Shadow Weave again. You can still be saved.”

  “I was inviting you, Aris, not begging,” Galaeron said in a voice that held both scorn and patience. “I don’t need to be saved from anything.”

  Galaeron turned and stepped through the Black Portal, leaving Aris alone in the Temple of the One and All, alone and feeling angry and abandoned. He could not decide whether it was Galaeron who had just departed or Galaeron’s shadow—or someone Aris did not even know. The elf’s parting rebuke had left him feeling both resentful and hurt, and such rudeness simply was not like his friend. It made Aris want to retreat into his work, but of course that was foolish. If Galaeron’s plan worked, it would all be rubble in a few minutes anyway, and if the plan failed, the last thing he wanted to do for the next few hundred years was devote his talent to hiding Dark Moons in the sacred sculpture of other deities. Besides, whether or not he still knew the elf, Galaeron was his friend, and no matter how strange they became, one did not desert one’s friends as they went off to fight Telamont Tanthul and the Princes of Shade—at least stone giants did not.