The Sorcerer

by Denning, Troy

No—we’re at the Groaning Cave, Vala replied. I recognize it from when we came during my first visit.

  Galaeron looked over his shoulder and saw the cave less than a hundred paces up the hill. A small company of elf warriors was gathered on the entrance veranda, crouching behind the stone balustrades and using the high terrain to fire arrows and spells down on the bugbears and illithids in the forest below. Like everything else in this strange battle, their attacks seemed to be in slow motion, the arrows floating rather than flying to their targets and the spells less flashing across the sky than simply advancing.

  Galaeron drifted out of the path of two arrows coming toward him, then heard a soft crackle as Aris arrived in the wood. The fireball had already passed by and was in the process of exploding into the hillside behind them. Galaeron grabbed the giant by his arm and pulled him forward so the back blast wouldn’t burn him.

  Khelben appeared an instant later, in the middle of a slowly wagging tail of flame. He floated there in the fire for a moment, afterdazed and no doubt finding it even more difficult than had Galaeron to adjust to his new surroundings. Galaeron shoved Aris’s arm toward Vala, then he floated over and pulled the Chosen out of the fire.

  “Where are we?” In his confusion, Khelben neglected to use thought speech. “This isn’t—” He caught himself and switched. Cloudcrown Hill!

  We came out on the other side of the city, Laeral informed him, near the Groaning Cave.

  Worse than that, Galaeron said. We came out in the past.

  How can that be? Storm demanded. She reached behind Galaeron and batted an arrow aside. It can’t happen.

  It did, Galaeron replied. A little after we arrived in the Vine Vale, this whole wood was leveled by an explosion. And now—

  It’s still standing, Vala finished. I saw the blast, too. Somehow, we got here before the trees fell.

  A fork of lightning snaked down from the cave mouth and caught Storm square in the center of her phaerimm disguise. The blast drove her to the ground but seemed to cause her no injury. Khelben and Laeral lifted their head-disks toward the source of the attack, and that alone was enough to send several dozen elves scrambling away in slow motion.

  These disguises have one drawback, Vala sent as she rushed to take cover behind a fallen bluetop. They work!

  She vanished over the trunk. Galaeron and the Chosen followed, and a moment later they were taking shelter in the crook of a massive limb. Aris came and stood behind them, his camouflage working so well that had Galaeron not been directly under the giant, he would never have seen him.

  I should have realized something like this would happen. Khelben’s tone was apologetic. We’ve already seen what comes of mixing Weave and Shadow Weave.

  We have, agreed Storm, but not this time. If this had something to do with shadow magic, how could Aris be here? He has no shadow magic.

  That’s true, Laeral said. Whatever went wrong, it happened when Khelben opened his magic door.

  “The mythal!” Galaeron was so excited that he forgot himself and said this aloud. It had a defense against teleporting!

  Not ‘had,’ Khelben replied. Evereska’s mythal still has a bite.

  So it sent us into the past? Vala asked.

  Arrows began to sink into the trunk of the fallen bluetop at sporadic intervals.

  And it relocated our exit portal, Laeral said. We’re lucky the mythal was weakened, or the displacement might not have been so minor.

  If this is minor, Vala said, I don’t want to see major.

  The comment brought to mind the strange blast that had leveled the woods around the Groaning Cave shortly after Galaeron and the first group arrived in the valley. He turned to look at Khelben.

  Khelben? Do you remember that big blast we saw after we arrived?

  The gray light? he replied. Of course.

  Well, Galaeron said, that happened here.

  It was impossible to say what happened beneath Khelben’s disguise, but all four of phaerimm arms stopped moving, and his tail dropped to the ground.

  Time! he gasped. We’re moving through it faster than everyone around us—

  And when we catch up … Laeral let the sentence trail off.

  What? Aris asked. He had vanished so completely into the forest that Galaeron had forgotten he was there. I don’t understand.

  Trouble, Storm said. Really big trouble.

  It seemed to Galaeron that the arrows were starting to thunk into their tree trunk more rapidly. He peered up toward the Groaning Cave and saw the archers moving a little less torpidly now, sending their shafts down the hill with a speed that could almost be described as flying rather than drifting. A battle mage caught sight of him and stretched out a finger to send a lightning bolt in his direction.

  Galaeron used his shadow magic to send a thought message to the man.

  Hold your attack! I am Galaeron Nihmedu, an elf and a friend.

  The mage grabbed his head and stumbled back. Ooouuuuuuut offffffff myyyyyyy heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddd, monnnnnnnnnnsssssssssssssterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

  The mage followed his order by stumbling back to the balustrade and completing his spell. The lightning bolt shot down the slope far faster than previous ones, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Galaeron barely had time to roll aside and cry a warning before the bolt was there.

  Storm rose into its path and took the bolt full in the body.

  Storm! Galaeron cried.

  The bolt sank into Storm’s body and vanished with no stench of charred flesh and not even much of a crack. She settled back behind the tree trunk and let out a satisfied belch.

  Don’t concern yourself, Galaeron, Laeral said. Storm can eat lightning all day.

  A little gift from my sisters when I went to fight Iyachtu Xvim, Storm explained. Now, don’t you think we ought to get away from here? Far away from here?

  What could it hurt? Khelben replied.

  For one of the Chosen, you don’t sound all that confident, Vala observed.

  It’s not a matter of confidence, Laeral said. It all depends on whether the temporal displacement wave is centered on us or our point of arrival.

  Huh? Vala asked.

  She means run! Galaeron said.

  He lifted Vala to her feet and shoved her into the woods in the direction opposite the elves who were attacking them. Khelben and the other Chosen rose into the air and floated along beside her, using their magic and their bodies to deflect the barrage of attacks that rained down from the veranda of the Groaning Cave. Before following, Galaeron took a moment to dispel the shadow web he had cast on the bladesinger.

  Leave … this … place … now! he urged, spacing his words so the elf would be more likely to comprehend. Big danger!

  The bladesinger pulled out of the dissolving shadow web looking more confused than alarmed but quickly took the advice when a beholder and his escort of bugbears came charging after him from the phaerimm side of the battle. Galaeron sent a similar warning to the elves on the veranda outside the Groaning Cave. Their only answer was a shimmering sphere of force that closed to within a dozen paces before Galaeron noticed it and fled his hiding place. A dull rumble sounded behind him a moment later, and he looked back to see the bluetop erupting into a spray of splinters. The ball expanded almost swiftly enough to catch him. Time was definitely moving faster.

  Galaeron caught up to the others and followed close behind, dodging silver snakes of lightning and using his magic to turn arrows with wind spells or shadow shields. Aris ran alongside at a distance of twenty paces, slipping through the woods as stealthily as any ranger. As long as the companions kept moving, they had little to fear from their elf attackers, who clearly found it impossible to hit targets that must have seemed mere blurs. Though there were bugbears, illithids, and beholders aplenty in the wood, they were too busy fighting to pay any attention to a shadowy band of “phaerimm.”

  The companions had little trouble leaving the area of the cave, only to discover that the battle i
n the rest of the forest was just as fierce and twice as confused. There seemed to be no clearly drawn ranks or objectives, just random clusters of elves and mind-slaves and the occasional phaerimm attacking each other with spell and steel, sometimes from a hundred paces distant, sometimes standing toe-to-toe. All too often, the battles were between elves and elf mind-slaves, the former reluctant to strike killing blows and the latter all too eager. Whoever the combatants were, they seemed to be moving faster, their lightning bolts flashing through the wood faster than Galaeron’s eye could follow, their arrows whizzing past too swiftly to deflect.

  Whenever possible, Galaeron urged the warriors to flee and used his magic to free the elf mind-slaves. It was this last good deed that complicated their flight, when six phaerimm appeared behind a rank of advancing bugbears and began to whistle at them in Winds.

  “Yoooou!” The phaerimm’s challenge was slow and trilling, but not so slow it was difficult for Galaeron’s speech magic to understand. “Explain yourselves.”

  Realizing no one else would understand the importance of responding with an accusation, Galaeron floated forward to confront the phaerimm.

  “You stole … my slave.” Though Galaeron had not intended it, the wind spell he was using to modulate his speech ripped through the forest like a cyclone, tearing leaves from the trees and assailing their challengers with sticks. “I … demand a gift!”

  “A gift?” The six phaerimm drifted a few paces back, clearly buying the space to begin a spell battle. “Who are you? Why do you whistle so fast?”

  “Who dares ask—”

  That was as far as Galaeron got before three tongues of silver fire shot out to engulf the three closest phaerimm.

  “No time!” Khelben yelled in Common, already flinging a handful of rainbow dust on the ground beneath the phaerimm. “We’ve got to keep going!”

  Galaeron was already hurling a shadow ball at the nearest surviving phaerimm, while Vala had drawn her sword and was cocking her arm to throw. Though the forest time had nearly caught up to their time, enough of a difference remained for Khelben and Galaeron to unleash their spells before their foes reacted. The shadow ball caught its target at an oblique angle and drilled a head-sized oval through half the length of its body. The phaerimm collapsed in a limp heap, its life spilling out onto the forest floor in a steaming heap.

  Khelben’s prismatic wall was not so effective. It sprang up beneath the phaerimm as he had obviously intended, but the thing floated through its defenses in a spray of gem-colored flashes and counterattacked with a black disintegration bolt. Khelben took the bolt square in the chest and smiled, then stretched two of his arms in the creature’s direction.

  In the meantime, the last phaerimm had loosed a flight of magic bolts at Vala. To Galaeron’s horror, she stood her ground and hurled her darksword at her attacker.

  “Vala!”

  Galaeron stretched out a hand to raise a shadow shield in front of her, but even with time on his side, he was not that fast. The bolts struck home.

  “No!”

  Vala staggered from the impact and dropped a foot back to brace herself. She raised her fist, pointing her ring in the phaerimm’s direction and shooting the same flight of golden bolts back at her attacker.

  The darksword arrived first, opening the thing from lip to tail. It trilled wildly and vanished in a silver dazzle of teleport magic. The golden bolts sizzled off into the forest to draw an anguished cry from some elf warrior Galaeron had not even seen. Vala opened the same hand and called her sword back without lowering her arm.

  Khelben’s phaerimm refused to retreat so easily. A wall of flames sprang to life between it and its attackers and set the forest instantly ablaze. Unable to see, Khelben elected to save his spell, and the whirling disk of shadow that Galaeron sent spinning through the barricade cut nothing down except a long swath of bluetops—and perhaps the half a dozen elves whose voices he heard screaming in panic and rage.

  Balls of flame as large as a beholder began to sizzle off the fire wall in the direction of Galaeron and the Chosen. Galaeron barely managed to pluck his shadow off the ground and throw it up in front of him, and even then the heat was enough to singe his hair as the crackling orbs struck his silhouette and vanished into the shadow plane.

  Unable to react quickly enough, Khelben caught one of the spheres full in the chest and erupted into flame. He floated calmly to the ground, where he remained until Laeral, who caught two spheres in the chest without emitting so much as a wisp of smoke, covered his body with hers and smothered the fire.

  As this happened, Storm was streaking headlong into the flames. She took three of the fireballs square in the head-disk and laughed, then plunged headlong through the burning wall … and was too late.

  Aris had already emerged from the woods on the other side of the burning wall. He stooped down and wrapped his big hands around the phaerimm—it was at the near end of the fire barrier, not where Galaeron had expected at all—and squeezed until it popped. Storm was left with nothing to do but dispel the phaerimm’s magic and extinguish the flames.

  Galaeron rushed to Khelben’s side and asked, “How bad—?”

  “It isn’t,” Khelben growled. His disguise remained that of a shadow-swathed phaerimm, so it was impossible to see how badly he was hurt. “We don’t have time. Those phaerimm were fast. The time streams must be converging.”

  “Right,” Laeral said. “Let’s go.”

  Aris and the three Chosen turned to start through the woods again, and Galaeron was about ready to start after them when he realized that Vala was neither ahead of them nor behind.

  “Wait!”

  Storm stopped and twisted her head-disk around to look at him.

  “Wait? We don’t have time to—”

  Galaeron flew over to where he had last seen her and noticed a set of boot prints—a set of big boot prints—on the ground.

  “They took her!”

  “They?” The three Chosen gathered round and began to curse as one. “Of all the black fortune!”

  “That’s human,” Galaeron said. “Male and large. Very large.”

  “Vaasan,” Khelben growled. He looked into the woods, and in Common yelled, “Kuhl! Burlen!”

  Their answer came in riotous motion as a dozen elf warriors sprang out from behind tree trunks, under logs, beneath piles of dead leaves, and rushed to attack. Only the slim advantage of their faster-moving time stream spared Galaeron and his fellow Chosen from being chopped into a dozen pieces each by the darkswords that had once belonged to Vala’s slain company of warriors.

  “Up!” Galaeron cried in Common. “Watch yourselves!”

  As he yelled the warning, he was already rising above the reach of his attackers. Khelben and the other Chosen followed, but poor Aris found himself surrounded by half a dozen elves tossing their glassy black swords from hand to hand.

  The elves below Galaeron and the Chosen drew their arms back to throw.

  “Hold!” Galaeron cried, speaking Elvish. “I am Galaeron Nihmedu, a citizen of Evereska, once a Tomb Guard princep patrolling the Desert Border South, who resides in Treetop in Starmeadow, son to Aubric Nihmedu and brother to Keya Nihmedu of the Long Watch, friend to—”

  “Strange how you do not look much like an elf,” said a familiar—though much hardened—female voice.

  A young moon elf of little more than eighty appeared from behind the trunk of a bluetop, her turquoise hair tucked up beneath an ostentatious battle helm that could only have been made by the Gold elves of Evermeet. Her gold-flecked eyes were shot through with red lines, and her cupid’s bow smile had gone straight and grim with worry, but Galaeron would have known his sister had she looked a hundred times more drained. His heart drummed in joy.

  “Keya! You’re alive!”

  Keya narrowed her eyes in suspicion and said, “So it seems, for now.”

  There was a slight drawl as she spoke, just enough to suggest the slower passage of forest time. She reached behi
nd a tree and pulled Vala into view, and Galaeron was astonished to see that someone had actually taken Vala’s darksword and bound her hands in elven rope.

  “Where did you come by this mind-slave?” Keya asked. “Tell me that, and we will let you live—so long as you swear to leave Evereska and never return.”

  “You are not a very good liar, Keya.” He dispelled the masking magic that made him look like a phaerimm, then drifted down toward the ground, adding, “But neither you nor Evereska has anything to fear from us.”

  “Hold there, you devil!” Keya ordered. “Any lower, and I’ll give you the death you deserve for impersonating my brother.”

  This drew a snicker from Vala, which drew an angry glower from Keya.

  “Keya!” Khelben snapped in Elvish. “He is your brother. Release Vala and flee this area—now!”

  “Do you think I take orders from worms?”

  To demonstrate that she did not, Keya hurled her darksword. Even with the faster speed of his time stream, Khelben barely had time to pivot out of the way and let the weapon tumble past. Two dozen archers suddenly appeared from their hiding places, arrows nocked and arms drawing their bows back to fire. Storm and Laeral were already casting spells of paralyzation. Keya’s entire company froze where they were, bows half flexed and swords half raised.

  Khelben retrieved Keya’s darksword from the tree where it had lodged itself, then flew down to her. Burlen stepped into view from behind the tree where Vala had been held, his own arm rising to throw his darksword.

  Galaeron stopped him with a shadow web.

  Khelben nodded his thanks, then flipped the weapon around and shook the hilt in Keya’s face.

  “You are trying my patience, young lady. We have reasons for our appearance, and no time to explain them to you now.”

  A loud crackle sounded from the direction of the Groaning Cave. Galaeron glanced back and saw a tiny brilliance flickering down through the bluetop boughs.

  Khelben continued to lecture Keya, “When we release you and your company, you are going to take it on faith that I am telling you the truth and flee this area—”

  “Uh, Khelben?” As Galaeron spoke, he was watching the tiny sphere of brilliance expand above the trees. “There isn’t going to be—”