The Siege (28 page)

Vala leaped straight at it, whipping the darksword around for a vicious, two-handed down strike. She heard scales cracking and felt the blade splitting flesh. A pair of phaerimm hands caught her by the throat and began to squeeze. She turned the blade and began to drag it through the thing’s body. The barbed tail arced up, clanked off her backplate, and drew back to try again.

Vala knocked a phaerimm hand from her throat—only to have it replaced by two more. Her vision began to fade, and her right leg erupted into fiery pain as the tail barb penetrated her armor and began to pump its poison into her body. She pried her darksword free, swinging the blade up through two feet of tendon and flesh. Her vision darkened to something darker than black, and Vala’s stomach suddenly rose into her chest. A bitter chill stung her flesh, and there was an endless eternity of falling. She grew queasy and weak and heard nothing but the pounding of her own heart, slowing with each beat, then even that was gone.

Vala’s first hint that she was not… well, gone, was the reek of battle gore. The second was pain. Something was lodged in her leg, holding up her whole body by the big thigh muscle and flicking across the bone. She thought for a moment that she was dead and in the Nine Hells with no memory of how she had come to be there. Then she saw a huge, amber-colored phaerimm lying flayed and motionless on the floor above her—no, below—and recalled the fight in the sanctum.

Vala was not in the sanctum. Instead of the four captured spellbooks and great heap of recovered magic she and Corineus had piled in the corner, there was a single open book floating in a green spell field and several shelves of neatly arranged relics. There were the mind-slaves’ sleeping palettes lined up along the wall, and the ward symbol above the door that kept her baelnorn ally at bay. Most of all, there was the thornback itself, lying motionless and gutted on the floor beneath her, its long tail preventing her from floating to the ceiling by the painful barb lodged in her thigh.

After Vala’s attack, the thing had attempted to teleport to the safety of its lair and arrived dead. At least she thought it was dead. She brought her arm down to cut herself free—or, rather, tried to bring her arm down. It didn’t move in response to her will, nor did her legs or neck when she tested them—or even her tongue, when she attempted to curse.

Eventually, Vala knew, the crushing sphere would destroy Corineus’s body and free his spirit to seek one of the spare bodies he had hidden in the Irithlium—but that was not going to help her. Until she broke the warding symbol above the door, the baelnorn could not enter the lair. There was nothing to do but hang there in pain until the poison wore off.

-O- •Š- •Š••Š-

The Shadovar were not conspicuous in Arabel—or rather in what had been Arabel before the ghazneths and their ore hordes reduced it to rubble—but they were there. On the dark side of a broken tower, a pair of swarthy masons were using a shadow saw to size blocks. Through the window of a bakery, a potter with gleaming amethyst eyes was fashioning an oven from darkclay. In an alley, a tall and gaunt carpenter was installing an ebon-wood door.

None of them more than glanced in Galaeron’s direction as he passed by with Aris and Ruha, but that meant nothing. With an elf, a Bedine witch, and a stone giant traveling together, the Shadovar had to know who they were looking at.

Aris stooped down to within three feet of Galaeron and Ruha. Though the giant had spent much of the past two days sipping Storm Silverhand’s healing potions, he remained unsteady enough that Galaeron would rather he wasn’t leaning over them.

“This is going to be harder than we thought,” Aris said quietly. “I keep seeing Shadovar.”

Galaeron nodded. “Sent to watch for us.”

“So many?” Ruha shook her head. “The Shadovar have easier ways of watching than rebuilding a whole city.”

“What do you know?” Galaeron snapped. “With the information I have about the phaerimm, the Shadovar would do anything to get me back.”

“I am sure they would,” Ruha said patiently.

She pointed at the base of a nearly rebuilt tower, where the foundation had been patched with the same dark amalgam that served as mortar in Shade Enclave.

“They have been here for some time,” the witch

continued. “Their purpose here is to make an ally of Cormyr, not find us.”

Galaeron considered first the foundation, then the rest of the broad street, and had to nod. While the city still looked like a rubble heap at first glance, the outlines of its former shape were beginning to reemerge. Many of the larger buildings were already rising to the second or third story, and most showed signs of Shadovar work— if not in the mortar then in the precision fit of the stones and the dark wood of the balconies, or even in the depth of the shadowed window alcoves.

“You’re right, of course,” Galaeron said, transferring his ire from Ruha to Storm Silverhand. “Even the Shadovar couldn’t do this overnight—and Storm had to know it when she teleported us here.”

“Most likely,” Ruha admitted.

“So why send us?” Galaeron demanded. “It would have made more sense to teleport us to Waterdeep and come to Cormyr herself.”

“Perhaps you have answered your own question,” Ruha said. “That is what the Shadovar would expect Or matters in Waterdeep may be more complicated than we know. I am given to understand that Storm’s sister Laeral is friendly with the Shadovar.”

“Say no more,” Galaeron grumbled.

Storm’s reaction to him in Anauroch had convinced him how unlikely he was to persuade any of the Chosen of anything. For loosing the phaerimm on the world, they might have forgiven him eventually, but for bringing the Shadovar into the world after them, and getting Elminster banished to the Nine Hells—never.

“We’re better off taking our chances with the Cormyreans,” Galaeron admitted.

“Then you accept that Storm did the wisest thing?” Ruha asked.

Galaeron shrugged. “How can I know? But she has to have a better hope in Waterdeep than I do. Lord Piergeiron certainly isn’t going to take my word over Laeral’s.”

An approving twinkle came to Ruha’s eyes. “You may survive this yet. I think you are finally learning to control your shadow self.” She glanced over at a pair of Shadovar stone cutters who had stopped work to watch them pass, then added, “But perhaps we would draw less attention if we disguised ourselves and found a safe place to leave Aris.”

“At this point, speed is better than stealth,” Galaeron said. “The sooner we present ourselves at the palace, the more difficult it will be for Telamont Tanthul to have a troop of his lords spirit us back to the enclave.”

“Well said,” Aris agreed, glancing out over the half-built city. “Besides, there isn’t a place to hide a stone giant within twenty miles of here.”

It was no exaggeration. Though Storm had teleported them into a field only a quarter mile outside Arabel, the walk to the gates had been plenty long enough to bear witness to the devastation wrought by the dragon Nalavarauthatoryl and her ghazneths and ores. Even a year after the terrible war, nothing grew in the once-lush fields except a few black thistles and carpets of foul-smelling moss, while the great forest that had once flourished to the south and west of the city was still struggling to put the first spindly leaves in its canopy.

Despite their presence in Arabel, the Shadovar were not helping matters. With the melting of the High Ice carrying so much rain and cool air west toward Waterdeep, a steady wind had been blowing northward through Cormyr, carrying with it the heat of the southlands and the mugginess of the Dragonmere.

Had the zephyr but dropped a fraction of its moisture

on its way over the kingdom, the change of weather might actually have helped matters. Instead, the air remained miserly with its water until it crashed into the northern Stormhorns and abruptly cooled. As a result, the kingdom was enduring its worst, hottest, most miserable drought in a thousand years, while at the same time its two largest rivers, the Starwater and the Wyvernflow, were flooding their banks and washing away whole villages.

Galaeron was far from certain that he would be able to secure an audience with the rulers of the kingdom, much less persuade the Cormyreans that Shade Enclave was causing their problems. But, as Storm had said, they would be eager for an explanation and inclined to listen. All he had to do was get the shadow blanket into Vangerdahast’s hands. After that, the royal wizard would convince himself.

They reached the city palace, which—to Galaeron’s great disappointment—had been rebuilt from the second story in the same pearly stone as Villa Dusari. Atop the highest spires, dozens of Shadovar polishers were crawling over the turrets like spiders, putting the final touches on the magnificent building. Fortunately, the guards at the door still wore Cormyr’s purple dragon, or Galaeron would have concluded that the Shadovar had claimed Arabel for their own and left immediately.

As the trio ascended the steps, two of the guards crossed their halberds in front of the entrance. The sergeant—no older than his comrades, but with a badly scarred face and an eye patch—stepped forward to address them.

“You have business with Lord Myrmeen?” he demanded.

Galaeron shook his head. “Our business is with Princess Alusair and her wizard,” he said. “It concerns the abnormal weather Cormyr has been suffering of late.”

The sergeant seemed not to hear the last part of his explanation. “This is the palace of Myrmeen Lhal,” he said. “The Steel Regent keeps her home—and her wizard—in Suzail.”

Alarm bells started clanging inside Galaeron’s mind. “You are saying Arabel is no longer part of Cormyr?”

The sergeant’s one eye narrowed. “What I’m saying is that unless you have business with Myrmeen Lhal—”

“We have it on good authority that Princess Alusair and Vangerdahast are inside,” Ruha interrupted. She removed the Harper’s pin from inside her robe and pressed it into his hand. “Please deliver that to her with the message that our lives may depend on a swift audience—and perhaps the fate of Cormyr’s growing season, as well.”

“Harpers?” The sergeant barely glanced at the pin. “Why didn’t you say so?”

He turned and vanished into the palace, then returned a moment later with a gangly, horse-faced man in a scarlet cape and purple sash of office. The newcomer returned Ruha’s pin and waved them into the palace’s grandiose reception hall—so large that, after crawling through the entrance, even Aris could stand upright.

“Welcome. I am Dauneth Marliir, Her Majesty’s High Warden,” the man said. “I’m sorry for the delay, but we have learned to be cautious with information about Her Majesty.”

“We understand,” Ruha said, returning the pin to its place. “I am Ruha—”

“Yes, I know.” Dauneth flashed a big smile.

Galaeron ignored him and looked down the long arcade of pillars, where he was disappointed to see more Shadovar than humans polishing and buffing.

Dauneth continued to speak with Ruha. “There are not many Bedine witches in the Harpers.”

“Only one, I am certain,” Ruha laughed. She waved a hand at Galaeron. “This is Galaeron Nihmedu.”

Dauneth’s brow rose in shock, but he managed to recover himself. “Well met, Galaeron. I have heard of your bravery.” He extended a hand and clasped Galaeron’s wrist in the human fashion. “Prince Rivalen tells me that his father has been most concerned since your disappearance.”

“Yes, I’m sure he has,” Galaeron replied, surprised by the coldness in his own voice. “He has good reason to be.”

Dauneth’s brow rose, prompting Ruha to say, “It is related to our visit” She half turned to wave at Aris. “And this is—”

“Aris of a Thousand Faces,” Dauneth finished. He paused and bowed deeply. “When the palace is finished, Myrmeen intends to display one of your pieces, The Descent of the Shadow Army,’ here in the lobby.”

“She does?” The giant’s jaw dropped. “How did she come by it?”

Dauneth smiled enthusiastically. “A gift from Prince Rivalen, of course.”

The High Warden led the way down a stately side corridor toward a pair of well-guarded double doors, and Galaeron’s heart fell. He could see already that Rivalen and his gifts had won the hearts of the Cormyreans, that he had no chance whatsoever of winning Alusair’s confidence. Soon, he would either be dead or on his way back to the enclave, and after seeing how close his shadow self had come to getting Aris killed, he knew which he was going to choose. He wanted nothing more than to use his shadow magic to do a sending to Vala and apologize for how he had parted, to let her know that, in the end at least, he had come to his senses and died thinking of her.

And he would have liked to apologize to Takari Moon-snow, as well, for refusing what she had offered. He had always known on some deep level that they were spirit mates and, because of that, assumed she would always be with him, but when he had chosen to help Vala

instead of her in the final battle against Wulgreth, he had wounded her more deeply than any lich could have. He knew there could be nothing between them but pain. For the rest of her life, whenever she thought of him, it would fill her with feelings of betrayal and loss.

How could he have been such a coward? Perhaps there had always been a shadow on his heart because of his fear of following it—because in trying to avoid his own pain, he had inflicted it on others. Certainly his father had never turned his back on his feelings. He had loved Morgwais completely from the moment he had met her, all the years they had lived together in Evereska and all the years she had lived apart in the High Forest, and if her absence had caused him anguish, their love had given him the strength to endure it without bitterness or regret.

They reached the double doors and were admitted at once. Aris had to hunch his shoulders to squeeze through this entrance, but inside lay the palace’s formal audience hall, with an arched ceiling high enough that the giant could still stand upright by walking down the center of the aisle.

In a raised throne at the far end sat a striking woman with oak-brown eyes and amber hair, one arm resting on her knee as she conversed with a huge Shadovar beside her. Even had Galaeron not glimpsed the man’s golden eyes and ceremonial fangs, he would have recognized Prince Rivalen by his immense shoulders and narrow waist. Next to the throne and a little behind it stood an elderly, tired-looking man in a voluminous robe and long white beard who could only be Cormyr’s royal wizard, Vangerdahast. Adjacent to him stood the final member of the little group, a statuesque woman with dark hair and eyes as blue as a mountain lake.