The Siege (18 page)

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To the eye of Keya Nihmedu, the silver magicstar drifting past the window of the Livery Gate watchtower looked even brighter than the sun that once blazed down on Evereska from high above the craggy peaks of the Sharaedim. It hurt her eyes even to look under it to the yellowing meadow that surrounded the city cliffs, and its light flooded the cramped chamber with a white brilliance that brooked no shadows.

The magicstar was no sun. It hissed and sputtered like a guttering torch and drizzled a constant trail of cinders

in its wake, filling the air with the acrid stench of brimstone and lamp oil. When Keya closed her eyes, she could not sense it at all, could not see its glow shining through her eyelids or feel its heat sinking into her skin. It was as though the magicstar cast only the illusion of light or that its radiance simply lacked the true substance of sunlight.

It lacked something. Though there were more than a hundred of the spheres floating in and around Evereska, the grass continued to yellow, the great bluetops and sycamores still dropped their leaves, and the liliap blossoms withered and grayed. Even Zharilee and the other sun elves were beginning to lose their color and turn sickly shades of saffron and ocher.

Something would have to be done to bring real sun to the Vale, and Keya was not the only one who thought so. Khelben Arunsun was standing at the next window with Kiinyon Colbathin and Lord Duirsar, staring out at dying lands within the mythal and quietly arguing for an assault on the enemy shadow mantle.

“We need only a company of spellblades, a dozen Long Watch sentries, and the Cloudtop Magi Circle,” Khelben was saying behind her. He motioned at Dexon and the other Vaasans, who had become a more or less permanent escort—when they were not at Treetop, eating and drinking the Nihmedu larder into nothingness. “We just need to hold our position long enough to attach a magicstar—”

Lord Duirsar raised a finger to interrupt. “Did you not say the shadow mantle was outside the deadwall, my friend?”

“I did.”

Keya turned just enough to see Khelben nodding as he spoke. While she was honored that Lord Duirsar and the others felt comfortable speaking of such matters in

her presence, she was acutely conscious of the disparity in their ranks and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible in her eavesdropping.

“The shadow mantle’s appearance suggested an interesting possibility,” Khelben continued. “I’m beginning to think that the deadwall is actually three walls, a sphere of imprisoning magic sandwiched between two layers of dead magic.”

Duirsar nodded eagerly. “That would explain why no spells can pass through it.”

“Exactly,” Khelben said. “So I may be able to burn through with my silver fire.”

“Surely you’ve tried that before,” Kiinyon Colbathin said, his too-gaunt face sneering in disapproval.

“I have,” Khelben confirmed. “I’ve noticed a disturbance, but the imprisoning layer has always remained intact—the silver fire has no effect on normal magic— and the phaerimm have always come to chase me off before I had a chance to dispel it.”

“Which is why you need assistance,” Lord Duirsar surmised, “to hold the enemy at bay long enough for you to cast a second spell.”

“A little longer than that,” Khelben admitted. “The Cloudtop Circle would need enough time to cast a magicstar and attach it to the shadow mantle.”

“I don’t like it,” Kiinyon said, shaking his sharp-featured head. “That will take easily a quarter hour. By then, my spellblades will be trying to hold off a hundred phaerimm. The circle would be doing good to finish its spell before they were all dead.”

“The Vale is dying, Kiinyon,” Lord Duirsar said. “We must do something, or the mythal will die with it. Keya, what do you think?”

Keya felt like her heart had leaped into her throat. “Milord?”

“About Khelben’s mission!” Kiinyon snapped. “This is no time to play coy, Watcher. If we didn’t want you to hear, we would have sent you to the rooftop.”

Keya felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “Of course, Swordlord.” She turned to address Khelben and found him looking at the ceiling with his head cocked and a vacant expression in his eyes. Eager to avoid another rebuke, she spoke anyway. “If Lord Blackstaff feels that our lives would be well-spent, I am sure I speak for Zharilee and the others in the Long Watch—”

Khelben raised a silencing palm, then spoke to the ceiling. “Laeral? Was that you?”

Lord Duirsar and Kiinyon exchanged astonished glances. They knew as well as Keya that while all Chosen heard the next few words when their name was spoken anywhere on Faerűn, the deadwall had limited the range of Khelben’s ability to the Sharaedim. If he was in contact with Laeral, either she had entered the Sharaedim or something had weakened the phaerimm’s barrier.

“Laeral, of course I’m alive,” Khelben said. “I’m in Evereska.”

The excitement was too much for the others in the room. Lord Duirsar and Kiinyon began to call Laeral’s name and bark requests for weapons and magic, while the Vaasans inquired about Vala and whether the phaerimm had attacked their homes. Even Keya could not restrain herself from asking for news of her brother.

Khelben turned a dark eye on them all. “Do you mind?”

The room fell as silent as a tomb, then Keya and the others spent the next few minutes listening to a strange, one-sided conversation punctuated by the use of Laeral’s name every few words.

After establishing that she was still well outside of the Sharaedim, struggling through the Forest of Wyrms,

the two Chosen spent a few minutes filling each other in on events inside and outside of the Sharaedim. Once they each had a basic idea of what the other had been doing for the four months or so, they began to test the extent to which the deadwall had been weakened, trying various forms of communication magic. When all of their spells proved unable to penetrate the barrier, Khelben decided to try another tack and used a spell to send his dagger to Laeral’s hand. The weapon vanished when he uttered the incantation.

“Laeral, it’s on its way.” Khelben was silent for a moment, then frowned. “It didn’t—er, Laeral, it didn’t?”

A loud thunk reverberated through the ceiling, then an astonished Watcher cried out, “Hey, who’s dropping daggers?”

Khelben closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “Laeral, no good. We’ll talk later.”

Khelben continued to stare at the ceiling, then turned to Lord Duirsar. “How much were you able to glean from my end of the conversation?”

“It would be better for you to retell all,” Lord Duirsar said. “I take it Lady Laeral has found a way to weaken the deadwall?”

“Not Laeral,” Khelben said. “The Netherese.”

“The Netherese?” Lord Duirsar gasped.

“Shade Enclave, to be more precise,” Khelben said. “They are the ones who created the shadow mantle—to cut the phaerimm off from the Weave and weaken them for a final assault.”

“Then there is no need to sacrifice a company of spellblades to affix a magicstar to it,” Kiinyon said. “If Shade Enclave is on our side, we need only ask them to lower it before the mythal is weakened.”

Khelben’s expression grew darker. “Matters are not so clear, I’m afraid.” He glanced at Keya and the Vaasans,

then took Lord Duirsar’s arm and started for the stairs. “Perhaps we should discuss this in Cloudtop. There are difficult decisions to make, and you may have need of the Hill Elders’ advice.”

Keya bit her lip and managed to remain silent, even when Khelben started down the stairs with Kiinyon and Lord Duirsar.

Once they were out of sight, Dexon came to her side and wrapped a burly arm around her shoulders. “I’m sure Galaeron’s all right,” he said. “We’ll ask later, after they’ve sorted out their strategy.”

Keya nodded and squeezed Dexon’s hand. “Thank you.” She closed her eyes and raised her face toward the heavens. “I pray to Hanali that just this once, the Hill Elders will move with a speed more human than elf.”

After just three days beneath the blazing Anauroch sun, Galaeron’s tongue was swollen to the size of a rothé’s. His head throbbed and his vision blurred unpredictably. His heart beat in slow, listless thumps that barely seemed to pump the viscous blood through his veins, and he was close enough to water to smell damp sandstone. Sometimes, through the screen of emerald foliage growing along the base of the cliff ahead, he even glimpsed a flash of rippling silver. Had Ruha not insisted that they pause to study the oasis before entering, he and Aris would have been at the pool already, doing their best to drink it dry.

Two minutes later, though, Aris and Ruha would have been dead and Galaeron on his way back to Shade Enclave in a pair of scaly claws.

It had taken Ruha only a few minutes of watching to realize the oasis was too quiet, there were no birds

flitting through the treetops or hares scurrying through the underbrush. A few minutes later, Aris had spotted the dragon, a young blue tucked onto a hidden ledge just above the treetops, little more than its eyes and horns visible at one end and a tip of dangling tail at the other.

Galaeron motioned to his companions, and they slipped down behind the crest of the dune and retreated into the trough nearly four hundred feet below. There was no shade, so Aris dropped to his seat on the stolen shadow blanket, which lay folded on the face of the opposite dune. His eyes were glassy and sunken with dehydration, his lips cracking and his nostrils inflamed.

The giant glanced up at the midday sun, then said, “I need that water.” His voice was a raw croak. “Even if I have to fight a dragon for it.”

“The dragon will only be the beginning,” Galaeron said. “It looks too small to have many spells, but 111 wager the Shadovar have arranged a way for it to communicate with Malygris.”

“Maybe it has nothing to do with them,” Aris said. “It seems like oases would be good places for young dragons to hunt.”

“But not to guard,” Ruha said. Though she had drank no more than a few swallows since their departure from Shade, her voice betrayed no sign of thirst. “Nothing will come while a dragon is here. When they are hunting, they must swoop in and take what they can. Otherwise, the silence of the birds betrays them.”

Aris let his head drop. “I can’t go another day,” he said. “If I go in alone, maybe we can fool it”

“How many stone giants do you think there are wandering the desert?” Ruha asked. “If the dragon sees any of us, the Shadovar will realize we turned toward Cormyr instead of Evereska.”

Aris glanced toward the crest of the dune, his eyes growing large and wild. “Then we have to kill it,” he said. “We have to sneak up and kill it.”

“You’re sun sick, Aris,” Galaeron said. “You can’t sneak up on a dragon.”

“There will be water in the Saiyaddar.” Ruha stood and started south, walking on the trough’s steep wall so the slope would collapse and slide down to cover her tracks. “We will be there soon. It is not far.”

Aris groaned and buried his face in his arms.

“Come on,” Galaeron said. “Ill take the shadow blanket”

Aris raised his head high enough to fix a single eye on Galaeron. “It is twice your size. How can you carry it?”

Galaeron pulled a strand of shadowsilk from his cloak and began to fashion it into a circle. “How do you think?”

“No!” Aris boomed the word sharply enough to loose a small avalanche on the slope behind Galaeron. “No shadow magic.”

Ruha spun around. “Are you trying to call the dragon down on us?” She glared at the giant for a moment, then looked to Galaeron. “Leave the blanket. It is too heavy and hot for him to carry.”

“It’s proof,” Galaeron said as he began to twist the ends of his shadowsilk together, “and I’m not leaving it.”

“Then I’m carrying it.” Aris stood and slung the huge blanket over his shoulder. “Because you’re not casting another shadow spell.”

With no place to hide from the sun and concerned about attracting vultures and giving away their position even if they did stop, the trio spent the rest of the day marching south. Every so often, Ruha would climb to the crest of a dune to study the terrain and search the sky for signs of pursuing dragons, then wave her companions up behind her and lead them eastward in a mad dash over one dune crest after another. The effort never seemed to

tire the witch, but Galaeron and Aris would grow so weary after a dozen or so crossings that their legs gave out and left them crawling on their hands and knees.

Galaeron spent much of that time seething over Vala’s desertion, relishing the prospect of the vengeance he would extract on Telamont for refusing to intervene with Escanor, and plotting how he would emphasize the prince’s part in the melting of the High Ice.

The Shadovar had betrayed him, had stolen Vala away and made her turn a blind eye to the promise she had sworn to him, and for that they would pay. For that, he would expose their true nature to the world, reveal how they were melting the High Ice and upsetting the weather all along the Sword Coast. What that decision might mean for Evereska, Galaeron did not even consider. Shade Enclave had its own reasons for destroying the phaerimm, and his departure was unlikely to have any impact on their plans.

Finally, as the afternoon shadows began to extend their stretch toward evening, they crested a dune and found themselves looking over a vast prairie of pale green grasslands. In the distance, the brown blot of a gazelle herd was slowly drifting over the purple horizon, while the rest of the plain was speckled with the tiny flecks of foraging birds. Scattered here and there along the course of a dry riverbed were the puffy crowns of several dozen big cottonwood trees.

“Skoraeus strike me now!” Aris cursed. “The river is as dry as bones.”

“Only on the surface.” Ruha slipped over the crest of the dune and started down the other side. “There is water underneath.”

“Underneath?” Aris cast a longing look north toward the cliffs where they had left the young dragon. “How far underneath?”

“Not far,” Ruha said, waving the giant after her.

“You have said that before,” Aris observed.