The Summoning (11 page)

The answer cannot be false, said Zay, only our understanding of it.

All the same, it has not opened the portal. Tha plucked Lord Imesfor off the floor. There is only one thing we have not tried.

Perhaps the dead can be made to tell what the living cannot.

Galaeron’s heart sank. The phaerimm could be talking about any of several portals into Evereska, but it seemed most likely they meant the Secret Gate, the only way through the mountains from this side. It was also the route by which the Swords of Evereska were leaving the Vale, and Galaeron did not care to think of what might happen when his father emerged from the portal into the arms of a band of phaerimm.

Lord Imesfor began to recite the Prayer for the Dying, this time for himself. Galaeron retreated and turned away. With so many phaerimm in the chamber, he saw no way to effect a rescue, and given the strange, vengeful emotions he had been experiencing, he was not sure he wanted to find out how he would feel when the high mage was killed.

Galaeron felt a tap on his knee and looked up to see Melegaunt. Come along. We don’t have long to plan.

The wizard slipped past Galaeron, moving down the tunnel to where Vala and her men were gathering. He had to scuttle along like the slave they had glimpsed earlier, for the passage was only four feet in diameter and shaped like a tube—much more comfortable for floating phaerimm than walking humans. Galaeron joined the others and kneeled, his back sore from hunching.

Melegaunt drew a hand across the ceiling and uttered a quiet incantation, creating a curtain of shadow between themselves and the passage into the WarGather. He assigned Dexon to keep a watch on the other side, then turned to the others and motioned for them to speak softly.

“We could slay two or three, but not seventeen,” said Melegaunt. “That rules out fighting, so we’ll have to do this another way.”

Galaeron raised his brow. “If you are thinking of a rescue, you should know that it is Evereskan tenet never to risk many lives in the desperate hope of saving a few”

“And how often is that tenet followed?” asked Melegaunt.

Galaeron smiled. “Not very often.”

“1 thought so,” the wizard said. “Did you see how I opened the shadow path?”

“It was a bit above me,” Galaeron admitted. “Though if you took a few moments to teach—”

“No!” Melegaunt’s hiss came near to a yell. “That way lies ruin. It is well and good to test yourself with the tame magic of elves, but do not try such a thing with what I have shown you. You will be consumed by your own shadow. Do you understand?”

Somewhat taken aback by Melegaunt’s sternness, Galaeron nodded. “I’ll use only spells I can handle easily.”

“And never mix the two magics.” Melegaunt motioned vaguely toward the hole in the Sharn Wall. “We have seen what comes of that.”

Again, Galaeron nodded.

“Good. Now, here is what we’ll do.” He explained his plan, then finished by looking to Vala. “I’ve seen enough of Kiinyon Colbathin to know he’d hesitate before trusting a human, and there’s little reason to imagine a Sun elf high mage would be any less prejudiced. I’m afraid Galaeron must go with you.”

Vala studied Galaeron for a moment, then glanced at his scabbard. “Can you handle that thing?”

Suspecting she would be unimpressed by his third place regiform steel-ranking, Galaeron simply nodded. “I can, but the blade wasn’t much good against the phaerimm last time.”

“Their magic,” Melegaunt explained. “Even enchanted steel won’t bite.”

Vala turned to Dexon. “Will you trade with him until this is over?”

A corner of the human’s mustache rose as though he’d rather not, but he nodded. “As long as he understands.”

“Understands?”

“If you lose the weapon, his son’s name will be lost,” said Vala. “In our valley, the noble’s title goes with his sword.”

Melegaunt frowned at this. That was never my intention.”

“You have been gone a long time,” said Vala. “That is how matters have come to be.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Galaeron raised his palms to decline the sword. “1 can’t hold the sword. The last time I tried, my fingers nearly froze off.”

“You will not feel the cold this time,” said Melegaunt.

He nodded to Vala, who removed her scabbard and leaned it against the wall, then kneeled facing Galaeron. He removed his own scabbard and passed it to Dexon, and took his own place across from Vala. Melegaunt struck a torch. He had both Galaeron and Vala bound and gagged and stationed a warrior behind each. He took his glassy dagger from its sheath, and kneeling alongside Vala, began his incantation.

A pall of shadow darkened Vala’s eyes, and her expression changed instantly to one of vanity and suspicion. Still uttering the syllables of his spell, Melegaunt ran his glassy dagger along the floor beside her, cutting free the shadow cast by the lit torch. Vala’s eyes grew instantly feral and angry. She spun on Melegaunt, hurling herself into the air sideways and slamming her knees into his ribs despite her bound feet Kuhl threw himself over her, pinning her to the floor beneath his big body and holding her there motionless.

Now separated from its body, Vala’s shadow rose to its feet and stood upright, bending along the tunnel’s curved wall in a way her body never could have. The shadow retrieved the scabbard from where Vala had leaned it, then turned to wait for Galaeron.

Galaeron could not tear his gaze from the thrashing body pinned beneath Kuhl. As Melegaunt kneeled beside him and began the incantation, Galaeron’s heart pounded wildly. The thought that he would go as mad as Vala terrified him. Elf spirits were, after all, different than human souls, and he was not at all certain he would find his way back to his body Still, he forced himself to remain calm and motionless, for he was troubled by the vengeful emotions he had experienced earlier and determined to redeem himself—in his own eyes, if no one else’s.

Galaeron had the feeling of being drawn into the stone, then found himself looking up at his own body, trying to peer past Melegaunt as he drew the glassy knife along the ground beside his leg. He could actually feel the blade, icy and sharp, cutting him free of his body. As the wizard finished, Galaeron was seized by a terrible coldness. His body became a wild thing, whirling around at the waist in a mad effort to slam its head into Melegaunt.

Dexon hurled himself onto Galaeron’s body, slamming it to the ground and pinning it there. Galaeron felt a pang of concern for the wild thrashing thing, but put it out of his mind and lifted Dexon’s scabbard off the man’s belt. He hung it where the hooks would have been on his own belt, as Melegaunt had instructed, and the scabbard melted into his form. Galaeron reached down and felt the hilt beneath his palm, but sensed no weight on his hip. Nor did he notice anything particularly cold about the weapon. Rather, it seemed to him that the whole world—the tunnel walls, the darksword, his own form—had become the very substance of cold.

“Ready?” Vala’s voice was wispy and deep.

Galaeron nodded and followed her up the tunnel, not walking so much as flowing along the walls. He suffered a moment of disorientation as he slipped through the shadow curtain Melegaunt had hung across the passage, then continued toward the phaerimm’s spell glow. Vala glided across the ceiling as he slid across the floor, and together they streamed through the opening into the dwarven workings.

Zay was clutching Lord Imesfor in two hands, holding a third hand over the elf’s mouth to keep him from uttering any unexpected enchantments, and using a fourth hand to tug at the high mage’s golden rings. Because many of the rings were too small to fit over the elf’s broken fingers, the phaerimm was carefully popping each digit off at the appropriate knuckle. Lord Imesfor accepted this with remarkable calm, glaring at his torturer more in anger than pain.

Beneath Lord Imesfor lay a veritable pile of amulets, bracers,

girdles, and other magic items Zay had already removed from the high mage’s body A half dozen of the other phaerimm were floating inches off the dusty floor, pawing through the treasure and arguing about who had the right to claim what. Tha already held the high mage’s book of war spells in one hand, but that did not prevent the monster from snatching a silver diadem from one of his fellows. Galaeron hoped the greed fest was enough of a display to hold the attention of the others. Without knowing where their eyes were located, he had the constant feeling that they were watching him.

Vala drifted into the shadows on the ceiling and started toward Lord Imesfor. Galaeron slid along the wall, creeping along in small, flickering motions that he hoped would look like normal shadow movements. Melegaunt had assured him that while the monsters could see normal magic as easily as an elf saw at night, the creatures had never detected any spell he cast using his “other source of magic.” The wizard had been unable to tell Galaeron whether they could see normal things—like shadows.

Galaeron made his way along the edge of the chamber, then entered the darkness in order to cross the tunnel. As he did so, he felt something cold pulling at him, trying to draw him deeper into the darkness. The spell glow became a green sphere in the far distance, and it took him a moment to realize it was growing smaller. He bit back a cry of alarm and concentrated on moving toward the green light. It grew as large as before, filling the chamber in front of him. Deciding he would rather be discovered by the phaerimm than dragged into the darkness by whatever had grabbed him, he crossed to the other side at the edge of the light and slipped between the bone bars.

The cage was cluttered with listless elves, all with an inflamed puncture wound somewhere on their torsos. They were in various states of ague, and many had fallen into a sort of comatose trance beyond all hope of recovery. The worst had arm-sized snakes writhing beneath their skin, usually

along the path of their intestines, but sometimes coiled over their hearts or girding their ribs.

In the center of the cage floated the great Kiinyon Colbathin, stripped naked and clawing at his wounds. Unlike the wounds of the other prisoners, his punctures showed no sign of inflammation or infection. Recalling how Takari had immediately fallen into a stupor and how her wound had swollen, it seemed unlikely that the tomb master had been injected with an egg. Galaeron streamed across the ceiling and pressed himself to the tomb master’s far side.

Kiinyon shuddered and cried out. Galaeron slipped a shadowy hand over the elf s mouth and felt it sink into flesh. The tomb master’s voice shrieked through it unmuffled.

Several nearby phaerimm turned their open mouths toward the cage. Galaeron wrapped himself around Kiinyon’s body and hoped he was truly as unnoticeable as Melegaunt had promised. The tomb master began to shiver. The phaerimm kept their mouths pointed toward the cage. Finally, Kiinyon could no longer contain himself and let out a single groan of fear.

The phaerimm swung their heads away, chuckling in their strange wind language. Galaeron waited until they had turned back to the pile of magic treasure, then pressed his shadowy lips to Kiinyon’s ear.

“Master Colbathin, hold your tongue or I swear by the Black Arrow I’ll leave you here,” whispered Galaeron. “Understand?”

Kiinyon’s eyes grew round as plates.

“Do you know who this is?”

Kiinyon nodded, though his eyes held a thousand questions.

“Good. I won’t waste time asking whether you are happy to see me,” said Galaeron, “but if you want to live, you must comfort Lord Imesfor with the Prayer for the Dying.”

The tomb master remained silent, looking first to his own wounds, then to the inflamed punctures of an elf lying nearby.

“Whatever the phaerimm injected you with, it wasn’t eggs, or you’d be as sick as everyone eke,” said Galaeron. “Now, say the prayer if you wish to live.”

Instead of obeying, Kiinyon whispered, “What of the others?”

Galaeron looked at their listless forms, and his heart grew as heavy as gold. “They’re not going to move themselves, and you felt what happened when I tried to cover your mouth. Do you have a way to carry them?”

“No.” Kiinyon closed his eyes, no doubt coming to the same conclusion as Galaeron. Their only choice was whether to leave and let the others die alone, or stay and die with them. “This isn’t right.”

“No, it isn’t, but we’ll do what we can.” On the ceiling outside, Galaeron saw a shadow flicker back and forth and realized Vala was signaling him. “We’re out of time. Speak if you wish to live.”

Kiinyon shook his head at the awfulness of the decision, but said, “I must live.” A cry of fear sounded around the corner, and Kiinyon looked toward the door. “Have strength, Imesfor. Behold, there in the West—”

The prayer was interrupted by the deafening trill of an anguished phaerimm. Galaeron slipped to the front of the cage, then took a position on the wall. On the floor beyond the door lay a crooked phaerimm arm, severed cleanly at the biceps and resting in a pool of rusty blood. Lord Imesfor lay on the chamber floor, holding his mangled hands to his chest, his neck craned back to stare up in shock at the stump of Zay’s amputated arm.

Zay shrieked something too fast for Galaeron to understand even with Melegaunt’s eavesdropping spell, then reached for Imesfor again. Vala’s darksword drove down from the ceiling, appearing out of the shadows as though wielded by the rock itself, and buried itself in Zay’s thorny back.

Zay screeched and spun in the air, pulling Vala half off the ceiling. For an instant, her torso hung stretched between

the ceiling and the writhing phaerimm, a vaguely female silhouette holding a very three-dimensional glassy black sword-Then she turned the blade into the roll, and the shadowy edge began to cut again. Zay’s body opened around the middle and spilled steaming gore into the dust. Vala barely had time to pull herself back onto the rock before a storm of fire and lightning blasted the ceiling.

Galaeron slipped around the corner, then spoke in High Elvish. “Into the cage with you!” He had to shout to make himself heard. ‘To Kiinyon’s side, and into the tunnel of shadow!”