The Summoning (28 page)

The giant winced in pain, then laid his hammer over the wound and rumbled an incomprehensible prayer to the dour god of his race. A plume of crimson steam shot from the hole on both sides of his leg, then Aris pressed his back against an oak and held the hammer in place as the wound filled with stone-colored flesh. Though his clenched jaw betrayed how much the healing hurt, he remained stoic and silent.

When the rising vapor paled to pink, Aris returned his hammer to his pouch. The wound was still a puckered mess, but there was nothing tentative about his movements when

he pushed himself to his feet and reached down for Kelda. The mare nickered, and dragging Malik along, backed toward the Pale Ring.

“You won’t need to carry her,” said Melegaunt. He turned to Takari and held out a palm. “If you will lend me your sword.”

Takari glanced at Galaeron, then reluctantly passed her weapon over. Melegaunt tipped it toward the sun and uttered a conjuration spell, all the while passing his palm over the underside of the blade. The side facing his hand grew black and hazy, while the steel facing the sun gleamed with silver sunlight. Takari scowled and started to reach for her weapon, but Galaeron waved her off. Though he had never seen anything quite like this spell, he recognized the general form as a Making, and he doubted it would harm Takari’s weapon.

By the time Melegaunt finished, the dark side of the blade was as black and deep as a fissure in a cavern floor, while the light side shone too brilliantly to look at. He turned the dark face toward the bog, and a black stripe appeared on the surface of the water. When he adjusted the angle, the stripe broadened to a width of two feet and stretched to thirty paces.

Melegaunt returned the sword to Takari. “Lay the shadow where you wish. It will keep our feet dry.”

Takari accepted the weapon with a gaping mouth, then stepped gingerly onto the shadow. When her foot did not pass through into water, she started forward.

Melegaunt motioned the others onto the black band. “Quickly. The path lasts only a few moments.”

Vala drew her sword and started along the trail without hesitation, followed by Malik and Kelda, who was persuaded to step onto the shadowy trail only by the threat of being picked up again. Aris took two precarious steps before announcing it was like walking on thread and stepped off to wade alongside. Melegaunt went next, and Galaeron brought up the rear.

The bog was more of a mess than it looked, with a muddy

bottom that sucked at Aris’s boots and filled the petrified forest with a steady cadence of slurping. Takari’s trail was by necessity crooked and irregular, detouring around blockades of tangled trees, occasionally narrowing to mere inches as it passed beneath a half-fallen trunk. The air was damp and biting, numbing their faces and stiffening their fingers with cold. They were all shivering within a hundred steps, and the anemic rays of the rising sun were too thin to warm them.

“I have been in howling blizzards warmer than this swamp!” complained Malik. “How can the water not be ice?”

“It is not cold you are feeling, it is death,” said Melegaunt. “Death ancient and mad and mighty, death sorrowful and ashamed.”

“Then what are we doing here?” demanded Malik. “If this Wulgreth is mighty enough to drain the heat from an entire swamp, we have no chance at all.”

“Not Wulgreth,” said Melegaunt. “I am speaking of Karsus. It is his magic that makes the Dire Wood, and his mad regret that twists everything within it.”

Karsus was a name that Galaeron, at least, recognized from his years at the Academy of Magic. Karsus was the foolish Netherese wizard who had tried to steal the Weave from the goddess of magic and brought the floating cities of Netheril crashing to the ground.

Daring to hope he was finally beginning to understand Melegaunt’s plan, Galaeron asked, “So it is Karsus’s magic you mean to use against the phaerimm?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Melegaunt ducked under a tree trunk and came face-to-flank with Malik’s horse, which had slowed as the little man paused to eavesdrop. The wizard slapped the horse on the rump, urging her forward and nearly knocking Malik off the trail, then said quietly, “You will see.”

Galaeron silently cursed the Cyricist, then found himself debating the merits of killing him and being done with it. Takari would not think much of the idea, but Melegaunt clearly had his suspicions about the fellow, and the wizard

had proven on more than one occasion that he would not balk at doing whatever was necessary to save Evereska. Vala would agree to whatever Melegaunt decided, so the only problem was Aris, and if it came to that, even Galaeron’s magic was powerful enough to … the thought brought him to a stunned halt, scarcely able to believe how easily his shadow had crept up on him. The dark thoughts had seemed so normal.

So shocked was Galaeron that he barely noticed Melegaunt disappearing around the next tangle of stony trees, but he did notice when the path vanished beneath his feet and plunged him to his waist in icy water.

His breath left him in a shriek, and his feet turned instantly to blocks of numb flesh. His knees began to ache with cold, his thighs felt like slabs of ice, and his body drained into the swamp. He staggered a single step and nearly fell when the mud refused to release his boot. Something large and soft bumped his leg and stayed. He cried out again and pulled his dagger, but could not bring himself to reach into the icy water to find out what it was.

Galaeron heard another splash and looked forward to see Melegaunt dropping into the water as the shadow trail vanished beneath him. The wizard let out a surprised roar, then spread his hands and levitated himself out of the water. The path was fast disappearing behind Malik and his horse, but with Vala and Takari spinning around to look toward Galaeron, they were helpless to continue forward.

Galaeron waved them on. “K-k-k-keep m-m-moving!”

The trail vanished beneath Kelda’s rear hooves, and that was all the impetus the mare needed to nose Malik forward. He gave Vala an urgent shove, and they were moving again, staying a few bare steps ahead of the vanishing shadow trail. Takari started to lay a crooked course back toward Galaeron, but Aris gestured them forward again.

“Go.” The giant plucked Melegaunt from the air, then sloshed back to Galaeron. “I’ll get them.”

The soft thing on Galaeron’s leg slithered around his thigh, a tiny set of scales or barbs or whatever ticking against his elven chain mail. He took a deep breath, then reached into the water with both hands and felt something huge and fleshy around his leg. He jabbed his dagger into its body, then pulled it from the water and immediately wished he had not.

The thing was as long as his arm, with a slimy black body tapering from a round head to a narrow tail. He could not imagine what it was until he turned it over and saw a ring of sharp little teeth surrounded by a fleshy-lipped sucker.

“By the Fey Wand!” He held the thing at arm’s length. “Ifs a leech.”

“More my size, I’d say” Aris stooped down and crushed the creature between two fingers, then plucked Galaeron up in his free hand. “And you should see the dragonflies up here.”

Galaeron saw a lacy blur nearly four feet across dart past the giant’s head, then said, “As 1-long as there aren’t any s-spiders.” Though the swamp was no longer draining his body heat, he could not seem to stop shivering, and even Melegaunt looked a little blue around the lips. “Can you c-cast a warming spell?”

Melegaunt gave a wry smile. “Unfortunately, sh-shadow magic does not create heat.” He shivered, then added, “From normal cold I can protect us, but from this life-draining chill …” He only shook his head.

Galaeron hesitated, already knowing Melegaunt’s response, then said anyway, “I can use the Weave—”

“How often must I warn you?” Melegaunt glared at Galaeron a moment, then looked up at Aris. “You do not seem troubled.”

“Nor do I seem troubled by the leeches—but seeming does not make a thing so.” He raised a foot out of the water to display the bloated black forms dangling to his ankle. “If we can find a stone, I can ask Skoreaus Stonebones to make it warm for us.”

Galaeron eyed the petrified trees they were passing, but decided not to suggest using one of them. The magic that had stolen their lives seemed as corrupt as the shadow trying to steal his.

Aris weaved through the petrified tangle until he caught the others, then placed Galaeron behind Takari and Melegaunt behind Vala, leaving Malik and his horse to bring up the rear. Recalling that Cyric was the human god of strife and murder, Galaeron was not so certain he liked the idea of having Malik behind everyone else—but a .few stumbling steps convinced him he was too weak to assume the post himself.

Conscious that the phaerimm and beholders—or perhaps even Elminster—would soon be coming up behind them, they continued westward at their best pace, Aris now assuming the duty of watching for foes behind. The strength continued to drain from Galaeron’s body, and he began to shiver uncontrollably Vala sheathed her sword and carried him in her arms long enough to strip him out of his wet clothes, then volunteered her own cloak to keep him warm instead. When that did not work, Takari volunteered hers, and even Malik produced a heavy woolen cape. The extra weight only seemed to tire Galaeron all the more. He began to feel queasy and lethargic, and it became a regular duty for Vala to catch him by the arm.

Melegaunt and Aris fared better, though the swamp had clearly taken its toll on them as well. The archwizard stumbled along mumbling to himself about hearts and heavy magic, and even became muddled enough to explain a little of his shadow magic to Malik. Aris simply started to slow, pausing now and again to brace himself against a petrified tree and check back for enemies.

The sun was high overhead when the trees finally vanished and the bog became a broad river that seemed to flow one direction on the near side and the opposite way along the other side. The far bank sloped up from the water in a gentle slope covered with gnarled black oaks—no doubt as petrified

as the bog trees—but at least standing on dry ground.

Takari laid the shadow path perhaps halfway across the river and started across, only to watch the swirl of a dark eddy catch it near the end and sucked it beneath the surface. She saved them all by flipping the sword around and severing the trail with a flash from the bright side of the blade, then quickly laid another path and tried again. This time, the eddy caught the trail only a dozen paces ahead, barely giving her time to flip the blade.

The horse whinnied from the back of the line, and Malik called, “Keep going! There is an eel behind us large enough to eat Kelda!”

Takari laid a trail along the edge of the river and, when the shadowy ribbon did not swirl away in a new eddy, raced forward to give the others room.

“Given what the bog did to Galaeron, I don’t fancy taking a swim in the river,” she called over her shoulder. “1 don’t suppose you’ve another way to cross, Melegaunt?”

“Cer… tainly.”

Melegaunt’s voice was so weak and thick-tongued that Galaeron hazarded a glance over his shoulder—prompting Vala to extend a guiding hand as the trail rounded a bend in the river.

“Why don’t we use that bridge?”

“Bridge?” Galaeron asked, confused.

“There’s always a bridge,” said Vala, pointing past Galaeron’s nose.

Galaeron looked forward again and saw the river purling over a stretch of dark, submerged stone. At each end of the stretch stood ruined bridge towers, their crowns jagged and broken, their windows black and unbarred. In front of the near tower stood a hazy figure in plate armor, his hands wrapped around the hilt of a huge two-handed sword resting tip-down in front of him.

“And a knight,” called Malik. “There is always a knight.”

Galaeron drew his sword and heard the others doing the

same, but Takari waved their weapons down. As they drew closer to the knight, it grew apparent he stood ankle deep in the river, water gurgling around his feet and mist swirling around him. His armor was coated in rust, while the face peering out from his raised visor seemed nothing but moldering bone and watchful, coal-dark eyes.

As they approached, he unsheathed his great sword and held it before him, the tip pointed at Takari. She stopped in her tracks and lowered her own sword.

“Well met, old Jhingleshod,” she said. “Oft have I watched your wanderings from the Pale Ring.”

“And there you should have stayed, elf. You have no business in the land of death.”

“Not I, but my friends.” Takari stepped aside and gestured to Galaeron. “They come in need of your aid.”

“My aid?” Jhingleshod’s black eyes shifted to Galaeron. “What aid can I give thee but a quick death?”

From the end of the line came a pair of splashes, then a startled whinny and hissed curse as the shadow vanished beneath Malik and his horse. Jhingleshod lifted his chin at the sound, but kept his attention—and his great sword—fixed on Galaeron.

“We have need of Karsus’s magic,” Galaeron said. “If you can show us—”

“Not we.” Jhingleshod jabbed his sword at Galaeron’s chest. “You. What come you seeking?”

“I come to save—”

“Think well, elf,” Jhingleshod warned. ‘To answer wrong is worse than death.”

Galaeron paused to consider the question. He had been about to say he came to save Evereska, but Jhingleshod’s reaction left little doubt that the answer would not have been the one the dead knight wished to hear. Another splash came from the end of the line, and this time it was Melegaunt’s voice that cried out.

Jhingleshod paid the noise no attention and kept his dead

gaze fixed on Galaeron. “Your answer? You have come far, elf—you must know what you are seeking.”

“I do.” Galaeron glanced at Takari, then over his shoulder to Vala. “Absolution. 1 seek pardon for my mistake.”

A black light flared in Jhingleshod’s eyes, and his skeleton’s jaw opened as though smiling. “There is a boon 1 would ask for my help, elf. Will you give it?”