Troy Denning - The Sorcerer

A long, crescent-shaped blade of magic light appeared before them, the lower lip teetering on the rim of the steep slope at their feet. Arr glanced through the steam bank and saw the dark fleck of the sentry still holding his position in front of Mount Untriwin. She raised her arm and pointed forward, and as one the five "Chosen" pushed their creation over the bank.

The blanket peeler slid fifty feet to the bottom of the basin, where its lower lip slipped under the shadow blanket's edge and quietly rolled it one yard back.

That was all the sentry needed to see. When Arr next looked, the veserab was vanishing southward through the steam. She allowed herself a moment to savor the genius of her plan, then waved to the others and slid down the icy bank to the shadow blanket.

At the bottom of the pit, they found themselves standing in six inches of icy water. The discomfort was not something phaerimm were accustomed to, but it was a simple matter to fix with a little resistance magic. They soon started to push, and the magic peeler worked just as Arr had planned, cutting the blanket free of the ice and rolling it back on itself. The more material there was, the tighter the tool rolled it

The only problem came when they encountered stones hidden beneath the ice, a surprisingly frequent occurrence since rocks often fell from the mountain, then were carried forward by the glacier and slowly buried by more snow. Still, the phaerimm quickly learned to push these obstacles out of the way with simple telekinesis magic. Two hours later, they had made so much progress that Mount Untriwin blocked their entire view of the western horizon, and they could hear the faint ringing that gave the peak its name-in the native tongue, untriwin meant "singing rock."

Arr was beginning to fear that her plan had failed when a jagged line of shadows began to appear in the steam ahead. She continued forward until the line resolved itself into a rank of Shadovar warriors, all fully armored and carrying their deadly black swords. Arr's companions were instantly at her back, arriving by teleport magic even as the enemy began to advance.

Instead of breaking into a charge as Arr had anticipated, the Shadovar line stopped thirty paces from the rolled shadow blanket. A huge warrior with braided hair tails and bright coppery eyes stepped forward and raised his dark blade in salute. He was the one they called Escanor.

"With the phaerimm loose in the world again, I should think the Chosen of Mystra would have better things to do than rob Shade Enclave of its water."

"If Shade kept its water to itself, we would," Arr replied.

She had not expected the Shadovar to be more interested in talking than fighting, but she had to respond in kind. While phaerimm never hesitated to use force, she and her fellows had to behave as the Chosen would, and the Chosen were reluctant to start a fight until they knew they had no other choice.

"Your shadow blankets are flooding half of Faer?n," she continued, "and robbing the rest of rain. Since you refuse to remove them, we will do it for you."

Escanor took one step forward and said, "Faer?n's suffering is the price for restoring Shade to its birthright."

Then let Shade pay the price," Arr said, trying to put herself in Storm's place. "Your birthright is no concern of Faer?n's."

"It is. You abandoned us to the Plane of Shadow for seventeen centuries. You cannot imagine how we suffered."

"We abandoned no one." Arr wondered if she had conversed enough to seem like one of the Chosen, then decided probably not They talked a lot "Leaving was your city's choice."

"Choice?" Escanor scoffed. "It was leave or die."

"Then it is a pity Shade did not choose the latter," she said. The Shadovar's talkativeness puzzled Arr. Surely, he knew as well as Arr did that there was going to be a fight-so why was he stalling? "It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble."

"Rude, as well as ungrateful." Escanor looked from Arr to Ryry and said, "You are known to be the reasonable sister, Lady Alustriel. Surely, you can see that opposing us will only lead to more Tilvertons. Wouldn't your energies be better spent helping Faer?n's people adjust to the new climate than adding to their troubles by starting a war you cannot hope to win?"

"No one ever wins a war, Prince Escanor," Ryry said, sounding like Alustriel in voice as well as meaning. "They only lose less than the enemy. Given what Shade lost at Tilverton, I should think you would understand that."

"Our city is still here."

"And so are a hundred of ours," Arr countered. "Who do you think can stand to lose more?"

Escanor's eyes flashed orange.

"The question is not how many cities you can lose, Lady Storm." His voice was sharp and seething, yet he seemed as content as before to stand there talking instead of fighting. "The question is how many you can destroy. We have already proven what we can do."

"And if you lose an army with each city, we will not have to destroy your city at all," Arr said. As she spoke, Arr was running her gaze down the Shadovar line, searching for the other princes. "By the third or fourth city, it will be ours for the claiming."

"We have learned from our mistake." Escanor glanced at the shadow blanket rolled up between them and said, "You, apparently, have not. You will remove your tool and allow us to replace the shadow blanket I will ask this only once."

Arr completed her search of the Shadovar line and finding no more princes placed a hand on her hip in the stubborn way Storm often did.

"And if we refuse?"

"The battle will not be fought here," Escanor said. "It will be Faer?n's cities that pay-"

"Liar."

Nothing would have made Arr happier than to think the prince was telling the truth, but the Shadovar were too cunning to announce their plan in advance. She raised her arm and with a thought unleashed the spell she had spent most of her imprisonment in the Shaeradim developing. A steady stream of silver-white flame boiled out of her fingertips toward the prince. His spell-guard flashed black as the fire struck. The shadow magic in this defense triggered a secondary spell, sending an antimagic beam shooting from the head of the flame stream.

A gapping hole appeared in Escanor's spell-guard, allowing the white stream behind to pour through. The effect was a reasonable imitation of the silver fire of the Chosen, and Escanor fell, screaming and engulfed in flames.

Arr started to whistle a command to her fellows, then caught herself and yelled, "Watch our backs! The other princes-"

She was interrupted by the hissing crash of a dark bolt striking home behind her. Beze went tumbling over the rolled shadow blanket and landed a dozen yards away, wisps of shadow rising from a gaping hole in her chest. She began to thrash about and whistle in pain, then rose into the air, too weak and dazed to hold herself on the ground.

"Laeral, no!" Arr yelled. "Get down and be-"

The word "quiet" was lost to a horrific roar as battle magic-both phaerimm and Shadovar-started to crack and sizzle behind her. Escanor's company answered with a thunderous war cry, then lifted their arms and began to gesture. Arr countered by raising a wall of scintillating color in front of them-Shadovar hated prismatic magic- then she realized she had forgotten herself and neglected to gesture and incant. She covered by waving her arm and booming out a dozen syllables of mystic nonsense, then toppled the wall over on the enemy.

A cacophony of crackling magic and anguished screaming filled the basin for a single instant then came echoing back off Untriwin's stony face and faded to an low murmur. It was a sound Arr loved well, the sound of astonished survivors struggling to gather their wits and reorganize.

She glanced back to find her companions standing behind their spell-guards hurling magic at half a dozen retreating princes. The bars of a half-completed shadow cage lay at their feet, slowly melting into the slushy water as its unbound energies dispersed.