Troy Denning - The Sorcerer

"They're holding Lord Duirsar prisoner?" Galaeron asked.

"Isolating him," Keya corrected. "They couldn't breach the palace wards, so they prevented him from leaving."

"More likely the High Mages," Laeral observed. "If the Company of the Cold Hand is giving them trouble-"

"That*s it!" Galaeron burst. "The high mages!"

"What about them?" Khelben asked.

Instead of answering, Galaeron stopped and took his sister by the shoulders.

"You said 'for one thing,' the phaerimm were keeping Lord Duirsar trapped," he said. "What are the other things?"

"Aside from the fighting you'd expect in any battle, there's really only one other thing," Keya said. "About ten of them have gathered at Hanali Celanil's statue. We haven't tried to penetrate their security perimeter, but Manynests says they're using a lot of magic."

"I'll bet they are," Khelben said.

Keya appeared perplexed by this remark, but Galaeron had a feeling he knew exactly what Khelben meant

"That's where the mythal was cast?" Galaeron gasped. This was a secret so closely guarded that, aside from Lord Duirsar and the city's high mages, only Evereska's most loyal friend among the Chosen would be privy to it. "At the statue of Hanali Celanil?"

"I doubt there was a statue there when it was cast," Khelben said. "And I wasn't there, you understand."

"But that's what you've been given to understand," Galaeron concluded. Conviction and excitement began to well up inside him as half-formed thoughts raced through this mind, fitting all the pieces of the puzzle into place. "That would explain why they haven't fallen into quarreling yet"

"It does?" This from Aris, who had been creeping along behind them. "They're feeding off the mythal?"

"Not feeding," Galaeron said. "Feeding would cause fights."

"Dismantling, then," Khelben said, following the line of Galaeron's reasoning. "They're taking it apart spell by spell."

"So the magic will return to the Weave?" Keya asked. "Why would they do that?"

"Because the magic won't return to the Weave," Storm said. "It's not raw anymore. It can't"

"The magic will stay here, inside the boundaries of the old mythal," Laeral explained. "It'll infuse the whole area."

They came to the path that led from Dawnsglory Pond up to Starmeadow Tower. Hearing Takari's all-clear warble, they crossed to Goldmorn Knoll and traversed the slope, the woods more open and therefore more dangerous.

Once the entire group was safely across, Khelben looked down over Keya's head and said to Galaeron, "It seems the phaerimm have learned to share. That hardly sounds like the creatures you claimed you could have warring with themselves inside a day."

"It doesn't," Galaeron agreed, "but if they have learned to share, it's only because a leader has emerged who is strong enough to dictate terms."

"If a strong leader has emerged among the phaerimm," Laeral said, "we dare not let them have Evereska."

Storm nodded and made a fist, which she touched lightly to Galaeron's shoulder.

"Not if we value the rest of Faer?n, we don't"

•©••©•• • •©•

The snowfinch was up in the tree again, peering down through the bluetop boughs at the ring of phaerimm hovering around the statue of the elf goddess. It did not peep either in alarm or complaint and in fact seemed to be spying on their progress, but Arr did not dare blast the feathered nuisance. The SpellGather had finally found a thread of loose magic and was about to pull the first spell from the mythal, and the last thing she wished to do was disrupt their concentration.

Even with Zay and Yao, and eight more of the finest spell artists of her race-or any other-working nonstop since they entered the city, her plan had yet to yield a breath of magic. Already, two young softthorns had violated the War-Gather's edict against plunder-taking, and she had been forced to promise Tuuh a service gift to hunt them down and pin their skins to the GatherStone as a warning to others. And now there was talk of four longbarbs at the Cave-that-Taunts attacking their own kind shortly before the killblast

The members of the WarGather were beginning to doubt her plan, especially her ability to prevent loot-taking. She could sense that much in their frequent inquiries about the SpellGather's progress and in the gusts with which they warned one another away from the great armory at the Academy of Magic. Her plan had to start freeing the mythal's magic soon, or the WarGather would dissolve around her. Arr had no illusions about what would befall her then. She had promised too many gifts, and forgiveness was not a virtue of the phaerimm.

Ryry emerged from the forest behind Arr and floated to her side.

"How goes it?" Ryry asked.

"You shall have your spell crown," Arr gusted. "What news from the Cave-that-Taunts?"

"After the killblast, now it is calling us flatworms," Ryry reported. "It claims the spell was its doing."

Arr found herself curling her tail. She forced it straight again, then decided that had to be a lie. Who had ever heard of a cave that could cast spells?

Then I am certain," Arr began, "that you asked why it killed so many elves along with our dozen and a half."

"Of course."

Several of the SpellGather phaerimm began to work their four arms over each other as though pulling a long rope. Arr put a hand out to silence Ryry and went still as stone, praying that they finally had a thread, even a small one, to demonstrate the progress she had promised the WarGather.

The finch peeped.

The arms of the spell artists fell motionless one after the other, and they returned to pluck at the strand they had found. Arr gnashed her pointed teeth and checked again to see if there was any magic on the bird, but it seemed as null as a rock. Another peep like that, she vowed, and it would be a rock, and she didn't care how many days of concentration the spellcasting shattered.

Calming herself, Arr turned her attention back to Ryry and asked, "What was the cave's reply?"

"It had none," Ryry answered smoothly. "Its claim was a lie, I am sure."

"No doubt," Arr answered. It was almost certainly Ryry who was lying-to cover for her oversight-but Arr would only alienate a fellow member of the WarGather by making the accusation. "It is an insult that a hole in the ground speaks our language."

"Indeed."

"What of the four betrayers?" Arr asked.

"They are not betrayers."

Ryry's thorns bristled with pride. Arr waited in stillness, for she had learned the value of allowing allies their moment

"They are impostors," Ryry said at last "Impostors who escaped the killblast and fought with the blackswords at the Starmeadow."

There was a fight at the Starmeadow?"

"Only just completed," Ryry said. "I have sent a killtroop, but you know how quickly the blackswords vanish after they attack."

Arr was still thinking about the betrayers.

"Impostors?" she asked, openly skeptical. "And no one saw through their magic?"

Ryry grew less proud of herself. "They may be shadow pullers," she said. "One of the softhorns who survived saw dark bolts."

"Dark bolts?" Arr repeated. "Did our spies not say Shade had fallen?"

"Nearly fallen," Ryry corrected. "The Chosen have some-how anchored the city over the north end of the lake, but Shade is now stable. It isn't going to fall, not until we bring it down ourselves."

Arr was so shocked she nearly let herself sink to the ground. Tricking the Chosen into destroying Shade for them had been a cornerstone of her plan, but somehow the

Shadovar had prevailed. Could it be true? Could the Shadow Weave be stronger than the Weave?

"Arr?"

Arr did not realize she had let herself sink again until she found herself looking up at Ryry. She used her tall to push herself back into the air.