Troy Denning - The Sorcerer

Galaeron rushed to help, but Kiinyon was closer. Hurling a flight of magic bolts at her attacker, the legendary spellblade sprang to her side and caught her under the arm. His bolts dissipated harmlessly against the phaerimm's spell shield, but by then Galaeron was flinging a shadow net over it from behind. The startled thornback tried to teleport away and exploded into a thousand fleshy cubes.

Kiinyon pulled the mage to her feet, holding her up so she could finish the spell and shielding her with his own body. A trio of lightning flashes streaked in from all sides, and Galaeron knew the phaerimm were recovered enough from their teleport afterdaze to mount a concerted attack.

The first bolt overloaded Kiinyon's spell shield and drew a startled curse. The second caught him square in the chest, melting through his armor and setting him on fire at head, hands, and feet. The third bolt caught the high mage square in the back and slammed her headlong into the side of Hanali's leg. Her body didn't even go limp; it burst into flames and flew apart

The spell songs of the other two high mages fell out of harmony, and the leader's hands began to fumble as he struggled to continue weaving. Though they were also under attack, it was not as heavy as on Galaeron's side of the statue, and Laeral and Khelben were doing a good job of keeping it that way.

Racing the last five steps to Hanali's feet, Galaeron flung a shadow sphere into the head-disk of one of the mage's attackers and hurled his darksword through the torso of the second, then he stepped over Kiinyon's body and turned his palms toward the ground. He was no high mage, but the alarm spell was not difficult, and he had seen enough of how the circle harmonized to stand in.

Galaeron began to sing.

The surviving high mages faltered. The leader turned his translucent head toward Galaeron and studied him for a moment, then looked back to his weaving. Galaeron feared the two mages would not accept him into their circle but they adjusted their pitch to blend with his more sonorous voice and continued their spells.

Galaeron felt a slight impact as a flurry of spells struck him in the back and disappeared into his shadow shield. His heart raced with the knowledge that he was standing there motionless while a bevy of phaerimm hurled magic at him, but he forced the fear from his mind and gave himself over to the song he was creating with the high mages. He began to twist his fingers through the gestures of the alarm spell, drawing the magic up out of the ground as he had seen the dead mage do.

The strands came up dark and cold.

Galaeron's voice quavered, but when he hesitated to pass the shadow magic over, the leader reached over with a translucent hand and took the first black thread. As the mage plaited the strand into the hem of Hanali’s cloak, his eyes darkened, becoming a pair of murky orbs floating in a transparent face. He reached over and took the next strand from Galaeron's hand.

A three-armed phaerimm flew up beside the statue where its attacks wouldn't be blocked by the shadow shield protecting Galaeron's back. It plunged its tall barb into his belly. So absorbed in the spell song was Galaeron that it barely registered that this was the leader or that it was pumping its poison into him. He felt his feet leave the cobblestones, but that troubled him no more than did the distant pain burning in his belly.

Lord Duirsar was there, beating the phaerimm back with spell and blade. Galaeron continued to sing. He was one with the high mages, concerned only with the casting. The leader reached up and took the next strand from Galaeron with an invisible hand. This time, when he plaited the thread into Hanali's cloak, he followed it in.

Galaeron came to the end of his song, and his belly erupted in pain. He did not realize that the casting was finished and he had been released from the spell until he saw Lord Duirsar below him, fighting the phaerimm leader toe-to-tall, driving it back with flashing steel and pelting it with bolt after bolt from a magic ring. Storm was rushing to the elf lord's side, one hand raised to hurl her own spells, the other still carrying her sword.

Galaeron reached for his shadowsilk but knew even as tried he would not succeed. The phaerimm's poison had left him paralyzed and floating helplessly above the ground. As he watched, two more phaerimm appeared at Storm's back, spraying fire and lightning blindly and lashing out with their tolls. He shifted his eyes in the opposite direction and saw that the situation was much the same in the rest of the courtyard, with Khelben and Laeral standing back-to-back and wary phaerimm pelting them from a distance.

Newly repaired though it was, the mythal remained exhausted and starved from the abuse it had suffered since the start of the phaerimm invasion. It mustered itself enough to send a single golden meteor streaking down into the courtyard. The orb blasted only one of the phaerimm that had just teleported in behind Storm, leaving the other to tumble off smoking and teleport away.

The boom was loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the courtyard. Lord Duirsar narrowly blocked a tail barb when he spun around to see what had caused the sound. Storm, who had been much closer to the explosion, was left picking herself up off the cobblestones.

"Storm!" Galaeron had to hiss the words between clenched teeth, but he knew that as one of the Chosen, she would hear. "The mythal is whole! Use the silver-"

The phaerimm leader gestured in Galaeron's direction, and even his muttering grew silent Lord Duirsar took advantage of the opening to pour a flurry of magic bolts into the thornback's torso and send it tumbling away, then Storm turned and loosed a stream of silver fire into the base of Hanali's statue. Khelben and Laeral followed her lead an instant later, and the statue began to glow with a bright silver light.

The glow faded as quickly as it had appeared. The phaerimm leader hurled a black death ray at Lord Duirsar that the elf lord sent ricocheting off with a spell mirror. Taking a cue from their leader, the other phaerimm renewed their attacks, and Galaeron began to think that he had failed Evereska again, that his idea had been disastrously misguided and even the unadulterated magic of the Chosen's silver fire could not provide the burst of energy the mythal needed to defend Evereska. Fighting through his disappointment and pain, he opened himself to the Shadow Weave and prepared to loose a shadow blast. He had no control over his own movement, but if a phaerimm happened to pass-

A rain of golden meteors came streaking down from the sky, crackling, sizzling, and leaving a long trail of black smoke in their wake. The first one struck the phaerimm leader, blasting the creature into a spray of sparkling nothingness and laying Lord Duirsar out on the ground next to it. The next three landed in a semicircle around Khelben and Laeral, leaving the two Chosen slumped back-to-back, their eyes as round as coins and their jaws hanging slack. Two more crashed down behind Storm, who flinched a little and looked around to see if there was anything left to kill.

It took only four more strikes in half as many seconds before there wasn't anything left to kill. The rest of the phaerimm-the few who had survived-teleported away, and the meteor shower began to spread outward from the statue, seeking targets in other parts of the city. Galaeron saw perhaps another dozen strikes before the rain grew erratic and dwindled away, leaving the sky streaked with the smoky trails of their descent

No, not smoke. Smoke trails grew crooked and feathery as they dissipated in the breeze. The streaks remained straight, narrow, and dark.

"Are those what I think they are?" Storm asked.

Galaeron looked down to see Storm below him. She had a coil of elven rope she had taken from Kiinyon’s belt and was busy tying a slip knot. He would have asked her what she thought the stripes were, except that he remained both paralyzed from the phaerimm leader's poison and silenced by its magic. It was probably just as well-he really didn't want to be the one to say they were shadows.