Troy Denning - The Siege

Vala's first hint that she was not… well, gone, was the reek of battle gore. The second was pain. Something was lodged in her leg, holding up her whole body by the big thigh muscle and flicking across the bone. She thought for a moment that she was dead and in the Nine Hells with no memory of how she had come to be there. Then she saw a huge, amber-colored phaerimm lying flayed and motionless on the floor above her-no, below-and recalled the fight in the sanctum.

Vala was not in the sanctum. Instead of the four captured spellbooks and great heap of recovered magic she and Corineus had piled in the corner, there was a single open book floating in a green spell field and several shelves of neatly arranged relics. There were the mind-slaves' sleeping palettes lined up along the wall, and the ward symbol above the door that kept her baelnorn ally at bay. Most of all, there was the thornback itself, lying motionless and gutted on the floor beneath her, its long tail preventing her from floating to the ceiling by the painful barb lodged in her thigh.

After Vala's attack, the thing had attempted to teleport to the safety of its lair and arrived dead. At least she thought it was dead. She brought her arm down to cut herself free-or, rather, tried to bring her arm down. It didn't move in response to her will, nor did her legs or neck when she tested them-or even her tongue, when she attempted to curse.

Eventually, Vala knew, the crushing sphere would destroy Corineus's body and free his spirit to seek one of the spare bodies he had hidden in the Irithlium-but that was not going to help her. Until she broke the warding symbol above the door, the baelnorn could not enter the lair. There was nothing to do but hang there in pain until the poison wore off. ‹S› — O- ©- •©••© The Shadovar were not conspicuous in Arabel-or rather in what had been Arabel before the ghazneths and their ore hordes reduced it to rubble-but they were there. On the dark side of a broken tower, a pair of swarthy masons were using a shadow saw to size blocks. Through the window of a bakery, a potter with gleaming amethyst eyes was fashioning an oven from darkclay. In an alley, a tall and gaunt carpenter was installing an ebon-wood door.

None of them more than glanced in Galaeron's direction as he passed by with Aris and Ruha, but that meant nothing. With an elf, a Bedine witch, and a stone giant traveling together, the Shadovar had to know who they were looking at.

Aris stooped down to within three feet of Galaeron and Ruha. Though the giant had spent much of the past two days sipping Storm Silverhand's healing potions, he remained unsteady enough that Galaeron would rather he wasn't leaning over them.

"This is going to be harder than we thought," Aris said quietly. "I keep seeing Shadovar." Galaeron nodded. "Sent to watch for us."

"So many?" Ruha shook her head. "The Shadovar have easier ways of watching than rebuilding a whole city."

"What do you know?" Galaeron snapped. "With the information I have about the phaerimm, the Shadovar would do anything to get me back." "I am sure they would," Ruha said patiently.

She pointed at the base of a nearly rebuilt tower, where the foundation had been patched with the same dark amalgam that served as mortar in Shade Enclave. "They have been here for some time," the witch continued. "Their purpose here is to make an ally of Cormyr, not find us."

Galaeron considered first the foundation, then the rest of the broad street, and had to nod. While the city still looked like a rubble heap at first glance, the outlines of its former shape were beginning to re-emerge. Many of the larger buildings were already rising to the second or third story, and most showed signs of Shadovar work- if not in the mortar then in the precision fit of the stones and the dark wood of the balconies, or even in the depth of the shadowed window alcoves.

"You're right, of course," Galaeron said, transferring his ire from Ruha to Storm Silverhand. "Even the Shadovar couldn't do this overnight-and Storm had to know it when she teleported us here." "Most likely," Ruha admitted.

"So why send us?" Galaeron demanded. "It would have made more sense to teleport us to Waterdeep and come to Cormyr herself."

"Perhaps you have answered your own question," Ruha said. "That is what the Shadovar would expect Or matters in Waterdeep may be more complicated than we know. I am given to understand that Storm's sister Laeral is friendly with the Shadovar." "Say no more," Galaeron grumbled.

Storm's reaction to him in Anauroch had convinced him how unlikely he was to persuade any of the Chosen of anything. For loosing the phaerimm on the world, they might have forgiven him eventually, but for bringing the Shadovar into the world after them, and getting Elminster banished to the Nine Hells-never.

"We're better off taking our chances with the Cormyreans," Galaeron admitted.

"Then you accept that Storm did the wisest thing?" Ruha asked.

Galaeron shrugged. "How can I know? But she has to have a better hope in Waterdeep than I do. Lord Piergeiron certainly isn't going to take my word over Laeral's."

An approving twinkle came to Ruha's eyes. "You may survive this yet. I think you are finally learning to control your shadow self." She glanced over at a pair of Shadovar stone cutters who had stopped work to watch them pass, then added, "But perhaps we would draw less attention if we disguised ourselves and found a safe place to leave Aris."

"At this point, speed is better than stealth," Galaeron said. "The sooner we present ourselves at the palace, the more difficult it will be for Telamont Tanthul to have a troop of his lords spirit us back to the enclave."

"Well said," Aris agreed, glancing out over the half-built city. "Besides, there isn't a place to hide a stone giant within twenty miles of here."

It was no exaggeration. Though Storm had teleported them into a field only a quarter mile outside Arabel, the walk to the gates had been plenty long enough to bear witness to the devastation wrought by the dragon Nalavarauthatoryl and her ghazneths and ores. Even a year after the terrible war, nothing grew in the once-lush fields except a few black thistles and carpets of foul-smelling moss, while the great forest that had once flourished to the south and west of the city was still struggling to put the first spindly leaves in its canopy.

Despite their presence in Arabel, the Shadovar were not helping matters. With the melting of the High Ice carrying so much rain and cool air west toward Water-deep, a steady wind had been blowing northward through Cormyr, carrying with it the heat of the southlands and the mugginess of the Dragonmere. Had the zephyr but dropped a fraction of its moisture on its way over the kingdom, the change of weather might actually have helped matters. Instead, the air remained miserly with its water until it crashed into the northern Stormhorns and abruptly cooled. As a result, the kingdom was enduring its worst, hottest, most miserable drought in a thousand years, while at the same time its two largest rivers, the Starwater and the Wyvernflow, were flooding their banks and washing away whole villages.

Galaeron was far from certain that he would be able to secure an audience with the rulers of the kingdom, much less persuade the Cormyreans that Shade Enclave was causing their problems. But, as Storm had said, they would be eager for an explanation and inclined to listen. All he had to do was get the shadow blanket into Vangerdahast's hands. After that, the royal wizard would convince himself.

They reached the city palace, which-to Galaeron's great disappointment-had been rebuilt from the second story in the same pearly stone as Villa Dusari. Atop the highest spires, dozens of Shadovar polishers were crawling over the turrets like spiders, putting the final touches on the magnificent building. Fortunately, the guards at the door still wore Cormyr's purple dragon, or Galaeron would have concluded that the Shadovar had claimed Arabel for their own and left immediately.