Troy Denning - The Summoning

Galaeron rushed to its side. "We didn't know what kind of creature you were." He waved at the body. "We made this in our own fashion."

The shadow sprouted a pair of eyes on the side of its head. "You did well. The color is right."

Galaeron glanced at Melegaunt and found the wizard staring at the dark figure with a dropped jaw. When the elf looked back to the creature, it had wrapped its arms around its legs, and all four limbs were melding into the body.

"We were wondering if you could tell us…" Galaeron looked away. He could not quite keep from asking, "What are you?"

"A sharn." It was Melegaunt who said this. "At least that is what I think."

A smiling mouth appeared in the flank of the drop-shaped body "You think right, wizard." Another mouth appeared on Galaeron's side. "What is it you want to know? I am obviously in your debt."

Galaeron was too stunned to answer, as was everyone except Jhingleshod.

"We would know who captured you, and whether he has been entirely destroyed."

The sharn rose off the floor and floated toward the door. That was the lich Wulgreth, who took my soul when I came thinking to end his depredations against the empire." "Wulgreth?" echoed Jhingleshod. "Which Wulgreth?"

"The only Wulgreth that is a lich," replied the sharn. "How many do you think there can be?"

Iron shoulders slumping, Jhingleshod whirled on Galaeron. "You have not destroyed him, not completely."

"Wulgreth is completely destroyed," said the sham, now struggling to squeeze itself into the exit tunnel. "Were that not so, I would not be free."

Jhingleshod whirled on the sharn. "Liar! If Wulgreth were destroyed-"

"Jhingleshod, wait," Galaeron said, stepping in front of the iron knight "You asked the wrong question."

"Then ask the right one-and quickly" The sharn paused in the tunnel mouth, peering out from a bulbous extrusion that might or might not have been a head. "Grateful as I am, I hunger for better company than yours."

"Which empire were you trying to protect?" Galaeron asked.

"Which empire?" The sharn withdrew completely into the tunnel. "Why, the only empire of course-unless you mean to include your quaint elven confederacies." "The Netherese Empire?" Galaeron pressed.

"The very one." The sharn's voice faded as it retreated up the passageway "And now, if you'll excuse me, I shall return later to repay the favor you have done me."

"Wait!" Melegaunt stepped forward, speaking in a language of strange syllables. When the sharn did not reply, he turned back to the others, shaking his head sadly "He doesn't know. It's all gone, and he doesn't know." "The sharn were Netherese?" Galaeron gasped.

The question jolted Melegaunt out of his despair. "I don't know." He shrugged. "No one does, I suspect. There are some who claim they were Netherese arcanists who transformed themselves in order to battle the phaerimm. Others claim they came from another world. What is clear is that they had a hatred of phaerimm, or they would not have erected the Sharn Wall."

At the mention of the Sharn Wall, Galaeron cast a hopeful look up the tunnel, but Melegaunt shook his head. "He's gone, my friend-and even were he not, 1 doubt he could help us. Before we can patch the hole, we must fight our way through the phaerimm who have already escaped."

Though it angered Galaeron to concede the argument, he nodded and turned toward the back of the chamber. "Then let's find the help we need and get to it." amp;• • amp;•• amp;• •(c)•‹§›•

Keya Nihmedu stood atop the Livery Gate watchtower, slightly self-conscious in her form-fitted chain mail and painfully aware that the magic pike in her hand was no defense at all against phaerimm. Her eyes were as sharp as any in Evereska, and she had seen enough of the battle in the High Vale to know that fifty years of half-hearted blade drill- suffered daily at her father's insistence, Hanali bless him- would stand her in poor stead against the thornbacks. The unsightly monsters had already turned the high slopes into a forest of bare-limbed scarecrows, and now they were working their way onto the upper terraces of the Vine Vale, using their hideous magic to turn the vineyards into dead tangles of thorn hedges.

Most of the Long Watch felt their duties were of little real importance to the war, that they were only standing a post to free the real soldiers to fight, but Keya was not so sure. She had it from Manynests-if she understood his scattered peeptalk correctly-that the Cloudtop Magi Circle had divined the phaerimm's plan. They intended to capture Evereska much the same way they had destroyed the Netherese Empire, by using their life-draining magic to devitalize Evereska Vale. Without the surrounding lands to sustain it, the city's mythal would slowly lose its magic, and eventually it would grow too weak to keep out the thorn-backs.

At first, Lord Duirsar had not been overly worried. The groves and lands within the mythal were large enough to sustain its power for a year or two, by which time help would surely arrive. Then the high mages of the Bellcrest Spire had reminded him that plants need light and water, and the Moon-dark Circle had named a dozen spells that could shut off both. According to Manynests, Lord Duirsar had decided on the spot to create the Long Watch, and that was how Keya knew her duty to be as important as whatever her father and Galaeron were off doing-wherever they were off doing it.

Keya selected a wand from her belt and dutifully swept it across the four quarters of the sky, studying its wake of blue radiance for any telltale glimmers of invisibility magic. The wand was one of a trio quietly supplied to each member of the Long Watch by the three towers of high mages. Keya had not known there were that many circles in Evereska until Manynests had "slipped" during a rather curious visit to inform her that Lord Duirsar had not heard from her father and the Swords-a fact well known to all of Evereska.

After a day's reflection, Keya had dutifully let it slip in gossip that she had heard from a reliable source that Evereska still had three full towers of high mages. This had done much to reassure her friends, who had promptly spread the secret so efficiently that it was repeated to her twice over the next two days-exactly as Lord Duirsar had intended, she was sure. What she had not passed along was the high mages' concern about the mythal, since she felt certain the bird had, in fact, not meant to reveal that bit of bad news.

When Keya found no invisible phaerimm lurking above the mythal, she returned the wand to her belt and started a slow, top-to-bottom scan of the encircling cliffs with her naked eye. She was about halfway around when she noticed a crag hawk circling its nest, claws extended as though it would like to attack but could not. As she had been taught, Keya did not dwell on the spot or immediately reach for a wand, but marked the place in her mind and continued her routine to fool any watching phaerimm. Then, feigning boredom-also a part of Long Watch's meticulously rehearsed routine-she yawned and shook her head, studied her nails for a moment, and glanced back to the spot. The bird was still circling.

Keya retreated casually down the stairs and found a window from which she could see the hawk. Standing in the shadows, she pulled the first wand from her belt and swept it over the area. She was rewarded with a row of telltale sparkles. For the first time, her heart began to pound with excitement. Though she descended the stairs a dozen times every watch to check on something, this was the first time she had ever found anything suspicious. She pulled her second wand and waved it at the street-side window.

The image of a beautiful Gold elf appeared in the window. "What is it, Keya? If you are thirsty, I can send a boy with some wine."