The Summoning, page 8
“So we came to their side of the wall?” she asked.
Melegaunt nodded. “The phaerimm are as intelligent as they are evil. They’ll be ready for scouts. With luck, they won’t expect them from this direction.”
Galaeron thought of his father, riding out of Evereska on the mission Melegaunt described. “But the Swords—”
“Are still in the Secret Gate,” said Melegaunt. “Time is different in the Shadow. If we are lucky, we will have discovered everything Evereska must know before the Swords leave the High Peaks. If we are not lucky … In that case, I fear your father must face the risk.”
Galaeron nodded. Evereska had to learn the extent of the enemy’s victory. If he and his human companions failed, then it fell to the Swords of Evereska to win the information themselves—no matter how poor their chance of success. Seeing that the phaerimm was gone, Galaeron motioned to the crevice.
“Shall we?”
“In a minute,” said Melegaunt. “The phaerimm have spells to detect intruders … and it would be good if you were able to understand the phaerimm for yourself. Can you copy the spell I just cast?”
“Perhaps … a simple combination of eavesdropping and thoughtspeech?”
Melegaunt cocked his brow. “You are a truly gifted innatoth.”
“Innatoth?”
“Innate one,” said Melegaunt. “What my own people would have called an ArcNatural, but which is better translated in most of Faerûn as ‘sorcerer.’ ”
“What’s the difference?” asked Vala.
“Not much to you, but a great deal to me,” said Melegaunt. “Even to the best wizards, magic comes slowly and with difficulty. Not so to sorcerers. For them, it is a gift, a natural talent that can be improved with time and practice, but a gift nonetheless. Needless to say, all those wizards who must work at their art tend to be suspicious of those who don’t.”
“That’s an apt description, if ever I heard one,” said Galaeron. “Are you an innatoth?”
“Would that I were!” Melegaunt laughed. “I take it you found your Academy of Magic less than accepting?”
“Far less.” Galaeron tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. “My father used every political favor he was owed to secure me a place in my regiform, and a more terrible waste I’ve never seen. I never fit in. Eventually, they accused me of dark magics and demanded to see my spellbook. Unfortunately, I had never kept one.”
“Now you’re making me jealous,” Melegaunt said.
Galaeron smiled sadly. “No need. It took Lord Imesfor’s intervention to win me a place in the Tomb Guard.” He fell silent, recalling the bad end that the high noble’s patronage had wrought for his son. In truth, the Gold lord could hardly be blamed for the things he had been saying. “And even that favor has had its price.”
“No need to feel sorry for yourself.” Melegaunt’s voice was at once reproachful and consoling. “It will be your magic that saves Evereska, or I’ve never cast a spell.”
“Did you not say that his magic would draw the phaerimm’s attention?” Vala’s tone was respectful but concerned. “This is the last place I’d want one of those things to trap me.”
Melegaunt smiled. “It would be a better place than you think, but you’re right about what I said.” He looked to Galaeron. “We must teach our friend to cast magic differently.”
“Differently?” Galaeron asked. “That will take time.”
“Not for you, I think,” said Melegaunt. “Not if you are as brave as you are talented.”
“I’m here now.”
“Yes.” Melegaunt’s eyes turned as black as obsidian, so dark that even Vala gasped. “You’re brave enough when you meet the monsters outside. Let us see if you have the courage to face the one within.”
Melegaunt’s face became strangely elflike, his bushy brows rising into arches, his brow becoming high and smooth. His ears grew longer, pushing their sharp tips out through his dusky hair, and his eyes assumed the malevolent gleam of a drow demon.
“Corellon’s lute!” Galaeron’s head whirled in confusion. This could not be the human who had told him he would be the savior of Evereska—but then again, ever were demons the deceivers of mortals. “What are you?”
“More than you think, I am sure,” came the answer.
Knowing he would never have time to cast a spell—and that even if he did, he could not hope to best Melegaunt in a duel of magic—he dropped a hand to his sword. The demon’s own hand lashed out as quickly as a jumping spider, caught Galaeron by the throat, and slammed him against the stone wall. A pair of ivory fang tips jutted out beneath Melegaunt’s lip, and his shadowy beard changed into a grotesque chin. The humans gasped and murmured, but seemed too bewildered to act. Galaeron tried to draw his sword, but the demon pinned his wrist to the wall.
Vala was the first to recover even a little. “Mighty One!” She freed her blade and stepped forward. “What are you—”
“Stand clear!” Melegaunt glanced over his shoulder. “By the Oath of Bodvar, I charge you obey!”
Vala ground her teeth, but stopped and lowered her sword, then signaled her men to stand fast. When Melegaunt looked back to Galaeron, his eyes were glowing purple, and his fangs were as long as a viper’s.
“Do you know what I am, elf? Are you brave now?”
“Y-y-yes.” Galaeron could barely choke out the word. Like most surface elves, he feared the drow as much as he hated them, and he could imagine no fate worse than becoming the undead servant of a drow vampire-demon. “Let me have my sword—”
Melegaunt slammed Galaeron against the wall. “I think not.” He smiled. “But I give you a choice.”
Melegaunt thrust his palm out behind him. “Darksword!”
Vala flipped her hilt around, but hesitated before handing it over. “What are you going to do?”
Melegaunt glared at her, his neck filling the room with unnatural cracking sounds as it turned farther than it should. “Nothing that is not my right by the Granite Tower.”
Vala’s face fell, and she laid the hilt in his palm. Melegaunt glared at her a moment, then pressed the icy hilt into Galaeron’s left hand.
“I give you the choice, elf.” He grabbed the weapon by its blade and set the tip beneath Galaeron’s jaw. “Serve me or not—your choice.”
Galaeron knew no vampire would give him the chance to slay it—but he also knew it would be just like a drow to give him the opportunity then taunt him with his cowardice through the rest of time. He lifted his chin and flipped the black blade forward, drawing the edge across Melegaunt’s throat and chest.
The glass passed through the wizard as though his body were smoke. Melegaunt smiled, then plucked the sword from Galaeron’s hand.
“Coward.” He returned the weapon to Vala, then pinned his captive’s head against the wall.
Galaeron struggled, but the drow-demon was too strong. Melegaunt lowered his head, and Galaeron felt two cold pangs in his throat.
“No!”
He brought his knee up into Melegaunt’s groin, but even that did not drive the demon away. An icy numbness spread through Galaeron’s neck, then Melegaunt raised his head. There were a pair of slowly cooling blood runnels on his chin, and his eyes were glowing damson with mad hunger.
“Do you feel the fear?” he demanded. “Open yourself to it, Galaeron. Embrace it.”
Galaeron had no need to open himself to anything. His fear was coursing through him. He could feel it in his hollow stomach, in his heaving chest and hot huffing breath, hear it in his pounding pulse and the wail rising in his throat.
The scream did not quite reach his lips before Melegaunt covered his mouth. “You can’t scream, Galaeron.” The wizard’s face was returning to normal, his pointed ears vanishing into his dusky hair, his arched eyebrows growing straight and bushy. “You mustn’t, or the phaerimm will give us all something to fear.”
Galaeron pushed Melegaunt away. The wizard sailed across the chamber and slammed into the opposite wall, now looking completely human.
When Galaeron managed not to scream, Melegaunt nodded encouragingly. “Good. Now use it, Galaeron. Use that power inside to cast your spell.”
“You’re mad! The only thing I’ll use it for is to kill you.”
Galaeron drew his sword and was instantly separated from Melegaunt by Vala and her men.
“Not like that, elf!” Melegaunt’s voice grew stern and commanding. “Will you master your fear, or be its slave?”
Something in the wizard’s tone reached Galaeron. He touched his neck where the demon had bit him and felt smooth skin.
“Now, Galaeron!” urged Melegaunt. “Cast the spell!”
Finally beginning to understand, Galaeron let the sword fall and ran his fingers through a series of mystic gestures, then finished by cupping his palm to his ear. His fear did not evaporate as expected, but burned down through him, branding him with raw ribbons of pain that trailed through his body and vanished into the darkness beneath his feet.
Galaeron rolled his hands through the second half of the spell. When he began to rub his brow, the ragged ribbons of pain turned cold, filling him with a biting numbness that started in his feet and shot up through him like icy lightning.
Then Galaeron’s mind was filled with wispy voices, all talking at once in half-formed sentences. He let out a groan and covered his ears. Melegaunt stepped past Vala and the others, then took Galaeron by the shoulders and looked into his eyes.
It’s a bit confusing. The words sounded inside Galaeron’s head, reverberating above a dozen other voices. You’re hearing the thoughts in all of our minds. Think of them as wind, and pay attention only to what you want. It helps to talk until you’re accustomed to it.
Galaeron removed his hands from his ears. “What did you do to me?”
“I showed you your shadow self.” As Melegaunt had promised, the other voices faded into the background. “Think of it as the wellhead tapping another kind of magic.”
“What kind of magic? Vampire? Or drow?”
“Neither—and don’t blame me for that thing,” chuckled Melegaunt. “What you saw, you made.”
Galaeron glared at him. “I didn’t make that.”
“Not consciously,” said Melegaunt, “but whatever a man—or elf—makes, he also makes the shadow of. If he makes himself brave and honest, then he makes a shadow of himself that is not.”
“So a man makes a shadow of himself that’s a woman?” Vala asked.
“No, that would be the opposite,” Melegaunt explained. “A shadow is not opposite, only absence. In the day, it is the absence of the light that your body blocks. In a man, it is the absence of the male, not the presence of the female. In the case of Galaeron’s shadow self, it is the absence of kindness and loyalty.”
“That thing wasn’t part of me,” Galaeron insisted.
“No, it wasn’t,” agreed Melegaunt, “but you created it, and through it, you touched a new magic.”
“Then it must be an evil magic.” Galaeron retrieved his sword. He could still feel the strange ribbon of coldness that connected him to the ground. “I would that you had never shown it to me.”
“Do not let the guardian frighten you.” Melegaunt laid a hairy human hand on Galaeron’s shoulder. “The greatest treasures are always protected, and this one is key to defeating the phaerimm. It is the only magic they do not understand. If we are to save Evereska, you will need to wield it well, and wield it often.”
CHAPTER SEYEN
23 Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp
The phaerimm WarGather lay exactly where Melegaunt had said it would, in the dwarven workings just beyond the breach in the Sharn Wall. A green spell glow hung in the air, barely bright enough to illuminate the room and render Galaeron’s dark sight unnecessary. The tiny chamber was packed with phaerimm, the last two feet of their tails dragging on the floor so they could float upright beneath the low ceiling. They were surrounded by swirling clouds of dust, stirred up by a cacophony of strange whistling winds similar to the sand devils he occasionally saw spinning across the sands of Anauroch.
In the back of the room, barely visible through jostling phaerimm and swirling dust clouds, a cage of polished bones barricaded the entrance to a side passage. The vertical bars were made of sturdy human thigh bones, stacked one atop another and fused together with magic. With a lighter color and generally more delicate form, the crossbars were probably elf. The door was a grillwork of ribs interlaced around four skulls, two human and two elf, with sad eyes still floating in the sockets.
The door was hanging ajar, and the attention of the phaerimm seemed to be centered on the tunnel wall beside it, where a pair of elves sat against the stony wall. Through the forest of phaerimm bodies, Galaeron recognized the gilded seams of Kiinyon Colbathin’s plate armor. The other figure Galaeron could not identify, though the glimpses of gold thread and red silk suggested it was a high mage.
It was difficult to see more. He and Melegaunt were on the far side of the Sharn Wall, squatting opposite each other to peer through the hole that had been opened by the beholder Shatevar. Vala and her men were a hundred paces away, keeping watch in case any more phaerimm appeared. Even at that distance, their thoughts poured through Galaeron’s mind in a constant stream. He tried to focus on the three phaerimm nearest the two prisoners.
Your crudeness has given us nothing but corpses, Tha, said the one nearest Kiinyon. Though it seemed to be addressing its fellow through the swirling winds, Galaeron could understand it only by concentrating on its thoughts. The effort made his head ache, for the message itself was often lost in an emotional muddle of jealousy and contempt. It is time to let someone more skillful rack them.
Perhaps, Zay—if there were one more skillful, responded Tha.
The others have screamed their throats raw and told you nothing, countered Zay. First we must break their will. Only then they will tell us the words.
Melegaunt tapped Galaeron’s arm. Words? The wizard did not speak, but only thought the question.
Probably words of passing. Galaeron intentionally avoided any mention of the mythal.
I should have known, Melegaunt responded. There’s a mythal.
Galaeron scowled. I said nothing about a mythal.
Melegaunt shrugged. Words have shadows, too.
So I’ve noticed, Galaeron thought. But what would Evereska’s mythal explain—if there was one, that is?
Melegaunt smiled knowingly. Phaerimm need magic in their environment to survive, just as you and I need air. Without it, they starve.
Then why are they still alive? Galaeron asked. There can’t be much magic in Anauroch.
More than you think. What do you imagine the Sharn Wall is?
The barrier that imprisons them sustains them? surmised Galaeron. Cruel.
Perhaps, but not as cruel as what will they will do to Evereska—if it has a mythal, said Melegaunt. Phaerimm are solitary, contentious creatures, but there are almost forty of them living close together in the ruins of Myth Drannor.
Galaeron nodded, already taking the wizard’s meaning. The ancient mythal that had once protected Myth Drannor had not perished with the city. Though it had deteriorated over the ages, it was still very powerful—powerful enough, apparently, to nourish a colony of phaerimm. And if the deteriorating magic of Myth Drannor’s mythal was enough to sustain forty of the creatures, he could only shudder at the thought of how many Evereska’s far stronger mythal might support.
Galaeron shook his head at the thought of the evil he had unleashed.
Melegaunt tapped Galaeron’s knee. You did not unleash this. You were executing a sworn duty. If the blame lies anywhere, it lies with me.
Galaeron shook his head. I knew we were in above our heads the instant I saw Vala’s beholder, and she warned me so. Had I listened—
You would have violated your oath to protect the crypts of your ancestors, which is not something Galaeron Nihmedu would do, Melegaunt said. And had I not been so eager to escape, I would not have instructed Vala to break even a Vyshaan crypt in order to find the dwarven mine. At the least, the fault is ours together, and there is no use second-guessing ourselves. Know that had you been a coward and turned your back on me, the evil you did would have been far greater than this. We are going to set things right, you and I together, but this matter is bigger than Evereska—much bigger. Even were we to fail and Evereska to fall, what you did would still be worth it.
To a human, perhaps, Galaeron thought.
Though he did not think it consciously, he knew that if Evereska fell, his name would be vilified in the coming ages as terribly as that of the Vyshaan or the drow. On Faerûn, at least, Evereska was the last haven of elven civilization—all that remained of the empires that had founded mighty cities such as Cormanthor and Siluvanede. More determined than ever to find a way to stop the phaerimm—to destroy their entire race, if need be—he turned back to the WarGather.
Having won the argument about the best way to proceed with the interrogation, Zay was holding Kiinyon Colbathin spread-eagled above its—his—toothy maw, flicking his barbed tail across the bloody rents in the tomb master’s battered armor.
Would you like that, elf? The phaerimm was using thoughtspeech alone to talk to his prisoner, for the wind language of the phaerimm was clearly not one most elves were likely to speak. It would be an honor to carry my egg.
The barbed tail arced down to touch Kiinyon’s lips, then the creature motioned to several fellows. They leveled themselves horizontally and ran their own tails over the elf’s body, probing for holes and seams in his armor.
Perhaps I will let you carry eggs for all my friends, taunted Zay.
Kiinyon seemed barely conscious enough to notice. His eyes were swollen half shut, his broken nose spread across both cheeks, his lip split so badly that the tip of his tongue showed where there should have been teeth. It was more difficult to tell the condition of the body beneath the armor, save that the deep creases and puckers bespoke plenty of bruises.
