The mage shook his head. 'No. It will take far more to slay the shadevar. Look.' He pointed. Already the earth was churning. The creature was trying to dig its way out.
'We have to flee,' Tyveris urged. He lifted Caledan to his horse. Estah had bound his wound with a makeshift bandage, but already it was stained crimson. Caledan's face was pale.
The others mounted, then guided the horses down the steep slope toward the ravine. 'We must ford the river,' Morhion shouted to the others. 'By its nature the shadevar cannot cross water. Its magic prevents it.'
The horses splashed across the stream, clattering up the far bank. Mari cast a look over her shoulder. There was nothing there.
The companions rode hard into the westering sun, their shadows stretching out on the land behind them.
They made camp in a hollow beneath a low hill as the purple veil of twilight descended over the land. Morhion arranged several flat stones around the camp's perimeter, and on each he set a leaf, a blade of grass, or a bit of moss. He spoke several words in the eerie, fluid tongue of magic, and a pale green nimbus sprang to life around each of the stones.
'I suppose a few glowing rocks are going to keep that foul creature away?' Tyveris asked the mage skeptically. The Tabaxi had never placed great stock in sorcery. He didn't much care for the trickery of wizards.
Morhion shrugged, his face impassive. 'Speak your prayers if you think it wise, monk. No ward I might conjure would be strong enough to keep the shadevar at bay. This enchantment will disguise our camp, that is all. To anyone outside the nimbus, it will seem as if there is nothing here but a patch of grass and wildflowers. But I would be the first to say this is a temporary solution.'
Tyveris grunted, as if this confirmed his low opinion of wizardry.
They had laid Caledan gently on a cloak on the ground. His head was foggy from loss of blood and the hard ride, but he seemed to have control of his senses.
'I am really far too old for this lunacy,' he said through gritted teeth. He cried out in pain as Estah removed his shirt.
'I see this isn't the first fight you've ever lost,' Man commented. His lean, muscular chest was crisscrossed with a dozen scars, pale white lines that stood out sharply against a dusting of dark hair.
Deftly and efficiently Estah cleaned the dried blood from the wound with a cloth soaked in hot water steeped with medicinal herbs. The shadevar's talons had cut four furrows into Caledan's flesh. Luckily the gouges were not so deep as all the blood indicated. When the wound was clean, Estah carefully pulled out her silvery medallion bearing the likeness of the goddess Eldath. She held it in one hand, while the other hand she placed over the wound. The medallion emitted a faint, sweet humming, and Caledan felt a strange tingling sensation in his body.
When Estah lifted her hand away the blood and pain were gone. The marks had closed; already scabs had formed over the cuts. Caledan shook his head in amazement. It was not the first time Estah had used the medallion of Eldath to heal one of his wounds, but its power in the healer's hand was miraculous.
'It's going to leave a scar,' Estah said.
Caledan didn't care. 'What's one more?' he returned. Estah rummaged in his pack, handing him a clean shirt. The evening air was cold.
'Now there remains only one question,' Morhion said. The mage sat on a low stone, leaning on a staff of ashwood before him. 'Who is it who is so eager to see you dead, Cal-dorien?'
'I don't understand,' Estah said in confusion. 'Isn't it Ravendas who commands the shadevar?'
Morhion shook his head. 'Ravendas does not possess the power to summon a creature of such fell magic. There are few, if any, sorcerers among the Zhentarim who would have the ability to gain mastery over a shadevar. The shade-vari are ancient creatures, as old as the world itself by some accounts. As far as I know, their kind has not walked the land in a long age. Once they were thirteen in number. Some scholars argue it was the evil god Bhaal who created them, but that is not so. He discovered them, but even then they were already ancient, as ancient as time itself. For thousands of years they served Bhaal, but eventually even the Lord of Murder in all his power could not control the shadevari. It was Azuth, the High One himself, who banished them far from the worlds of both humans and gods.'
Morhion directed his piercing gaze toward Caledan. 'Whoever the creature serves, he is a lord to be feared, that is certain.'
The companions ate a cheerless meal as the stars appeared one by one in the sky. They took turns keeping watch during the night, but
All that day, they pressed their mounts as the gray-green plains slipped by. Caledan's wound still ached dully, but thanks to Estah's medallion the pain was fading. Shortly before noon they came upon another small river flowing toward the Chionthar. They guided their horses down the riverbed for a half league before climbing the far bank. There was no sense making their trail obvious for the shadevar.
The sun was beginning to sink toward the western horizon and the light had taken on the thick amber hue of late afternoon when the Harper guided her horse next to Caledan and Mista.
'So how are you feeling, scoundrel?' she asked him. The wind blew her thick dark hair from her shoulders, the sunlight setting its auburn highlights afire.
'You'd better be careful, Harper,' Caledan said wryly. 'That sounds dangerously like concern in your voice.'
She started to nudge her mount away, but he reached out to grab the bridle of her chestnut gelding. Their horses came to a stop. The others riding ahead seemed not to notice. 'I just wanted to say… I just wanted to say thanks for worrying about me, all right? It's been a long while since anyone's really done that'
Mari was silent for a long moment. Finally a smile touched the corners of her lips. 'Don't mention it, scoundrel.' She nudged her mount's flanks, and the chestnut broke into a trot, catching up with the others. Caledan followed after.
'I don't know, Mista,' he said to his mount as they rode. 'There's simply no understanding women sometimes.' The gray mare snorted, giving a sudden sharp kick, and Caledan had to clutch her mane tightly to keep from being thrown out of the saddle.
'Traitor!' he said through clenched teeth. 'You females always stick together, don't you?' The gray tossed her pretty head in defiance, and Caledan swore under his breath. That was all he needed-another headstrong female to make his life miserable.
Thirteen
The lord steward Snake slipped the dim crystal into its velvet-lined box. His servant, the shadevar, had just made a disturbing report. Snake was going to have to take action, and he would need Ravendas's help. But first he had to decide how much to tell her.
He paced across his private chamber to a window high in the tower of the city lord and gazed out over the night-mantled city. A thousand lights glowed below him. This was the time of evening when Snake felt most alert and alive. The sunlight only caused him pain of late, and during the hours of brightness he felt constantly weary, his mind dulled. He hated the daytime. It had been that way ever since his ascent upward from the sewers below Iriaebor.
He closed his eyes, and for a moment he was back in the sewers, crawling through the dank pipes and foul- smelling Passageways.
After escaping the dungeons, he had fallen, and the fall left his body broken and dying. But then he had made a bargain and become whole-no, more than whole. The blood sang through his veins, and a strange tingling in his fingers bespoke his new power. He remembered journeying in the darkness beneath the city, wondering what had happened to him in that cavernous, crimson-lit chamber deep in the heart of the Tor.
This is impossible, Snake, he recalled saying to himself over and over. You should be dead. Dead! You are going mad…
