“That we’re in the Shadowfell.” From what he understood, it was a distorted shadow the mortal world cast to give form to an adjacent universe. Or something like that. “Even though the wizard in our little band never sensed we were going astray until it was far too late.”
She glared. “If your stories aren’t all lies, you and your elf friends used to visit other worlds on a regular basis. Voices of the Abyss, you actually used the trick to shake the Simbarchs’ army off our tail when we were marching through the Yuirwood. So don’t make out that I’m the one who should have noticed the transition!”
Her refusal to take the blame had the paradoxical effect of dissolving his annoyance. Perhaps because it was likely the way he would have responded himself.
“The elves took me to the Feywild.” A reflection of the mortal world as fair as the Shadowfell was foul. “Well, and on one unpleasant occasion, the Sildeyuir. But even then it was hardly the same thing as blundering into the Shadowfell. Still, it’s remotely conceivable you have a point. Perhaps we’re both to blame-or neither. Let’s agree on neither. But tell me this. How did it happen? We didn’t pass through a circle of standing stones or anything else that looked like a portal to me.”
“Or to me. But scholars say it’s possible for two worlds to overlap, often intermittently.”
“So in this case, a bit of the hills becomes a bit of the Shadowfell on the darkest nights. Because that’s when the two places are most alike.”
“I think so.”
He grinned. “I should have been a scholar myself.”
“It’s possible Tchazzar blundered into the Shadowfell during the time of Blue Fire, when all the worlds were in upheaval and congruencies were more common. Then the blight dragon-”
“That’s the wyrm that’s leeching his strength away?”
“I believe that’s what they’re called. Now that I’ve had time to think, I seem to recall reading about them in a bestiary, in the school where Aoth enrolled me to finish my training. Whatever it is, it somehow took Tchazzar prisoner and has been feeding off him ever since. I suspect the process degrades reality and helps keep the breach between the worlds from healing.”
“Very interesting, and I’d love to hear more about it. But preferably after you whisk us home.”
Jhesrhi shook her head, and a lock of her tangled hair flopped down over her forehead. “I can’t.”
“Nonsense. Don’t expect to hear this often, but you can do damn near anything. I’ve seen it.”
“You’ve seen me do impressive things with elemental magic. I don’t know how to shift us between worlds.”
“Didn’t you do it at the Dread Ring? Twice?”
“Wizards who truly understood the magic essentially just carried me along like baggage. And we only traveled in spirit. Our physical forms stayed put.”
“Still, I know you. You were paying attention, and you must have learned something.”
She hesitated. “Not enough. Besides, such rituals generally involve special articles, other spellcasters lending support-or, ideally, both.”
“So improvise. Our poor horses are wondering what’s become of us.”
She frowned. “I suppose I can try. It will be dangerous, but maybe no more dangerous than trying to survive in the Shadowfell for a whole month. Or longer. We don’t know that the planes mesh every new moon without fail, or that we’d succeed in finding our way from one to the other when they do.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Just stand watch-the Foehammer only knows what the magic could attract-and be ready to hurry to me when I call you.”
He looked around for a suitable sentry post and decided a little elevation might help him spot a potential threat before it noticed him. He ran to a twisted tree that resembled a white elm, jumped, clutched for handholds, and tried to haul himself upward. Bark tore and crumbled beneath his fingers, and he almost fell, but not quite. He balanced in the lowest fork and laid one of his few remaining arrows on his bow.
Jhesrhi prowled around below him. He suspected she was looking for a bare, level piece of ground. When she found it, she started chanting under her breath and drawing lines in the dirt with the metal cap on the butt of her staff. Like the rings that encircled the wood at intervals, the ferrule was mostly golden now, with only a couple of flecks and streaks of red.
The soil shifted a little even after her staff moved on. It looked like it was trying to fill in the ruts she’d just inscribed. She recited her words of power a trifle louder and the subtle crawling stopped.
It only took a relatively short time to complete the pentagram, which was noticeably less elaborate than others Gaedynn had watched Jhesrhi draw. He wondered if that was because she didn’t know what she was doing. Since she was uncertain what figure was truly appropriate, she’d settled for a basic emblem of power and protection.
She stood in the center of the star and circle, took a deep breath, then started a new incantation. She spoke in a language Gaedynn didn’t know, so he had no idea what she was saying. But some of the words created a sort of itch inside his head.
She spoke for a long while before reaching the end. He sensed she was waiting. When nothing happened, she took a breath, shifted her stance, and-speaking a little louder-started over again. She punctuated certain phrases by lifting her staff over her head, then jamming the ferrule back into the dirt.
After several repetitions, each performed in a somewhat different fashion, Gaedynn noticed that the air felt thick and it seemed an effort just to draw a breath. But it wasn’t only the air that was different. He had a sense that the whole world, or at least the part of it within view, was heavy and sore like a boil that needed to burst.
She’s doing it, he thought, and waited eagerly for her to call him to her side. He was still waiting when a gray-black bat hurtled down from the sky.
Its head and body were the size of a dwarf’s, although its leathery wings made it look bigger than a man. As it streaked at Jhesrhi, its long tail stopped whipping and curled into stiffness. The animal was readying a blow like the strike of a whip.
The bat’s dark coloration made it hard to see in the shadowy world. Despite his vigilance, Gaedynn hadn’t spotted it until it had nearly closed the distance to its target. He only had time for a single shot.
He drew and released. The arrow plunged into the bat’s torso. Spasmodic, it veered, tumbled, and slammed to the ground several strides to the right of the pentagram. Where it flopped and flopped, but appeared capable of nothing more.
Gaedynn looked back at the sky and spotted another bat. It was diving at Jhesrhi too, and he dealt with it as he had the first, only better. The shot was a clean kill, and the beast plummeted like a stone.
He looked for a third bat. He didn’t find one, but abruptly heard a fierce baying that clawed at his nerves. He took a breath and willed fear away, and then the big black hounds surged over a rise.
Like the shadar-kai the previous night, they flickered ahead through space as they charged, gaining ground faster than should have been possible. It made them difficult to aim at too. Gaedynn invested a precious moment studying the unnatural motion so he could guess where they’d reappear.
He dropped one and then another. It wasn’t good enough. There were still too many and they were still advancing too fast. Jhesrhi needed to turn her magic on them.
But she just kept chanting. Either she was in a trance, like the wizards mired in their own ritual back in Luthcheq, or she didn’t dare interrupt the spell for fear of what the forces she’d raised would do if she relinquished control.
Damn you, woman, he thought. He sprang down out of the elm and shouted, “Over here, you filthy beasts! I’m the one killing you! Attack me!” He loosed at another hound. The shaft punched deep into its neck.
His ploy worked, if one wanted to think of it that way. The hounds turned and charged him.
He shot two more, and then had to drop his bow and snatch out his scimitar. The remaining four or five- everything was happening too fast for an accurate count-encircled him. They lunged and snapped, snarling, gray foam flying from their jaws.
He turned, slashed, and dodged-and somehow kept himself from being bitten and dragged down for the first couple of heartbeats. He even split the skull of one of the beasts.
It gave him a surge of satisfaction but not of hope. Khouryn could probably have cut his way clear of the nightmare, but he was the best hand-to-hand combatant Gaedynn had ever seen. He himself was merely good, and he suspected that wasn’t going to be enough.
