Galaeron ahead of her, then slipped in behind him, and they both had to scurry to keep pace with the wizard's long strides.
Galaeron was not sure when Vala finally sheathed her sword, but it was in its scabbard when they reached the Lonely Moor just before dusk. Galaeron and Vala took a minute to bask in the sun's fading radiance, then set up camp and cooked a meal of marsh voles over a black-flamed fire Melegaunt had struck. Despite the glyphs and wards the wizard set around the perimeter of the camp, they divided the watch into three shifts and settled in for a wet night.
As it turned out, Galaeron could have taken all three watches himself. Whether it was because of Vala's distrust or worry for his father and Takari back in Evereska, he was never able to slip into the Reverie. He spent the whole night huddled in his cloak, staring at the stars and wrestling with feelings of guilt so vague and ambiguous he could only guess at their source. Of course, he was troubled by the part he had played in releasing the phaerimm, but his regret over that was real and tangible, an emotion so manifest he could almost touch it. The thing bothering him was much more subtle, a queasy hollowness that smacked of disloyalty and betrayal, though he was left to wonder just who he had betrayed. Had he been wrong to distrust Melegaunt? Or to accept so easily the wizard's explanation for the casual betrayal of Imesfor? Whatever the answer, Galaeron feared he would not enjoy a revitalizing Reverie until he had it.
Dawn found them all cold and awake, ready to warm themselves with a brisk prebreakfast march. Before departing, Melegaunt insisted on kneeling between Galaeron and Vala, holding his hands in their shadows, peering first into one, then the other, from the moment the sun broke the horizon until the moment the bottom edge no longer touched it. Only then did he rise.
'Come along, sun lovers. There will be no shadow walking for us today.' 'Not that I'm complaining, but why?' asked Galaeron.
'Because I have read the day to come and have no desire to fight shadow dragons. The bugbears will be much easier.'
'Bugbears?' Galaeron gasped. 'The phaerimm have bugbears?'
Melegaunt shrugged. 'Perhaps. The phaerimm control many creatures, most who do not even know it, but I cannot tell everything. I'm only reading shadows.' He started northward, motioning Galaeron and Vala to follow. 'Keep a sharp watch. We should be all right as long as we don't let them surprise us.'
This proved much easier said than done, of course. They slogged northward across a few miles of peat moor, then slipped around the northern tip of the Forgotten Forest and started northwest across the Forsaken Dale. As they crossed the snowy flats, Galaeron kept a watchful eye on the birds, but knew they would not have much to worry about until they reached the Greypeaks in the distance.
Just after highsun, the foothills drew near enough to make out individual gullies, and the pinnacles of the snowcapped mountains themselves began to show above the horizon. Galaeron's thoughts kept returning to his inability to enter the Reverie the night before. The explanation Melegaunt had given for using Imesfor as a decoy was sensible enough, but it still smacked of deceit, and it occurred to Galaeron that he was placing a great deal of trust in a human he really did not know very well. He allowed Melegaunt to drift a short distance out of earshot, then spoke over his shoulder to Vala.
'If 1 offended you by doubting Melegaunt, I apologize,' he said. 'Perhaps if 1 knew more about him…'
'You know he is trying to save Evereska.' Vala said, prodding Galaeron in the back, urging him to catch up to Melegaunt. 'You know he is trying to undo a mistake you made. How much more do you need to know?'
'How much do you know?' asked Galaeron, doing his best to ignore the barb about his 'mistake.' 'He claims much, but reveals little.' 'He is a good man.'
'From where?' asked Galaeron. 'I have never seen the likes of his magic before.'
'That does not mean it is evil.' Vala's voice was sharp enough that it caused Melegaunt to cock his head to one side. 'The Melegaunt Tanthul 1 know is not evil.'
'But / do not know him,' Galaeron said. 'I might find it easier to trust him if I knew more about your relationship. Now that you are no longer Evereska's prisoner, perhaps-
'Very well,' Vala sighed. 'A hundred years ago, my ancestors were living in log longhouses roofed in thatch and chinked with mud, battling the ore hordes with weapons of cold-forged iron and losing children to worgs and gnolls faster than our women could birth them.' 'And I suppose Melegaunt changed that?'
'He did,' said Vala. Twenty paces ahead, the wizard seemed to nod smugly to himself. 'In return for a pittance of service, he offered to build my great grandfather an impregnable keep of black granite, and to arm twenty warriors with black swords that would cleave any enemy's armor.'
'A bargain your ancestor obviously accepted,' said Galaeron.
'Not as quick as you believe, for we Vaasans have always been hard bargainers,' said Vala. 'The debt would be called at some time in the future, when a company of warriors armed with those same black swords would be summoned to service. Bodvar agreed, providing only that all of the swords remained unbroken and the granite keep was never breached.' 'I take it the conditions were fulfilled.'
Vala nodded. 'My own father heard the voice less than a year ago, but he was too old and sick to lead the men. It was left to me to take up the sword.' 'And that's all you know of Melegaunt?' asked Galaeron.
'It's all I need to know.' Vala's tone was almost soft. 'The service of twenty warriors for the kindness he has done my clan? You elves are too distrustful.'
'Perhaps so,' allowed Galaeron. 'We weren't always distrustful. That we learned from humans.'
He spied the long valley that led to Dekanter and began to angle toward it, his thoughts consumed by questions of why Melegaunt would want to visit the ruins if the help he sought wasn't there-and what kind of help he might be seeking if it was.
They caught up to Melegaunt and entered the gulch together, and Galaeron was instantly too busy looking for bugbears to concern himself with anything else. The gully was perfect for an ambush, with an abundance of cliff-flanked narrows and blind corners, but they resisted the temptation to climb to higher ground for fear of making themselves more visible to phaerimm searchers. Twice, they were actually ambushed by goblin tribes, but a simple display of magic was enough to send the creatures skittering away
When they reached the head of the gulch without meeting any bugbears and climbed into the hills themselves, Galaeron began to think Melegaunt was not as infallible as he appeared. The ruined towers of Dekanter were just visible in the distance, a short row of absurdly twisted and impossibly leaning spires silhouetted against snow-blanketed slopes, and the sun was already sinking into the narrow rift of the Bleached Bones Pass.
The sight of the towers seemed to invigorate Melegaunt. Abandoning all effort at keeping a low profile, he clambered along a boulder-strewn ridge toward the sunken roadbed that had once connected Dekanter to the rest of the Netherese empire. Vala scurried after him, apparently abandoning her resolve to never again let Galaeron behind her. 'Melegaunt, what about the bugbears?' she asked.
'Yes, yes, I'm sure they're here somewhere,' he said. 'But the ruins are still a good mile away, and I must be there when the sun goes down,'
The wizard continued forward at a near run, giving Vala and Galaeron no choice except to keep a watchful eye and hope for the best Soon enough, the towers resolved themselves into jewel-colored oddities of architectural corruption, grotesque forms that arced and twisted in impossible directions with no thought of form or function. Some had no doors or windows, one seemed to be a single warped door spiraling into the sky, another looked to be a huge window with no interior depth at all.
The towers were scattered among the great mines that had been the reason for Dekanter's existence in the days of Netheril. Now long played out, all that remained of the ancient workings were snowy dumps of waste rock and the yawning portals and abysmal shafts of the holes themselves. Even Melegaunt seemed to sense the melancholy insanity of the place. He walked among the ruins silently, inspecting each warped spire like a wandering son returned home to find his house occupied by another family.
When the bottom curve of the sun finally touched the distant saddle of Bleached Bones Pass, he kneeled in the shadow of the door tower and pressed his brow to the dark ground. He spoke a few syllables in some tongue Galaeron did not understand, then lifted his body and shook his head slowly. 'The folly,' he said. 'The unbelievable folly.'
When the tears began to roll down his cheeks, Vala went to his side and slipped a hand under his arm. 'Is there time to try another tower?' she asked. 'Every story can't be the same.'
