The thought seemed to cheer Melegaunt. He allowed her to pull him up, then started along a boulder-lined trail toward the window tower. 'Yes, another tower would be good.'
They had taken no more than a dozen steps when Galaeron noticed a trio of crows circling overhead. Instead of calling to each other in their usual raucous voices, the birds were unusually silent, like anglers afraid their voices might frighten the fish. 'Stop.'
Galaeron had barely spoken the word before Vala had her darksword in hand and Melegaunt behind her. 'Where?' 'I don't know,' Galaeron said. 'Here.'
A half dozen paces up the trail, a pair of pointed ears appeared over the top of a horse-sized boulder. Vala spotted them instantly and gestured silently with her sword. Grousing under his breath, Melegaunt fetched something from his robe pocket, and Galaeron realized the emergence of the ears had been too convenient. Bugbears rarely made such foolish mistakes. 'Melegaunt, wa-' He was too late. The wizard pointed a finger and spoke a single word, and a shadowy bolt of darkness drilled straight through the boulder. There was no thud or anguished roar or any other sound to suggest the attack had hit anything living. Rather, a slimy mauve face with a snout of tentacles rose up behind the adjacent snow bank, fixing Melegaunt with a white-eyed stare.
The wizard screamed once, then clutched at his eyes and crumpled to the ground.
'An illithid?' Even as Vala shrieked the question, she was flinging her darksword at the creature in a backhand flip. 'Melegaunt said nothing about illithids!'
The blade pirouetted through the air and took the illithid's head off cleanly.
In the next instant, a dozen bugbears sprang from behind boulders, rock dumps, and snowdrifts to both sides of the trail. Galaeron pulled his sword from its scabbard with one hand and reached into his cloak pocket with the other. 'Vala,' the elf shouted, 'sword!'
He tossed the sword toward her hilt-first, then pulled his other hand from his pocket and flung a pair of green leaves in the direction of the nearest bugbears. The brutes were huge, a full head taller than Vala's burly men and far broader across the shoulders, but with ugly batlike snouts and gleaming red eyes. Vala caught Galaeron's sword with her off hand and whirled the blade around to point at the charging beasts.
Galaeron uttered his incantation, but instead of feeling the magic flow into his body from the all- encompassing Weave, it surged up through his legs in a cold bolt. With a dozen screaming bugbears on the way, there was no time to be shocked. He simply waved his hand across the hillside, and a cloud of putrid brown miasma filled the air around the bugbears' heads. Four out of the first five creatures collapsed gagging. The fifth perished when Vala dived at its feet, then somersaulted between its legs and slashed Galaeron's magic blade across the front of its belly. Galaeron slowed the remaining beasts with a pinch of sand and a quick word of magic, sending two into a deep slumber. Vala toppled another with a knee slash, then caught a heavy axe swing against the flat of Galaeron's blade. The bugbear continued to push, confident its strength would simply collapse Vala's guard.
She thrust a hand out in the direction of the dead illithid, and her darksword came flying back into her grasp. She brought the black blade beneath her attacker's big belly, driving the point clear to its heart. Galaeron pointed at the bugbear nearest Vala. Again, the magic shot into him from the cold ground, and the shaft that leaped from his finger to tear open the bugbear's chest was as black as night.
Seeing they were still three paces away from Vala and unlikely to get any closer, the last two beasts turned to flee. There was no question of letting them escape, for their illithid companion made plain the identity of their masters. Galaeron blasted one down from behind with another magic bolt. Vala sprang after the other as it bounded over the edge of the hill, and a strangled howl echoed up the slope.
Galaeron used a pair of lightning bolts and a fireball to finish the bugbears he had incapacitated with his earlier spells. He felt the same surge of cold magic when he cast the first lightning bolt, but found that by concentrating on the living Weave all around him, he could create spells normally Still, Vala returned from her trip down the hill to find him shivering with cold; it seemed to be welling up inside him, as though the marrow in his bones had turned to shadow.
'Something wrong?' She returned his sword. 'You look like that's the first time you ever killed anything.'
'Would that it were.' Galaeron pulled his cloak more tightly around him. He turned to face Melegaunt, who was lying glassy eyed and drooling on the ground. 'I'm fine, but what about him?'
Vala considered him for a moment, then shrugged. 'Well, at least he saw his towers.'
CHAPTER TEN
25 Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp
When Galaeron climbed down into the rocky basin where they had made camp the previous night, he found Vala lying next to her unsheathed sword, staring into its glassy blade with a vacant expression. On an elf s visage, her arched brow and wistful smile would have suggested a not-altogether-unhappy loneliness, but he was not sure what the look signified on a human face. His first reaction was one of envy, as he himself had again passed the entire night without a moment of reverie. Then he remembered: humans did not have the Reverie. 'Vala?' Galaeron reached out to shake her.
Her hand came up and caught his wrist in a lightning-fast trap block. He barely managed to pull free and fling himself backward before her dark-sword cleaved the air where he had been kneeling. Galaeron somersaulted over a shoulder and pulled his own sword to block. Vala rolled to her hip, her pale eyes vacant and dangerous. 'Vala!' Galaeron called. 'It's me-the elf…' Her brow knitted, then reason returned to her eyes. She scowled at the weapon in Galaeron's hand.
'What's that for?' If Vala noticed that she was pointing with her own sword, her face showed no sign, 'Trying to kill me in my sleep?' 'You weren't sleeping. Your eyes were open.' This seemed to stir her memory. 'That's right… I was visiting.' Now she scowled. 'And you interrupted me?' 'Visiting?'
'The Granite Tower.' She jammed the darksword into its scabbard. 'Dream walking. You know.' Galaeron shook his head. 'Is this like the Reverie?'
'Not really.' Vala glanced eastward, where a brightening band of gray horizon foretold the coming dawn. 'You didn't wake me for my watch.'
Galaeron shrugged. 'I couldn't rest. 1 thought you might as well.'
'Thanks, but you should have tried. You look like hell.' More gently, she explained,' 'Visiting' is my word for it. Over the years, every darksword seems to inherit a few foibles from its family Burlen's hums in combat, Dexon's talks in its sleep.' 'And yours Visits'?'
'Spying might be a better term.' Vala's cheeks darkened. 'It likes to, uh, show me what's happening in the bedchambers of the Granite Tower.' Galaeron raised his brow. 'It's not something I like.'
'Of course not,' Galaeron said, enjoying a rare opportunity to bait her. 'Though you did seem to be smiling.'
'I was watching Sheldon sleep.' Though there was no indignation in Vala's voice, her tone grew solemn enough that Galaeron regretted chiding her. 'He's my son.'
'Can you two not be quiet?' rumbled Melegaunt. The wizard sat up, palms pressed to his eyes. 'What happened to my head?' 'Illithid,' Vala said. 'With the bugbears.'
Melegaunt pulled his hands away. 'Then the phaerimm are a step ahead.' He ran his fingers through his dusky hair and hefted himself to his feet. 'Well leave as soon as I've read the day'
They gathered their gear, then climbed to the rim of their campsite and stood in the light of the rising sun. Melegaunt kneeled between Vala and Galaeron as before.
'A day of meetings,' he announced, 'but nothing to fear. So long as we are cautious.' 'How cautious?' asked Galaeron.
'Bad things in the mountains.' Melegaunt gestured westward toward Bleached Bones Pass. 'But the shadow way looked clear to the north. Good news, is it not?'
Vala and Galaeron eyed each other with looks of dread, then Vala asked, 'How bad were the things in the pass?'
'Shadow dragons are fearsome creatures, even in a world of light,' said Melegaunt. 'More importantly,
