swing around a tool belt hung with steel hammers of various sizes, then continued up the giant's flank. He circled away from a cavernous armpit, looped over gnarled biceps, passed a neck as thick as a pillar, and found himself staring into a pair of eyes as big as dinner plates.
Galaeron took a piece of copper filament from his pocket and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. The shadow magic flooded into him, then he pointed at the giant's head and began to whisper. 'Don't cry out, giant. You have nothing to fear.'
The giant flinched, lost a toe hold, and groaned. Galaeron cursed the big fellow's lack of self-discipline, then slipped a few arm lengths across the cliff and grabbed the shadow silk Melegaunt had given him. A glimmer of hope appeared in the grant's face, and his big eyes roved about in search of his savior.
'Be careful!' Though the giant's whisper seemed as loud as rushing wind, Galaeron did not worry about it being overheard. The spell he had cast would prevent that. 'Where are you?'
Before Galaeron could answer, a beholder floated up between him and the giant. The thing was close enough to kick, with several of the small eyestalks waving in the elf's direction, but the creature did not seem to notice Galaeron's invisible presence.
A cone of blue light shot from its huge central eye and began to sweep over the stone giant's body. Galaeron raised his hands to cast the spell Melegaunt had taught him, but stopped when the giant continued to cling to the cliff and showed no more fear than previously. Clearly, neither the giant nor the eye tyrant were surprised to see each other, and Galaeron realized their foes knew Melegaunt better than the wizard thought
The beholder shifted its beam to the cliff and swept it back and forth at random. Keeping a careful watch on the creature's many eyes, Galaeron floated around behind it. By all rights, he should have left instantly, for he knew better than to think he could escape any trap designed to capture Melegaunt. But it was too late. He had already seen the hope in the giant's eyes.
The beholder finished its scan of the cliff face and spun around, flashing its beam back and forth through the cloud. Galaeron tucked in the other side of the giant's torso.
Finally, the beholder gave up and turned to the grant. 'What was that groan for?' '1 slipped,' the giant said.
'You wouldn't lie to poor Kanabar would you?' As the beholder spoke, one of its smaller eyes swung toward the giant. 'Not when Kanabar told the others he had a use for you? You wouldn't lie to Kanabar when he saved your life, would you?' 'No, 1 wouldn't lie.'
The giant's body tensed as he tried to resist the eye tyrant's charm magic, and Galaeron began to worry. Vala's beholder had slain one of his best scouts with nine eyes cloaked. What hope did he have against one able to use all eleven? The giant spoke again, this time in a higher, almost singsong voice. 'Aris would never lie to his friend Kanabar.'
Galaeron pushed away from the cliff, then looked across the giant's broad back in time to see a crooked smile come to the beholder's toothy mouth. 'That's right,' the beholder said. 'So, why did Aris groan?'
The giant's body trembled visibly 'B-b-because his foot slipped.'
'And why did his foot slip?' asked the beholder. 'Tell your friend Kanabar.'
As the eye tyrant said this, Galaeron flung a strand of shadow silk in its direction and spoke the incantation Melegaunt had taught him. The beholder's eyes swung toward the sound of his voice, but the spell was a quick one, and in an instant, Kanabar was cloaked in a gummy mass of shadow.
'Hey!' Aris thundered. He turned his head and looked directly at Galaeron, who had turned visible the instant he attacked. 'What'd you do to my friend, you stupid elf?'
'He's not your friend,' Galaeron said, trying to figure out how he would rescue a becharmed giant. 'I am.'
Galaeron started to reach for his sword, then had a better idea when he saw the beholder's magic- destroying ray burn through the gummy shadow over its central eye. He rattled off a series of vaguely mystic syllables and tucked in behind the giant's body Desperate to interrupt Galaeron's spell, the beholder swung toward him and ran its blue beam across the giant's back.
The beam flashed across Galaeron's shoulder. He began to fall, but spared himself a long plummet by catching hold of Aris's tool belt. The beholder tried to cry the alarm, but, with its mouth full of shadow gum, managed only a garbled babble.
Looping one arm through the giant's belt, Galaeron drew his sword and braced himself to fight the monster-then gasped as Aris's far hand descended out of the haze and grabbed Kanabar. The beholder looked like a riys melon in the giant's palm. 'Friend indeed!' growled the giant.
The beholder mumbled something unintelligible as Aris smashed it into the cliff.
'Thank the leaflord!' Galaeron gasped. 'I didn't know if his ray would work on his own charm magic.'
'It did,' said Aris. 'But I fear you have doomed yourself for naught, elf.'
The giant pointed to a trio of round forms drifting toward them out of the haze. Galaeron looked behind him and saw another pair, and yet two more rising into the cloud beneath them. He sheathed his sword, then plucked two more threads off the shadow silk Melegaunt had given him. 'This seemed like a better idea from down there.'
'1 imagine so,' said Aris. 'Should they becharm me again…'
'No offense taken,' said Galaeron. 'Do as I say, and it won't come to that.'
He dropped first one, then two shadow threads and repeated Melegaunt's spell twice in rapid succession. Though he had learned to do multiple castings at the Academy of Magic, it was the one technique that had not come easily for him-and that had prompted him to practice it until it came even more naturally than everything else. The two enchantments worked perfectly though he was starting to grow tired and felt like the coldness of the new magic would crack his bones.
An alarmed gurgle rose from the beholders as they were engulfed in shadow morass, then they collided with each other and stuck fast. Without waiting to see what effect this would have on the others-though he prayed it would give them pause-Galaeron pointed toward the far end of the pass and cast his most powerful spell. A numbing wave of cold magic rushed through his bones, then a black square appeared just below him and to the side. 'Through the door!' he ordered. Aris peered down. 'I can't fit-'
'Now!' Still holding onto the belt, Galaeron leaped for the square and hoped the giant would follow. 'Jump!'
With a deep bellow, Aris released the cliff and obeyed. Galaeron glimpsed a blue ray sweeping through the clouds toward his magic door, then they plummeted into darkness.
A sudden chill bit at his flesh, and there was a dark eternity of falling. Galaeron grew queasy and weak, heard the stillness of his own heart. His head reeled, his thoughts dissolved into a jumble of ill-defined fears, and he was back in the world, plunging through a howling tempest of white. A deafening bellow filled the air behind him. Galaeron glanced back to find a huge gray figure plummeting alongside him, then a circle of treetops flashed past and the world erupted into a cacophony of cracking and snapping. They tumbled groundward, flipping first one way, then another as they were snagged by passing branches. Galaeron tried to push away from the mountainous figure and found he could not.
In the next instant, he crashed down on the giant and lay in a daze, struggling to recall where he was and where he had come from. A low groan shook the air around him, then he started to swing groundward as the enormous body rolled to its back.
The spell's afterdaze vanished in a flash, and Galaeron knew instantly where he was-and who he was with. 'Aris, wait!' The giant gave a startled cry and stopped mid roll. 'Elf?'
'The very one.' Galaeron pulled his arm free and dropped into the snow. 'Are you all right?' 'For now.' The giant pointed into the storm.
Galaeron scrambled up and peered over Aris's hip. The moon-shaped silhouette of a beholder was careening toward them through the storm, coming so fast it was bouncing into tree trunks. 'Do something!' Aris urged. 'Another spell!'
'I don't think 1 can.' Galaeron was so exhausted from the cold magic that had already passed through him that he could not stop shivering. 'I'm too tired.'
'Tired?' Aris boomed, clawing through the snow in search of a boulder. 'Rest when you're dead!'
Seeing the wisdom in the giant's argument, Galaeron plucked another thread off his ribbon of shadow silk. He tossed it the beholder's direction and started the spell-then cried out in shock as the cold magic gushed into
