'Sadly, you will not,' said Melegaunt. 'At least not alone. Will others of your kind help?'
The giant shook his head. '1 would not ask such a thing. The responsibility is not theirs.'
'No, but it is ours,' said Melegaunt. 'Perhaps even more than it is yours.'
Malik's eyes grew wide. 'Think what you are saying-and who you are saying it to!' He craned his neck up at the giant. 'The wizard speaks for himself.'
The giant paid no attention to the little man and kneeled down over Melegaunt. 'Explain.' 'Do you know of the phaerimm?' asked the wizard.
Aris nodded. 'I have seen their shapes in some of the old murals. A fell and powerful race, by the hewn stories.'
'And a cunning race,' said the wizard. 'Though the beholders may not realize it themselves, the phaerimm are their masters. The phaerimm sent them to Thousand Faces to find us.'
'There is no fool like an honest one!' exclaimed Malik, clambering onto his horse. 'I pray you have not killed us all!'
Neither Aris nor anyone else paid any attention to the little man. The giant merely considered the wizard's words for a time, then rubbed his long chin and turned to Galaeron.
'And even knowing they were looking for you, you risked all your lives to save mine?'
Galaeron nodded. 'I could not have left you and lived with myself.'
'You nearly did not survive saving me,' said the giant. 'That was not a wise thing to do.'
'It was wiser than you returning alone to face the beholders,' said Melegaunt. 'We would join you if we could, but there is greater evil afoot, and we must continue on our way.' The giant nodded. 'It is enough that you rescued me.'
'You would be doing us a service not to waste our efforts by attacking so many beholders alone,' said Melegaunt. 'You would be lucky to kill one or two.'
'Then that would be justice to one or two.' Aris glanced in Galaeron's direction, then rose. 'How could I live with myself, were I to fail my steading even in the little I could do to avenge its loss?'
'By doing more,' said Galaeron. He knew what the giant was feeling, for he had felt much the same thing as the phaerimm encircled Evereska. 'Would it not serve your steading better to strike a blow against the ones responsible for what happened to Thousand Faces?'
The stone giant furrowed his heavy brow. 'How can I do that?'
'By coming with us,' said Melegaunt, following Galaeron's lead. 'We are sworn to destroy the phaerimm-the same phaerimm who sent their beholders to Thousand Faces.'
Aris considered this for no more than ten minutes, a very short time for a stone giant, then said, 'You must give me a promise in return.' 'If it's within my power,' said Melegaunt.
'I think it is,' said the giant. 'You must promise to accept my help until the end. If Thousand Faces is to be avenged, I must be part of it' 'Done,' said Melegaunt. 'And I promise you this as well. that the beholders who have taken your home are not long for this world. Before all is done, they will rue the day they laid eyes on your steading.'
'Then it is a pact.' Aris stooped down to pluck Malik out of his saddle.
'What are you doing?' Malik pulled a tiny dagger from inside his cloak and flourished it. 'I must warn you-'
'The hill is a steep one,' said Aris. Paying no attention to the tiny dagger, he placed Malik on the ground and scooped up the little man's horse. 'I will carry this for you.'
Aris tucked the mare under his arm and started up the chute, not seeming to notice the beast's flailing hooves and terrified whinnies. Malik scrambled after them, alternating warning the giant not to harm his Kelda and cooing words of comfort to the horse.
Galaeron and the others followed, and soon they were descending a snowy ridge toward the vast Delimbyr Valley. With Aris breaking trail, travel was fast. It required only a day and a half of solid walking to reach the base of the mountains, and the journey would have taken no more than a day had they not made two 'brief* stops so Aris could warn giants coming in the opposite direction about the beholders.
As Galaeron listened to Aris's sorrowful descriptions of the fate of Thousand Faces, he found himself thinking of Evereska. Surely, his own city remained untouched. Even the phaerimm could not breach the magic of the mythal-at least not so quickly. Or could they? According to Melegaunt, the phaerimm of Myth Drannor were drawn to the area because of the mythal, and they were great magic-users in their own right. What if they knew how to unweave its defenses? Once they entered the city, even the Spellguard would be unable to turn them back. Galaeron would become like Aris, a lone survivor with nothing to live for except vengeance. In a stone giant, such an existence was sad beyond words. In an elf, especially one struggling with his own shadow it would become an unspeakable evil.
Galaeron longed to move faster, to insist that Melegaunt use his magic to speed them along-even to journey into the Shadow Fringe again-but he knew better than to suggest such a thing. After the battle at Thousand Faces, the phaerimm would be scouring the area for any hint of spell use, and even Melegaunt's strange magic would leave subtle incongruities in the world that would attract the attention of a careful searcher. Better to avoid magic altogether and let the blizzard conceal them.
The trip through the valley proved more trying. They were about halfway across when the blizzard blew itself out, catching them in the open a mile short of the river. Without a steady wind to fill their tracks, a party of bugbears soon spotted their trail and began to pursue. Instead of using magic to eliminate the threat, the companions rushed to the river and crossed the ice. When the bugbears followed, Aris hurled a few boulders into their midst, shattering the ice and plunging the entire band into the cold waters.
The companions were not so lucky the next afternoon, when two gray circles appeared just above the horizon. At first, the companions pretended not to notice their pursuers, hoping the pair would be foolish enough to catch up and attack. When the eye tyrants refused to take the bait, Melegaunt turned to cast a spell. The beholders vanished from sight. Perhaps a half-hour later, Galaeron glimpsed one creature still trailing them. The other was nowhere to be seen. 'He's gone for help,' Vala surmised. Galaeron nodded. 'With luck, it will only be beholders.'
'Only beholders?' Malik gasped. 'You are as mad as a cuckold in his harem!'
'Beholders would be better than phaerimm,' said Melegaunt. 'Unless you intend to make our fight your own, now would be a good time to part ways.'
'So you can send your foes after me?' Malik's dark eyes shined with indignation. 'I am hardly the fool I look, old man.' Melegaunt shrugged. 'You were warned.'
The wizard pulled a scrap of shadow silk from his cloak and traced a shadowy maze on the snow When he finished, he and Galaeron cast flying spells on everyone in the group- including Malik's astonished horse-and the companions streaked off toward the High Forest. The beholder avoided Melegaunt's shadow maze by circling wide, then became an ominous presence that appeared on the horizon now and again to remind them of their approaching danger.
Finally, they reached the High Forest and slipped into the woods. The beholder stopped behind a hill and hovered there with one eyestalk peering over the summit. Several of the other stalks flitted in and out of view, looking in all directions in search of help.
'Now we have them,' said Melegaunt. He pulled a piece of shadow silk from his cloak and tore off a strand, then strung it between two trees. 'We're almost to Karse.' 'Karse?' gasped Malik. 'Why are we going there?'
'We are not.' Melegaunt handed Galaeron a second piece of shadow silk and motioned for him to begin stringing strands. 'Once we have finished here, it will be safe to part ways. I'm sure you're as eager to be about your business as we are ours.'
'I have no business.' Malik paused as though that was all he meant to say, then slowly cocked his head to one side and added, 'Except you.'
'Us?' Melegaunt continued to string shadow strands between trees. 'And what would your business be with us?' Malik paled and said, 'Nothing… except-'
The rest of the explanation was lost to a tremendous crashing from the forest behind them. Galaeron spun around to see an enormous oak stomping up, its branches waving madly and a huge trunk cavity twisted in an angry snarl.
'No!' the tree boomed. It swept a branch down past Galaeron's head at the strands he had been stringing
