'This blade has sap on it.' Takari looked as though she might sheathe it in Malik's chest. 'You've been cutting bark.'
Malik's eyes bugged out like a pair of bird eggs. 'By the Black Sun-the beholders! I marked our trail for them!'
'The Black Sun?' demanded Vala, who looked like she might kill Malik before Takari had the chance. 'You worship Cyric?'
Malik winced, then closed his eyes and nodded. 'But I beg you, do me no harm! It is not on his account I betrayed you.'
'No one will harm you,' said Aris. The giant stood the little man on his feet. 'I myself have felt the beguiling magic of beholders.' Malik dared to look up. 'You will protect me?'
'The blame is not yours,' said Aris. 'Their magic is powerful.'
'But he did cut Turlang's trees-and we brought him into the forest,' said Vala. She looked to Galaeron. 'What will that mean for your mother?'
It was Takari who answered. 'Turlang will never trust Lady Morgwais's word again, but if the village attends to the wounded trees and doesn't let them die, 1 think he will permit us to stay.'
'Permit you to stay?' Galaeron drew a calming breath, then turned to Malik. 'When was the last time you saw the beholder?'
Malik thought for a moment, then shuddered. 'After the dancing ended. They are waiting up…' He paused and looked ahead, searching the forest for a familiar landmark, then gestured vaguely ahead. 'Up where the trail turns toward the village. I, uh, 'blazed' that trail, too.'
Takari glanced at Galaeron with a question in her eye, but he gave a quick shake of his head and looked away Both knew exactly where Malik meant, but Galaeron did not want to tell the humans about the trailmaze-not when he had already done so much to endanger Rheitheillaethor.
'There's nothing to be done about the blazes now,' said Galaeron. 'And every minute we hesitate only makes it more likely they'll try to find the village itself. We have to leave another way and draw them after us.'
Takari pointed at Malik. 'What about that one? You are responsible for him by the pledge that Lady Morgwais vouchsafed to Turlang.'
Vala set a hand on the pommel of her darksword. 'I can think of a solution.'
'That would not be fair,' rumbled Aris. 'I do not know about this Black Sun he worships, but he has been a true friend to me.' 'Then I suppose we have no choice except to take him along,' said Melegaunt. 'We certainly can't leave him running lose in Turlang's forest'
'No?' The smile that creased Malik's face was suspiciously broad-or so it seemed to Galaeron. 'May the One rain a thousand blessings down on you all!'
'I'd leave well enough alone, were 1 you,' growled Vala. 'Aris only owes you one life, as best I can figure.'
Galaeron fell in at the end of the line behind Vala, then suggested to Melegaunt that he and Aris follow a few dozen paces behind Takari As they angled off to the north, Galaeron looked behind them and saw the trail Malik had blazed. Within a few hours, someone from the village would discover the atrocity and dress the wounds with special salves to aid the healing bark, but the damage would never fade. For as long as the trees remained standing, the long line of blazes would point straight toward the Heartblood River, where Rheitheillaethor stood hidden on the bent shore. Not for the first time, he wondered just how high a price he would be forced to pay to save Evereska.
A few minutes later, they crossed into a region of impenetrable thorn hedges and hidden precipices where the only safe footing was down the center of the snowy path. A bewildering array of forks and branches split off the main trail, winding along the rims of hedge-capped abysses and down bramble-walled tunnels, but the humans failed to notice any of the alternatives. The labyrinth's magic worked counter to intuition. Instead of presenting the intruder with a bewildering array of choices, the trailmaze allowed intruders to see only the path they happened to be following at the time. All of these trails twined back on each other in a tangled snarl of endless loops, slyly feeding the interloper from one circle to another without his knowledge. Though Rheitheillaethor suffered few invaders, those who did assault the village were usually found in the maze, either dead of starvation or trapped in the bottom of a hidden pit. At last, they emerged from the trailmaze, the humans none the wiser. The gray light of a winter dawn was brightening the sky behind the eastern treetops, filling the forest with shadows so faint they almost did not exist. They traveled a little more than a mile, then Galaeron called to Takari with the wit wit wit of a cardinal. She responded with a buzzing chick-a-dee call, and Galaeron knew she had located their foes. He studied the wood to the south and saw nothing except an endless tangle of snow-caked branches. Along the Desert Border, he might have hoped to match Takari's sharp eye-but here in her home, he would have to leave matters in her hands. He told her as much by repeating the cardinal's call twice more, and she led the way onward.
They traveled in single file, stepping only in Takari's tracks to avoid snapping an unseen stick or rustling a jumble of twigs. Aris's footfalls were as silent as Galaeron's, but Malik and his mount were by far the quietest in the group, Kelda placing her hooves more like those of a unicorn than a horse. There was more to Malik than being a simple Cyric worshiper, Galaeron felt certain-but he did not dwell on his suspicions, lest he invite a badly- timed attack from his shadow self.
The morning shadows were just growing darker when Takari began to move more rapidly, leading them just fast enough so that it became difficult to travel without making noise. Melegaunt sent a shiver up their spines by stepping on a stick and filling the air with a low crunch. Vala slipped on a slope and fell to her knees with a soft thud and muffled curse. As they crossed a broad creek, Aris broke through the ice, and a loud splash purled through the trees. Galaeron did not need to look to know their foes were following somewhere behind. Takari had increased the pace to attract their attention, and now she was leading them closer to the Dire Wood.
The sun finally made a full appearance, an orange disk hanging low in the trees, shining down into the forest and striping the snow with trunk-shadows as long as some roads. Takari began to vary the pace, slowing for a time and wandering an erratic course, then plowing ahead in a sudden, steady surge. Galaeron knew without looking that their enemies were preparing to attack, trying to slip unseen along their flanks to cut the party off. Takari was using the same trick that a band of Darkhold Zhentarim had once used against Galaeron's patrol, feigning fatigue and poor discipline so the pursuers would hold their attack in hopes of catching the quarry at rest. Galaeron tried to help by acting the part, gulping down handfuls of snow and quietly instructing the others to do likewise. Once or twice, he even lagged behind, trying to convince the beholders that with enough patience, they might pick off a straggler and make their job that much easier.
At last, the forest seemed to thin ahead, the barren trunks of the sugar maples and shadowtops giving way to a broad, blurry expanse of white. At first, Galaeron thought they might be coming to a meadow or snow- covered lake, but as they drew closer, the pale blur resolved itself into a wall of albino oak trees. Amazingly, they were still in full leaf, and they were completely white, from the bases of their alabaster trunks to the height of their blonde crowns. Galaeron could even see a few ivory acorns hanging from their white stalks.
Takari gave a series of sharp siskin shicks, and Galaeron realized he was looking at the Dire Wood. He had expected it to be darker, more ominous-twisted, somehow, and tangibly evil. Instead, it looked like something out of an elven myth, beautiful and illusory and ancient beyond the ages. Galaeron answered with his cardinal's wit wit wit, and Takari stopped, nocking an arrow and spinning to fire in the same quick motion.
'Run for the white trees!' Galaeron shoved Vala forward. 'Melegaunt can use his magic there.'
Takari's arrow hissed past Galaeron's head and thudded into something soft. He pulled his bow from his back and dived over a log, then came up with his own arrow nocked and pointed in the same direction.
A shrieking beholder hovered seventy paces distant, its eyestalks spraying colored rays in every direction, the fletching of Takari's arrow protruding from its big central eye. Galaeron leveled his shaft at the same target- then, twenty paces ahead of the creature, glimpsed a plume of snow rising from the ground as some invisible foe raced for the Dire Wood. In a breath, Galaeron adjusted his aim and loosed the arrow.
The shaft flashed across the plume at about rib height, then drew a startled cry before it ricocheted away and sank into the snow. Galaeron uttered a curse on all phaerimm, then leaped up on the log behind which he was hiding and pointed in the direction he had fired.
'Watch over there!' he yelled. 'The phaerimm's invisible, with an arrow shield!'
He was rewarded for his bravery by a black flash from one of the beholder's eyes, but he was already diving
