for cover behind a snowy boulder. The log he had been standing on shriveled into a mass of rotten pulp, then the eye tyrant screeched again as another of Takari's arrows sank into its body. Galaeron nocked another arrow and hurled himself from his hiding place, aiming as he rolled. A cone of golden light flashed from one of the beholder's eyestalks, and the boulder dissolved into dust. Galaeron loosed his arrow at the creature's big eye and saw it sink out of sight. This time, the beholder did not cry out. It simply dropped into the snow, its eyestalks drooping over its body like so many withered vines. Galaeron and Takari each planted a guarantee arrow into the lifeless orb and darted to new hiding places, and only then did they raise their heads to take stock-Malik and his horse were nowhere to be seen, of course. Aris was charging in the direction Galaeron had pointed, swinging a ten-foot deadfall log back and forth in a noble, if somewhat misguided, effort to smash their invisible foe through sheer chance. Vala and Melegaunt were running in the wrong direction, charging through the snow toward Galaeron and Takari.
He waved them back, only to have them stop and gesture him in their direction. He tried again, this time more urgently. Once Melegaunt reached the Dire Wood, he would be free to use his shadow magic-and if they stood any chance at all of escaping the phaerimm and its minions, it was the arch-wizard's magic.
Vala ignored him, instead pointing her darksword at the fallen beholder. 'It was only the scout,' she yelled. 'Now, will you two stop clowning around and get your pointy ears over here?'
When no rays of any color leaped out to silence her, Galaeron dared to look behind him. Much to his relief, the rest of the beholders were a hundred paces distant, coming up fast, but still fist-sized spheres weaving through the trees. Behind them hovered the tornado-shaped figure of a phaerimm, no larger than Galaeron's thumb, yet terrifying enough even at that distance.
A dull thump echoed through the wood as Aris connected with their invisible foe. To Galaeron's amazement, the stone giant did not instantly erupt into a pillar of flame or drop dead with a gaping hole through his torso. Instead, he gave a deep groan of satisfaction and started forward again, shaking the snow from the trees around him as he beat the ground with his makeshift club. 'Aris!' thundered Melegaunt. 'Stop that at once!'
A series of colored flashes filled the air in front of Galaeron as the approaching beholders began to test the range of their eye rays. They were not close enough to strike yet, but it would not be long before the beams began to hit. Seeing that the foolish humans were determined to enter the Dire Wood together or not at all, he whistled to Takari and turned toward them. Even at their best pace, he doubted they would be fast enough to outrun the beholders' eye rays, but with a little dodging and weaving, they stood a reasonable-well, acceptable-chance of reaching the wood alive.
As Galaeron and Takari approached, Vala grabbed their hands and pulled them behind a tree. The beholder rays were starting to blast through the forest around them now, boring holes through massive shadowtop trunks and withering whole maples. Turlang would not be happy about the damage done to his forest, but as long as Melegaunt did not use his shadow magic within the wood, the treant would not hold them-or Lady Morgwais- responsible.
As Aris approached, a golden ray caught him square in the leg. The beam would have taken the torso off a normal man, but it merely drilled a melon-sized hole through the stone giant's thigh. He let out a great bellow and collapsed, shaking the ground beneath their feet as he crashed down behind Melegaunt. 'That will do!' yelled Melegaunt, directing himself to Vala.
Vala grabbed Galaeron's hand and pressed it into Takari's, then looped her own arm through his and grabbed hold of Melegaunt's with the other. The archwizard locked her hand in the crook of his elbow, then pressed his other palm to the giant's biceps and began the incantation to a shadow spell.
Galaeron jerked free of Vala's grasp. 'What are you doing? If he breaks his word to Turlang-'
'Look to the shadow, elf!' Vala grabbed hold of Galaeron again, then used her chin to gesture along the length of the trunk-shadow in which they all stood. 'He's drawing his magic through the Dire Wood.'
Galaeron looked in the direction she indicated and saw that the tree's shadow extended clear through the ring of white oaks. Though he wasn't sure Melegaunt was living up to the letter of his pledge to Turlang, there was no time to debate the matter. A half dozen beholders appeared to either side of them, lacing the air with gleaming beams of destruction.
The rays shot past without touching anyone in the party, and only then did Galaeron notice how dim and hazy the eye tyrants appeared. Several of the creatures passed by within an arm's reach of the party and did not seem to notice them.
'Don't lose touch with me,' warned Melegaunt. 'At the moment, we are only shadows to them… and that is all that protects us.'
'Then let's get out of here,' said Takari. 'The Dire Wood is not a hundred paces away.'
'And may as well be a hundred miles,' said Aris. 'Look ahead.'
An ankle-high curtain of black fire had arisen at the edge of the white forest. Though Galaeron guessed the flames would be invisible to anyone outside the Fringe, he saw no reason it could not be dispersed by a wizard of Melegaunt's power.
'We cannot hide in the shadows forever,' he said. 'Dispel it and let us be on our way.'
'Gladly-were that not what Elminster expects,' said Melegaunt. 'Elminster?' demanded Aris. 'But he was sleeping-'
'Mystra's Chosen do not sleep,' interrupted Melegaunt. He pointed in the general direction of the giant's feet and ran his fingers through the motions of a detection spell. 'And they most certainly do not snore.'
A ghostly figure in a floppy hat appeared twenty paces beyond Aris's feet. He was slowly creeping toward the Dire Wood, peering over his shoulder at the main body of beholders, then farther back at the hovering phaerimm, and finally at the eye tyrant scouts still passing back and forth through the shadow where Galaeron and his companions stood hiding in Melegaunt's spell.
A knowing twinkle came to Elminster's eye, and he started toward their hiding place. Melegaunt finished his spell, directing a finger in the archmage's direction. Almost at once, the beholders swung their eyestalks toward Elminster and began to assail him with rays both black and golden. Without exception, the attacks exploded into harmless starbursts against the archmage's spell shields, but the flurry was enough to stop the old man in his tracks. He lowered his bushy eyebrows, and Melegaunt uttered another spell. Instead of stopping a foot short, as had all the other attacks, the next beam-a golden one-struck the ancient wizard broadside and sent him cartwheeling across the snow.
'What are you doing?' Galaeron came near to releasing Takari to grab Melegaunt's arm. 'You'll get him killed!' 'Hardly.'
Elminster tumbled to a stop and came up glaring in Melegaunt's direction. He raised a shaming finger-and the phaerimm came floating up, waving all four arms in his direction.
Elminster vanished in cloud of crimson flame, and Melegaunt immediately uttered the reverse of a teleport spell.
In the next instant, Elminster's ancient figure appeared fifty yards to the east, cloaked in fire and shaking a long finger of flame. Though the gesture was directed roughly in Melegaunt's direction, it was easily ten degrees to the left, leaving no doubt in Galaeron's mind, at least, that the greatest mage in all Faerun could not see through the simplest of the shadow wizard's spells.
The phaerimm streaked off toward the archmage, whistling something angry in its breezy language that drew the beholders after it. Elminster turned and fled, covering his retreat with a wall of scintillating colors. The phaerimm and beholders paused long enough to dispel the wall, then flew after the archwizard. Melegaunt smiled. 'Now we are ready for the Dire Wood.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
29 Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp
The Dire Wood was much darker and ominous than it appeared outside. Within a dozen paces, the pristine snow turned to soggy peat, and the albino oaks gave way to the shadowy depths of a petrified forest The trees were as black as coal, with ebony limbs that ended in jagged stumps and twisted trunks propped against each other at every odd angle. The ground beneath the trees was as red as blood, full of scum and rot and the smell of
