but because he had let her think that his duty meant more to him than she did.
Aubric came to the base of the landslide and saw his ghostly Blades scrambling up the boulders, chasing after handfuls of long gray cords dragging across the stones. One elf sprang off a stone, and letting his sword fall free, caught hold of the rope. He began to climb, and the line dragged across the ground more slowly. Another warrior caught hold and dropped to his seat, bracing himself between two boulders to hold it in place.
Coughing and hacking so hard he could hardly hold himself straight, Aubric ran his gaze fifty feet up the line to the amorphous blob above. In the swirling dust, it looked like some sort of jellyfish, with a shapeless body and a string of long tentacles dangling below It took the blademajor a moment to recognize what he was seeing, to identify the tangled knot of limbs as the grotesquely broken arms and legs of three Lordly Wands, wrapped tight to their foe by the sticky white strands of a magic web.
A rolling ball of flame engulfed the phaerimm, drawing an anguished shriek from a lone elf voice. Aubric thought for a moment that Khelben or a human wizard had hurled the spell down from above. When the creature did not come crashing to the ground, he realized that the fireball had been no more than a desperate attempt to free itself-but elven ropes did not burn. A half dozen Noble Blades grabbed hold with the other two warriors and hauled their foe down toward its death. The thornback had other ideas and vanished in a twinkling of silver spell light.
A second phaerimm, still reeling from the fury of earlier attacks, was not so lucky. A trio of elves caught its ropes, then drew it down while their fellows poured arrows into it. By the time the dazed creature finally thought to raise a shield, they had it on the ground, dragging it past a teetering boulder. When their fellows pushed the monolith over, the spray of green blood left no doubt about its fate.
Aubric clambered over the rocks toward Rocnest, searching the sky for the last two creatures. The booming voices of the high mages continued unabated, as did the cries of the wounded and the rumble of shifting stone, but an ominous pause had descended over the battle itself. By the time he reached the base of the cliff, the dust cloud had thinned to a mere haze.
Dureth came up beside him. 'Aubric, you look in a bad way.'
Aubric nodded and searched the landslide below. 'Did you see what became of the last two phaerimm?' A worried look came to Dureth's eye. 'No.'
'Then tell those who can to hurry.' Aubric turned toward the cliff. There was perhaps fifty feet of vertical face, then another hundred of steep bowl where the avalanche had caved away. He sheathed his sword and looped a coil of rope over his shoulder. 'I'll see you above.'
Dureth caught his arm. 'You can't do this, my friend,' he said. 'Not alone.'
'How can I not?' Climbing as nimbly as a spider despite his wound, Aubric started up the cliff. 'I doubt there is anyone left who can keep up.' 'Aubric, no one expects the blademajor to-'
But Aubric was already twenty feet up, his fingers and toes moving quickly from one hold to another. Dureth began to yell at the others to regroup, asking if anyone had a spell of flight. By the time the high lord had everyone gathered, Aubric was pulling himself off the vertical face onto the treacherous slope left by the landslide. He yelled for the others to stand clear and scrambled up through the loose stone, twice falling and nearly sliding to his death.
The high mages continued their spellcasting, their voices rising to a fevered pitch as they neared completion. When the top of the slide basin came into view, Aubric began to think Rhydwych had killed the other two phaerimm herself-and that, of course, was when the crackle of a war spell rumbled over the crest of the slope. He tied the rope off to a spar of rock and tossed the free end to the others, then drew his sword and scrambled into the saddle.
At the top, Aubric dropped to his belly and peered into Rocnest. All that remained of the ancient fortress were a few sections of elf-raised wall along the jagged rim. But down in the basin stood a rectangle of lustrous black stone, still shining with the magic that had drawn it from the ground. In front of the block stood a gossamer- robed Gold elf female, her voice ringing heavenward as she plucked strands of Weave from the air and plaited them into the dark monolith. She was fashioning an elegant keel arch, its purple depths growing ever darker and richer. With every fiber she laid, the mage herself seemed to grow wispy, translucent, as though she were braiding herself into her work. Aubric thought it so, for though the high mages kept their art to themselves, he had heard that their magic often involved the binding of their own spirits.
Arrayed around the elf woman were three male mages, their bodies as black and opaque as the female's was translucent. They held their arms spread skyward, spraying shimmering arcs of magic into the circle. Their voices were booming to a crescendo, each calling out a separate spell of support, yet weaving their incantations together in music-like harmony.
The slope directly below Aubric was more dirt than rock, strewn with bodies both human and elf-many writhing in agony, none able to stand. Halfway down hovered the two phaerimm, still swaddled in Rhydwych's magic webs and flinging spells at a scintillating dome of colors. Though Aubric recognized the dome as one of the most powerful defenses taught by Evereska's Academy of Magic, he could not understand why the phaerimm were wasting their time destroying it when the high mages were so close to completing the gate.
Khelben Arunsun stepped out of the dome, hurled a spell at one of the creatures, and dived back into his sphere. The stricken phaerimm froze and began to sink into the ground. Whistling in alarm, the other floated around the sphere and dispelled the magic drawing its fellow down into the stone.
In the basin below, the voices of the high mages rose to a thunderous roar. The archway glowed deep purple, and the female elf faded to a shimmer.
Khelben popped out of the dome again and cast a ray of black death at the second phaerimm, only to have the magic reflected back at him. He tried to bring his black staff down to intercept the spell, but even Mystra's Chosen could not catch their own spells. The bolt took him in the chest, hurling him a dozen paces up the slope. He landed in a heap, brown vapor rising from the puckered hole in his chest.
Aubric was already bounding down the rocks, his knees quivering with weakness, his breath coming in hot, wet wheezes. As he passed Khelben, he was relieved to see the edges of the hole already closing, but it seemed clear the archmage would be of no further use in this battle. The closest phaerimm spun to meet Aubric's charge, its barbed tail tangling in its skirt of elven ropes. The second creature extracted itself from the ground and started down the slope toward the high mages.
Aubric sprang six feet to the right, then right again, as though trying to work his way around the first creature. When he gathered himself for a third leap, his foe took the bait, spraying his path with sizzling black acid. Aubric jumped left, drawing on the Weave's magic to launch himself into a glorious flying somersault, his sword whirling about him as his panicked target filled the air with flashing magic.
In the basin below, the voices of the high mages fell silent. The female vanished in a brilliant burst of purple radiance, and the gateway glowed with a magic so deeply violet it was black.
A magic bolt caught Aubric in the shoulder, but he twisted around, launched himself off the phaerimm's fleshy lip-one of the few areas not covered with magic web-and dived over the scintillating dome. The startled creature whistled an alarm, and its fellow spun on its tail, splicing the air with a sheet of scything magic.
Aubric was already on the ground, rolling to his feet and dancing toward the phaerimm in a tornado of flashing steel. The creature called to its fellow and moved to block the elf's path across the hill. Aubric feigned an attempt to circle above it, then saw the weary mages below lower their arms and knew the gate was complete. He changed directions, barely escaping as a nest of tentacles sprang from the ground to snatch at his legs. The second phaerimm streaked by, trilling in anger as it swept down into the basin.
'Watch yourselves!' Weak and croaking as it was, the call sent Aubric into a spasm of coughing. Bright blood sprayed from his mouth, taking with it what little remained of his strength. He dropped to his knees, then tried again to warn the high mages. 'Behind you!'
Whether or not they heard the cry was impossible to say, for the elves turned almost sedately to look up the slope. Their golden faces had gone sallow and gaunt with exhaustion, and when they raised their arms, it almost seemed they were trying to ward off a blow instead of preparing to cast a spell.
The phaerimm was faster. Still wrapped in its amorphous cocoon of magic web, it stopped at the bottom of the slope and struck the ground with its tail. A deafening crash shook the entire Rocnest, then a network of magma-belching fissures shot across the basin floor toward the black gate.
The high mages crossed their arms in front of them and calmly awaited the assault. The fissures shot to within a dozen feet of the trio, then turned aside and scribed a fiery loop around the floor of the basin. The
