'There is no need to tell you what you already know,' said Jhingleshod. 'You saw him betray Vala on the bridge. You should not be surprised to learn he has been lying to you.'
Galaeron whirled on the archwizard and found Vala blocking his path, one hand on her sword. 'No, Galaeron.' She pushed him back gently. 'You know I can't let you.'
Galaeron felt something in his hand and realized he was holding his own sword. He released it, turned to Jhingleshod, and asked, 'What did Melegaunt tell you?' 'After Wulgreth is destroyed,' the knight promised. Galaeron turned next to Malik and said, 'You heard it.'
'I told Jhingleshod I came to save my people,' said Melegaunt. 'You, of all people, should understand that.'
Galaeron continued to look at Malik. The little man sighed and nodded. 'First he claimed he came to save Evereska, and for that lie he received the same blow you did. Then he said he came to save his people, that he needed the Karsestone to return shade to his home.'
'Not my home, it's home.' Melegaunt shook his head in frustration, then sighed and said, 'Shade was a Netherese city. Our shadow masters read the empire's fall in the dawn shadows and took us to safety in the Demiplane of Shadow. We've been trying to return to our home-you call it Anauroch-ever since.' 'Seventeen centuries is a long time trying,' Takari said.
'Time is not the same in the Demiplane of Shadow,' Melegaunt said. 'Nor the task of returning a simple one.'
'Not with the phaerimm in your way,' said Galaeron. The anger in his voice prompted Vala to draw her sword. 'First, you had to move them someplace else!'
'It was not meant to be Evereska,' said Melegaunt, now growing as angry as Galaeron. 'But what if it had been? For seventeen of your centuries, we have been trapped in a dark hell, unable to return because of the phaerimm. For the first millennium, we kept our freedom by paying tribute in lives to the demon lords who thought to make us their own, and for the last seven hundred we have fought the Malaugrym for our very survival. Would it be too much to ask of Evereska- and the rest of the world-that they help us destroy the phaerimm so we could return in peace?' 'You didn't ask,' said Galaeron.
'Not Evereska.' Melegaunt shouldered Vala aside and drew himself to his full height, reminding everyone present-including Galaeron-that he had little to fear from an angry elf. 'But what would the answer have been, had a Netherese city asked your Hill Elders for help?'
The question sent a cold bolt through Galaeron, for the answer was as obvious to him as to Melegaunt. The ancient elves had disapproved of Netheril's careless magic, and as he knew from ancient writings in the Academy of Magic, taken a secret delight in the fall of the ancient empire.
'You can be sure I am doing more for Evereska than Evereska would for Shade,' said Melegaunt. 'Whether you believe that is up to you-and your shadowself.'
Without awaiting Galaeron's reply, the wizard spun on Jhingleshod. '1 presume the Karsestone to be beneath this pyramid. If there is an easier way to reach it, do not make me waste precious time and magic opening a shadow tunnel.' Jhingleshod's eyes flared angrily 'Your promise-'
'Whether you value Melegaunt's promise or not, you may trust mine.' Galaeron did not know whether the all-too-human fury in his heart was his own or that of his shadowself, but he did know that much of the criticism Melegaunt had leveled at Evereska was true. He turned to the wizard and said, 'Were the circumstances of our cities reversed, perhaps 1 would do as much to save Evereska. But know this, wizard, I will hold you to your promise. If Evereska falls, I will see to it that Shade suffers a fate many times worse.'
Melegaunt gave him a dark smile. 'It already has, elf. It was never our intention to loose the phaerimm on your city- and they remain more our enemy than yours. There is no need to worry on that account.'
Galaeron turned to Jhingleshod. 'My promise stands as before.'
Jhingleshod studied Galaeron for a moment, then nodded. 'Do not fail me, I warn you.'
He went to the crawlway Takari had discovered and swung through feet first, his body erupting into a cloud of dust as it passed through the green barrier. Galaeron and the others looked at each other with dropped jaws.
Finally, Takari said, 'An illusion. This lich is a very clever one, indeed.'
She stepped over to the passage and swung her legs through the opening, then vanished in a cloud of dust Galaeron went next and found himself plummeting into a high, silver-lit cavern. He glimpsed a colonnade of curved pillars arcing up to a central support, then splashed into a pool of foul-smelling liquid the color and consistency of quicksilver. A small hand caught him by the hair and dragged him to one side just as Vala hit beside him. Next came Melegaunt, fluttering down on the magic of a slow-fall spell, and Malik plummeted into the pool screaming.
A moment later, the group found itself standing waist-deep in a silvery pond, staring across a mirror-bright surface at a luminous white boulder the size Malik's horse. From a jagged crack in the center poured a steady stream of the shimmering fluid, filling the pool and slowly disappearing down a whirlpool at the far end. As the liquid swirled down the hole, it assumed a crimson tinge and began to steam, almost like blood.
'It's touching,' said Takari, ever the romantic. 'Karsus's heart bleeds for what he did.'
'You might say that, though Karsus was too mad for true remorse,' said Melegaunt. 'The Weave filled him to bursting when he tried to steal Mystryl's godhead. What you see pouring from the Karsestone is all that remains of that ancient whole magic.'
'Whole magic?' It was Malik who asked this. 'Since when has magic been less than whole?'
'Since the Fall of Netheril,' Galaeron surmised, thinking back to the tiresome texts he had studied at the Academy of Magic. After the fall, Mystryl had saved the Weave by reincarnating herself as Mystra, but the surviving archwizards had quickly discovered that without the goddess's direct intervention-a very rare occurrence indeed- they could no longer cast their most powerful spells. Most sages conjectured that Mystra was simply limiting magic to protect the Weave from another disaster, but Galaeron saw that another explanation made more sense-and explained the source of Melegaunt's cold magic. 'It split,' he said.
Melegaunt was too busy pressing strands of shadow silk onto the Karsestone to answer, but Malik was hanging on every word.
'What split?' the little man asked. 'Do you mean the Weave?'
Galaeron started to answer, then recalled Malik's previous interest in shadow magic and thought better of it. 'You ask too many questions, human.' He started toward the little man. 'You're no wizard. What is it to you if the Weave split?'
Malik's eyes grew wide, and he began to retreat. 'Remember your shadow, my friend. You are placing yourself in grave danger with these questions!'
'But I'm not,' said Vala, approaching from the other side. 'And I've been wondering myself. It wasn't any coincidence that we found you camped outside Thousand Faces, was it?'
'You would threaten me?' Malik gasped. 'After I risked my own life to save yours?'
'I'd like to know why.' Vala rested a hand on her sword. 'In my experience, Cyricists are rarely so selfless.'
'Don't kill him-I'm going to need him,' said Melegaunt, still working his way around the Karsestone. 'His presence is no mystery He's investigating my magic for Cyric.' Malik's jaw dropped. 'You knew?'
Melegaunt peered out from behind the Karsestone. 'Do I strike you as an idiot?' The archwizard pointed his chin at Malik's turban. 'Pull that off, and you'll find his antlers. Our companion is no ordinary thief-he's the Seraph of Lies.'
Galaeron did as Melegaunt instructed and found a pair of small antlers-they looked more like cuckold's horns-then asked, 'You knew, and you let him stay?'
'Better the spy you know than the one you don't-and he has proven useful, wouldn't you say?' Melegaunt began to point to spots in a circle about six feet from the Karsestone. 'Now spread yourselves out, and we'll call the power we need to save Evereska.'
The companions did as Melegaunt requested, leaving a sixth spot open for him. The archwizard grabbed two hand-Ms of silvery magic from the pool, then floated into the air above the Karsestone. He hung the globes about six feet apart and touched a plain copper ring that he wore on his left had to each. A magical light spread upon the orbs, which began to glow with the blinding radiance of the sun. Galaeron turned away with spots in his eyes.
