on his belt and backed out of the chancel area.
'Go to my workshop,' he said, motioning the attendants toward the door in the north transept. 'Bring a stack of sail canvases and a barrel of sketching charcoal.'
The attendants rushed to obey, leaving only four shadow lord guards who did their utmost to remain quiet and out of sight. Yder had apparently ordered them to avoid reminding Aris that he was a captive, but it made no difference. He always knew they were behind him. He could feel them there, just out of sight.
A throaty rasp came up the nave's center aisle as someone pushed open the Black Portal. Aris waved an absentminded hand in the direction of the sound and kept his attention fixed on the object of his frustration. A pair of guards rushed off to send the visitor away. There followed the hiss of whispered conversation, then a scuffle, a few syllables of magic, and the clatter of armored bodies hitting the floor.
'What's wrong with you oafs?' Aris snapped, too absorbed in aesthetics to register anything but an annoying disturbance. 'Can you not see I'm trying to think?'
The other two guards were already stomping down the aisle to intercept the intruder. This time, the incantation ended in a sharp crack. The flash of lightning lit the chancel, and at last Aris saw the solution to his problem. The entire High Altar would become the Dark Moon, with the upper hemisphere forming a semicircular back panel at the rear and the lower hemisphere descending down into the choir. The trick would be to get the right foreshortening where the level changed, and to find a way to round the staircase toward the bottom. Growing ever more excited, Aris dropped to his knees and began to search his belt bag for a nubbin of sketching charcoal.
'Difficult to tell who's the slave here and who are the guards.' The voice registered vaguely as a familiar one. 'You weren't this difficult back in Arabel.'
'Do you have something to sketch with?' Aris lowered a hand without looking. 'I must get this down while I still have it in mind.'
'Aris!' the voice barked. 'Leave it You're done here.'
'Done?'
Scowling at the interruption, Aris shook his head and found Galaeron standing at his side. The elf looked much as he had when they were separated at the Cave Gate, save that his face was lined with fatigue and his eyes veiled behind a glossy darkness.
'Galaeron…'
Aris could feel the details of his idea slipping away even as he spoke, but he was so happy to see his old friend alive that he didn't care… much.
'What are you doing here?' he asked.
'What do you think?' Galaeron retorted. 'I escaped.'
'Escaped? From the Palace Most High?'
Galaeron nodded. 'I had to use the Shadow Weave,' he said, looking back down the main aisle of the nave, where Aris's four guards lay in various forms of death. Tm sorry.'
Aris's heart went out to his friend.
'You have not failed anyone.' He laid two fingers on the elf's shoulder and said, 'I am proud you did not yield before this.'
'I didn't yield,' Galaeron said. 'I chose. Telamont is after Vala.'
Aris went hollow inside.
'Then he knows?' asked the giant.
'Knows?'
'About the Chosen,' Aris said. 'They couldn't find the mythallar, so I sent them to Vala.'
A shadow descended over Galaeron's face.
'The Chosen must have freed her,' he said. Galaeron motioned Aris to his feet and turned toward the Black Portal. 'I gave them away. That’s s what he meant.'
Aris rose, but made no move to follow.
'What who meant?'
'The sharn,' Galaeron answered as he continued down the aisle. 'He appeared to me in the Palace Most High. He said he had come to repay the favor he owed us, and told me I had a choice to make.'
'And?'
'And he left, and I made my choice,' Galaeron replied. 'I couldn't bear the thought that Telamont would capture Vala again, but now I see he was talking about more-much more.'
Seeing that Galaeron was not going to wait, Aris caught up to him with a single step. He plucked Galaeron off the floor and held him at head height.
'The sharn from Karse came to you in the Palace Most High?'
'Isn't that what I just said? Put me down. We need to go find Vala and the Chosen.'
Aris continued to hold Galaeron and said, The sharn left you there to free yourself? He left you and told you to use the Shadow Weave?'
If Galaeron saw the reason for Aris's alarm, he showed no sign.
'The sharn was warning me,' the elf said. 'Telamont had just been there, trying to convince me to use the Shadow
Weave to save Vala. When I refused, a strange look came over him. Telamont said hope was stronger than he had imagined and left.'
'That was what the sharn was warning you about?'
Galaeron shook his head and replied, 'I think Telamont knew I was defying him because I expected something to happen soon. It must have dawned on him that Vala had help escaping, because he left in a hurry. We have to find the Chosen and warn them.'
'All very plausible,' Aris said. 'But the sharn left you there with no way to escape except to use the Shadow Weave.'
Galaeron shrugged and said, 'I had to accept the inevitable, and I'm the stronger for it.'
He peeled Aris's thumb back and slipped free, landing on the floor in an easy crouch.
'Who is stronger?' Aris asked, a little frightened by how easily Galaeron had broken his grasp. 'How can you be certain it was the sharn you saw and not some trick of Telamont’s?'
'Because we beat him,' Galaeron replied, starting toward the Black Portal again. 'My shadow and I matched wills with Telamont Tanthul, and we beat him.'
'Galaeron, listen to yourself,' Aris said. He stepped over the elf, then spun and stooped down to block his way. 'Telamont Tanthul has been trying to trick you into yielding to your shadow since the day we arrived in Shade. You finally do it, and suddenly you're stronger than he is?'
'Yes,' Galaeron said simply. 'The Shadovar thrive on deception and subterfuge, I know that, but the biggest fraud they ever committed on me was when Melegaunt tricked me into fighting my own shadow. He filled me with doubt, and doubt made me weak.'
'And now you are sure,' Aris said, filling his voice with mockery and mistrust. 'Now you are strong.'
'Now I am whole,' Galaeron snapped back. 'That makes me strong. I have no time to explain it now.'
He whispered a mystic word and waved his hand at Aris's foot, and the foot started to slide across the floor.
'I am going to the mythallar,' Galaeron said, stepping under Aris toward the Black Portal.
'Wait!' Aris turned, growing ever more suspicious, and said, 'Back in Arabel, you told me you didn't know how to find the mythallar.'
'Not on this plane.'
Galaeron pressed a palm to the Black Portal and spoke a few words in ancient Netherese. The door dissolved into shadow mist.
The elf turned to Aris and said, 'I hope you'll come with me. One way or the other, I don't think Shade will be safe for you very much longer.'
Aris's mind was whirling with suspicions, foremost among them the fear that Telamont was using Galaeron to reveal Vala and the Chosen to the Shadovar. But for that to be so, Galaeron could not be under the Most High's sway, for if he were Telamont would have only to ask to learn what he wished to know.
'I'll come,' he said, stepping toward the shadowy portal, 'but first you must promise that when this is done,
