The Summoning rota-1 Read online

  The question staggered the proud Gold elf as no blow could have. "I'm sure there was a reason." She stopped at the foot of the bed to think of one. "Perhaps the mind flayer-"

  "All we know is that he came to see Lord Blackstaff," Laeral interrupted. She looked to Khelben. "I see no harm in letting him know you're here. Speak to him as though he were awake. Tell him what's been happening."

  Khelben's first thought was that Laeral was proposing a monumental waste of time, but he didn't say so. Laeral was the one person he never snapped at-well, that he tried never to snap at-and he was accomplishing little enough otherwise. He had tried to teleport into the Sharaedim a dozen times, only to find himself hip-deep in some stinking marsh or sliding down a searing sand dune, so far from his goal he could not even see the mountains, much less find out what was happening in Evereska.

  Khelben took Lord Imesfor's hand. "Old friend, it's not going well. In truth, it's going damn poorly I know you came here in need of help, but you've got to help me. I can't seem to get anywhere near Evereska-"

  "Fie… ream." The word slipped from Imesfor's lips so faint and wispy that Khelben thought he had imagined it.

  Angharradh gasped, then rushed to the far side of the bed and looked into Imesfor's eyes. His gaze seemed to focus on her, then went glassy again.

  Khelben felt Laeral's hand push him toward the elf. "Keep talking."

  Khelben leaned over his old friend. "Fie who? What's wrong in Evereska?" Imesfor's eyes came back into focus. "Fieream!" "Fieream?" Khelben repeated, then it hit him. "They did this to you?" Imesfor shook his head. "Not phaerimm… to me. illithid."

  "We know about the illithid." Khelben glanced to Laeral. "Do a sending."

  Laeral nodded. "Already done. Elminster will be here-" She was interrupted by the soft crack of a teleport spell. "Now"

  Still stinking of the pipe smoke in his study, Elminster stood in the center of the room, blinking and wobbling as he struggled to reorient himself to his new surroundings. Suppressing the irritation he felt at the showy display of power (Elminster being the only wizard on Toril who could defeat Khelben's wards and teleport directly into Blackstaff Tower), Khelben motioned the wizard over. "Over here. He's just coming around."

  The sound of Khelben's voice helped the wizard orient himself, and he stepped to the bed. "Gervas, ye look like something a carrion worm spit out."

  Laeral slapped Elminster on the shoulder. "Be nice. Lord Imesfor isn't alert enough for raw wit."

  "I'm alert enough to know… that awful fireweed smell." Imesfor tried to push himself into a sitting position, then winced and settled for keeping his eyes open. "My thanks for coming, Stinkbeard."

  "My thanks for being alive when I arrived," Elminster said. "Now why don't ye tell us how that hole in your head came to be?" "We were fleeing the phaerimm-" "The phaerimm?"

  Elminster looked to Khelben, who could only shrug and say, "It's the first I've heard about it, but who else could ward the entire Sharaedim against transport magic?"

  "1 can think of a few-any two of which would be preferable to the phaerimm," Elminster said darkly.

  Gervas's eyes grew concerned. "You don't know?" He looked to Angharradh. "How is that possible?" The priestess looked away. "It wasn't my decision." "But you are from Evermeet?" the elf pressed.

  Angharradh nodded. "1 was told this is an elf problem." She cast an uneasy glance toward Khelben and Elminster, then leaned closer to Imesfor. "Evereska is our last bulwark on the continent. The Island Council feared that the humans would seize this opportunity to claim it for their own."

  "What?" Khelben was so angry he nearly teleported over to strangle the priestess. At least that explained the stream of mages and warriors that had been emerging from the basement of Blackstaff Tower all day. There was an elf gate down there that allowed elves to pass freely between Waterdeep and Evermeet, and it had been in nearly constant use since he had asked Queen Amlaruil to send a healer for Lord Imesfor. "Evereska is being overrun by phaerimm, and your people are worried about humans?" "Evereska is hardly being overrun," said Angharradh.

  "It is!" Imesfor said. "Not yet the vale, but our armies are gone." He turned from the priestess, who had gone nearly as pale as he, to Khelben. They took us from behind, and when we tried to flee… it was unthinkable. I would have been dead, save for Melegaunt and his humans." "Melegaunt?" asked Khelben.

  "A shadow-shaper, involved in breaching the Sharn Wall," explained Imesfor. He looked to Angharradh. "Surely, the council passed that much along?" The priestess shook her head. "They did not even tell me."

  "Then perhaps ye would be kind enough to tell them something for me." Elminster rounded the bed to place himself between Lord Imesfor and the priestess. 'Tell them the council would do well to recall how many friends the elves truly have among men-lest they chase them all off with their boneheadedness!" Angharradh's eyes widened. "I couldn't possibly-"

  "Ye could and ye shall." Elminster shooed her toward the door. "And be quick about it, before I make a caryatid of ye!"

  Laeral held the door. "I suggest you hurry You know how rash and impatient we humans can be."

  Angharradh glanced toward Lord Imesfor, but before she could ask what he wished, there came a knock at the door. "Speak!" Khelben commanded.

  "Milord Blackstaff," came young Ransford's nervous voice. "Lord Piergeiron seeks a word with you about the unusual number of elves that seem to be gathering in the city." "Send word that I will attend him the moment I am free."

  "1 would rather discuss the matter now, Khelben," came the warden's deep voice. The door opened, and the towering form of Piergeiron Paladinson ducked beneath the lintel. They are threatening to buy up every last horse in the city"

  The warden's sharp eyes wandered once around the room, lingering just long enough on Elminster and Lord Imesfor to make plain his feelings about being left uninformed of such a gathering.

  Laeral was the first to recover, ushering Angharradh into Ransford's arms. "See the aradoness to the elf gate, Ransford, and see to it that she uses it-she has an important message to deliver to Evermeet."

  Piergeiron stepped aside to let the elf leave, then scowled at Khelben. "Will someone tell me what the devil is going on here?"

  "An excellent idea." Elminster summoned a pair of chairs out of thin air and levitated them into place on his side of the bed, then sat down and patted the seat beside him. "Why don't ye come and sit with me, and well hear the tale together."

  Khelben nodded, grateful to his old friend for diffusing the situation so effortlessly. "Why don't you start from the beginning, Lord Imesfor?"

  The elf nodded, then told them the whole story, starting with Galaeron Nihmedu's discovery of the crypt-breaking on the Desert Border, his capture of Vala Thorsdotter and her warriors, then proceeding to the subsequent appearance of the phaerimm and its advertent release. Here, he paused a moment to collect himself as he related the death of his son Louenghris, then went on to describe Evereska's disastrous efforts to reach the Sharn Wall and repair the breach. He finished with a description of how Galaeron Nihmedu had defied the Hill Elders to rescue him and Kiinyon Colbathin, and of how Melegaunt Tanthul had helped him escape through the shadow way.

  When the elf finished, everyone in the room sat silently contemplating the story they had just heard and trying to come to terms with the horrible evil that had been unleashed on the world. Finally, Khelben patted his friend's hand. "Evereska isn't alone in this, Gervas," Khelben said. The elf nodded. "I know."

  "It makes no sense." Elminster was looking at the ceiling as he said this. "I don't care how talented or careless this Galaeron Nihmedu is, he's not going to breach the Sharn Wall-and certainly not by accident."

  Khelben frowned. "What are you saying? That the shadow shaper did it on purpose?"

  "That would make more sense than some accident, would it not?" asked Elminster. Think on it. The Netherese have been dead and gone for these fifteen hundred years-"

  "Save for Sh
ade," Khelben pointed out. Shade was an ancient Netherese city that had reputedly escaped the fall of Netheril by transporting itself into the plane of shadow "No one knows what happened to Shade, but if this shadow shaper is Netherese…"

  "My point exactly," said Elminster. "Whether he is a lone survivor-which would make him an archwizard of truly awe-inspiring might-or an expatriate seeking revenge, would it not make sense for him to make the phaerimm our problem?"

  No one needed to ask what Melegaunt might be seeking vengeance for. The Netherese Empire had consisted primarily of floating cities, built upon the upturned bottoms of truncated mountaintops and kept aloft by the incredible magic of the empire's archwizards. Unbeknownst to them, their profligate abuse of magic was destroying the underground home of the entire phaerimm race, which depended on the inherent magic of nature for survival. To save themselves, the phaerimm had developed a powerful spell that drained the life from Netherese lands, turning their fields to sand dunes and their lakes to arid flats of cracked mud.

  As the farms grew less fertile, the empire found it difficult to feed its people, and eventually the stress led to a strange series of wars. Some were fought for sport to keep the restless populace entertained, and some were fought to claim the remaining patches of arable land. The result was an ever-escalating magic arms race that culminated in the mad attempt of the empire's greatest archwizard, Karsus, to steal the mantle of divinity from the goddess of magic, Mystryl herself.

  Sadly for all, Karsus was not up to the job. The sudden influx of godly knowledge left him too stunned to perform the most important role entrusted to the deity of magic-that of constantly reworking the Weave of life and mystic power that was the source of Faerun's magic. The Weave began to unravel.

  To save it, the goddess-Mystryl-was forced to sacrifice herself, temporarily severing the link between Faerun and its magic Weave. Without magic to keep them afloat, the cities of Netheril plummeted to the ground. Karsus himself died imbued with the knowledge of what he had done, plummeting to the ground in the form of a huge red butte. Save for Shade, which had somehow foreseen the disaster in time to withdraw into the plane of shadow, the rest of the empire perished with him. By the time Mystryl could reincarnate herself as Mystra, the new goddess of magic, the empire was gone.

  All were silent as they contemplated Elminster's suggestion, until Laeral voiced the question on all their minds.

  "Surely, not even a Netherese-survivor or descendant- would unleash the phaerimm merely to have his revenge,"

  To Khelben's surprise, it was Imesfor who shook his head. "That would not be my sense of it all. This Melegaunt risked much to save my life and Kiinyon's, and his determination seems not to be in destroying the phaerimm, but to set right what he and Galaeron did wrong."

  "And this Galaeron?" asked Khelben. "Forgive me, but it is not entirely unheard of for an elf to betray his own kind."

  "I know," agreed Imesfor. "1 have given the matter no little thought, but I have known father and son for more than a century. Though the Nihmedu family is noble more by name than rank or power, Aubric is thought of so well that he has served the Swords of Evereska as blademajor for five decades now." "It is the son we are speaking of here," said Elminster.

  "That I know," said Imesfor. "Galaeron was known for his arrogance and stubbornness in both academies of the College of Magic and Arms, but he has served on the Desert Border without complaint for twenty years. Were he the betraying kind, he would have done it before now. I thought enough of his integrity to entrust my own Louenghris to his patrol, and even now I blame him for my son's death no more than any father would."

  Elminster looked back to Imesfor "If ye can tell me one thing, then will I rest easy this night." Imesfor nodded. "I'll try."

  "How was it that this Melegaunt could snatch ye and the others from beneath the phaerimm's very noses? They see magic the way dwarves see body heat. And how was it that he shadow-walked ye right out of the Sharaedim, when neither Khelben nor myself nor any of the Chosen can so much as set foot inside its borders?" Imesfor could only shake his head. "I wish I knew"

  Khelben began to have a queasy feeling. "Then we must consider at least one other possibility." He felt Laeral's hand slip into his and was suddenly glad for its warmth. "When the illithid attacked you, where was Melegaunt?"

  Imesfor frowned. "We had just parted ways. I was leaving the shadow way to teleport here, and he…" The elf let his sentence trail off. "The human bastard!" "He sent it after ye, did he?" asked Elminster. "Not it," said Imesfor. "Them."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  26Nightal, the Year of the Unstrung Harp Even with a veil of storm clouds sliding along the cliff tops and a snow squall blasting through the gorge, Thousand Faces was more museum than pass. At the entrance stood the statues of two stone giant warriors, so lifelike that their chests seemed to rise and fall with breath. Beyond these guardians stretched the sculpture of an entire stone giant steading, carved into the canyon wall in high relief. There was a smith hammering an axe blank, a hunter carrying a pair of mountain elk by their ankles, a mother watching two sons wrestle, and a hundred other figures farther in, increasingly obscured by the howling blizzard. Above the giants wheeled sculpted snow finches and boulder hawks, the finches darting through a breathtaking maze of tree limbs, the hawks soaring across sublime mountain peaks. There were no beholders in sight, but neither were there any stone giants-at least none of flesh and bone.

  "Where did you see these beholders?" whispered Melegaunt.

  The wizard was lying between Galaeron and Malik, peering into the canyon from beneath the ground-hugging branches of a spruce tree. Vala was on Galaeron's other side, her body touching his at shoulder and hip.

  "Find the law keeper," said Malik. "Look into the door on the right."

  Galaeron searched the canyon until he came to an elderly stone giant holding a tablet in one hand and a dagger in the other. Next to him stood a doorway flanked by two columns. It ran only a couple of paces before ending in a wall at the same depth as the rest of the sculpture background, cleverly concealing the portal as a relief of itself. So convincing was the effect that had Galaeron not noticed a swarm of tiny eye-shaped reflections gleaming out of one shadowy corner, he would never have guessed the entrance to be real.

  Armed with this insight into the wonder of the giants' art, he reexamined the canyon wall and spotted several other openings. There were two more doorways-one actually disguised as a door and another as the hollow between two trees-and half a dozen windows. A swarm of beholder eyes peered from most of them. "Malik, you saved our lives," said Galaeron. "Thank you."

  "I don't know that he saved our lives," grumbled Melegaunt, "but he did save us some trouble. There are more beholders than I expected."

  "How can there be so many?" asked Vala. "All the beholders 1 have fought were solitary"

  "You live far from beholder civilization," said Melegaunt. "The phaerimm have enslaved a whole city."

  "Phaerimm?" gasped Malik. The little man backed out from beneath the tree. "Perhaps it is not so far around the mountains after all."

  Melegaunt grabbed the newcomer's cloak. "There aren't any phaerimm here, and I can sneak us past the beholders."

  He started to back out from beneath the tree, and Vala said, "You're just going to abandon the stone giants?" Melegaunt did not stop. "They're dead or gone." "Not all of them." Vala pointed near the cliff top, where a distant pair of gray legs extended down out of the clouds to balance on the stone wing of a sculpted eagle. As the companions watched, one foot moved up the cliff in search of a foothold, but found none and reluctantly returned to its former place.

  "That complicates things." Melegaunt pushed himself out from beneath the tree. "Well have to hurry, if we are to save him."

  "I beg a thousand pardons, but you have clearly lost your mind." Malik crawled after the wizard. "Dead men save no lives!"

  "You're free to try another way, of course." Melegaunt stood and started around the shou
lder of a small hill. "But there's nothing to worry about. You and the others will go through as I planned. Ill just take a small detour and help the giant off the mountain."

  Galaeron found himself racing both Malik and Vala as he scrambled after the wizard into a sheltered draw where they had left their gear and Malik's horse. "You can't do that," Galaeron said.

  Melegaunt faced him frowning. "I'll not abandon anyone to become a beholder's plaything, not when it's within my power to prevent it."

  "Granted, but you're the only one who knows where we're going and who we're looking for," said Vala, all but taking the words out of Galaeron's mouth. "If something should go wrong…"

  Melegaunt looked insulted. "We're only talking about a few beholders." "I can't let you take that chance, not when the fate of' Evereska hangs in the balance," said Galaeron. Despite the objection, Melegaunt's determination to rescue the giant quelled many of the doubts the elf had been having about the wizard. "Ill rescue the giant, unless you'd rather tell me how to find whoever it is we're looking for."

  The wizard's expression turned darker than usual. "Be careful what you wish for, young elf." He looked from Galaeron to Vala, then back to Galaeron again. "Very well, we'll do it your way, provided you can still use the other magic I showed you."

  Malik's ears perked up at this. "What do you mean, 'other magic?'"

  "It doesn't concern you." Melegaunt turned his back on the little man. "And even if it did, there's no time to explain now."

  "I understand completely." Malik slipped around to place himself directly between Galaeron and Melegaunt "Only, I have always been given to believe that the Weave is the only source of magic."

  Melegaunt scowled at him. "Why should this interest you? Are you a wizard?". "I am a man of many interests," said Malik. "And magic is among them, for my master-" "We'll talk later," interrupted Melegaunt.

  He glanced in Vala's direction. She grabbed Malik by the collar and, even as he tried to explain his interest, dragged him away. Her treatment was rough enough to draw a low whinny of warning from the sad-eyed horse.