An indignant drone filled the chamber, but the expression that came to Alusair’s face was less anger than surrender.
"Leave us," she said.
The envoys fell silent and began to look to one another, waiting for someone else to take the lead and either object or start the withdrawal.
"Now!" Alusair said. "We will discuss the phaerimm tomorrow, when we have all had a chance to see whether we can strike such a bargain and still sleep at night"
The envoys rose in a bustle of scraping chair legs and sharp remarks and departed, leaving only Caladnei, Ruha, and a dozen Purple Dragons in the room with Galaeron and Alusair. The princess motioned them all toward the door.
"You, too," she said, standing and starting down the table toward Galaeron. "I am in no danger here."
Though their faces clearly showed their displeasure, the others knew better than to question Alusair’s ability to take care of herself. They followed the envoys into the anteroom.
When they were gone, Alusair sat down at Galaeron's side and clamped a well-callused hand on his slender knee. Though she was not squeezing, he could feel strength enough in her grasp that, had she wished, she could have broken his bones.
"Elf, what am I to do with you?" she asked. "You are your own worst enemy… and yet, I can't say things would have turned out any differently if you were not."
Galaeron's heart fell.
"Then you are going to betray Evereska?"
"No, not Cormyr. That I promise," Alusair said. "But I'm afraid we won't be helping, either."
"You're leaving us on our own?"
Alusair looked across the chamber and said, "I didn't really think it would be possible to negotiate Evereska's safety, but…" She let the sentence trail off, then shook her head and turned to look at Galaeron again. "Diplomacy is the art of the possible, Galaeron-and there's nothing we can do. You must know that."
A surge of dark anger started to rise in Galaeron, but it was not difficult to fight down. He did know. Alusair was telling him the truth, and that was what friends did in circumstances like these. He took her hands.
"I know. Thank you." He glanced toward the door, then added, "It was Alduvar Snowbrand."
Alusair frowned in confusion. "Alduvar?"
"Who dispelled Caladnei's wards," Galaeron said. "The Dalesmen were already mind-slaves when they arrived, and the phaerimm knew they were the last ones you'd expect treachery from. He came in first and dispelled the wards, and the phaerimm came in between the other two."
Alusair raised her brow.
Galaeron nodded, but did not bother to explain further. When it came to the phaerimm, he just… knew. It was a little gift from a Shadovar he had known once.
"Well, thanks," Alusair said with a smile, then leaned over and kissed him-hard, and on the lips. "You watch yourself. I'm going to miss you."
CHAPTER TWO
10 Flamerule, the Year of Wild Magic
Beyond the shadowshell, Takari Moonsnow saw only dark forms-nebulous disks and hazy pillars that could be monster or mineral, that could be beholders and bugbears or boulders and broken blocks of stone.
They never appeared to move, which favored the inanimate, but whenever she glanced away for a moment and looked back the shapes were in different places. That favored the animate-the sinister, even, and the dangerous. Providing, of course, that the change was not just her imagination playing tricks on her. Reconnoitering through the shadow-shell was like peering through an obsidian window. She could tell that something lay on the other side, but what it might be was anyone's guess.
Takari cursed and started back toward camp, her flesh warming in the hot Anauroch sun as she moved away from the shell's icy darkness behind. According to the latest news from within the Shaeradim, a trio of phaerimm had been seen several days before herding an army of mind-slaves in Takari's direction. Unfortunately, that was all anyone knew. Spying on the phaerimm was invariably lethal, so every report from inside came at a steep price.
Nor could the high mages sent by Evermeet scry the information. While the phaerimm's deadwall had long since fallen victim to the Shadovar shadowshell, the shadowshell itself remained strong enough to turn any spell on itself. Fortunately, the Chosen's ability to hear their names spoken anywhere on Faer?n had returned with the fall of the dead-wall-apparently because the Shadovar had not thought to weave their shell against the god-gifted abilities of the Chosen. Khelben Arunsun and Laeral Silverhand, who remained trapped with Evereska's besieged defenders, were able to relay messages out through Storm Silverhand or another of the Chosen.
Takari reached the field where her reconnaissance company was camped and found it in a bustle, with wood elves strapping on armor, stringing bows, and rushing to assemble at the gathering circle. Her second-in-command, a sloe-eyed male with a sinewy build and a shad-mouthed grin, rushed up to her with their helms and battle cloaks in hand.
"What is it, Wagg?" Takari asked, taking her cloak from him and swinging it around her shoulders. "Shadovar?"
Wagg-actually Wizzle Bendriver, but everyone called him Wagg because he shook his head whenever he smiled, frowned, or spoke-shook his head.
"Lord Ramealaerub has issued the call." He waved a helm over her shoulder, toward the shadowshell, and said, "He thinks it's coming down."
Takari closed the throat clasp of her cloak and turned to find that the black shadowshell had faded to gray-blue. Even from a hundred paces away, the barrier was unbelievably immense, a dark wall stretching beyond the horizon in both directions, the curve of its dome imperceptible as it climbed higher into the air than she could see. Before her eyes, the gray-blue shell faded to just gray. She began to see the terraced crests of the hills of the Desert Border South and looming beyond, the unmistakable crags of the High Shaeradim.
Just inside the fading shell, a broad ridge rose gently away from the desert, snaking its way deep into the foothills before ascending to a high mesa that would serve as the elven army's first staging ground inside the Shaeradim. Takari was relieved to see that the foot of the ridge lay directly in front of her company's campsite. When suggesting campsites to Lord Ramealaerub, she had been forced to recall the terrain inside the shadowshell from memory and guess at good staging points for each arm of the elven advance. That her own company was in proper position meant the others would be, too.
Takari took her war helm from Wagg and with a sigh put the thing on her head. It was one of those gaudy-some would say ornate-pieces of armor made by Gold elves. Gilded in silver and trimmed in gold, it was as heavy as a rock and about as comfortable. A circle of Evermeet's high mages had bestowed on it several useful enchantments, including their most powerful mind-guarding magic and the ability to stay in constant contact with her commander.
Wagg snickered. "You look like a bandit bird-only louder and uglier."
That's not all bad. Maybe now you'll stop begging me to play night games."
"You're going to wear that awful thing at night?"
"And so are you." Takari pointed at Wagg's helm, then at his head. "The phaerimm don't care when they take their mind-slaves."
Wagg frowned. Shaking his head, he sneered at the adornments hammered into the metal.
"Ships," he grumbled. "If s always ships and sails with that bunch. What's wrong with a few trees?"
"Who knows?" Takari was as genuinely puzzled as her deputy. "Maybe they don't have trees on Evermeet."
"You think?"
Wagg’s eyes widened at this frightening thought, and Takari shrugged.
The shadowshell had faded from gray to a transparent damson, and it had become more of a struggle to see the flickering barrier than the terrain behind it. Takari saw nothing but boulders, and scattered across the hillside, leafless smokethorn trees and the withered silhouettes of a few spiny soapleafs. The soapleafs she would have to watch. In the two decades she had spent patrolling the Desert Border South with Galaeron Nihmedu and his Tomb Guards, she had never seen one this close to Anauroch.