Galaeron finally gave up guessing, and seeing that the enclave was not going to sink any lower, he turned back to his companions. Laeral was handing Aris his third flask of healing potion, and the wounds Khelben and Storm had suffered were already closing. Khelben held a vial out to Galaeron and motioned at the gashes in his neck.
"You may as well take care of those before we return."
"Return?" Aris asked. The flask Laeral had given him slipped from his hand and shattered on the stony ground. He appeared not to notice. 'To Shade?"
"That's where the mythallar is," Storm replied. She stood and tested her wounded leg. It nearly buckled beneath her, but that did not stop her from nodding approvingly. "Ill need a quarter hour, no more."
In what seemed another life, Galaeron would have been impressed by how quickly the Chosen healed. Having seen what he had seen and knowing how quickly any Shadovar warrior-especially the princes-could heal themselves, he knew his companions to be woefully overmatched.
But it was Aris who objected.
"Has that silver fire melted your brains? We can't return to Shade without Galaeron's magic, and look at him!" Hardly seeming to notice the two shadow arrows still lodged in his shoulder, the giant waved a huge arm in Galaeron's direction. "He's going to have a terrible time getting back to normal as it is. You can't ask him to use more shadow magic."
"Aris, there's no 'normal' to get back to. I've told you that," Galaeron said, wondering how he would ever make the giant understand that shadow and light were only illusions. Once one accepted the truth of that, everything became light… and everything became shadow. "I was not ail good before, and my shadow was not all bad."
"You could have fooled me," Aris said. "Or perhaps you have forgotten what happened in the Saiyaddar?"
"Of course not, but that happened because of the struggle, not because of my shadow. It's the refusal to yield that causes the crisis."
"It was the crisis that Telamont was trying to exploit," Laeral surmised. "He wanted to make you fear your shadow so you would keep struggling and remain unbalanced until he could take control."
"To some extent, yes," Galaeron agreed, "but the struggle is necessary. You need to build strength. The shadow is very strong, and I think it would overwhelm you if you accepted it too soon."
"I understand-better than you can know." Laeral said. She cast a private glance at Khelben then looked back to Galaeron. "Once you're ready, accepting your shadow will make you stronger and better."
"Stronger, yes, but better?" Galaeron asked. "I don't know. Strength overcomes weakness, so the strengths in my shadow have overcome some weaknesses in my character, and the strengths in my character have overcome most of the weaknesses in my shadow. So I feel whole-but that hardly makes me a paladin. The world is a darker place than I knew before, and I'm the darker for seeing that. It's not something I'd describe as better."
Sympathetic expressions came to the faces of all three of the Chosen, and Khelben said, "We can't know what you're going through, Galaeron, but I'm sure we share this much. There are times when we all wish we could go back to, uh… the way we were before, but the door only opens one way."
"And even were it possible to go back, I would still use any magic necessary to return us to the city," Galaeron said. As thankful as he was for the understanding and comradeship the Chosen were extending to him, he was also convinced that it was folly to do as they asked. "If we return now, we accomplish nothing but our own deaths. The princes heal as fast as the Chosen, and there are more of them than of us."
"Which is why we must strike now, and quickly," Storm said. Her eyes were locked on Galaeron, fixing him in place like a snake pinned beneath an eagle's claw. "This is your plan. Will you see it through or not?"
"Not if it means losing three of Mystra's Chosen," Galaeron said. "Impotent though you may be, you are the only hope Faer?n has, and I will not-"
"Impotent?" Khelben grumbled. He stepped closer, all trace of his earlier camaraderie vanished. He raised his famous black staff as though he meant to rap Galaeron on the brow with it "I will teach you impotent!"
Galaeron stood unflinching, ready to take whatever blow the wizard cared to deliver, if that would make him and the other Chosen listen.
Laeral spared him the necessity, catching Khelben by the arm and dragging him back a step.
"He has a point, my love. Telamont will not have failed to notice our helplessness once the mythallar was cracked."
"All the more reason to strike now." Khelben's glare slid from Galaeron to Laeral as he said, "Before he expects our return. If we are as 'impotent' as the elf claims, surprise may be our only chance."
"And if we fall, we have no chance," Aris countered.
" "We?*" Storm echoed. "I doubt there is any sense in your risking your life as well, my friend. Your size is nothing but a hindrance, and your strength will do us little good."
"Little good?" Aris boomed. "Did you not notice that I am the one who cracked the mythallar? You are not returning without me, I promise you that"
Though it did not escape Galaeron's notice how smoothly Storm had shifted the topic to how they would return from whether, he turned a deaf ear to the argument and glanced toward Vala. She had remained on the fringes of the argument, silent and withdrawn, watching him the entire time in the blunt Vaasan way. Her green eyes remained as enigmatic as the emeralds they resembled.
Galaeron would have given anything to know what she was thinking. Did she consider him weak for yielding to his shadow? Or was she under the misconception-as he had been-that it was a sacrifice necessary to save Faer?n? He considered it a given that she hated him for abandoning her to Escanor. After all that had befallen her-and Telamont had described it to him many times while he was a prisoner in the Palace Most High-he did not understand how she could stand to look upon his face without drawing her sword, but the choice had been hers. She was the one who had hurt him in order to save him, and if her plan had worked she had only herself to blame.
Galaeron knew what he saw in Vala's eyes: anger. She had given so much to protect him. It could only seem to her that he had thrown her sacrifice back in her face, that he had returned to Shade without a thought to what she had done and become the thing she had so desperately tried to prevent
She was right Though he had certainly hoped to free Vala, it was Evereska and Faer?n he had come to save. The Chosen would never have agreed to help him otherwise, and he could see how right they would have been. Vala was a mere afterthought, one even Galaeron would have forsaken for a slight increase in their chances of success.
None of that changed his love for her-or how he wished he had spoken to her about it when there was still a chance she would listen.
Galaeron grew aware of a heavy silence and realized the others were looking at him.
Without taking his eyes off Vala, he said, "You know the Shadovar better than anyone here. What do you want to do?"
"What I want is to end this and go home." Vala's gaze finally left Galaeron's. She turned to face Khelben and said, "What I think-"
Vala pulled her darksword and spun back in Galaeron's direction, her arm drawing back to throw.
Startled by just how badly he had underestimated her anger, Galaeron opened himself to the Shadow Weave. He swirled his hand before his body and hissed a wispy Shadovar spell, and a shadowy disk of protection sprang into existence between him and Vala
Vala dropped her gaze and scowled, and it was only then that Galaeron realized she had been looking past his shoulder. Khelben took advantage of the distraction to slip to her side and catch her by the crook of the elbow.