Raegar was backed up against the wall with the two women and the tressym. The only open space left in the chamber was between the wall and his fiery shield. Tsarra had a sense of what was to come, and she tried to utter some words of comfort, but she was still frozen. She looked up to see the stars, but all she saw was the mass of sharn overhead losing cohesion and falling toward them like an oily black wall of water.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

30 Uktar-Feast of the Moon, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) Tsarra closed her eyes as the sharn multitude descended, bracing herself for what she assumed would be a cold, oily, and painful embrace. After a moment, she opened her eyes to see that the sharn were not advancing. The mass of sharn above them remained airborne, only dripping slight bits of blackness into what had come to fill more than two-thirds of the open chamber. Tsarra could move slightly, and the paralysis around her throat relaxed. She touched Raegar on the leg, making him jump. The rogue looked down at her and said, "Hey-you can move? Great, let's get you up. I don't know how long before they either attack or just flow over us." "Your fire shield was a good idea, Raegar, but you can drop it. Don't worry about the sharn. It's only attacking those who attack it. And while the help's appreciated,"

Tsarra said, "you need to leave and take my tressym with you. You and he will not be able to survive where Khelben and I are going."

Purring, she repeated her plea to the tressym. He was even less pleased than the thief, and the pair of them had a long moment's hissing and growling between them. "I'm not abandoning you or Maliantor, Tsarra." Raegar knelt down by her, and for the first time, she looked deep into his eyes. She never expected to see nobility and earnestness, and it touched her. Her eyes teared up, but she steeled herself and snapped at him, "Listen, Stoneblade-Khelben and I know what we're doing! We have to collect all the remnants of the Legacy while you, Syndra, Nameless, and Gamalon have to stop the lich. Now give me a moment and I'll give you a location." She cringed at the hurt look that crossed his face, but she had to get them both to focus. Tsarra slipped into a quick trance, summoning the smells and calm of a wooded glade. She let the sense surround her, and she caught a whiff of decay-that was her prey. She opened her eyes and looked at the world with different eyes. Tsarra saw Raegar, the sharn multitude, Nameless, and Maliantor plain as day. Superimposed over and suffused through them was the Weave. To her eyes, it was a pulsing green sward filled with life and energy. Concentrations of magic appeared as trees of varying height, and other living things as random plants. Maliantor was a slender willow tree, damaged, but still alive and in need of care. She glanced Khelben's way and saw him as a silver duskwood tree of massive size and strength, though one with its limbs bare for winter and many axe blows to the bark and wood at its base. The sharn were unlike any beings she'd ever seen. Rather than the growing wall of black amorphous flesh, she saw over a score of elves, centaurs, dwarves, gnomes, and humans assembled before her, all peaceful and smiling. All were naked forms outlined in purple stars, and she also saw them as Weavewood images of lush conifers. Tsarra focused and used her skills as a tracker to scan the Weavewood. Unlike the few other times she'd cast her "weavetrack," Tsarra saw the Weave smoldering from the lightning strikes. Lightning crackled in the skies overhead.

Other disturbances-a bent sapling here, rotting leaves there, and footprints sprinkled with ash and rot-filled the vision. Tsarra looked at how far apart and in which direction the tracks led. She couldn't find a second set of prints, so she said to Raegar, "I still can't move much. Can you pick me up and turn me to face south? Mind where you put the hands." He laughed nervously as he knelt and picked her up, cradling her in his arms and turning her south. Tsarra could see a greater forest in the Weave, dozens of tall trees and hundreds of smaller ones dotting the cityscape below. She looked hard, tracking her prey, and finally spotted a second set of prints over the City of the Dead. Then came the tricky part of the casting, as she let her mind take flight to scan the horizon beyond where she could physically see and continue to track. She tapped into how Nameless felt during a pleasurable flight and found herself flying along the Weavewood to spot additional tracks over the northern reaches of Ardeep Forest. She looked at a trail of smoke and tracked the lightning strikes. Tsarra's eyes followed the lightning bolts across the skies to where the smoke was the thickest. It covered the northeastern quadrant of the High Moor. She felt the spell starting to waver, so she pulled her focus back toward Waterdeep. Her eyes paused a moment over the view of Ardeep, curious about another silver tree there. It had fallen but was still alive with silver energy. Poor Aloevan. Would that I could help her, Khelben sent, snapping Tsarra's concentration. Her vision of the Weave as a woodland nearly ended. This spell is utterly fascinating, my dear. You described it to me before, but being able to see it through your eyes is an experience I'm glad I got to share. Tsarra shook off Khelben's words. She stared into the Weavewood, gauging the distances between each track marked on the Weave. Khelben interrupted her again. Of course. Seeing how far between each step he leaves on the Weave gives you an idea of how far he's teleported. The direction shows you toward where he teleported. Brilliant. Have you uncovered where the fool has gone to ground? Tsarra yelled, "Ow!" and Nameless growled low at Raegar, who glared back and said, "Hey-it wasn't me!"

"Not all of us can analyze and talk while casting spells, Blackstaff!"

Tsarra snapped out loud. "It feels like Lurue's horn stabbed through my brain!" Khelben's only response was to glare at her, and she glanced down at his wounds, then softened her tone. "Raegar," she said, turning to the man who held her, "thank you. You can put me down, now. You need to go to-" "Wait," Khelben said, staring not at them but at the pulsing and shimmering wall of sharnstuff that enclosed all but where they stood. "Why?" Tsarra asked, though she realized Raegar had not put her down. His eyes remained locked on hers, and she could see his concern. She felt her stomach flip a little but she turned back to Khelben to steady herself. "We need to tell our allies more. They're just as likely to mess up the situation as I might have until you confided in me at the tower." "I agree. Now, boy, are you-ah. Reinforcements have arrived," Khelben said as twin rainbows of colors flashed across the night sky, tearing into the sharn floating above the tower. Behind their attacks flew Carolyas and Gamalon Idogyr. The bald mage wore a Tethyrian battle-robe, a forest green cape, and white tabard that left his arms exposed and free for movement. Elaborate sigil tattoos covered his arms from hands to shoulders and crept onto his back and chest, all of them glimmering with jade magic. The sharn surrounded them with a forest of claws and teeth through their unique teleportals. Apparently, Gamalon came prepared, as every sharn attack proved useless against the shields he wove around himself and his niece. He cast another spell, while Carol drew a rod from her belt. Over the storm, the thunder, the screaming of the sharn, and the noises of the crowds below came a bellow. "Stop blasting!" Khelben roared, startling both Idogyrs into submission. His roar drew everyone's attention to him, and even the sharn recoiled from their slow advance toward him. Khelben had emerged from the Anyllan's bottle unhealed. He leaned heavily on his blackstaff for support. His robes were rent and burned, and his left leg was a stump.