The Siege by Troy Denning

was all but impossible to discern. As they ascended, the villas grew ever larger and more magnificent, eventually becoming so enormous that it required the entourage close to a minute to pass by.
    As they passed one of the largest, a many-spired mansion with flying buttresses and a line of long barrel vaults leading into the shadowed interior, Prince Escanor stopped long enough to wave in its direction.
    “My abode,” he said. “I hope you will attend me here soon, when we are not quite so occupied with our war duties.”
    Though Escanor took pains to address himself to all his guests, Galaeron—or his shadow—knew that the invitation was meant primarily for Vala. Biting back the urge to suggest that the invitation would come the first time only Vala was free to answer, he merely looked up the street and inquired how much farther it was to the Palace of the Most High.
    Escanor waved him on. “Not far.”
    Indeed it was not. Just past the prince’s home, the street opened into a broad hilltop piazza surrounded by similar mansions, all with their grandest entrances facing center. In a ring around the plaza stood a forest of gloom sculptures, all rooted in urns of polished obsidian with a single ribbon of shadow rising in the ever-shifting figure of a Shadovar warrior or wizard. Not far from Escanor’s mansion stood the only likeness Galaeron recognized, that of the Shadovar who had helped cause the release of the phaerimm, Melegaunt Tanthul.
     
    “The Ring of Heroes,” Escanor said, waving his hand at the wall of figures. “Everyone represented here died accomplishing some great service to Shade Enclave.”
    “There must thousands!” Vala gasped.
    “Tens of thousands,” Escanor said. “Shade Enclave is an ancient city with ancient enemies, and much of our time in the shadow plane was spent defending ourselves from the assaults of the malaugrym.”
    “The malaugrym!” Ruha gasped. “Then the phaerimm must seem weak enemies to you, indeed.”
    “Different, but not weak. The first rule in the shadow plane is never to underestimate an enemy,” Escanor said. He turned to Aris. “If you wish, I will have someone teach you to read the stories of the gloom sculptures in their changing shapes.”
    This drew a rare smile from the giant. “No gift would please me more.”
    The prince had only to glance in his steward’s direction, and Mees said, “It shall be done this day.”
    Escanor nodded and turned to Galaeron. “You are wondering what Melegaunt’s story says about you?”
    Galaeron shook his head. “Only if it’ll say he’s honored for drawing Evereska and Waterdeep into the war against the phaerimm.”
    Vala started to hiss a reproach, but Escanor stopped her with a raised hand. “We must expect him to be suspicious.” Despite the prince’s patient words, the color of his eyes had deepened to angry red. “I think we should hurry to the Most High. Galaeron’s shadow is making him foolish as well as distrustful, and that is a bad sign.”
    Escanor led them through a hundred paces of gloom sculptures and emerged on the far side of the Ring of Heroes. Directly ahead stood the dusky grandeur of the Palace Most High, its seamless walls fashioned of polished obsidian and its shadowed spires vanishing into
     
    the umbral haze above. like so much in Shade Enclave, it seemed all sinuous curves and exaggerated proportions, with a shape that could not be named, nor even held in mind for more than a passing impression. Paying no noticeable attention as a company of Shadovar spell-guards snapped to attention, Escanor steered his entourage into a keel-arched portal so high that Aris barely had to duck his head.
    After passing through a short vaultway, the entryway opened into a vast hall of glassy curves and dusky translucence where every buttress soared into darkness and each corridor vanished into shadow. A hundred or more high-born Shadovar drifted in and out of the doorways, or stood rasping in tight knots of