"Most concerned," Malik agreed. He hesitated for a moment, then was unable to keep from adding, "But we are even more concerned for ourselves. We know who will be blamed if he dies."

This drew a sour smile from the shadow lord. Like everyone in the company, Rapha knew that Malik had been cursed by the goddess Mystra to speak only the truth or not all. It was an irony in which Shadovar seemed to take special delight.

Rapha clapped a hand on the little man's shoulder. "You have nothing to fear, my stubby friend. You were not even at the Splicing."

"But››0M were," Galaeron said, wondering what Rapha was playing at. "You know I meant no harm to the prince."

"I know what I saw," Rapha said. "You used a shadow snare to keep the thornback trapped beside the prince."

"Had I let the thing teleport away, the shadowshell would be no prison at all," Galaeron retorted. "Those phaerimm were there to learn its secret, and what they discovered was important, or they would have attacked us long before I found them."

Rapha considered this, then his voice grew quiet and menacing. "How is it you know so much about the phaerimm, elf? Why could you find them when twenty shadow lords could not?"

Galaeron glanced away. "I can't say why," he admitted. "It just seemed right that they would be there." "It just seemed right," Rapha echoed dubiously.

"I think his shadow knew," Vala said. "He didn't say anything about them until his shadow self asserted itself."

Rapha shook his head impatiently. "The shadow self is only an absence of what a person is, a darker image of himself that he creates simply by being what he is. It cannot know more than its creator, any more than its creator can know it."

Galaeron shrugged. "Then I can't explain it," he said. "I just had a feeling they would be there-and I was right"