Storm of the Dead

by Lisa Smedman

  “Tell me how I can help,” Laeral said. “What would you have me do? Just name it, and it shall be done.”

  “I wish I knew,” Qilué said. She stared out across the city—not at the city itself, but at the horizon. The High Moor was still flat and featureless, but some color had returned. Here and there were splotches of green and fall-red: young trees that had grown these past three years. That’s what she loved about the surface. Its beauty was ever-changing, not frozen like the cold stone of the Underdark.

  “I asked Eilistraee the same question myself,” Qilué continued. “What would she have me do? The goddess’s answer, however, puzzled me. ‘It will end where it began,’ Eilistraee replied. ‘The High Moor.’” She turned to Laeral. “What that prophecy means, I cannot say. I thought you might have some idea, sister.”

  Laeral stood for several moments, lost in thought. Endings. Beginnings. “The City of Hope is an obvious ‘beginning,’” she said. “As for an ‘ending,’ Faertlemiir, Miyeritar’s City of High Magic, once stood here millennia ago, until it was laid waste by the killing storm. But that’s surely something you’ve already thought of.”

  Qilué nodded.

  “I’m sorry, sister. I have no answer for you. But I will think long and hard on it. I’ll contact you at once if anything occurs to me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “In the meantime,” Laeral said, “I’m curious. Is that the Crescent Blade at your hip? Did it really slay a demigod, as the ballads say?”

  Instead of smiling, as Laeral had hoped, Qilué’s expression grew closed and hard. Her right hand strayed to the hilt. She turned slightly away from Laeral, as if protective of the weapon. As if she half-expected Laeral to take the sword from her.

  Then, like clouds rolling away from the sun, Qilué’s expression cleared. “It is, indeed.” She drew the sword and laid the flat of the blade across her palm, offering it up for Laeral to see.

  Laeral noted the break in the blade. “It’s been broken. And … mended.”

  “Yes, praise Eilistraee.” Qilué’s eyes glittered. “In Lolth’s domain, no less. One day, it will slay the Spider Queen.”

  Laeral nodded. As Qilué slid the sword back into its scabbard, she noticed something. “Your wrist: there’s a cut there.”

  Once again, the guarded look returned to Qilué’s eye. “A scratch, sister. Nothing more.”

  “Why didn’t it heal?”

  Irritation flared in Qilué’s eyes. “It’s just a scratch.”

  Had it been anyone else, Laeral wouldn’t have worried. But this was Qilué. Such a tiny wound should have healed in less than the blink of an eye.

  But it might not be the best time to pursue the question, she thought.

  Qilué was proud—perhaps the proudest of the Seven Sisters—and had chosen a difficult path. And it looked as though the work of bringing the drow ‘up into the light’ was going to increase in difficulty by a thousandfold, perhaps even become impossible. She had every right to be on edge, to grow irritated when “trivial” matters like the scratch on her wrist were pointed out to her.

  Except that a wound that Mystra’s silver fire couldn’t heal was anything but trivial.

  “I’ll keep an eye on the High Moor for you, sister,” Laeral promised. “Let you know if anything unusual happens here. Any more ‘endings’ or ‘beginnings.’ I’ll consult my scrying fonts. If I learn anything, I’ll let you know immediately.” She slipped a hand into the crook of Qilué’s arm. “In the meantime, can I offer you food? Or wine?”

  “No, thank you, sister. I must return to the Promenade as soon as possible.”

  Laeral gave her sister’s arm a comforting squeeze. “The Faerzress?”

  Qilué nodded. “The Faerzress.” She plucked Laeral’s hand from her arm. “Farewell.” Then she teleported away.

  Laeral stared for several moments at the spot Qilué had just occupied. Like all drow, Qilué was reluctant to show her emotions. Laeral could tell, however, that her sister was deeply troubled—and not just by the undoing of a lifetime’s work. There was more going on; Laeral was certain of it.

  But until Qilué confided in her, Laerel could do little to help.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mazeer lifted the bottle to her lips, inhaled, and swam forward a few more strokes. Her exhaled bubbles flattened against the roof just above her head. A Nightshadow swam immediately ahead of her, his feet fluttering the water. Ahead of him, the passage they were following narrowed to a crack that looked barely wide enough for a drow to squeeze into. The cleric paused there, sculling in place, and stared into the fissure, his face illuminated by the blue-green Faerzress that permeated the nearby stone. Mazeer took another suck on the bottle that trailed by a cord from her wrist, and swam up next to him.

  Another dead end? she signed.

  The Nightshadow shook his head and his mask fluttered back and forth like wave-lapped seaweed. It leads down. His chest rose and fell as he breathed water.

  Mazeer sucked another breath from her bottle. Bubbles continued to stream out of it as she lowered it, tickling her arm. This is pointless. We should go back. This place is a labyrinth.

  It looks as though the crack widens, about a hundred paces below. What if it’s the passage that leads to the Acropolis?

  Mazeer peered down the narrow crack. She’d been uneasy about closed-in places ever since the time, as a novice wizard, she’d miscast a teleportation spell and wound up wedged inside one of the college’s chimneys. Unable to climb out, unable to refresh her teleportation spell because her spellbook was inside her pack, mashed tight against her back, she’d remained stuck inside the chimney until she was faint with hunger and thirst and her clothes were soiled. Eventually, someone conjuring darkfire in the fireplace below had at last heard her hoarse screams for help.

  She’d made a point, after that, of learning a spell that would reduce the size of her body. It helped, a little, to know she could use it to free herself if she did get stuck. Yet as she stared down into that long, narrow fissure the old fear made her shudder. She didn’t want the Nightshadow above her, blocking the way out.

  You go first, she signed. I’ll follow.

  The cleric nodded and edged sideways into the gap. He nodded at the wands sheathed at her wrists. Just don’t be too long in following. If this leads to a monster’s lair, I don’t want to be fighting alone.

  Mazeer laughed out the breath she’d just drawn from the bottle. ‘Monsters’ didn’t scare her. Back at the college, she’d slain everything the teachers had summoned and thrown at her. Hordes of undead, however, were another matter entirely. Given a choice, she hoped the fissure would dead-end in a monster’s lair, and that one of the other search teams would have the dubious honor of finding the route to the Acropolis. Daffir had predicted that one of the pairs of searchers would find it, though he’d been woefully short on details. Nor had Khorl been much help in predicting what they might face along the way, despite his haughty pride. So much for the “best” the College of Divination could provide. Eilistraee’s priestess had been right, Kiaransalee’s followers weren’t so crazy that they couldn’t cast wards.

  The cleric pushed away from the ceiling, forcing his body down the fissure. Mazeer waited until he was about a dozen paces below. She pinched the tiny pouch that hung at her throat, whispered a word that shrank her to half her normal size, and followed. To keep the panic at bay, she kept her head tilted back, her eyes on the opening above. Bubbles streamed up toward it each time she exhaled. Up toward freedom. Each push of her hands sent her farther away from it. Even though she had lots of elbow room and plenty of space between her diminished body and the walls of rock on either side, her heart was pounding by the time her foot touched the bottom of the shaft. Loose rock shifted underfoot with a dull clunk.

  She tore her eyes away from the exit above and stared ahead. The Nightshadow hovered a few paces away, sculling water. He glared back at her. Quiet!

  He’d been right, the passage d
id widen. The cavern at the bottom of the fissure was at least a dozen paces across. About fifty paces beyond the Nightshadow, the ceiling curved up and out of a flat spot on the water: the exit to an air-filled chamber. A rhythmic noise came from that direction, muffled by the intervening water. It sounded like sticks clattering on stone.

  The Nightshadow’s eyes glittered. Hear that? He drew a “breath” of water, held it a moment then exhaled. I think we’ve found it. The water here smells of death. Let’s take a look.

  Mazeer nodded. The sooner they confirmed it as the passage leading to the Acropolis, the better. Then they could return to the rest of the group.

  Mazeer hadn’t been keen on setting out to search the maze of water-filled passages with only a Nightshadow as backup. She would have felt better with other conjurers flanking her and the priestesses in the lead, their magical swords between Mazeer and whatever dangers lay ahead. Yet she’d done as Gilkriz ordered.

  The Nightshadow touched the phylactery on his arm and motioned for her to follow. Dagger in hand, he swam up toward the surface. Mazeer restored herself to her usual size, and pushed off from her crouched position. Halfway through the cavern, she noticed a spot where the Faerzress was dimmer, as though screened by a gauzy curtain. A kick of her legs sent her in that direction. As she swam closer to it, breathing from her bottle, she saw that the “curtain” was a loose tangle of thick strands of colorless thread, nearly invisible in the water, that made up a loosely woven bag with several large tears in it. She touched it, and the strands felt slightly sticky. Below it, she noticed what looked like a knobby white wand wedged in a crack in the floor. She swam down for a look. It turned out to be a femur, small enough to have come from a child.

  Or from a svirfneblin.

  Spit me like a lizard, she thought. The svirfneblin who found this passage didn’t drown, he got eaten by a water spider.

  She twisted around to warn the Nightshadow. Ripples marked the spot where he’d just climbed out of the water. A heartbeat later, he plunged into the water in a dive. He was only waist-deep when his body abruptly halted and his eyes flared open in alarm. Then something yanked him out of the water, and he vanished from sight.

  Mazeer took a breath from her bottle and shouted a spell. Her words exploded in a flurry of bubbles. She swept her free hand in a circle, fist clenched, then opened it. The water shimmered as magical energy infused it. At her command, the water elemental she’d summoned bulged toward the surface just as an enormous spider plunged into the water, dragging the web-bound Nightshadow behind it. The elemental crashed into the monster, snapping two of the spider’s legs. Then the battle raged.

  The water in the cavern churned into a whirlpool that slammed Mazeer into a wall. Over the tumult of rushing water, she heard a faint crack. Pain lanced through her hand as shards of glass drove into her palm. Her bottle—broken! She fought her way to the surface. She barely had time to draw breath before she was sucked under again by the maelstrom. It slammed her into another wall and one of her ribs cracked. Dizzy with pain, she tried to push off the wall, but couldn’t. The force of the water held her fast.

  “Help … me … surface …” The words cost her the last of the air in her lungs, but they were enough. A surge of water—one of the elemental’s wide “arms”—hurled her toward the surface. She burst into the air like a leaping fish and slammed down onto stone.

  She rose, shaking, in a room-sized cavern. A hole in one wall led to a larger cavern beyond. At the far side of the pool—the spot where the Nightshadow had climbed out of the water—strands of web draped the rock. Great gouts of water erupted from the pool, spraying the walls and ceiling. The Nightshadow’s web-wrapped body momentarily bobbed to the surface next to a broken spider leg, then got sucked under again.

  Mazeer drew a wand woven from green willow twigs and held it ready, in case the spider won the fight. When pieces of spider floated to the surface in a dark slick of blood, she knew that battle was at an end. She snapped her fingers and pointed at a dark shape in the water: the body of the Nightshadow. The elemental bulged, lifting it to the surface. Mazeer bent down and grasped him by his shirt. She hauled him out of the water, grunting at the pain that lanced through her side. Then she passed a hand over the surface of the pool, releasing the elemental.

  She rolled the web-shrouded Nightshadow onto his side to drain the water from his lungs. His head flopped and came to rest at an unnatural angle. A crunching noise came from inside his neck: broken bones grinding together.

  Mazeer sighed. She had no magic that could revive him. She was on her own. And she wouldn’t be able to get back, she thought as she looked ruefully down at the broken chunk of bottle that dangled from the thong around her wrist.

  She held her side and breathed shallowly against the pain of her broken rib. The water had stilled, and she could hear the staccato of clicking bone coming from the larger cavern beyond. It sounded like an entire army of skeletons on the march. She peered through the hole and saw distant white dots on the ceiling: the skulls the Darksong Knight had described.

  She crept closer to the opening for a better look. The cavern beyond was filled with a vast lake, its depths illuminated from below by the Faerzress. At its center stood an island, capped with a forest of stalagmites that made up the buildings of the ruined city. The stalagmites crackled with blue-green light, as if it were a living city decorated with faerie fire, but that was only the glow of the Faerzress.

  At the center of the island was a massive spire of flat-topped stone. It, too, pulsed with Faerzress energy, but the building that stood atop it was black as a starless sky. Mazeer could guess what it was: the Acropolis of Thanatos, temple of Kiaransalee, Queen of the Undead. Above the temple drifted the pale shapes of restless ghosts. Their wails echoed faintly across the lake. Even at a distance, the sound made Mazeer shiver.

  Her teleportation spells were useless, thanks to the Faerzress. She couldn’t escape. And it was unlikely that Daffir or Khorl would be able to use their divinations to find her. The protections that had prevented them from scrying the main cavern likely extended as far as the smaller cavern.

  One avenue of communication remained open, however: Eilistraee’s high priestess. Mazeer might be stuck, just like that time in the chimney, but this time when she called for help someone would hear her.

  “Qilué,” she whispered. Despite the cacophony of clattering bone from the cavern beyond, she was wary of raising her voice. “It is Mazeer, of the College of Conjuration and Summoning. One of those traveling in Cavatina’s band. Qilué, can you hear me? I’ve something urgent to report.”

  The reply came a moment later: a female voice that seemed to sing, rather than speak. I’m listening.

  “Tell Cavatina I’ve found the way to Kiaransalee’s temple. It’s a narrow fissure that leads down to …”

  The words faded on her lips as a skull leered in through the hole in the wall. Mazeer could see right through it, and the Faerzress gave it an eerie, blue-green glow. The body was a trailing wisp of bone-white, with hands whose fingers tapered to dagger-sharp points. Its jaw creaked open. A ghastly din erupted from the blackness within—the sound of hundreds of phlegm-choked voices, groaning in agony.

  Waves of despair poured from the apparition and enveloped Mazeer like a cold, moldy blanket. Trembling, with a stomach that felt hollow and sick, she remembered the wand in her hand. Somehow, she forced her arm to rise. She pointed the wand and sobbed out a word. A sickly green ray shot from it, striking the skull.

  The apparition never even slowed. It loomed into the cave and clutched at Mazeer with skeletal hands that raked her body, passing through her chest. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Her legs buckled, sending her to her knees. Then the hands retracted, yanking something from her. Mazeer felt a hollow open as all vestiges of hope and joy were torn from her.

  Only bitterness remained.

  It was enough. She clutched the emotion like an icy seed, using it to draw herself back to the her
e and now. Dropping the willow wand, she clawed a second wand from her bracer. This one had a pea-sized sphere of hollow glass at its tip. The creature screamed at her, a soul-numbing wail that slammed against Mazeer’s eardrums. She felt her right eardrum rupture. Intense pain flared through that side of her head. Even as the skull’s wail drove her past the edge of madness, she shouted the wand’s command word. Ripples of energy shot from it. They slammed into the skull and expanded outward from it, encasing it in a bubble of silence.

  The apparition raged impotently, mouth open. It clawed at the bubble that surrounded its head, but without effect. The silence ate at it like acid. A portion of the skull dimpled, then crumbled away, leaving a black hole. Hollow eyesockets glared at Mazeer. Then, still raging in utter silence, the creature turned and fled.

  Mazeer? Can you hear me? Are you still there?

  Mazeer whirled. Her heart pounded even faster than the staccato clacking in the cavern beyond. Thousands of skulls! What was that voice? It was inside her head. A skull! Thousands of them, pressing in on her from every side. She slapped her palms against her ears, and one hand became sticky with blood. The skulls were consuming her from within!

  “Get out!” she shrieked. “Get out of my head!”

  Mazeer, it’s Qilué. You called me.

  “The skull is stuck!” Mazeer wailed, beating her forehead with her fists. “Stuck inside the chimney. Light a fire. Get it out!”

  It’s Qilué, Mazeer, High Priestess of Eilistraee. Listen to me. Let me help you.

  “No!” The skulls surrounded her like invisible walls. Mazeer could feel them digging into her back, her arms, her chest. Bones and teeth. Laughing at her. “Stupid girl, getting stuck in a chimney.”

  Her eyes widened. Had she just said that? Or had it been the voice inside her head? What was that clacking noise? Like spears, rattling. Spears stabbing her chest, the palm of her hand, the right side of her head. Throbbing. Pain. Her chest was tight. She couldn’t breathe. She clawed out a wand, hurled it at the blue-green glow. The fire. It was all around her. Fire and smoke. Making her cough. Too tight, stuck in a chimney …