by Ed Greenwood
Shandril could not even weep.
Narm took his leave of the two knights on the forest trail where he and Marimmar had met the elf and his lady. Narm was surprised to see who stood in the very same place they had, though: the two ladies who had been in the inn in Deepingdale. The ones who had faced down the angry adventurers when the thief was killed. Narm nodded to the women during Torm's introductions to Sharantyr and Storm, not thinking they would remember him.
To his surprise, they both smiled at him with careful eyes. The younger of the two clasped his arm and said, "Yes, we've met. At The Rising Moon in Deepingdale, although you were under the heavy eye of-was it your master of the art? A strict man."
Narm nodded. Yes, Marimmar had been that.
The silver-haired bard also remembered the young man now that Sharantyr had placed him. Torm rapidly explained Mourngrym's decision to let Narm into the city. They shouldered their bags and harp and took their leave with the horses and mules.
As they mounted, Storm leaned down and said to Narm, "Until next we meet. I think our paths will cross again soon, good sir. Fare well in Myth Drannor." With that, she and Sharantyr rode away.
"Will you go into the city after all?" Torm asked, after they had watched the ladies disappear amid the trees.
"Yes," Narm said, grinning weakly.
"May Tymora smile upon thee, then," Rathan grunted. "With being such a fool and all, ye'll need the full favor of the Lady's luck to see even this day out. Don't forget how to run for thy very life, now. The devils are the ones with wings."
"Most of them," Torm agreed with a smile. "Though they can be hard to see if blood is pouring into your eyes."
"Aye, that is very true," Rathan agreed gravely. Narm grinned and waved good-bye to them, shaking his head. A merry life the other knights must lead, indeed, in the company of these two jacks! He set off down the path quickly before his fear could slow him or turn him back.
The ruined city of Myth Drannor rose out of the trees before him. Alone now, Narm did what he wanted to do, free of rules and restraints. He was going to see devils. He was going to look at them again and somehow survive. By Mystra, he was going to do something on his own, now that Marimmar was gone.
Cautiously, Narm went on. Off to his right he could see a leaning stone tower, its needle-shaped spire still grand. Much heaved, tilted pavement choked with shrubs and clinging vines lay ahead. He saw steps leading down in a broad sweep from the street into unknown depths. A slim woman in purple robes was dragging someone thin and long-haired along the ground by a rope. The hapless captive was completely entangled in its coils. Narm heard tinkling, mocking laughter as they descended from view down the dark stair.
By the time he reached the stair, nothing was visible below. Narm hardly stopped to think before he followed. The art! Strong magic, undoubtedly. Just what Marimmar had wanted to find in this place!
The underground way led on fairly directly to a place where Narm could at first see only a fitful glow. He walked quietly and cautiously in the dimness toward it, until he could see that the cellars had opened into a natural cavern. Within it, the lady in purple and her captive stood before the source of the fight. An oval of glowing radiance hung like a doorway in midair. Magic, indeed.
The woman in purple was stronger than her slim frame suggested. By main strength she was holding her captive upright. It was a girl, who was struggling violently. The rope that bound her seemed to move by itself to fight her. She managed to tear its coils free of her face and throat. Narm could scarcely believe it-he knew her!
She was the girl from the inn. That beautiful face had stared at him from the shadows. The kitchen-slut, Marimmar had dismissed her. But he had been wrong. Narm knew that, even then. But how came she to be here?
The woman in purple let go of the rope, laughing mockingly, and the girl feil hard to the cavern floor, still struggling. Seeing her face so set as she battled the rope made anger burn within Narm, and he raised his hands and pointed at the woman in purple and spoke the word of the spell Marimmar had forbidden him to study, the spell he had studied while his master slept. The magic missile burst from his finger like a bolt of light and flashed at the lady.
It struck her, and she turned, startled, and then laughed, her hands already moving. Narm dodged aside, thinking how feeble the rest of his art was. The mage stopped her casting and locked her fingers in Shandril's hair. As Narm watched in dismay, she dragged the struggling girl through the oval of radiance and vanished.
Then, with a shattering roar, the fireball exploded all around him.
5
The Grotto of the Dracolich
There in the darkness many a wyrm sits and smiles. He grows rich and lazy and fat as the years pass, and there seems no shortage of fools to challenge him and make him richer and fatter. Well, why wait ye? Open the door and go in!
Irigoth Mmar, High Sage of Baldur's Gate, Lore of the Coast, Year of the Trembling Tree
The radiance faded and left her somewhere cold. She was lying on stone again. Shandril sighed inwardly as she twisted against the ever-tightening, ever-slithering rope.
"Where are we?" she hissed at her captor, almost in tears. The relief she had felt when the power to move her own limbs had returned was gone.
The Shadowsil shrugged. "A ruined keep. Come." The rope had shifted backward to more securely bind Shandril's arms to her torso; she found she could get to her knees, and, painfully, to her feet. The mage led her down a curving stone stair, but not before Shandril got a good look out the window. She saw mountains that looked cold and jagged-and many days' journey from Myth Drannor. A snow hawk glided across the scene, but she could see no other life before she was dragged down a dark, curving, stone stairway. It was narrow and steep and littered with old feathers and bird droppings. There was no sound or other sign of life now. Shandril was propelled ahead down the stairs with a firm hand.
"I told you he'd poke his nose into something straight away, and buy a swift grave before we'd even got to your next sausage!" said a familiar voice, swimming somewhere above Narm. "That's why I followed, not for treasure."
"Well, ye'd be the one to know about poking one's nose," said another. "By the gods, but he caught it squarely! Do ye think he'll live?"
"Not if you don't use some healing magic quickly, leviathanbelly! Don't wag your jaws-waggle your fingers! He grows weaker with each breath you waste. Look at the smoke coming off him; he smolders still! No, lie still, Narm. I can hear you."
Narm struggled through excruciating pain to tell them of the girl from the inn and the woman in purple, but all that came out was a twisted sob. Torm spoke gently in reply.
"Lie down, Narm. You want us to rescue the pretty girl bound in the rope of entanglement that the mage-with our good fortune she's an archmage, no doubt-just pushed through that gate. Well, lie still; rest easy. You're lucky enough to have found the greatest reckless fools in all of Faerun, and we'll do it for you. Oh, by the stars, don't cry! It gives me the shivers!"
"Hush," said Rathan. "How can I work healing when ye're blaspheming Tymora?"
"I never!"
"Ye did! 'Our good fortune,' I heard ye say in a slighting tone. Now hold this healing potion; he'll be able to drink it after this." There was much murmuring, and through the watery red haze before his eyes Narm saw a flash of radiance. Then sweet coolness spread slowly through his limbs, banishing the shrieking pain. He fainted.
They descended the crumbling stairs for eight or more turns around the inner wall of the tower, and then the stonework gave way to natural stone scarred with tool marks. "What is this place?" Shandril asked wearily, but the mage behind her made no reply. She dared not ask again, as the rough tunnel about them opened suddenly. It joined other passageways in a small, slope-ceilinged cavern.
Symgharyl Maruel pushed her firmly toward the largest opening, which led steeply downward into darkness. Shandril came to a stop. "I can't see!" she protested. The Shadowsil chuckled softly behind her.
"You do nothing in your life, little one, that you cannot first see where it may lead?" She laughed again, gently, and said, "Very well." She did something unseen in the darkness, and light appeared. Four small globes of pearl-white, pale radiance grew from nothing before Shandril's eyes and then drifted apart in midair in stately silence. One moved to hang at her shoulder. Another drifted well ahead, dimly outlining the rough ceiling of the tunnel, which descended sharply from where she stood. The other globes moved behind her for Symgharyl Maruel's benefit. Shandril stood motionless and peered about. There was stone all around and cool air wafting toward her. Suddenly, something struck her bottom hard, and she fell to her knees.
The Shadowsil had kicked her.
"Up and on," came the cold voice. "My patience grows short." Shandril struggled to her feet in the tight coils of the magical rope, in angry silence.
Up and on. Under her feet as she descended, the uneven ramp became broad stairs cut out of the solid rock, and the air grew cooler. There was some sort of dim, scattered light ahead, beyond the pale globes. Shandril turned to find the left wall and descend with it, but Symgharyl Maruel twitched the rope that bound her sharply, and she turned back to her original course with an inward sigh. The twinkling lights were farther away than they appeared and were all about when the stair ended.
A great open cavern lay before them. Its walls were studded with the fist-sized, sea-green gems which Shandril recognized as the fabled beljurils, for at odd intervals one or more would give forth a silent burst of light just as the storytellers had said. Shandril could tell by their light that the cavern stretched away to her right, but of its true size she had no idea. It was big, she knew-and suddenly she shivered in the twinkling darkness. Would the mage slay her here, leave her in a cage to be tortured later, or killed or deformed by magic in some experiment or other? Or did something lair here? Shandril could hear only the soft sounds of the mage behind her and the noise of her own passage as she descended into that winking display of lights. Where in the Realms was she?
"Halt, little one, and kneel." Shandril did as that quiet voice bade her; the rope was already tightening about her knees to reinforce the order. The pale globes winked out. Behind her, Shandril heard The Shadowsil chant something softly, and then there was light all about, and Shandril could see clearly the rough walls of the huge cavern around her.
The floor descended in front of her, and its lowest reaches were heaped with things that gleamed and sparkled in the light. There were gems, and coins beyond number, and here and there statuettes of ivory and of jade. The gleam of gold also caught her eye, and there were many other dazzling things beyond Shandril's knowledge.
Then a great voice boomed and echoed around them, freezing Shandril in terror. It spoke deeply and slowly in the common tongue of humans, and to Shandril the voice seemed old and patient and amused-and dangerous.
"Who comes?" it demanded. Something moved deeper in the cavern, beyond the mage's light, and then Shandril saw it. Her dry throat tightened, and she would have fled if the rope's coils had not held her firmly where she stood. As it was, her struggles caused her to fall sideways on the stone, where she lay face-down and did not have to see.
"Symgharyl Maruel Shadowsil stands before you, O mightly Rauglothgor. I have brought you a gift: a captive, gained among the ruins of Myth Drannor. Its blood may be valuable to you. But the followers of Sammaster would question it first. It may be one who escaped them at Oversember, and they would know how that was accomplished."
The lady faced the great night dragon calmly and spoke with respect but in tones that held no fear. Shandril peered sidelong up at it. She dared not meet its eyes again; she shuddered at the very thought. But the thief of Deepingdale saw its great skeletal bulk advance across shifting treasure toward them, vast and terrible. By its great wings and claws and tail it was a dragon, but except for the chilling eyes, it was only bones. Its long, fanged skull leered down at her.
Shandril knew it could see her looking at it and knew further, with a stirring of defiant anger, that it was amused.
"Look at me, little maid," it rumbled, the creature's voice echoing in Shandril's head. She shook her bonds in terror. She would not look at the creature! Tears blinded her. She sobbed as the ropes tightened about her, pulling her to her knees again, pulling her brow and throat to turn her head up. Through a mist of tears, Shandril looked, and she saw.
The cunning eyes held hers, like two tiny images of the moon reflected in mica panes, like two candles set at the head and foot of a shrouded corpse. Shandril shivered uncontrollably as she looked, and she felt those eyes boring into her very soul. She looked back as deeply herself, and she knew much.
It had been old, this sly and gnarled giant among dragons, when men first came to the Sea of Fallen Stars and fought with elves and the tribes of bugbears and kobolds of the Thunder Peaks, the mountains that the elves called Airm-bult, or 'Storm-fangs.' Rauglothgor had been the fangs amid the mountain storms often. Rauglothgor the Proud, dragonkind had called the creature, for its presumption and quickness to take offence or pick quarrels.
In cunning and malice it had sought out weak, old dragons and slain them, often by trickery, to seize their lairs and treasure. Hoard upon hoard had fallen into the dragon's claws, and it had piled them up in deep and secret places beneath the Realms known only to it-for other creatures of all sizes who ventured therein were slain, from peryton to centipede, without mercy or patience.
Years passed, and Rauglothgor grew and devoured whole herds of rothe in Thar and buckar on the Shining Plains and more than one orc horde coming down the Desertsedge from the North. Rauglothgor became strong and terrible, a giant among dragons. It thrust aside pretense and prudence and slew all dragons as it met them; in air, on land, and even in their lairs, slaying with savagery and skill, and adding hoards anew to its own.
Yet in its dark heart the old red dragon grew afraid-as it grew older and escaped clever traps set for it and slew more dragons-that one day its strength would fail and some younger, greedier dragon would drag it down as it had served its elders, and all its striving would have been for naught. For years such worries ate at the creature's old heart, and when men came with offers of eternal strength and wealth, the dragon slew them not, and it listened.
By the arts of the Cult of the Dragon, the great and evil red dragon became, in time, a great and evil dracolich. Dead it was and yet not dead, and the years touched not its vigor and strength, for it had become only bones and magic, and its strength was of the art and could not be diminished by age.
The years passed, and Faerun changed, and the world was not as it had been. Rauglothgor flew less often, for there was little left to match its memories, and few lived that it had known, and willing men of the cult brought it treasure to add to its dusty hoard. The dracolich grew moody and lonely as kingdoms fell and seas changed and only it endured. To live forever was a curse. A lonely curse.
Shandril could not look away from those lonely eyes. "So young," said the deep voice, and abruptly the bony neck arched up and the eyes closed and she was alone, shivering.
"Well met, Great One," Symgharyl Maruel said. "By your leave, I would question this one before I leave her with you."
"Given, Shadowsil," Rauglothgor replied. "Though she knows little of anything, yet, I deem. She has the eyes of a kitten that has just learned to walk."
"Aye, Elder Wyrm," said the Shadowsil, "and yet she may have seen much in the few days just past, or even be more than she seems." The lady in purple strode around to stand before Shandril. At a gesture, the rope slithered slowly from Shandril and left her free. Shandril gathered herself to flee, but Symgharyl Maruel merely smiled down at her in cold amusement and shook her head.
"Tell me your name," she commanded. Shandril obeyed without thinking.
"Your parents?" the mage pressed.
"I know not," Shandril replied truthfully.
"Where did you dwell when younger?" The Shadowsil continue
d quickly.
"In Deepingdale, at The Rising Moon."
"How came you to the place where I found you?"
"I… I stepped through a door of light that glowed in the air."
"Where was that door?" the mage continued, a note of triumph in her voice.
"I… I don't know. In a dark place-there was a gargoyle."
"How came you there?"
"B-by magic, I believe. There was a word, on a bone, and I said it…"
"Where is the bone now?"
"In a pool, I think-in that ruined city. Please, lady, was that Myth Drannor?"
The dracolich chuckled harshly. The Shadowsil stood silently, eyes burning into Shandril's. "Tell me your brother's name!" she demanded abruptly.
Shandril shook her head, confused. "I–I don't have a brother."
"Who was your tutor?" The Shadowsil snapped at her.
"Tutor? I've never had-Gorstag taught me my duties at the inn, and Korvan about cooking, and-"
"What part of the gardens did the windows of your chamber look upon?"
Shandril flinched. "Chambers, lady? I–I have no chambers. I sleep-slept-in the loft with Lureene most nights…"
"Tell the truth, brat!" the mage in purple screamed, her face contorted in rage, eyes gleaming. Shandril stared at her helplessly and burst into tears.
The deep chuckle behind the mage cut through both angry threats and sobs. "She speaks truth, Shadowsil. My art never lies to me." Shandril looked up, startled.
Symgharyl Maruel dropped her rage like a mask and regarded the disheveled, tearful Shandril calmly. "So she is not the missing Cormyrean princess, Alusair," she said aloud. "Why then is she such a sheltered innocent? She is not simple, I believe."