The wizard sighed and lowered her bright head to his chest.
“Afraid not.”
CHAPTER FOUR
DARKNESS VISIBLE
Stalker Lemming lurched down the narrow Skullport street, his peg leg clicking briskly against the ragged cobblestone and sloshing through fetid puddles. Though he was almost home, he affected the air of one who had miles to go and scant time to get there.
A small man in his youth, he’d been further diminished with every lost battle and each misspent year. Hunched and potbellied, the native swarthy hue of his skin faded to ash by long years of underground living, he was occasionally mistaken for a duergar dwarf. Stalker did little to discourage this misapprehension. Indeed, he grew a straggly beard to heighten the illusion. Ruffians who would consider a pudgy, one-legged human easy prey might think twice before attacking a deep dwarf.
Stalker dodged a particularly unpleasant puddle and impatiently waved away the underfed and over-painted courtesan who stepped into his path. Hair like straw, he noted with disdain, and skin the color of a fish’s underbelly. In his land, the women were pleasantly rounded, and they had melting black eyes and sun-warmed skin. The thought quickened his step, as if such a woman might be awaiting him in his hovel.
He dreamed, from time to time, of returning to southern lands as the dashing, wealthy captain of his own pirate ship. More often his dreams were simpler, almost wistful: to feel the sun on his face, to see the vivid purple and gold of one more sunset. Just that, and he could die a happy man.
Well, maybe not happy. The way Stalker saw it, there wasn’t much about life to inspire happiness, and he didn’t expect death to improve matters much.
Fact was, there was no returning to the surface. Stalker figured he’d left behind at least three mortal enemies for every one of his scars, and he had a lot of scars. Enemies could be killed, but assassins cost money and lots of it. A Skullport official earned a paltry wage, with the understanding that theft and extortion would make up the difference. Given Stalker’s lifelong bend toward venality, he should have been able to put enough away to hire a band of assassins—or even the legendary Artemis Entreri—to kill all his enemies and most of his friends. Making money in Skullport was one thing. Keeping it, quite another.
The clamor of a street battle increased as he neared his home. As he rounded the final corner, he noted the small, roiling crowd blocking his front door and the adjacent alley, a narrow pass roofed by the leaning, two-story hovels on either side.
A fleeting, lop-sided grin slinked across his gray face. If he hurried, he could lose himself in the small melee, the goal of which appeared to be the communal dismemberment of a kobold pickpocket.
Stalker closed the distance with a lop-sided gallop. Yowling with pretended bloodlust, he hurled himself into the fray.
A few confused and painful moments later, he staggered out the other side of the battle and into the alley beyond. He leaned against the tipsy building he called home to catch his breath and take stock of his injuries. Blood trickled from his nose. One eye was already swelling shut. The knuckles of one hand stung, and the circle of dents on his forearm was undoubtedly the mark of teeth.
Stalker grunted in satisfaction. Could have been worse. Usually was.
He swung aside the loose board that served as a secret entrance and ducked into the dark shanty. Steel and flint hung from the rafters on two convenient cords. His seeking hands found the lamp and pinched back the wick. A quick, practiced click of steel on stone produced a shower of tiny sparks.
Wisps of malodorous smoke drifted upward, then the wick caught flame. A feeble circle of light pushed against the darkness. Stalker blinked once to adjust to the relative brightness.
In that tiny moment of time, the lamplight changed to an eerie violet, a deep and unnatural color that was somehow more ominous than total blackness.
Stalker’s body reacted before his mind could catch up. He whirled to scan the room for the source of this mystery.
Two dark figures were seated at his only table. He squinted into the purple shadows. When he perceived the identity of his visitors, he staggered back, screaming like a halfling girlchild.
Somehow, the drow known as Gorlist had found him! With him was another drow, a male who wore his thick white hair in a multitude of tiny braids that, to Stalker’s terror-struck eyes, appeared to writhe like small, hungry snakes.
The stranger turned an ironic smile to his associate. “Friend of yours, I take it?”
Gorlist snorted. “Who befriends a duergar? This one is a weasel and a coward, even by the measures of a deep dwarf.”
“That’s harsh,” the other drow commented. “Some duergar are capable of dying well. Not all, of course, but enough to make killing them worth one’s time and trouble.”
He rose from the table. With a theatrical flourish, he flipped his cloak back to reveal the magically animated emblem pinned to his coat. A tiny ivory skeleton appeared to beat upon a drum while its bony jaw worked silently and rhythmically.
Stalker swallowed hard. This drow was a deathsinger!
“I see that you are familiar with my art,” the dark elf commented. “Perhaps you’ve heard my name, as well? Brindlor Zidorion of Ched Nasad? No? Well, never mind. As you surmised, my current task is to witness and immortalize great deeds of vengeance. The question before us is this: What part will you play in this tale of dark glory?”
The drow’s voice was as sonorous as the sea, and he smiled pleasantly at the terrified official. Somehow Stalker found Brindlor’s studiously pleasant mien more fearsome than Gorlist’s lowering scowl.
He felt rough, damp wood beneath him and realized that both his knees and his bladder had given way.
“I’ll do anything, say anything,” he babbled.
“Liriel Baenre,” Gorlist said curtly. “A drow female, cohort of the Eilistraee priestesses. She paid you to release a confiscated ship registered to Hrolf of Ruathym.”
Stalker’s first impulse was to deny this out of handstandard procedure where any charge of corruption was concerned. He knew from painful experience, however, that this drow was not inclined to settle for partial answers and half truths. So he cudgeled his memory until he knocked loose the required information.
“It was a while back,” he remembered. “Seems to me it was early spring Above. Musta been four, five moon cycles past.”
“She paid you well?” Brindlor inquired.
Greed momentarily edged aside terror. “Well enough,” he said cautiously.
“I don’t suppose she mentioned that the payment came from a dragon’s hoard.” The deathsinger sent Stalker a smile that chilled him clear to the bone. “A deepdragon, to be precise. The hoard was taken from a nearby cavern, in fact.”
Panic rose in Stalker, dragging a wave of bile in its wake. Dragons were notorious for knowing their treasure down to the last brass button and for hunting down anything stolen.
Brindlor sauntered over and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “The dragon is dead. You needn’t fear another surprise visitor any time soon. All we want is the girl.”
The girl, Stalker repeatedly silently and bitterly. That made the job sound right simple, as if he could turn over the drow female and another dozen like her before his breakfast porridge cooled!
Any drow was trouble, but this wench was also a wizard. She’d told Stalker exactly what would happen to him if he turned on her, and gave him reason to believe she possessed both the will and the magic to back up her threats.
“Hard to find a drow in these tunnels,” he hedged.
“Not for a weasel like you,” Gorlist said coldly. “The princess spent much of her share of gems and coins bribing fat, lazy officials. You’re very familiar with ‘those tunnels.’ ”
Stalker began to see the path ahead, and his knotted shoulders relaxed just a bit. Dragons hoarded magical items. So did drow, and for that matter so did wizards of any race. The female had made off with something these two wanted.
<
br /> “She paid in gems,” he said, which of course is what they’d be seeking. Gems held and transmitted magic better than almost anything a man, dwarf or elf could make.
Gorlist sat bolt upright. “Was a ruby part of the payment?” He held up one hand, thumb and forefinger apart at a distance approximately the size of a ripe fig. “About this size?”
The man nodded avidly. “Oh yes, I remember that stone well. Flat on the top, sharp point on the bottom. A bloody caltrop, it was.”
“You remember it,” Gorlist repeated. “Where is the stone now?”
“I sold it,” the man said hastily. “The same day, or the one after. I don’t recall which.”
“Let us hope, for your sake, that you recall the buyer.”
Despite his situation, a feeling of wonder suffused him. “Never will I forget! The buyer was a woman, taller than most men and slender as a willow. Her face was like music, and her hair held the silver of moonlight on a quiet sea.”
“A poet,” the deathsinger observed, lifting one white brow into a supercilious arc. “I’ve heard it said that poets generally find acclaim only after their deaths. Tell me, Stalker Lemming, do you hear the siren call of immortality?”
Terror returned in waves. “No! I don’t hear a thing. Really! I don’t seek immortality—I want to live!” he babbled frantically, if not logically.
“Easily done. Tell us more about this vision of female perfection,” Brindlor suggested.
“I don’t know her name, but I kept every coin she gave me, and the bag they came in! I’ll give ’em to you! All! You could find a wizard to trace her.”
Stalker looked hopefully at Gorlist. The drow nodded, and the official scurried to his safe. He took out a small bag fashioned from pale blue silk and handed it to Gorlist.
The drow glanced at the coin bag and tossed it to his deathsinger companion. Brindlor traced one finger over the rune worked in silver thread. Stalker knew what he felt—a faint crackle of power.
After a moment, the deathsinger looked to Gorlist and smiled like a hungry dragon. The warrior’s sword hissed free of his scabbard and slashed toward Stalker.
Time seemed to slow, and the sword’s leisurely arc seemed to gather and hold the strange purple light. Stalker remembered the bright clouds of his homeland, and his foolish notion that a glimpse of one last purple sunset would allow him to die happy.
Not gonna happen, he realized. A man can’t die happy who never learned how to live that way.
Gorlist cleaned his sword on the dead man’s tunic and turned his attention to the blue coin bag. “That’s a sigil, isn’t it?” he demanded, naming the unique magical symbol that wizards adopted as signature and talisman.
“Indeed. Wasn’t it kind of this lovely wizard to leave so clear a trail?”
His irony was lost on the warrior. Gorlist sniffed derisively. “Wizards are arrogant. Either she’s warning us off or daring us to track her down. Can you do it?”
“Me?” Brindlor shook his head. “I can do minor magic, but spells of seeking are beyond my sphere.”
Gorlist claimed and pocketed the bag. “No matter. Merdrith will see to that,” he said as he strode toward the back door.
The deathsinger grimaced and fell into step. “Are you sure this is wise? The others dislike this alliance with a human wizard.”
“They will become accustomed to it in time,” Gorlist replied tersely.
“Perhaps, but time is not your ally.”
This was, in Brindlor’s opinion, a masterly understatement. Time was in fact running out for the warrior. The Dragon’s Hoard mercenaries were growing impatient with their leader’s obsessive quest for Liriel Baenre.
For months now, Gorlist had been stymied by her sea voyage. His own ships had been destroyed, his seagoing minions slain in battle with the Promenade priestesses. After several attempts to replace his ships, Gorlist turned his efforts to spinning a web of informants, and waiting, spiderlike, for the female’s return.
In Brindlor’s opinion, while Gorlist’s mercenaries might have many fine qualities, patience was not foremost among them. They had gone without the catharsis of battle for far too long. They could not endure in this state much longer.
The deathsinger followed Gorlist into the street. “The mercenaries grow restless,” he pressed. “This long period of inactivity is dangerous.”
“Inactivity?” Gorlist snapped. “The hunt should keep them fully occupied. If it does not, they are not working hard enough. See that they understand this.”
The deathsinger shrugged and subsided. Gorlist would hear this song sung in time, whether he wished to or not.
A sharp, tingling heat flared along the palm of Shakti’s hand. She couldn’t see the incubus, but she could sense its movement. Her exhaustion forgotten, she strode quickly through the swirling, gray mists.
With difficulty she turned her attention back to the Handmaiden. “With your permission, of course.”
I will accompany you.
This was not what Shakti had expected, but she gave a quick nod and set off briskly. To her relief, the yochlol kept pace, its fluid form oozing along like a giant snail under a speed enchantment.
Before long they came to a stone arch pierced by eight rounded portals. In the center of each floated a peculiar skull. As they slowly rotated, they revealed the remains of not one but three sets of features. The six eye sockets of each skull glittered with crimson light. For a moment Shakti marveled that she could have missed so bright a landmark. Curious, she took a single step back. The arch disappeared in the gray mists. Quickly she stepped forward, fearful of loosing the portal she had sought for so long.
The yochlol’s form shifted and flowed into two armlike appendages. Over one was draped a fine spidersilk robe, over the other, a glittering piwafwi.
Clothe yourself as befits a matron heir, the yochlol commanded. Then you will take the priestess back to Menzoberranzan.
Shakti quickly stripped off her tattered clothing and replaced them with the new garb. “As Lolth commands, I do. But tell me this: Why is Liriel so important?”
The answer lies in the light. It is your task to find it.
One of the yochlol appendages flattened, like a hand spreading out palm-up. On it rested a translucent bubble.
The drow’s eyes widened with astonishment. This was a soul bubble! She had heard of them but never expected to see one. The crafting of them involved complicated spells and many layers of cruel necromantic magic. Such devices could contain a soul for centuries, be the captive alive or dead, and return the soul to mortal life at will.
Shakti’s lips curved in a wicked smile. So she was to bring Liriel back alive or dead. No need to ponder that choice overlong! Moreover, she could think of few things that would be of greater torment to her nemesis than imprisonment. Shakti would have to let Liriel out eventually, but she would savor each moment of her captivity.
The yochlol shifted once more, this time into a thick gray mist. This flowed toward Shakti as if it were being sucked into the bubble. Swiftly the yochlol disappeared, and the small globe turned dull and cloudy. There was no sense of weight within, but Shakti could feel the malevolent energy.
For a moment she regarded the bubble, not sure what was going on. Perhaps Lolth did not trust her to deal with Liriel. Perhaps, Shakti admitted reluctantly, with good reason. With a yochlol at her side, she would be more than a match for the princess.
Well?
The yochlol’s voice sounded sharply in Shakti’s mind. She stepped through the portal.…
… And found herself in a place stranger than she had ever seen or imagined.
All around her were tall, dark, thin structures that moaned and creaked and rattled. The air here was cold and swift-moving, and small papery things drifted down from on high and collected in drifting piles underfoot. Shakti looked up, past the tall things and beyond to the sapphire sky. Bright pinpricks of light brightened it, the “stars” that were said to inspire faerie elves to insip
id orgies of dance and song.
A familiar panic gripped her, that strange vertigo she had experience upon the humans’ sea-going ship. It was not natural, these vast distances. At least her gods-granted eyesight swiftly adapted to the new conditions of light.
Light.
Shakti’s head snapped toward the blood-bright smoke staining the edge of the sky. She hissed a curse, the vilest and most hated word in the drow language, that which named the horror that surface dwellers called the Sun.
She looked wildly about for shelter. The soul bubble was a magical construct. It would dissolve with the coming of day. The yochlol’s soul would return to the Abyss, and she would be entirely alone. Her whip, her new cloak, her carefully hoarded spells—all this would dissipate.
Gathering up her robe, she began to run. There were rocks ahead, large chucks of her homeland no doubt spat up by some long-ago tremor. Now she perceived the swift run of water, getting loud enough to hear over the rustling underfoot. It was said that mountains, like inverted caverns, often housed caves, and caves offered portals to the Underdark.
Her foot caught on something hard and fibrous, hidden beneath the drifting papery bits. She pitched forward, too fast and too hard to twist aside or prepare her fall. She saw the scattering of rocks awaiting her then saw nothing at all.
Some time later, Shakti stirred and groaned. Her head throbbed, and her eyes burned as if she’d been staring into candlelight. Moments passed before she could manage to open them.
A scene of utmost horror was stretched out before her.
The sun had risen, sending punishing golden light through the strange place. The little papery things seemed to glow with that light, showing every color from crimson to russet, from amber to a brilliant yellow-red shade Shakti had never seen. Even brighter were those bits still affixed to the tall structures, like scales on a molting dragon. The cries of unseen creatures filled the air with mocking laughter. Small, winged demons, some of them brightly feathered, hopped along the intertwined walkways overhead, no doubt casting some fell and foul spell. Small marvel the incubus was drawn to such a place!
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