Skein of Shadows (dungeons and dragons)

by Marsheila Rockwell

  “Get out of my head, you sadistic bi-”

  The sound of a hundred crossbows being ratcheted back in unison echoed through the small chapel.

  “Now, now, Sabira. Your harsh language is upsetting the children.”

  “She can’t do it, you know.”

  They both turned to look at Greddark, who still had his crossbow trained on Tilde, waiting for Sabira to tell him when, or if, to pull the trigger.

  “The Spinner. Whoever- whatever — She is, She can’t bring them back. It’s been too long. And even if She could, what would they be? Ismorah was torn to shreds by the Maze and not even Leoned’s bones could have survived that magma pool. Is that what you want, a lover who is less even than a zombie and a brother who is nothing more than a wraith?” The dwarf had clearly done his inquisitive homework before he’d agreed to come with her to Xen’drik; Sabira was impressed. “And that’s leaving aside the most important question of all-what makes you think either of them wants to come back?”

  Tilde’s red eyes narrowed and she tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder, an incongruously human gesture from such an inhuman being.

  “Do be quiet. You’re boring me.” She gestured, and Greddark stiffened, his mouth slamming shut of its own accord, his eyes growing round and panicked as he realized he couldn’t move. Then she turned back to Sabira. “You really should have taught him not to interrupt while the adults are speaking.”

  “You’re avoiding the question, Tilde. What makes you think they’d want to come back… to you?” Tilde might have untold power now, but she was still the insecure daughter of a House that needed but didn’t want her. Sabira could use that against her. Would use it, and without mercy. She had no other choice. “You know the answer. They wouldn’t. They don’t want you. No one’s ever wanted you, only what you could do for them. Not Idris, not Breven, not even your precious Spinner. If She did-if She really thought you were worthy-then why did She have you go to so much effort to bring me here?”

  “Stop it, Saba.” Tilde’s voice was low and dangerous, and her eyes were wild. “I’m warning you.”

  “Or what? You said yourself She wanted me. She’s not going to let you harm me.”

  It was a mistake, and Sabira saw it in the sudden gleam in Tilde’s eye. It was her only warning before a dozen crossbow bolts buried themselves in her back, sending her to her knees on the stone floor, in too much pain to even scream.

  “Oh, no. She doesn’t care if I hurt you-in fact, she likes it better that way. Pain amuses Her. Just so long as I don’t kill you, I can do whatever I want. And there are so very many things I want to do to you, Sabira.”

  Sabira reached out one shaky hand, grabbing the pew beside her to keep from falling. She could barely breathe through the fire in her back, her belly, her lungs. Drawing on the strength of the urgrosh she still held, she managed to gasp out one bloody word. Despite Tilde’s claim to the contrary, she feared it might be her last.

  “Why…?”

  Tilde laughed, a cold, brittle sound with no true mirth in it. Because there could be no mirth where there was no joy.

  “And you know the answer to that, Sabira Lyet d’Deneith.” The sorceress spat her name out like rancid meat, and as the world darkened around the edges of her vision, she realized that she did.

  “… Breven…”

  “Bravo. Perhaps you are as smart as Ned always said you were. In exchange for you, She will give me the power to bring the House that never wanted me begging to its knees.” She giggled then, a mad sound that curdled Sabira’s blood. “Just as you are now.”

  “… not… begging…”

  “Oh, but you will be.”

  Another dozen crossbow bolts thunked into Sabira’s chest, tearing through her armor like a paper target and piercing her heart. A cry of anguish was ripped unwilling from her throat as she slammed back into a pew, then slumped to one side as the life drained from her in tiny crimson streams.

  Ned, she thought as oblivion reached up to swallow her whole. And my dear, beloved Elix. I’m so sorry. I failed you both.

  And then ice, and fire, as every nerve in her body screamed and she was brought rushing back from the edge of infinity by two drow soldiers pouring healing potions down her throat and over her myriad wounds. Sabira bit through her lip trying not to give voice to those screams, and then hot agony blossomed there as well as the drows’ magic sealed the jagged wound closed around her teeth.

  Sabira blinked tears and blackness away and saw Tilde watching her with an expression of false concern. Behind her, Greddark still stood immobilized and forgotten. But as Sabira struggled to focus through the fog of pain, she thought she saw his left eye twitch.

  “Leaving so soon? We’re not nearly finished here yet.”

  Yes, there it was again. His eye had definitely moved; he almost winked. Either Tilde’s spell was wearing off, or she wasn’t able to maintain it at the same strength while her attention was on Sabira.

  Which meant Sabira had to keep it there.

  “I suppose… practice makes perfect.”

  Tilde’s blonde brows shot up and she actually laughed.

  “You have spirit, I’ll give you that much. I’ll enjoy breaking it.”

  At Tilde’s command, the two drow stepped back, taking their places in the silent ranks. They hadn’t bothered to take Sabira’s urgrosh when they’d had the chance; they clearly didn’t see it-or her-as a threat.

  She was going to have to change that.

  She climbed unsteadily to her feet, using the blood-slicked pew for support.

  “Jealousy is so unbecoming in a lady, Donathilde. Good thing you aren’t one.”

  “Jealous? Of you?” Tilde scoffed. “Look around you, dear. I’m the one with the power here.”

  “Here, maybe. Not on the surface. Not in Karrnath. Not anywhere it really matters.”

  Tilde didn’t bother with the soldiers this time. She held out a hand and sent a bolt of pure, crackling energy lancing toward Sabira’s heart.

  Sabira threw herself to the side, tucking into a ball and coming up on her feet in the main aisle. The lightning passed so close to her that her left arm tingled as if asleep and the hair on that side of her head stood on end.

  Tilde swore and sent another bolt at Sabira, too quickly for her to dodge this time. It hit her square in the chest, lifting her off her feet and throwing her backward. She closed her fist around the shaft of her urgrosh as she bounced off a pew and landed facedown on the floor. She could feel her heart spasming in her chest. Bright dots of light filled her vision. Pain radiated down her arm and up her shoulder, into her back. Her heartbeat slowed as she lay there gasping weakly for every labored breath.

  She felt herself lifted again and bodily turned to face the dais. A hand grabbed her jaw and jerked it open, then poured a sour, burning liquid down her throat. As she coughed and sputtered, her heart resumed its normal rhythm and she shook her handlers off, raising her head to glare defiantly at Tilde.

  “That all you got?”

  A huge, unseen fist slammed her down into the floor like a hammer, and she distinctly heard a crack as the bone in her right leg twisted underneath her and broke. But even as it did, the healing potion still coursing through her system went to work, knitting the bone back together with a thousand fiery needles.

  Sabira groaned and struggled to her feet, using her shard axe first as leverage, then as a prop to keep her from falling again.

  “Gonna have to… do better…”

  Tilde’s eyes blazed crimson.

  “Well, I know how much you love bats.”

  There was a rush of air behind her and Sabira whirled, almost losing her footing again as she brought up her shard axe just in time to block the reaching talons of an enormous bat as it swooped down on her from above.

  Teleportation might be chancy in Tarath Marad, but summoning, it seemed, was not.

  The bat, easily the size of a horse, clicked and roared in anger as it soared past, banki
ng sharply to avoid the drow in the balcony.

  Hampered by the small confines of the chapel, the bat came at her again, but not as fast. Sabira set her feet firmly and waited.

  Surprise no longer on its side, the creature had to rely on brute force. Instead of diving down to strike quickly and dart away, Sabira could see it was bringing its full weight to bear, intending to crush her. She’d have one chance, and one only.

  As the giant bat plummeted toward her, Sabira reversed her grip on her urgrosh so that she held it spear-end up. The Siberys shard glowed orange in the red light of the torches. She waited until it was almost upon her, then ducked down, simultaneously thrusting the shard axe up into the air.

  Into the bat.

  Screaming in shrill rage, the bat, unable to check its flight, slammed down onto the dragonshard, impaling itself. Hot blood splashed over Sabira as the creature’s mass bore her down bodily to the stone floor.

  Sabira was trapped under the massive mammal, unable to move as the thing flapped and writhed in agony on top of her. She gasped desperately for air, but the creature’s furry body was pressed up against her face, smothering her. Her chest heaved uselessly, crushed beneath the bat’s inexorable weight.

  Once more, blackness impinged on her vision, beckoning seductively.

  And then the weight was gone, and cool air rushed into her bruised lungs once more, pain lancing into her side with every tortuous breath. She’d broken a couple of ribs this time, and the potion the drow had forced down her gullet had spent itself mending her leg. There’d be no instant healing this time, but she was fine with that. She was tiring of this game.

  She climbed to her feet once more, lurching to one side and almost falling before she found the strength to straighten. She used the movement to hide a glance at Greddark.

  The dwarf blinked twice. He was ready whenever she was.

  Sabira turned her attention back to the gloating sorceress. As she stared at Tilde, trying to regroup, she was mesmerized by the swirling Khyber shard in the woman’s abdomen, pulsing rhythmically, just like a heartbeat.

  “Just think, Sabira. This is only a taste of what’s in store for Breven when he gets his precious artifact. When I deliver it to him personally in his study in Sentinel Tower.”

  At her words, several things clicked into place at once. ir’Dayne, lecturing them back in Sharn:

  “Bound by eight locks

  Her Heart breaks free

  And bathes both worlds

  In tyranny

  “ ‘Heart’ is often another word for treasure…”

  Breven, pretending sympathy to get her to do what he wanted back in Vulyar:

  “… Tilde created a sort of reverse summoning spell to return her body to my study in Sentinel Tower in the event of her death…”

  Sabira’s own heart pounded as she realized the truth. Whatever the artifact was that Tilde had originally been sent here to retrieve, she had found it-it was what had transformed her into a being half-spider, half-woman, and totally alien. It had merged with her, and she with it. The Khyber shard was now her heart, and she was the artifact, the power Breven wanted to make his House supreme. But instead of elevating Deneith, Tilde planned to use that power to level it, to pay the Baron back for his years of disregard. Even if it meant dying in the process.

  “No one turns their back on me. Not anymore.”

  As the sorceress raised her hand for another spell, Sabira held up her own. She didn’t think she could withstand another attack, healing potion or no. She needed to end this now.

  “Can you… can She… really bring him back?”

  Tilde paused, eyes narrowing.

  “What?”

  “Ned… you said She’d… bring him back… in exchange for me. For fulfilling the Prophecy… setting Her free.” Tilde hadn’t said that last, but it was the only thing that made any sense. Why else would a being powerful enough to corrupt a sorceress as strong as Tilde need her? Because She was trapped in a prison. One with eight locks, and just one key.

  Her.

  That was the real treasure here-freedom. To bathe both worlds-Khyber and Eberron-in tyranny.

  “Yes.”

  “Then… just do it,” she said, taking a step toward the dais. “I’m… tired. Tired of fighting… you, Breven.” She was, she realized, and the truth behind her words gave them a sudden strength. “Tired of the needs of the House… always outweighing my own. It’s not worth it any more. But Ned is. He’s the only one who ever really cared about me.” Elix’s face swam in front of her eyes and she thrust it regretfully away. “The only one who ever cared about either of us, Tilde.”

  “Ned…,” Tilde repeated, her eyes taking on a faraway look, her voice small, and lost, and sad. Confusion washed over her face, and her hand dropped.

  “ Now!” Sabira shouted.

  Greddark pulled the trigger and his crossbow thrummed. A small thump sounded as the bolt struck home, catching Tilde in her left shoulder, just above her heart. As she turned, screaming in fury, to blast the dwarf, Sabira summoned the last of her strength and began to run.

  She sprinted down the aisle, leaped from the seat of the second pew to the back of the first, and launched herself at Tilde.

  The sorceress spun back, bringing up two of her segmented legs to stab at Sabira, but she twisted in midair and brought the spear tip of her urgrosh down, straight into the pulsing blue-black center of Tilde’s heart.

  As Siberys shard met Khyber, both crystals flared with unbearable light.

  And then the world exploded in a deafening flash of gold and darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Mol, Rhaan 2, 998 YK

  Tarath Marad, Xen’drik.

  Sabira picked herself up from atop a pile of broken bodies and twisted wood, shaking her head to make the roaring in her ears stop. Somehow, her shard axe was still in her hand, its dragonshard tip unharmed.

  Greddark limped over to her, one arm hanging torn and useless from its socket.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  The explosion had blown out one wall of the chapel and collapsed part of the roof, and chunks of wood and stone were raining down. The drow soldiers who hadn’t been killed in the blast were starting to climb to their feet. Through the gaping hole in the wall, Sabira could see drow streaming out of the larger temple, running for the ruined church.

  Of Tilde and her Khyber shard heart, there was no sign, though Sabira thought she saw a twinkle of blood-slicked gold and ivory beneath a nearby bit of fallen rock.

  “How do you propose we do that?” she asked. One of the drow a few pews back had caught sight of them and called to his fellows. They were beginning to advance, many drawing their swords. Some of them still had their crossbows and were scrabbling about for bolts.

  “Gimme mom’nt,” Greddark muttered, his words almost unintelligible as he struggled to pry one of the charms off his bracelet with his teeth.

  “Not sure we have one.”

  Sabira hefted her shard axe in front of her defensively, scanning what was left of the chapel nave. More drow were recovering and moving toward them, on every side, surrounding them. There was no way out but to fight.

  “ ’Rab sis,” Greddark mumbled around a wand he had clenched in his teeth. Sabira grabbed it, pulling it out of the dwarf’s mouth. Thirteen crystals ran the length of the slender rod, all dull and lifeless.

  “We can’t teleport,” she reminded him as she handed it over.

  “We’re not. Plane-shifting. It’s all the rage.”

  There was a commotion at the back of the church.

  Something was coming through the doors.

  “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”

  “Gotta calibrate-”

  “No time!” Sabira shouted. The drow in the back were beginning to scream as the something reared up and tossed two halves of a mangled body into the air. Sabira caught a glimpse of black scales and multiple legs. It was one of the lizardlike spiders she th
ought she’d imagined back in the tunnels. And it had brought friends.

  A lot of them.

  And they were heading straight for her and Greddark.

  “… the right one… sensitive trigger…,” the dwarf continued, fiddling with some settings on the wand. Sabira grabbed his broken arm and he winced.

  “Just pick!” she yelled, then jabbed at the wand herself as the lead reptile cleared the crowd of screaming drow and launched itself at them.

  There was a flash of colorless light and Sabira felt that strange stretching sensation again. And then they were floating in a mass of roiling orange and purple clouds as green lightning crackled around them.

  “What the…?” she began, looking around in stunned amazement. As she watched, the clouds hardened into crystal and they were standing on a vast pearlescent plain. It began to rain blood.

  “Kythri, the Churning Chaos. You didn’t let me finish the calibrations, so it sent us to the closest plane. Kythri is coterminous right now, but that could change at any moment. Sort of the nature of chaos.”

  “Now what?” she asked as the plain dissolved beneath them and they fell into a sea of gritty golden ooze, which evaporated and hardened again below them into black rock scored with innumerable fissures. Fire shot up from the cracks, showering them with stinging sparks.

  He thumbed a switch on the wand.

  “Now we go home.”

  Mol, Rhaan 2, 998 YK

  Trent’s Well, Xen’drik.

  They landed in the desert outside of Trent’s Well, not far from the Shimmying Shifter. At Sabira’s look, the dwarf shrugged.

  “I needed a focus.”

  “And it just happened to be the only place where you can get a decent drink. Why am I not surprised?” She shook her head. “Come on. Let’s go find Brannan, get you patched up, and get out of here.”

  They made their way slowly back up the steep path and into the cavern that housed the rest of the settlement. As they entered, Sabira shivered. After Korran’s Maw, the caverns below Frostmantle, and now Tarath Marad, she didn’t think she ever wanted to be out of sight of the sun again.