by Jess Lebow
“This is an outrage!” shouted Lady Herrin before she was even inside the palace.
The king looked to the Magistrate captain who was on duty at the portcullis, then he pointed to the cadre of merchants.
Lady Herrin and her horde were surrounded by soldiers and forced to stop, just outside of the great hall.
Being stopped by armed guards didn’t seem to bother her, and she continued to shout at the king.
“Get your men out of our marketplace!” she demanded. “The Magistrates are making people nervous, and our businesses are suffering.”
“The Magistrates are there for your protection!” replied King Korox, shouting at her as she shouted at him, not bothering to close the distance. “If you haven’t noticed, the kingdom is under attack.”
“How are we supposed to operate with your thugs roaming between the stalls, looking into every alleyway, and scaring our customers?”
“Your customers have nothing to fear from the Magistrates, and neither do you. That is, unless what you are selling is illegal. Tell me Lady Herrin. Are you trying to sell illegal goods? Elixir perhaps?”
“You listen to me, Korox. You need us, and you know it. And we won’t stand for you telling us what we can and cannot sell. So you just keep your Magistrates out of our marketplace, or you will get no favors from us.” She turned her horse around. “Keep your nose out of our business, or you will be sorry.”
She gave her mount a nudge. “We’re leaving,” she said to the other merchants. Each member of her contingent took their turn riding up to the wall of soldiers, glaring at the king, then riding off.
“Rumor is that Clusterfang was an ally of the Twisted Rune,” explained Evelyne, crawling along in the tunnel behind the Claw. “There should be an opening to your right. Check first to make sure nothing’s there before you go in.”
“That thing? In with the most secretive organization in all of Faerûn?” Ahead and to his right, just as the half-elf had said, was an opening. Palm first, he poked his head inside and looked around. “All clear,” he said, and he pulled himself into a small chamber with nothing in it except a heavy wooden door.
“That’s the rumor I heard,” said Evelyne, coming out of the tunnel into the cramped room. “Then again, I suppose information in this place is not the most reliable.”
“Where did you hear this rumor?”
“A little gnome told me.”
“A gnome?”
“Yeah, a gnome,” she said, stretching her limbs. “He showed up here a few months ago.”
“And where is this gnome now?”
Evelyne shrugged. “Dead.”
He’d only known her for a short time, but the Claw was already realizing that Evelyne had a bad habit of leaving out the tantalizing details from her stories.
Finishing her stretches and dusting herself off, Evelyne said, “Well, it’s been a pleasure. See you around some time, if you don’t get killed.”
“Wait,” said the Claw. “I need your help.”
“Uh, no thanks.” Slapping him on the arm, she turned and headed for the door.
“No really,” pleaded the Claw. “I need to find something, and you’re my only hope.”
“Now why would I want to go and do a fool thing like help you?”
The Claw was at a loss for reasons. “Well … because I asked?”
“Yeah, right.” She pulled on the door.
“Wait. Wait. What is it you want?”
Evelyne stopped, the door cracked open. “You mean other than to get out?” She thought for a moment. “I guess that’s it really. Just get out. And as long as we’re day-dreaming, I don’t ever want to get sent back here. Never ever.”
“How did you get put here? The king doesn’t hand out sentences to the Cellar lightly.”
Evelyne shifted her weight. “That’s no business of yours. Let’s just say I deserved it.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A year,” she said. “Give or take a few months. It’s hard to tell time in a place like this.”
“That’s a long time.”
“I’m a patient woman,” she said. She pulled the door open wide. “I’ll be seeing you.”
“What if I told you I could get you out of here?”
Evelyne stopped. “I’m listening.”
“What if I could not only get you out of here, but I could also get you a full pardon—get you cleared completely. That you could go back to your old life, no longer a criminal.”
“You could do that?”
“Only if you help me.”
She rubbed her chin, considering his offer. “What is it you’re searching for anyway?”
“The woman I love,” said the Claw.
Evelyne shook her head. “You came down here to find your woman.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, still thinking. Then she threw her hands in the air. “Hells, what else have I got to do? Very well. You’ve got a deal. Escape from this place and a full pardon.” She put her hand out. “Shake on it.”
The Claw put out his hand, but Evelyne pulled away.
“On second thought,” she said, looking at his bladed gauntlets, “maybe it’s safer to make this a verbal agreement.”
“That’ll teach you.”
Mariko looked out through blurry eyes. She blinked. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the Cellar, and you’re lucky to be alive.”
The princess shook her head. It felt thick, full of liquid, and there was a dull throbbing in her temple. “The Cellar?” It was hard to think with all the cobwebs in her brain.
A sudden chill ran down her spine. It was starting to all come back. “The spiders?”
“They would have eaten you, had we not arrived when we did.”
Mariko sat up on the hard stone. Her head spun, and her stomach lurched. Before she could do anything about it, her innards revolted, and she vomited all over the ground.
“You might want to try moving a little slower. You got a pretty big dose of venom from that spider.”
Mariko laid herself back down on the cold stone and closed her eyes. The violent revolt inside her body slowly subsided, but the throbbing in her head was now worse, and she did still feel a little queasy.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You don’t remember?”
She tried to think back on the last thing she remembered. She could hear the clicking noises, and see the spider clinging to the pillar. After that it was hazy.
“Not … not really.”
“It’ll come to you.”
The princess felt a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You need to drink this.” The hand gently rolled her to her side, and she felt the edge of a vial touch her lips.
Opening her eyes again, she looked down on the milky liquid. “What is it?”
“It’s more anti-venom. You’ve been drinking it in small doses for almost a full day now.”
The princess nodded and took the vial, drinking the potion inside. When she finished, she wiped her dry lips on the back of her hand and looked up at her caregiver. As her vision came into focus, Jallal Tasca’s distorted face came into view.
“I never thought I’d see you trying to keep me alive.”
Jallal chuckled. “Let’s just say you are more valuable to us alive as a bargaining chip than as a dead adversary.” He stood up from where he was crouching beside Mariko. “But don’t let it go to your head, Princess. You’re still going to die. Just not yet.”
Jallal turned and walked away, his hoofed feet clicking on the stone floor. “Come get me when she can stand without vomiting,” he said to the two nearby guards. “And keep your eyes open for any unwanted guests. Who knows what could be wandering these halls?”
chapter twenty-one
In the dying rays of the sun’s light, a burly half-orc lifted a crate of Elixir and carried it to the end of the dock. He handed it to a dark-skinned human.
“Start a new row,” growled the half-orc.
> The dark-skinned man grunted as he took the heavy crate and placed it on the floor of the boat, next to another stack of crates. “How many more are there?”
The half-orc turned around and knelt on the dock, taking a breather to count the remaining crates. “A lot,” he said.
“ ‘A lot’ doesn’t tell me very much, Kleegor.”
The half-orc wiped the sweat off of his face with his hairy forearm. “It’s more than we’ve loaded already, Talish.”
“That is a lot,” replied the dark-skinned man.
Kleegor got back to his feet and retrieved another crate. Then he returned to hand it to Talish. “Did you get one of those letters?”
“You mean the ones from the king? Yeah, I got one.”
“What did you do with it?” asked Kleegor.
“What do you think I did with it?” said Talish, straining to talk as he put the crate in its place. “I made a show of tearing it up in front of the messenger, then I took it to the Matron. How ’bout you? You get one?”
“Yep.”
“Did you read it first?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah,” said Talish, “so did I.”
“What do you think? You think he’ll really turn over the Claw?”
Talish shrugged. “Dunno.”
Kleegor grabbed another crate then came back. “What if he doesn’t? Or what if the Magistrates don’t find him?”
“I dunno. What if? So we don’t have the Claw, so what?”
“So, will the Matron turn over the princess to Xeries? Even if she doesn’t have the Claw?”
Talish looked up at the sky. “It’s getting pretty late, huh?”
“That’s what I mean,” said the half-orc. “Those … things … those black beasts have been waiting under the Obsidian Ridge all day.”
“And?”
“And,” said the half-orc, a little perturbed, “they have pretty big teeth.”
“I noticed.”
“And what if the Matron does get the Claw before moonrise?”
Talish rolled his eyes. “I dunno. What if?”
“Well,” said Kleegor, “will the king sacrifice his only daughter?”
“I sure wouldn’t,” replied Talish. “Not for this place.”
The half-orc made another run down the dock, hurrying back. “So what if we were to go ahead with our original plan?”
“What plan?”
“You know, to assassinate the king.”
Talish put the crate down and turned back to Kleegor. “What good would that do?”
“Well,” said the half-orc, “if the king is dead, then the Matron will have no choice but to turn the princess over to this Xeries.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Who else is going to negotiate for the safety of the princess? The queen has been dead for almost a year. And there’s a huge floating citadel menacing the kingdom that will go away if we just turn her over.” Kleegor puffed up his chest, rather proud of himself for his reasoning skills. “Seems like we can just wash our hands of the whole thing and go about our business.”
Talish nodded. “Yep. Except what about the Claw? If we can’t negotiate with the king, then who will turn him over to us?”
Kleegor brushed him off with a wave of his hand. “We can deal with that. The Claw is no problem.”
“The Claw is a bigger problem than you think.”
Both Kleegor and Talish nearly jumped out of their skin as the Matron appeared beside the stack of crates.
“Matron! We. We, uh … we didn’t see you there.”
“I am aware of that,” she said, walking toward them.
Throwing her hands toward the ground, she spoke a short prayer. With each step, she grew, her body becoming twice the size of the half-orc, then three times, then four.
Kleegor and Talish cowered in her shadow as the giant-sized Matron loomed over them.
“We will do things the way I have planned them. The king is off limits. No one is to touch him. Is that understood?”
Talish nodded, dropping to his knees and bowing his head to the deck of the boat.
“I meant no disrespect, Matron,” said Kleegor. “I just thought maybe we didn’t need to deal with the king anymore. It’s getting close to moonrise. Maybe we could just handle the Obsidian Ridge all on our own.”
The Matron grabbed Kleegor by the front of his sweaty, tattered shirt and lifted him into the air. “We will handle the Obsidian Ridge when the king is in my pocket and the Claw is dead and buried.”
“Yes, Matron,” said the half-orc.
“I am not going to let some parlor magician with a few neat tricks show up and ruin my plans. If this Xeries has a deadline, then let him have his deadline. He will get his after we get ours. Is that understood?”
Kleegor nodded.
“Good,” she said, tossing him to the dock. “Now get back to work!” With that, she turned and walked away from them both, shrinking back to her normal size as she did.
Kleegor dusted himself off. “Time is running out, Talish,” he said, his snout turned up in an angry sneer. “We need to do something, and we need to do it now.”
Talish nodded. “Just don’t let her hear you say that.”
Princess Mariko stumbled along as best as she could. Her body felt heavy, her arms weak, and her head still hurt. The antidote she had been drinking regularly had helped, but the spider’s venom was still taking its toll on her.
“Hurry.” One of Jallal’s guards shoved Mariko, and she stumbled, catching herself against the wall.
She muttered something under her breath and glared at the woman who had pushed her.
“You have something to say to me?” growled the woman.
Mariko closed her mouth and shook her head.
“That’s what I thought. Now move it.”
Mariko did as she was told, marching on down the dark corridor.
As the contingent disappeared around another bend, a symbol appeared on the wall where the princess’s hand had been. It was dim at first, but then it grew in intensity. The symbol pulsed slowly on and off, lighting the hallway then letting it go dark.
“Is there a reason why we can’t travel through the regular hallways?” The Claw slipped sideways between two narrow walls.
“Yes,” said Evelyne.
The Claw waited, but Evelyne didn’t elaborate. “That reason is …?”
“Because everything else travels through them,” she said, a little perturbed. “And this is a shortcut anyway.”
“A shortcut to where?”
“To where I think your friend will be.”
“What makes you think the princess will be in this place?”
Evelyne stopped. “Do you want my help or don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Then trust me on this.”
“I trust you. I just want to know where we’re going.”
Evelyne pressed on, stepping through an opening in the wall, crossing a small room, and squeezing herself into another crack. The Claw followed.
“Let me ask you something,” continued Evelyne. “If you’d just been thrown into this place and you figured you were going to be here a while, what would you do? Where would you go first?”
The Claw thought about it. “I guess I’d look for shelter first, a safe place to sleep. Then I’d probably look for fresh water.”
“So that is where I am taking you,” she said. “To the only source of fresh water in the Cellar.”
They walked on in silence for some time, eventually coming out of the narrow passage they had been traversing into a cavern. To the Claw, it looked like a natural cave. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, liquid dripping from their tips into pools or forming stalagmites below. A glowing, blue-green moss that partially illuminated the cave covered the walls, and the whole place smelled like rotten eggs.
“Don’t tell me this is your source of fresh water.”
“Shh!” Evelyne put her finger up to quiet him and
her other hand up to her ear.
The Claw listened for the sounds in the cave. He could hear the water dripping into the puddles and the echoes from the drips rippling down the stone walls. But there was little else.
“What do you hear?” he asked.
“There’s someone here.” She listened for a moment longer. “Just one. Could be your princess.”
The Claw pushed past her, but Evelyne grabbed his arm.
“Could be something else too,” she said.
The Claw nodded then slipped into the shadows behind a stalagmite, his body disappearing. Slinking through the darkness, the Claw worked his way down the length of the cave. Deeper in, the dripping water dried up, and the sounds of the echoes grew quieter. Until finally, he was able to make out what Evelyne had heard.
It sounded like footsteps, but something about them wasn’t right. Definitely only one person, walking on two legs, but the pattern was off, as if … he couldn’t quite place it. A little farther in, and the Claw saw why.
In the middle of the cave, headed away from the dripping water, was a lone man—his muscular legs ending in hooves. He wore stark white robes with chain mail underneath, and he carried a wicked-looking blade in his right hand. From this distance, it was hard to tell for certain, but to the Claw, it looked as if it were some exotic blade from the Far East.
Slipping from one side of the cave to the other, the Claw took advantage of the dim shadows cast by the patches of glowing moss. He didn’t know who this stranger with the foreign blade was, but maybe he knew where to find the princess.
The Claw drew in a little closer.
“I hear you,” said the hoofed man. He stopped walking, but he did not turn around. “You will not surprise me.”
The Claw stepped out from behind the stalagmite. “I mean you no harm. I am just looking for someone.”
“You have found someone,” said the man.
“I am looking for a woman,” said the Claw. “A princess.”
The man’s ears perked up. “A princess? What ever would a princess be doing in a place like this?”