The Realms of the Elves a-11

by Коллектив Авторов

  Thankfully, Koora was silent.

  Sorrell raised a hand to wipe his cheek-and paused as he heard a noise in the passage behind him. A faint thudding, like footsteps on stone. He started to turn to see which of the others was approaching, then remembered their magical boots.

  He whirled just in time to see a monstrous shape scuttling across the ceiling of the cavern, tearing a scuff of darkness in the lichen as it ran. It looked like a cross between drow and spider-dark elf from the waist up, but with a spider's bulbous thorax and abdomen, and eight legs.

  Sorrell's heart pounded as he stepped out of the crack and raised his club to meet the monster's charge. He needed room to swing his club; he'd have to count on his invisibility to hide him. Knocking the monster down into the crimson spitters would be his best chance.

  Sorrell! What's happening? Pendaran's voice. Alert. Tense.

  Monster attacking! Sorrell shouted back. Half spider, half drow.

  The creature's eyes locked on his.

  Sorrell felt a sudden chill. It must have magic! It can see A ray of indigo light flashed from one of the creature's hands. It caught Sorrell square in the chest. Dots of blackness swam before his eyes. His legs wobbled and nearly buckled. His club-suddenly too heavy-sagged in his hands. The monster whipped its abdomen forward and a line of dull brown web shot from fingerlike spinnerets at its tip. The sticky strands nearly smothered Sorrell, fouling his hair and clothing, gumming his face and eyes. He tried to pull free, but the web was stuck fast to the stone wall behind him. The more he tore at it, the more his hands became entangled. The monster, meanwhile, jammed itself into the passageway and plucked Sorrell away from the wall, then began turning him around and around. More web surged from its spinnerets, winding around his legs, binding them tightly together.

  Don't let it get away! Pendaran's voice, excited. Keep it busy until we can get there.

  Sorrell groaned.

  As if it had heard the silent message, the monster laughed. Its voice was disturbingly elflike. Its face, however, was not. Curved fangs sprang out of its cheeks like a pair of scissors opening. Each was beaded with poison at its tip.

  Sorrell's hands were trapped by the web; it would be impossible to reach the anti-venom vial on his belt. All he could do was close his eyes and pray. At first, instinctively, to Corellon Larethian, then to Shevarash. He begged the Hunter to hear his plea.

  Not yet! he cried. I haven't had a chance to kill The god's reply came like a clap of thunder. A deep male voice, grim as a dirge. Day is Done.

  Sorrell's eyes sprang open. He knew immediately what the god wanted, and understood what the result would be. In a quavering voice, he began the lullaby he'd composed for his son: "Birds have flown home to their nests. I know we all could use some rest…"

  A flicker of what looked like white flame sprang to life around the monster's head.

  "Close your eyes now, day is done…"

  The flame brightened. The monster shook its head and gnashed its fangs.

  "Sleep now till the morning comes…"

  The monster squeezed its eyes tight against the glare and shook its head.

  Tears tumbled from Sorrell's eyes as he continued to sing. The lullaby brought back memories of his son's soft cheek against his own, the smell of Remmie's milk-sweet breath and tiny arms hugged tight around Sorrell's neck, a smaller head on the pillow next to his own.

  Gone now. Dead.

  Sorrell had vowed, in that dark cellar, never to sing that lullaby again-never to sing again. But what was a vow, compared to a god's command?

  "Go to bed, now don't you cry…"

  Sorrell's voice broke then, but it had been enough. The monster collapsed on the floor of the tunnel, its eight legs jerking reflexively, claws scraping on stone. Sorrell felt hands touching him, and realized that Nairen and Adair had reached him. He fought to pull himself together as they sliced the webs from him. Distantly, he heard Pendaran's Well done, and felt a calloused hand squeeze his shoulder.

  Pendaran turned away, murmuring. His hands made a gesture over the monster. Suddenly released, it sprang to its feet, revived by Pendaran's magic.

  Shocked out of his grief, Sorrell snatched up his club. Before he could attack, however, Adair lowered his spear, blocking the way.

  Wait, he urged. Pendaran's charming it.

  Pendaran said something to the monster in a chittering voice. It grinned back at him and its body bobbed up and down. Then it turned and clambered up onto the ceiling of the cavern, motioning with one of its elflike arms for them to follow. Pendaran's lips twitched-a suppressed smile.

  It captured one of the drow, he announced.

  He ordered Koora to maintain her position, and Adair, Nairen, and Sorrell to follow him back across the cavern. They did, Sorrell keeping a wary eye on the monster above.

  What is that thing? he asked the group.

  It was Nairen who answered, as they carefully picked their way between the crimson spitters, A drider. A reject ofLolth, their goddess. Driders hate the drow as much as we do, even though they used to be drow themselves.

  Sorrell shuddered. He'd heard that Lolth was a cruel and uncaring goddess, utterly without mercy; that she deformed those who displeased her. He couldn't conceive of worshiping such a deity.

  If it's a drow, why aren't we killing it?

  Nairen winked. Be patient.

  On the far side of the cavern, the drider reached into a shoulder-deep crevice in the rock and pulled out what looked like the top of a broken staff, set with a fist-sized emerald. Chittering at Pendaran, the drider crawled around a bend in the passageway, then touched the gem to the wall. The emerald glowed, and a hole silently sprang into being in the rock. The drider scrambled through it, still holding the broken staff. A putrid smell wafted out of the opening.

  Nairen? Pendaran's voice. What can you detect!

  Sorrell heard a quick, whispered prayer.

  It's a dead-end cavern. There's no sign of a mate. Even so, he held his sword in one hand. Ready.

  Adair, keep watch fifty paces on.

  The half-elf nodded at his leader, and trotted away.

  Pendaran, Sorrell, and Nairen followed the drider into a cavern that was dimly illuminated by more of the phosphorescent lichen. A pool of water filled one end of it. Hanging from a web that spanned the ceiling, twisting slowly in a cocoon of sticky web, was a drow. Only a portion of face showed, the skin black against the dull white of the web. Even though no more than a day could have passed since the drow had been captured, it smelled as though the body was already decomposing. Rancid liquid dripped from it onto the floor.

  There's one of them, Nairen said. We'll soon have some questions answered.

  But he's dead, Sorrell protested. How-?

  On three, Pendaran said, cutting Sorrell off as he met Nairen's eye.

  The moon elf's fingers tightened on his sword.

  One, two…

  Realizing what they were up to, Sorrell started to raise his club. No! Let me The drider whirled to face him, fangs flashing. Three!

  Despite the haste dweomer on Sorrell's weapon, Nairen was quicker. With a single stroke, he severed the drider's neck. Blood fountained as the monster collapsed to the floor. Splatters landed on Sorrell's shoulder and arm.

  Thanks for the distraction, Nairen said.

  Sorrell fumed. "That should have been my kill," he said, forgetting Pendaran's strict orders to maintain silence.

  Your time will come, Pendaran said, when Shevarash wills it. Then, to Nairen, Cut the body down.

  Nairen levitated and sawed through the web with his sword. He lowered the cocoon carefully to the floor. Pendaran squatted beside it and cleared the web away from the lower portion of the drow's face.

  Sorrell stared down at the drow-the first one he'd seen up close. A female. The dead scout had the narrow face and pointed ears of a surface elf, but her skin was as black as a starless sky, her hair, bone-white. Even in death, her face had a cruel cast. Sorrell clenched
his fists. Nairen caught his arm, as if sensing Sorrell's urge to smash the body, over and over again, with his club. Steadying himself, Sorrell spat on the body instead.

  A waste of good spit, if you ask me, Nairen said.

  Pendaran tore away more of the webbing from the drow's shoulder, revealing a bandage, dark with dried blood. One arm was swollen to twice its normal size, and bore puncture marks.

  Their leader, he observed. The remaining three will be running scared.

  They'll also be running faster, now that they're no longer encumbered by her, Nairen observed.

  Sorrell shook his head. He'd heard that the drow noble Houses were all matriarchies, but somehow, it hadn't sunk home. The drow who had killed his son might have been a woman. He thought of Dalmara, of her tenderness. How could a woman have been so cruel as to murder a three-year-old boy?

  Pendaran was praying over the corpse. To what end, Sorrell couldn't guess-until, with a creaking yawn, its jaws sprang open. Breath hissed from dead lungs.

  "Asssk," it whispered, its lips glowing with Shevarash's holy light.

  "Your thalakz-what city sent it?" Pendaran asked.

  "Brundag," the corpse answered. Bile bubbled at the back of its throat and trickled down its chin as it spoke.

  Sickened, Sorrell turned away. He walked over to the pool and dipped his arm in it, trying to wash the blood from his sleeve.

  Good idea, Nairen said as he squatted beside Sorrell. Just remember to renew your armor paint; it washes off.

  He dipped his sword in the water, cleaning it. By the light of the lichen, Sorrell saw the inscription on his blade, done in black filigree: "Bane of the Depths." He dried the sword and sheathed it, then dipped his hands in the pool. As he splashed water on his face, his sleeves fell back, revealing forearms mottled with patches of pale white-the healed scars of what must have once been terrible burns.

  The polite thing to do would have been to pretend not to have noticed, but Sorrell couldn't contain his curiosity.

  What happened?

  It was many years ago, Nairen said. We lived in the High Forest. Not in Nordahaeril itself, but on the outskirts, because of Adair. The night the drow came, the townfolk drew up their rope ladders, too frightened to help us. Even when our tree began to burn. He stared at the wall with eyes as green and restless as a storm-tossed sea. Even when our mother started screaming.

  Sorrell took a deep breath. My son Nairen held up a hand. Don't try to play the "my grief is greater than yours" game, he warned. I've heard it all before.

  He stood abruptly and walked to the exit. Slowly, Sorrell rose to his feet and walked back to where Pendaran crouched beside the corpse.

  Pendaran glanced up at him. Have you ever been to Amrutlar?

  Sorrell frowned at the odd question. Yes. Years ago.

  How far would you say it is from the Yuirwood, by surface travel?

  Sorrell shrugged. A tenday. Or maybe a tenday and a hand, depending on the weather. Why?

  Pendaran gestured at the corpse. The city she named-Brundag-lies roughly under Amrutlar. A journey through the Underdark would take twice as long. Interconnected passageways stretching for such a distance are hardly likely.

  Sorrell could see where the sun elfs thoughts were leading. A portal?

  Pendaran nodded. He turned back to the corpse. "Where is the portal that the scouts will use to reach Brundag?"

  "In the maglustarn sarg zhaunil."

  Sorrell leaned closer. What did she just say?

  Nothing that will help, Pendaran answered. "Place-apart of battle-might learning"-a drow term for a warriors' academy that isn't within a city. It could be anywhere. We need something more specific in order for Koora to find it with her magic.

  As the sun elf stared at him, Sorrell realized that Pendaran expected him to have the answer. All Sorrell knew about the Blackened Fist was that he wanted them dead.

  Sorrell wet his lips. The academy doesn't have a name?

  What do you mean?

  They always do, in the ballads. Have a name. Palaces, temples…

  Pendaran's eyes brightened. Let's find out. Then, to the corpse. "What is the name of your academy?" "Maglustarn Jainna'hil Krish."

  Monastery of the Black Fist, Pendaran repeated. Got that, Koora? Got it!

  Pendaran stood. Close up on me, and get ready to move out.

  The others acknowledged his order and began making their way to the cave. When Koora entered, her face was even grimmer than usual. After a brief, private exchange with her, Pendaran turned to the group.

  The academy is inside a faerzress, he told them.

  The others glanced at each other, uneasy.

  What… does that mean? Sorrell blurted.

  A faerzress distorts magic, Pendaran explained. If we try to teleport into it, we'll wind up inside solid stone.

  Should we split up? Adair asked. That will guarantee that some of us will live to carry on the hunt.

  Pendaran shook his head. No use. The thalakz has too good a lead. If we don't teleport, we won't catch them. But-this could be it. Short of a miracle, we're not going to make it.

  May Shevarash grant one, Koora whispered. And if we do make it, I'll need every one of you, Pendaran continued.

  There was silence for a moment. "I'm ready," Koora said. "So are-"

  "— we," the brothers answered, nearly as one.

  Sorrell took a deep breath, and met the leader's eye. "To continue on, until our own deaths should come." I'm in.

  Pendaran nodded, as if he'd expected no less. Good. Let's go.

  Sorrell gripped his club. "Vengeance," he whispered. And he remembered…

  He and Dalmara had been passing through Shadowdale, on their way to Tilverton, and had stopped for the night at the Old Skull, an inn named after a nearby, dome-shaped hill of white granite. The place had a cozy feel, with a low, smoke-stained ceiling of hardwood beams and a warm fire crackling in the hearth to ward off the night's chill. They had earned their supper through song; he playing his lute, and she, her dulcimer. Taking turns, one sang while the other kept an eye on Remmie.

  They had been hoping that Remmie would fall asleep, but the boy was, as usual, basking in the attention the inn's patrons were giving him. Sorrell had made a tiny lute for his son, and Remmie had been "playing" it furiously that night, strumming away-still with no idea of how to finger a chord-and making up a song of his own, to the delight of the patrons.

  "Daddy is happy; Daddy play his loo," he cooed. "Mama is sing; Mama play duller." The patrons roared their laughter as Remmie took a bow, beaming. "Clap!" he told them. "Clap-clap!"

  There had been ale that night, and laughter, and more song. Sorrell had thought that Dalmara had ushered Remmie up to bed in their room; Dalamara thought Sorrell had taken him. Sorrell still remembered the horrified look on his wife's face, and the hollow that opened at the pit of his stomach when they realized their son had wandered off on his own.

  "He can't have gone far," Sorrell reassured her, praying that it was true.

  "We'll find him," she said, her own eyes worried.

  Sorrell set his lute aside, stood. "Has anyone seen our son?"

  Shoulders were shrugged, heads shook.

  That was when the scream had come from the inn's cellar, followed by a shout and the clash of steel on steel.

  Sorrell had to fight his way through the crush of people who blocked his way to the cellar door. He could only vaguely remember the white-faced barmaid who passed him on her way up the stairs, and the ranger who stood, sword in hand, staring at the crossbow bolt lodged in his leg. He could no longer remember exactly what the ranger looked like-tall or short, fair-haired or dark, human or elf. His eyes would take in nothing that night but the dagger that lay on the floor-and the body of his son lying next to it.

  He remembered scooping his son's body up in his arms, howling, "No, no, no, no…" as the tiny head fell back on a limp neck. The head he'd cradled, oh so carefully, when his son was still too young to hold
it upright on his own. He remembered Dalmara appearing at his side, screaming, "He's going cold!" as she shook Remmie's arm, trying desperately to make him wake up. Remembered the wound: a terrible bloody puncture in his son's hand-a hand that should have been holding a child-sized lute, lay trampled on the floor beside them. Imagined his son, terrified, trying to fend off the dagger. He remembered the ranger saying, "It's no use. The blade was poisoned," each word a cold stone laid on Sorrell's heart. Remembered someone, upstairs, shouting for a cleric. None came.

  That was when Dalmara, her face white as bone and her eyes already red with tears, had spoken the awful truth. "Remmie is unpledged. No god will claim him. He will enter the Fugue Plain alone." Her eye fell on the poisoned dagger. Her expression turned steely. "I will not… let the demons… have my son."

  She picked up the dagger.

  Sorrell grabbed her wrist. "No! I won't let you!"

  Dalmara's eyes became ice. She turned the dagger hilt toward him. "Then you do it."

  Sorrell's felt his eyes widen. He released her wrist. "I love you," was all he'd been able to manage.

  Dalmara hugged him fiercely-and carefully, as if Remmie was still alive and she was afraid of crushing him. "Until Arvandor," she whispered.

  Then she pricked her palm with the dagger.

  That had been two years ago. Since then, Sorrell had learned that the Old Skull Inn concealed an entrance to the Underdark, and that the drow who had killed his son that night were most likely assassins who had tried-and failed-to kill a famous wizard who had been visiting Shadowdale that evening. Sorrell pieced together what had happened: Remmie had wandered down to the cellar and surprised the drow as they emerged from their secret hole. He'd been "silenced"-even though he was barely three years old, still full of baby talk and babble that probably wouldn't have been understood by anyone but his parents, two elf bards ignorant of the secret doings of the Dales. And his death had been pointless; a moment later, the serving girl and the ranger, intent upon a liaison, had descended to the cellar and also surprised the drow. Despite taking a crossbow bolt in the leg, the ranger had managed to raise the alarm and drive the drow back below. And he'd knocked the poisoned dagger out of the last drow's hand.