Spider and Stone

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Icelin dreamed of Waterdeep.

  The dream was also a memory, five years old, one Icelin slipped into unwillingly. She used to wake from it screaming, sweat and tears streaming down her face. But she had learned to live with the pain, and the nightmare didn’t quite terrorize her the way it used to.

  She walked with her teacher down the mildewed quays of Dock Ward, listening to him drill her on what spells she could call to mind quickly if attacked in a crowd. The day had been blisteringly hot. She remembered the stench of rotting garbage in the alley between a tavern with two cracked windows in the front, and a boardinghouse made of old, warped wood. Five people moved about on the top floor beneath a sagging roof, though Icelin wouldn’t know that until later. Glaring sunlight reflected off the water. The day had crystallized in Icelin’s memory, and not just because her spellscar made her recall it with perfect clarity. In many ways, this had been the defining moment of her young life, the day her childhood ended.

  As she walked beside Nelzun, up ahead, the door to the tavern crashed open, and men spilled out onto the quay. A fight had erupted within; Icelin had never found out what the fight had been about, but when she saw one man hit the ground in front of her, his face covered in blood, and another follow after with sword drawn, she reacted without thinking. She raised her hands and cast a spell, intending to defend the man on the ground. It should have been a very small fire spell.

  She remembered how the incantation trembled from her lips. Fire erupted from her fingertips and spread out before her in a billowing sheet. The men with weapons fell back, surprised by the magical assault, and a small squeal of triumph escaped her lips. She thought she’d done well and looked to Nelzun for his approval.

  Then it all went wrong.

  She watched as the sheet of fire grew, arching up like a wave. But her horror was supplanted by agony as the wild magic roiled through her small body. She couldn’t contain it. The red wave engulfed the dry tinder of the boardinghouse.

  Helpless, screaming, Icelin watched the dream play out. The roof of the boardinghouse collapsed, killing all five people on the top floor instantly. Nelzun helped get the others on the first floor to safety, but the effort claimed his life. He’d died on the quay in front of her.

  The accident had made Icelin swear off the Art forever. For a long time, she’d kept the wild magic contained within her, until she’d met Ruen and Sull and had her adventure in Mistshore. She’d never completely forgiven herself for the fire, the lives she’d inadvertently taken, but she’d learned to live with the scars of the past, to look to the future instead.

  She expected the dream to end here, as it usually did, with Icelin cradling her teacher’s body in her arms. Yet it didn’t. The fire burned on, and as she crouched on the quay, Icelin felt a presence behind her, as if someone were watching her from the shadows.

  Are you a wizard? A soft, feminine voice echoed inside her mind.

  I tried to be. Icelin buried her face in her teacher’s robes. But that day, I was a monster.

  You attempted to tame a force far beyond your control. It was not your fault.

  Icelin shook her head. She would not deny her responsibility. I could have chosen not to cast the spell.

  You are a wizard. Would you ask a bird not to fly?

  A bird cannot set the world on fire with its wings.

  Icelin thought she heard the unseen woman’s tinkling laughter. You’ve not seen phoenixes leap from the fires of their own deaths. Stand too near their beauty, and you will burn.

  The fire, the screams of the dying, Nelzun’s body, all of it faded, leaving only darkness and the woman’s voice. Icelin felt a chill fall over her. Who are you? Why do you speak to me in dreams?

  Set me free, said the woman’s voice, a plaintive, hollow echo in Icelin’s mind. All traces of amusement were gone, replaced by a longing that pulled at Icelin’s heart. I can help you control the force within you. I am meant for you.

  Who are you? Icelin repeated, trying to free herself from the darkness, to wake.

  You know. You are already looking for me, the voice said. Come to me. Find the sphere, and you will find me.

  “The sphere?” Icelin woke with a start, realizing she’d said the words aloud. Her voice was raspy from sleep. She rubbed her eyes and went back over the details of the dream, which due to her gift, did not fade the longer she was awake. Rather, they became clearer, and the more she thought about it, the more unsettled Icelin became. She’d dreamed of the boardinghouse fire many times, especially in the first year after the tragedy happened, but never before had the dream mixed with details of her present life the way this one had.

  The Arcane Script Sphere must have been more on her mind than she realized. Of course, that was hardly surprising. It was the closest thing they’d found to a lead on a cure since they’d left Waterdeep. Yet the woman’s voice had seemed so real, as if she’d crouched next to Icelin and whispered in her ear.

  As if she were calling to me.

  Icelin shook her head. More likely she was just overtired and her imagination was getting away from her, though she must have slept longer than she’d thought. The sky had begun to lighten, and there were not so many stars visible as when she’d lain down. Icelin noticed she was no longer cold, either. Blinking, she looked down at herself and realized an extra blanket covered her. Icelin recognized the blanket she’d bought the day before at the shop—the one Ruen had asked her to buy for him.

  Oh, damn the man, anyway, Icelin thought, but she felt warmth spreading through her chest, warmth that had nothing to do with the extra blanket. She buried her face in the softness and allowed herself a soft smile.

  Her head snapped up. Ruen wasn’t in camp, and neither was Sull. Icelin thought they might have gone off to wash the cooking utensils, but those still lay in a pile near the fire, the butter congealed in the bottom of the skillet.

  “Sull? Ruen?” Icelin called. It was silly, this sudden uneasiness that enveloped her. Icelin told herself they were probably just attending to their needs in the trees somewhere or washing up at the little stream nearby.

  Ruen strode into the camp then, and the expression on his face made Icelin’s heartbeat quicken. “Sull’s gone,” he said. “He told me a while ago he was going to look for some mint growing wild, but he hasn’t come back yet. I was going to look for him, but I didn’t want to go too far while you were sleeping.”

  Dreams and warmth forgotten, Icelin sprang from her bedroll and grabbed her boots.

  OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE OF THARGRED, TETHYR

  21 UKTAR

  ICELIN HASTILY BROKE CAMP WHILE RUEN WENT TO search for Sull in the woods. She doused the fire and threw the still-dirty pots into a sack. Sull would scold her for neglecting them. He hated dirty pots. Icelin’s fingers shook as she tied the sack shut. Why hadn’t Sull come back yet?

  When Ruen returned to camp, he was alone. Icelin’s heart sank. “I found his trail,” Ruen said. “It looks like he wandered near the dwarven ruins. I even found a patch of mint growing near a broken stone circle. Then a cluster of other tracks join up with his, but these were coming from the ruins.”

  Icelin nearly dropped the waterskin she held. “I thought the temple was abandoned.”

  “So did I, but we were wrong. I think whoever came from there took Sull back with him to the temple,” Ruen said grimly.

  “Did you see any blood? Any bodies? Was there a fight?” Icelin kept her voice steady, but she felt the tension all through her body.

  “No,” Ruen said. “Whatever happened out there, it wasn’t violent, and it ended quickly.”

  That comforted Icelin somewhat, but still she had a sick feeling inside. If something happened to Sull …

  She grabbed her staff, which was engraved with arcane markings and capped with a cage of thin, polished wooden branches. It had been a gift to her from a very old wizard who’d lived in Mistshore. He hadn’t communicated to her all its powers before he died, but Icelin knew it helped to control
her wild magic, and she was grateful. At that moment, she simply wished it would quiet the fear that clawed at her throat, made her movements jerky and graceless.

  “Leave any extra gear there,” Icelin said, pointing to the underbrush. “It’ll slow us down once we’re in the ruins. What about our horses?”

  “Let them go,” Ruen told her. “Someone else will claim them. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  The cave that led down to the temple ruins had a line of fist-sized stones arranged at the foot of both walls like small sentinels. Symbols were carved into the stones, though Icelin couldn’t read the writing. It may have been a warning, a welcome, or perhaps travelers’ offerings to the dwarves’ lost goddess. Icelin preferred to think it was one of the latter.

  “Four sets of tracks,” Ruen said. “Sull’s are the largest, though a couple of the others are almost his equal in weight. They’re human or dwarf, I think.”

  “Maybe they’re pilgrims,” Icelin said, pointing to the stones.

  “Pilgrims, or possibly bandits,” Ruen said. He pulled a torch from his pack and spent a moment lighting it. “Though why they would kidnap him and not just kill him—” He stopped at Icelin’s gasp of dismay. “The tracks lead straight ahead. Let’s see how deep this center passage goes.”

  They walked in silence, listening for any signs of movement in the tunnels. Gradually, as the passage descended, the natural cavern became a carved stone passage with empty sconces along the walls ready for torches. Smaller passages branched off the main hallway, and from them echoed the sounds of scurrying movement, small animals fleeing the scents and light from above ground.

  The tracks became harder to distinguish. More than once, Ruen scowled at the ground, trying to discern if the group they followed had stayed together in the main passage or branched off. Icelin knew he was doing his best, but he was not an expert tracker, especially over this type of terrain.

  “Let me try something,” Icelin said after they stopped for the third time to reorient themselves. She moved to cast a spell, but Ruen caught her wrist in his gloved hand.

  “Don’t,” he said. “We’re on the right track. We’ll find them without magic.”

  “It’s a minor spell, hardly more dangerous than conjuring light,” Icelin tried to reassure him. “Trust me, it won’t go wild.” She smiled crookedly. “As much as you annoy me, you know I wouldn’t risk hurting you.”

  “Why would you …?” Ruen hesitated. A strange expression passed over his face, but it was difficult to read because of his eyes. The colors masked much of Ruen’s emotions. “I’m not worried about you hurting me,” he clarified. “I’m worried about what the spell will do to you.”

  Icelin lowered her hands. Ruen still gripped her wrist slackly. “Small magic isn’t going to drain my vitality,” she said gently. “Even a few of the larger spells won’t do lasting harm. Only the most aggressive spells I have, the ones that are truly deadly when they rage out of control, will affect me. I’ve told you this before.”

  “Even cantrips cause you pain,” Ruen said. “You told me that, too.”

  “So I did. Your memory needs no enhancement.” Icelin started to lay her hand on top of his, but Ruen pulled away. She clenched her teeth together and tried not to let it show in her face how much his rejection hurt.

  “Cast your spell,” he said, not looking at her.

  Icelin nodded. She cupped her hands in front of her nose and mouth and whispered a phrase. In her mind, she saw the words perfectly formed in glowing script, imagined the letters swirling in her cupped palms like specks of gold mingling with her breath. The magic rose up, filling the silent passage.

  The spell took effect. Breathing deeply, Icelin fought back a brief, intense wave of dizziness and nausea. Ruen was right about the magic weakening her, but that wasn’t the only reason for the nausea. The smell of damp earth rose strongly in her nose, mingled with underlying hints of a dozen varieties of fungus and cave moss and the unmistakable odor of decay. Her spell had heightened her sense of smell ten times over, bringing the layers of scents in the tunnels to life in an overwhelming tapestry. Icelin stretched her awareness outward down the passage, seeking beyond the cavern odors, searching for familiar scents, beloved smells that had become like home to her.

  “There,” Icelin said, drawing in another breath. “Mint, hints of fish and butter—it’s very faint, but it’s coming from the main passage. We’re going the right way.”

  “Well done,” Ruen said. “Anything else? What about the group that has him? Can you detect their scents, how many there are?”

  Icelin’s brow furrowed. “No … there’s nothing,” she said. “That’s odd. I only smell Sull.”

  “It’s enough,” Ruen said. “Let’s go.”

  Relieved that they were on the right path, Icelin moved forward, Ruen following at her side. For a while, he said nothing, though Icelin sensed him watching her. She picked her way carefully by the wavering light, half her mind fixed on maintaining the spell and letting her heightened senses guide her. She stepped on a loose stone in her too-large boots and stumbled.

  Ruen gripped her elbow briefly, steadying her. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I know I’ve been … pushing … making the journey difficult for the three of us. I forget you’ve never traveled before.”

  Icelin glanced at him, surprised by the turn in the conversation. “My parents were adventurers,” she said. “I suppose they did a lot of this sort of thing—crawling around in caves, digging through ruins, sleeping on the ground every night. I did want a taste of that kind of life. Well, all except for the sleeping on the ground part. I could do without that and not be troubled.”

  “Has it been everything you thought it would be?” Ruen asked.

  “And more,” Icelin said with feeling. She glanced at him in the torchlight with a raised brow. “I never thought I’d see the whole of the Sword Coast in a pair of months, for instance.”

  Ruen offered her a strained smile. “You did say you wanted to see everything.”

  “I’m not going to expire in the next few months, you know,” Icelin said lightly. “I intend to torment you for years and years yet.”

  His smile disappeared. “I know that, but our time on the road—it passes faster, somehow, almost as fast as the scenery flashes by on a galloping horse. One day runs into the next, and I keep thinking …”

  “What?” Icelin asked. She kept her voice low, but still it echoed in the silent passage. The darkness pressed close, creating the illusion of a small, intimate room in a globe of torchlight. They hadn’t been alone like this for months, and Ruen had never spoken to her as he did now. Icelin found herself holding her breath, though what she was waiting for, she couldn’t quite say.

  “It’s not fair,” Ruen said at last. “You’re young, seen almost nothing of the world, and just when you start to come into your own, you discover you’ve been cheated out of a full and happy life.” He gazed at her with such an earnest, intense expression that Icelin felt her cheeks flush. “Others who’ve lived twice as long haven’t lived so well as you.”

  “You honor me by saying that, but I’ve made my share of mistakes, and I have my regrets,” Icelin said. She glanced at the cave ceiling above her head, as if she could look through it to greater Faerûn beyond. “You know enough about the world to know things are rarely fair. If I hadn’t had this burden, I might never have left Waterdeep. I’d still be in my great uncle’s shop, reading books about adventures in far-off lands instead of having one of my own.” She dropped her gaze, staring into Ruen’s strange eyes. “If I hadn’t been scarred, I would never have met you or Sull.”

  Ruen shifted the torch from his right hand to his left. “Yes, I remember that night well. I was fishing on my boat—”

  “You never really caught anything edible from the harbor, did you?” Icelin interjected.

  Ruen ignored her. “Happily alone, content with the world, and suddenly this impertinent wench rows up
to my boat and demands my aid.”

  “I’m certain I asked nicely.”

  “Not a coin to her name to induce me to help her, but oh no, that didn’t stop this woman.”

  “Didn’t I offer to sleep with you in return?”

  “I should have dumped you in the harbor, saved myself a lot of trouble,” Ruen said.

  “We did get dumped in the harbor, and you surely never used to jest this much, before you met me,” Icelin pointed out. “I’ve been some good to you. I’ve given you an appreciation for the absurd.”

  “Who said I was jesting?” Ruen checked what was left of the tracks. “Is your spell still working? Are they still on this path?”

  “Yes,” Icelin said, breathing deeply to confirm that Sull was still ahead of them. “I feel like a tracking hound.” She raised a hand and glared at Ruen before he could speak. “Be very careful with your next words,” she warned him.

  Ruen’s lips twitched. “You did say I should jest more.”

  Icelin stepped toward him. She’d only intended to swat at his shoulder with her hand, but when Ruen saw her reaching for him, he stepped back and raised the torch between them as a barrier. He said nothing, merely quickened his pace, leaving Icelin lagging behind as she recovered from his reaction.

  As suddenly as it had been there, the humor and warmth drained out of that small circle of light. Icelin suppressed the urge to scream in frustration.

  Gods above, will you kindly smite him in the arse with a lightning bolt? she thought. Is that truly too much to ask?

  She caught up with Ruen at an intersection and snatched the torch out of his hand. He shot her a look. “Now what have I done?”

  Icelin scowled at him. “Are you really going to spend the next twenty years flinching and scrambling away like a rabbit every time I come near you?”

  “You know why I react that way,” Ruen said calmly, but Icelin sensed the tension radiating from him.

  “Of course,” Icelin said. “It’s because of the ever-present reminder of death clinging to me, obviously.” What man in his right mind would want to be near such a person? “I just wish you’d be a bit more subtle about it,” she grumbled.