by Keith Strohm
Taen knew that he wasn’t thinking clearly, knew that at some level, he also hung over an abyss—one of his own making. At that moment, Yurz and he were linked. If he tossed the goblin into the chasm, he, too, would be lost forever.
What did it matter, Taen thought bitterly. Marissa. Talaedra. He always ended up destroying the very people whom he loved the most. Let the abyss take him. Perhaps he could find in the depths of its unending shadows an end to his heart’s fierce burning, a final rest from the pain that had plagued him each moment of his adult life.
“Don’t hurt Yurz,” the goblin cried, glancing wildly at the chasm below and back to Taen. “Me like Pretty Lady. Me help find her.”
Caught between his rage and despair, it took a few moments for the half-elf to process the goblin’s words. “What did you say?” he asked.
“Me find Pretty Lady,” he repeated, desperation causing the goblin’s voice to squeak even higher. “Me know where Ugly One keep prisoners. Me lead you to her.”
Taen thought about it for a moment. How could he trust this creature? Even if Yurz hadn’t betrayed them—which was a big “if”—Yurz was still an evil, cunning little monster. Enchantment or not, he was loathe to trust Marissa’s life to his fickle sense of loyalty.
Yet how could he squander any chance that he might actually be able to save her, to rescue her from the fate that his failures had brought upon her. He stared at Yurz, his limbs frozen with indecision.
“Taen … now!” he heard Roberc’s voice again, this time much closer.
A sharp tug on his arm ended the paralysis. The half-elf blinked slowly, as if waking from a deep sleep. Roberc stood at his side, sword in hand. He could see Borovazk standing at the entrance to the undertomb, gazing into the darkness beyond.
Taen dropped Yurz unceremoniously on the stone floor of the bridge. The goblin quickly got to his feet and danced around him.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou,” the creature gibbered almost unintelligently, his eyes agleam with emotion. “Yurz lead you to Pretty Lady, you see. Yurz friend to Pretty Lady’s friends—”
The half-elf reached out and stilled the whirling goblin with a harsh grapple. “If you so much as think a betraying thought in that ugly head of yours, I will separate it from your body so fast that you won’t even know you’re dead until you watch your headless corpse tumble to the floor,” he said menacingly. “Got it?”
Yurz gulped audibly. “Yes,” he replied in a frightened voice. “Yurz hear what bald elf say.”
“Good,” Taen said and pushed the goblin toward the open door to the undertomb. “Then let’s get going.”
The ghoul fell back against the wall.
Taen withdrew his sword from the creature’s chest. The monster slid down the smooth stone of the tomb wall, the gleam fading from its undead eyes. To his left, Borovazk crushed the last two creatures with one mighty swing of his warhammer. Dried bones snapped as the weapon slammed the hapless ghouls against the ground.
“How much further?” Taen asked their goblin guide.
“We not too far away,” Yurz replied. “We almost out of the undertomb.”
“Good,” the half-elf replied, wiping the slime and congealed blood from his sword. They had spent a long time traversing the cramped passages and chill crypts of the citadel undertomb, dodging more goblin patrols and a seeming horde of skeletons and zombies. Several times they had entered a seemingly empty room only to be beset by ravenous ghouls and even the occasional wight lurking in the shadows. Taen’s arms ached with fatigue, his muscles long since pushed past the point of exhaustion. This last battle had nearly undone him. He sheathed his now-clean sword and rested briefly, his breath coming in great ragged gasps.
“Friends rest now,” Yurz said, shooing Taen and his two companions to the center of the crypt. “Me search for secret way up into citadel.” It was a testament to their fatigue that no one attempted to gainsay the anxious creature.
Taen dropped to the floor and massaged his sword shoulder. Borovazk and Roberc did the same, though the halfling spent most of his time cleaning the blood from Cavan’s matted fur. The ranger looked around at their surroundings, unease written clearly upon his face. This room was larger than most, its smooth stone handsomely decorated with fading murals and elaborate stonework. Two of the walls were filled with human-sized horizontal alcoves, each occupied by a skeleton bedecked in ancient armor. Several sarcophagi sat in the center of the room, their heavy stone lids shattered by the force of the ghouls that had poured out of them.
“What’s the matter, Borovazk,” the halfling asked, “besides the fact that we’re trapped in an undead-infested tomb trying to rescue Marissa from the clutches of a powerful hag?”
Taen found his temper rising as the halfling’s acerbic comments filled the silence of the room. Fatigue won out over anger, however, so the half-elf bit his tongue, grasping the hilt of his sword as he did so and cursing the necessity for rest that caused them delay. Besides, he knew that Roberc would fight through every layer of the Abyss to rescue Marissa.
For his part, Borovazk ran a meaty hand through his sweat-soaked hair before answering the halfling. When he did finally speak, his usually resonant voice barely filled the chamber. “This is great resting place of heroes,” the ranger said hoarsely, pointing to the walls of the crypt and beyond. “Borovazk feel sad to fight Rashemi whose bodies have been corrupted by the foul work of the hag and her witch ally. Is not right. The dead deserve honor.” This last he nearly shouted.
Taen looked up and cast a measuring glance at the ranger. The skin beneath Borovazk’s eyes sagged, bruised and nearly black with fatigue. The human’s normally irrepressible smile had faded—when that had happened, Taen hadn’t noticed—replaced now by a wide-mouthed frown. Dried blood and thick black patches of congealed slime marred the normally pale hue of his face.
At that moment, the half-elf realized that he wasn’t the only one who blamed himself for Marissa’s capture. Both Borovazk and Roberc held a haunted look in their eyes and a grim cast to their features. That fact unaccountably lightened his own heart, and he recalled something that his father used to say: “A burden shared is a burden lightened.” He was so caught up in his own misery that he hadn’t realized how deeply his companions grieved for Marissa. The half-elf began to understand—in the way that one does when light first shines in a dark place—that perhaps this was the root cause of much of his problems: he was always focused inward on himself, on his own guilt and misery.
“Don’t worry, Borovazk,” he said at last, resting a hand upon the ranger’s shoulders. “We will find Marissa, and when we do, we shall make the witch and her hag minion pay for what they have done here.”
Borovazk looked Taen in the eye, and the half-elf could see the Rashemi’s desire for that revenge. “Is good to hear, little friend,” the ranger responded. “Borovazk think that he is done with this little adventure soon, and he will be glad of it.”
A shriek erupted from a shadowy corner of the crypt, followed by the sound of Yurz’s cackling laughter. “Me find it!” the goblin proclaimed loudly. “Come, friends of Pretty Lady! Yurz find the door. We not far now!”
For what seemed like the first time in quite a while, a smile split the grim terrain of Taen’s face. “Perhaps,” he said to Borovazk, “our adventure will end sooner than we had hoped!”
With a grunt and a sigh of effort, the half-elf pulled himself to his feet, gathered up his gear, and strode toward the now-open secret door. Without a second thought, he walked through it.
CHAPTER 23
The Year of Wild Magic
(1372 DR)
Marissa breathed fire.
It seared her lungs; her chest burned with each labored inhalation. The druid struggled once more against the bonds that held her, but the steel chains just cut deeper into the skin of her wrist with each movement. The room was dark—it was always dark, except when the hag came. Shadow and flame defined her universe. She wanted to scream, but her
voice, too, had become fire, so Marissa wept glistening trails of tears that were her only comfort.
The druid had no idea how long she’d been a prisoner. She remembered the bridge, remembered the sting of spider venom, and the next thing she’d been aware of was the cold kiss of her steel shackles and the bitter voice of the hag whispering hateful secrets into her ear. At first Marissa’s mind seemed numb and sluggish—as if wreathed in a chill gray fog that drained thought and speech. She fought off the sensation, realizing at the last moment that it was merely a spell cast by her captor.
That was when the pain began—physical and psychic assaults that left Marissa barely conscious. She cried out again and again to her god for some measure of mercy but received nothing but more agony.
It was all about the Staff of the Red Tree. The hag had made that clear from the first moment. Somehow the artifact resisted her attempts at mastery, and the monster assumed that Marissa held the key. Perhaps she did, the druid thought bitterly, for even now she could hear the voice of the staff, muted, like a distant whisper, calling to her in the depths of her mind. If Marissa held the key to the staff’s power, she had no idea how to access it.
She hung in the darkness, weeping, waiting for the hag’s next visit. She thought now and again of Taenaran and her friends battling for survival somewhere in the bowels of the earth below the citadel. She had no idea if they were still alive or if the hag’s minions had slain them. She remembered, dimly, the promise of a conversation with Taenaran, a conversation that she had put off until the end of their journey. Endings, she thought bitterly, have a nasty habit of coming when you least expect them, yet Marissa still held out hope that she and Taen would see each other again. She hung by that thin silver thread of hope over the abyss of despair as surely as she hung by the steel chains that bound her.
She was surprised, therefore, by the voice that cut through her interior wrestling. “Do not think that anyone will come for you,” the voice said. “You are alone.”
At first Marissa expected to see the hag, green skin and misshapen face leering out of the darkness. It only took her a few moments, however, to realize that the voice sounded different, huskier than the hag’s. Dim light filled the room. The druid blinked hard as the illumination aggravated her eyes. When she could focus, Marissa saw a brown-haired figure standing before her. At first her heart leaped at the sight of the stranger—until she caught sight of the orc rune hanging around the figure’s neck. The stranger’s scarred face and her flat, gray eyes confirmed what Marissa suspected—the half-orc standing before her was no sympathetic rescuer but rather a servant of the hag.
A servant, she thought, and something more.
Power emanated from this creature. Marissa could sense it—a darkness as deep as the Abyss filled her. If she served anyone, it certainly wasn’t the hag. That thought sent fear knifing up her spine.
“You’ve caused Yulda quite a bit of trouble,” the stranger said, “you and your friends.”
She drew closer to Marissa, reached out a thickly muscled hand, and ran her fingers lightly down the druid’s cheek. The captive half-elf tried to turn her head, but the stranger grabbed it harshly with her other hand. Marissa could feel the barbed points of steel claws pressing harshly into her head.
“You won’t give up the secrets of your staff to the hag,” her tormentor whispered. “I respect that.” The half-orc released Marissa’s head. “You will reveal them to me, or I promise you the torments I have prepared for you will make you beg for the hag’s return.”
Marissa closed her eyes for a moment and prayed desperately for strength. The voice of the staff rose in her mind. The whole of her journey in Rashemen flashed before her. The druid knelt once more beneath the trunk of the Red Tree, spoke face-to-face with the ancient telthor. The memory of that time eased her fears. She had seen wonders and experienced moments of peace within Rashemen of which she had never even dreamed. If this, then, was Rillifane’s will, that she should suffer and die in the darkness, then Marissa would accept it. Who was she to enjoy the wondrous gifts her god had given her while rejecting the rest of her life, which was also from him? She knew that suffering, too, could be a kind of gift, one that brought the sufferer closer to the divine. The hierophants spoke of that often enough. Now, within the ancient citadel of her enemy, Marissa would live that reality.
With Rillifane’s name ushering forth silently from her lips, she opened her eyes and gazed steadily at her interrogator. “I can tell you nothing,” she exclaimed, “and even if I did know something, I would never reveal it to you.”
The half-orc smiled in response, and Marissa felt her heart begin to falter once again. “We shall see,” she said and placed a rough hand upon the druid’s head, whispering a prayer to her god as she did so.
Marissa tried to shut out the cleric’s voice, but the harsh cadence and sibilant syllables of the half-orc’s whispered devotion filled the room with a dreadful cacophony. She shuddered and twisted against her bonds, writhing in pain. Though she couldn’t understand her torturer’s words, Marissa felt their power; it washed over her, stinging and lashing her spirit with each phrase. Her cell grew dark once more—pitch black—and chilled, as if the half-orc’s spell were drawing all of the energy from the room. The chill intensified, deepened, stealing her life with each knife-sharp breath that she took. Memories of her life beneath the sun, time spent with friends and loved ones, laughter, life, joy—all of it was falling away from her into an icy void. Marissa knew with a terrible certainty that there would soon be nothing left, that she was being hollowed out, emptied, until all that remained was ice and darkness.
The druid struggled against her fate, summoning thoughts from her childhood, shouting prayers to Rillifane and any god who might hear her cry. Nothing helped. She felt herself falling. Her last thought before the darkness took her was of Taenaran.
The corridor stood empty.
Smooth, polished stone—so different from the highly decorative craftsmanship of the citadel’s undertomb—caught and reflected the dim light of torches that burned fitfully in iron sconces. The passageway ended in a solid stone door shut tightly almost twenty feet in the distance. Taen and his companions stood silently in the shadows and listened for any sound that might indicate the presence of their enemies.
They heard nothing.
Taen crept forward carefully, making sure his weapon did not scrape against either wall of the small passageway. When nothing jumped out at him, he waved for the others to follow. Despite their apparent safety, a sense of unease rose up in him, like delicate fingers of ice running along his spine. Bitter experience had taught him to trust his instincts. The half-elf peered intently down the corridor.
“I don’t like this,” he whispered to his companions. “Something’s wrong.”
“You’re just figuring that out now,” he heard Roberc’s hushed reply from behind him.
Taen’s sense of unease intensified—fingers turned to sharp daggers stabbing at his back. “Wait,” he blurted out as Yurz reached for the closed door before him.
The goblin froze, one long-fingered hand nearly touching the dull gray stone. On a whim, Taen closed his eyes and cast a spell of detection upon the door. Immediately, three purplish-black glyphs flared into existence on the door’s stone surface. The serpentine symbols writhed and roiled like grubs suddenly exposed to the light of day.
Yurz fell backward with a yelp, but Taen could spare the goblin none of his attention, as the power from the now-revealed glyphs hammered against the half-elf’s mystic senses and threatened to overwhelm him. If any one of their group had actually laid a hand upon the door, it would have released unspeakable energy upon them all.
Taen walked toward the door with one hand extended. He gathered his own power and sent it streaming toward the door, hoping that his skill would be sufficient to dispel the protective glyphs. As the energy from his spell met the power bound up in the runes, the glowing symbols dimmed like a banked fire then fla
red into unmistakable life once again.
Taen swore. “That’s done it,” he nearly shouted.
“What do you mean?” Borovazk asked, casting a wary glance at the angrily pulsating symbols.
“I couldn’t dispel the glyphs,” Taen replied, “and now whoever set them here knows that someone has tried to tamper with them.”
“What do we do?” Roberc asked, drawing his sword.
Taen reached into his backpack with the other and drew forth a triangular prism. “We’ll have to move fast,” he said. “I was hoping to hold this in reserve in case we needed it against the renegade witch, but it seems that our need is very great at the moment.”
The half-elf muttered a few words over the prism. Pure white light blossomed from the clear heart of the item. “This prism should draw the glyphs’ energy into itself,” he said to the others. “Once those symbols disappear from the door, run through it. We’ve already lost any element of surprise.”
The gleam in the crystal grew brighter, filling the room. At first, the purplish glow from the warding symbols polluted the bright light, bruising its argent incandescence. Gradually, however, the prism’s power overmastered the glyphs. At first, their sickening light seemed to draw back, retreating from the crystal’s illumination, but the pulsating energy moved toward the prism, entering its angular planes. The process took a few more moments as the glyphs gradually faded from the door’s surface. Once completed, the light from the prism faded, and the room returned to normal.
“Now!” Taen shouted and drew his weapon once again.
The others ran toward the door, throwing open its bulk with a mighty heave. Within the space of three heartbeats, Taen stood alone in the corridor.