Fossil’s admission hinted that moment was fast approaching. Madri flipped the cover from the Necromancer’s face. “How can I most easily destroy Fossil, who is an undead revenant of an angel?”
The painted regard shivered like a hive of wasps on the verge of disgorging its stinging colony. She swallowed down the imaginary contents of her stomach. “It is not within your power as you currently exist.”
“So Fossil can’t be destroyed?”
“I did not say that. It is a spirit tied to a physical relic of its prior existence. Sever that tie, and the animation ceases.”
Madri wanted to punch her fist through the painting. For all the good that would likely do-she was immaterial. She squashed the urge and said, “If I can’t do it, who can?”
“I could, if bidden. It’s only a matter of-”
An acid voice overtopped the Necromancer’s papery revelation, “What are you doing, Madri?”
Madri whirled. The mask hovered a foot from her, its empty eye slots an accusation.
“Fossil! You … you startled me. I was just making sure the Necromancer was all right,” she said. Her words sounded like a child’s lie even to herself. She’d been caught, no two ways about it.
“You were conversing with the Whispering Child. Which I expressly forbade you. You’ve grown headstrong, Madri, even more so than Kalkan feared. Unacceptable. And dangerous. It’s time-”
“Aren’t you curious what the Necromancer told me?” she said, her voice high with nervous energy. The mask ceased speaking to study her. Though it moved not an inch, she imagined she could detect its conflict.
Finally the mask said, “Anything you say is suspect. So let’s find out straight from the source, shall we? Madri, remove the cover.”
The shroud obscuring the portrait had fallen back into place. Oh, gods, how was she going to get out of this? Should she flicker away? Could she, with the mask watching her? Its attention seemed to pin her manifestation in place. Maybe if the Necromancer distracted the angel, she could make a break for it.
“Now!” commanded Fossil.
She twitched the painting’s cowl away. Unlike before, the Necromancer was already very much awake-the textured lines of its brutal features seemed to breathe.
“What were you telling this sad haunt, Necromancer?” said Fossil.
“Confidential,” answered the painting. “Only with permission will I disclose my dealings with any previous viewer.”
Flicker.
Nothing changed-she hadn’t gone anywhere.
Flicker.
Now she stood next to the heap of earth under which Kalkan lay. But she was still in the crypt with an irate angel fragment. Once more-
The mask tilted its regard to her. “You’re not going anywhere.”
It wasn’t lying. Her ability to wink between moments was gone. But she convulsively tried to trigger it anyway, over and over.
“Tell the Necromancer to tell me what it whispered to you, or your time is up.”
“You’re going to destroy me, anyway.”
“I can do it painlessly. Or in such a fashion that your soul is sliced away over the course of a thousand years in an Abyssal pocket plane. Which would you prefer?”
“Necromancer,” she said with a shaking voice, “I bid you to demonstrate to Fossil what we last discussed.”
The painting’s illustrated mouth puckered into what might have been a smile, though it just as easily could have been a contortion of torment. “Listen then, Fossil. This is a secret few know.”
It started to chant. The words were unfamiliar to Madri, but their guttural tones suggested some kind of arcane tongue, or a language spoken by proto-beings of ancient ages. As each chanted couplet finished, its sound didn’t die away. The words remained in the background, drawn out in a long hum. Layer upon layer of words grew on the initial scaffold of sound, creating a texture of noise that she could almost see. The construct of ominous resonance reminded her of a gate.…
Fossil stared raptly into the widening aperture, oblivious of its peril. Then the Whispering Child spat out the keystone-it sounded like the death throes of a wounded beast.
The “gate” swung open. Only then did Fossil realize the demonstration was real, that it was the focus of the chant. “Necromancer, I command you to-”
A skeletal hand three sizes larger than a human’s reached through the gap. The hand fumbled about the chamber as if feeling around inside a satchel for a spare coin.
The mask screamed, “No! Not possible! Not-” Fossil should have kept quiet. The reaching fingers snatched the floating facade. A blast of radiant energy tinged with a nauseating swirl of necrotic mist enveloped Fossil. In that fell light, the mask blackened, bent, and broke into two pieces.
The hand retracted. The fragments of Fossil clattered to the floor-two half masks, split in a jagged line down the center.
The last echoes of the chant died away. No remnant of the “gate,” the skeletal hand, or Fossil’s cruel demeanor remained in the vault.
Madri glanced sidelong at the painting, eyes half-lidded just in case the portrait’s regard was turned on her … but no. The Necromancer had apparently exhausted itself, and its painted eyes were closed.
“Well, Kalkan Swordbreaker,” she said after many silent moments, “I bet you didn’t foresee that. Next time, pick better minions.” Whether “better” meant less rebellious or less dictatorial, she wasn’t sure.
But the pile of soil had no answer for her. She suspected the rakshasa wouldn’t be thrilled that she’d destroyed Fossil. On the other hand, she supposed she’d still go through with Fossil’s plan to use the Necromancer to hurry the rakshasa’s passage through death and on to his next incarnation. In which case the Swordbreaker would be in her debt.
“But first things first,” she said. “When I’ve finished with Demascus, he’ll wish he’d never been reborn.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL
20 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
Chant Morven watched waves break on the ship’s prow and collapse behind the speeding vessel. An hour out of the Bay of Airspur and already the Akanul coast was a haze across the southern horizon of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
The pawnbroker squinted, for the dozenth time, at the elaborate wooden sculpture below the bowsprit. The figure’s shimmering green scales did nothing for its modesty, though he supposed any ship called Green Siren deserved just such a fantastic figurehead.
But a painted and lightly enchanted piece of wood couldn’t hold a candle to the very much alive and angry queen standing at the ship’s prow. The queen’s stained leather armor and cape weren’t royal finery, but they bespoke martial competence and elegance in one go. The cape flared in the wind of the ship’s passage, cracking with occasional tiny lightning sparks. The ship’s captain stood near the queen, playing with his pipe and yelling occasional directions to his crew.
Leaning along the rail, Jaul and Riltana traded off-color jokes. Riltana obviously had a far larger wealth of material to draw upon than poor Jaul. As for Demascus, he alternated between staring out at the sea and frowning at Arathane’s profile. Chant shook his head. If he’d been the recipient of the regent of Akanul’s recrimination, he’d do more than frown. He’d cry.
When the queen had appeared at Demascus’s home, she’d been seething. Chant imagined she’d had to restrain herself from slapping the deva when he finished his ritual and emerged from his chamber. She made an acid comment about how she hoped Demascus’s sleep had been restful, because the Four Stewards were drawing up war declaration documents against Tymanther for lack of any alternate intelligence on the mining disruption! Ouch.
The deva didn’t offer any excuses about pursuing vampires, about the Demonweb, or about a ghost of a past victim doing who knew what with a necromantic artifact. He’d merely said, “Now that the storm is blown over, the ship I chartered can take us out to the mine.”
Electricity rol
led down the queen like water. “I’m going with you.”
“That would-” began Demascus.
“Because otherwise, how will I know you’ll actually go to the island? You might get distracted by a big fish or a boat race on the way.”
Chant saw Riltana wince. The queen wasn’t the master of colorful invectives like the thief, but Arathane’s barbs dug deeper.
Demascus’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. We can use another sword.”
Spear, not sword, thought Chant as he looked at the queen’s armament. But he’d learned a long time ago that wry observations are not always appreciated in the spirit in which they’re offered.
Thankfully, Jaul remained too awestruck by the ruler’s presence to offer up any witty repartee of his own. He was like Chant that way, but less practiced with the tact. So they raced across the sea, sails straining and resentments simmering. Onward to an uncharted place Arathane called Ithimir Isle.
Captain Thoster cleared his throat. “Anything in particular I should be on the lookout for, Your Royal Highness?”
The queen sighed. “Be ready for anything. Every force we’ve sent to investigate has failed to return.”
The captain grunted, as if in surprise. He looked at Demascus. “Did you mention that? I think I’d have remembered if you mentioned that. We may need to renegotiate terms.”
“Captain,” said Arathane, “I’m not unreasonable. Trust me that you’ll be justly rewarded for your aid. But now is not the time. Ithimir Isle is before us.”
She pointed starboard. Chant and everyone else looked to the right of the prow, straining to locate what the queen indicated.
“I don’t see anything,” complained Jaul.
Neither did Chant, but he held his tongue.
“No?” said the Queen. She hummed a few off-key notes, then said, “How about now?”
“I … Yes!” said Jaul.
Chant heard gasps spring up across the deck. A stretch of water peeled away, revealing a stone spur striated with a craze of chalky lines. The spur emerged from the sea at an angle, as if leaning. Chant guessed it wasn’t a natural island. More like some foreign chunk of bedrock cast into the sky that fell back to the world far from its origin. If so, it hadn’t happened long enough ago for the pounding waves to break the shear lines of the spur into a coast.
“Where’s it from?” said Chant.
The queen glanced back at him. “Very perceptive, Morven. Indeed, Ithimir is not a formation native to the Sea of Fallen Stars. Or even Toril. It came from Abeir, in the aftermath of the Year of Blue Fire.”
“Ah.” Of course. Chant nodded. Like the genasi three generations ago. The people of Akanul had become part of Faerun’s economic and social fabric only since their arrival. And so, apparently, had Ithimir Isle-the economic fabric, anyway. However, a mysterious force of drow lusted after the same mineral hidden inside the stone spur that Akanul so valued.
Chant supposed that, given half a chance, he wouldn’t mind becoming a broker for such a valued substance himself. In truth, it hardly seemed fair, from a purely mercantile point of view, anyhow, that the state had claimed the entire mine, thus precluding all the potential profits to middlemen from arambarium sale and distribution.
Once they finished here, perhaps he’d see if he could somehow ease his way into the operation. After all, he was on a first-name basis with the queen herself. Well, almost.
A small port protruded from one sheer side of the isle, supported by dark pillars. A single extended pier was heavy with shadow. No activity stirred the port. A half-scuttled ship listed to one side of the pier.
“Lay anchor!” commanded the captain. The dull clunk of running sea chain chipped the air.
“What, here?” said Arathane. “We’re still a half mile off.”
“You think I’m daft enough to risk this ship by putting into a port that’s already eaten at least two other expeditions? This ain’t my first ship, Your Royal Highness. I lost the first, and it made me careful. I don’t want to be out the coin to build Green Siren III. We’ll send you over in a skiff, and remain safely anchored here. Or maybe even farther back, now that you got me thinking about it.” The captain walked down the deck and called for his crew to make the skiff ready.
“Is the queen coming with us over to the island?” Jaul whispered to Chant and Riltana.
Chant frowned. Us? He didn’t want his son going over to the island for the same reason the captain didn’t want to tie up there. But he bit back that sentiment. Voicing it would only anger the touchy young man.
“Looks like it,” Riltana said. “And her two bodyguards.”
Right. The two genasi who’d accompanied the queen were elite peacemakers, though they wore unadorned leather instead of their usual elaborately detailed armor hung with medals and stamped with the Akanul’s royal coat of arms. Their strength combined with the queen’s power, not to mention the talents of Demascus, Riltana, and himself, weren’t inconsequential. And Jaul was probably passing fair with his daggers, if push came to shove.
A ringing clang drew their eyes to starboard. The skiff bumped over the deck railing and dropped into the swell. “Easy, you motherless biters!” yelled Thoster to his crew. The landing party clambered down the rope ladder one at a time and settled into the skiff. Then it pulled away from the slowly bobbing Green Siren.
Thoster waved from the deck, hat in his hands to form a flopping semaphore flag. “Good luck! You’ve got three days before I write you all off as shark bait!”
Spray from the sweeping oars chilled Chant’s face. The tang of sea salt and iodine burned his nose.
The skiff approached the pier. No one spoke; everyone’s attention was riveted on the shore. The pawnbroker squinted. The dimness seemed even thicker now, almost like something tangible.
“Something’s not right about those shadows,” he said.
“They’re not shadows,” Demascus said. “They’re spiderwebs.”
The rowers ceased their efforts.
“Son of a piss-pickled leech,” said Riltana.
“Can anybody see the spiders that wove them?” Arathane asked.
Demascus shook his head. “But I bet that’s what closed down the port. A swarm of crawlers unleashed by our drow adversary, Chenraya.”
“I’ve always said you were a canny fellow,” said Riltana. “Certainly none of us could have come up with such an astounding conclusion.”
Chant couldn’t help chuckling as some of the tension on the boat dissipated. But not all-whatever had spun all those webs was either very large or made up of way too many individual spinners.
“My point, dear Riltana,” said Demascus with a hint of a smile, “is that we’ve already gathered valuable intelligence for Akanul. Have you ever heard of dragonborn using webbing as weapons? Tymanther is the least likely culprit here. The Four Stewards are on the wrong track.”
“Keep rowing,” commanded the queen. “We need to make certain. If it turns out Tymanther is secretly allied with these drow, I’d willingly give up my crown if I came so close to the truth and then turned away.” They closed the remaining distance. The two genasi crew tied up the skiff midway along the pier. The webs obscuring the long jetty lay like drifted, translucent snow. Demascus disembarked first, followed by the queen’s peacemakers.
“No immediate danger, your Highness,” said one. “Come on up.”
Chant watched Demascus to see if he agreed. The deva was studying the pier and the port structures beyond it. His silence apparently meant he agreed with the bodyguard’s assessment.
The pawnbroker pulled himself up the gritty rungs. Only the two rowers stayed in the skiff-they’d already opened a chest filled with biscuits and a bag of wine.
Chant contemplated their repast. “You fellows should probably untie and push off a dozen yards. Something could come nosing through the webs while we’re gone. Spiders big enough to spin this much web probably couldn’t swim out to you.”
The rowers traded glances, then move
d to untie the mooring lines.
Demascus took point as their landing party trooped down the pier, wending between mounds of webbing. The structures around the port were carved into the bare rock of the isle. All the windows and doors were clogged with gray strands like sickly scabs, except for one cavity on the side of the largest structure. The opening was wide enough to fit four or five carriages simultaneously, despite the sides being coated in webbing.
“That’s the main depot,” said Queen Arathane. “Obviously the webs are new since I was here two years ago.”
“Yeah, we figured,” murmured Riltana.
“It reminds me of the Demonweb,” Jaul said.
Chant agreed. The weave of gray strands masked the original shape of the mine depot entrance, giving it the semblance of an open mouth. They moved closer.
Daylight filtered into the wider space inside. Smashed crates and overturned ore carts lay in abandoned heaps on the floor. Dozens of cocoons hung from web lines suspended from the ceiling.
Jaul gasped. Chant saw it at the same time-a hand protruded from one cocoon, and a desiccated earthsoul face peered out from another, its eyes fixed in an eternal stare by sticky strands. Chant drew his crossbow without conscious thought. But the sensation of hundreds of tiny spiders running up his spine didn’t abate.
“The miners,” said Arathane. “Cut them down!”
The peacemakers entered the structure.
“Careful!” said Demascus. “We’re probably being watched.” His eyes glittered. He casually spun his swords as he studied the corners of the room. Chant took a half step back in case one of rune blades got away from the deva.
“I don’t see anyone,” countered Riltana, though she’d adopted a slinking, catlike posture, ready to bolt. Chant didn’t blame her. He wished he was back in the skiff sharing biscuits. But he didn’t want to appear scared in front of his son. A stupid reaction, he knew, but there it was.
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