Then a crossbow quarrel punched the ettercap in the side of its head. It relaxed and tumbled to one side. Demascus grabbed his swords and stood. He was embarrassed, but shrugged it off as he scanned the tunnel for more attackers. It looked empty, though he could only see a few tens of feet with the light from Chant’s sunrod. Speaking of the pawnbroker …
“Nice shot, Chant. Burning dominions, that thing caught me flat-footed.”
“Is that what happened?” said Riltana. “I thought you’d found a new playmate to wrestle with.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, apparently Chenraya left it behind to slow down any pursuit.”
“If there’s one, there’s likely more,” said the queen. Her hands were curled in tight fists around her spear, and a flicker of lightning danced on its point. She cut an impressive, beautiful figure …
Later, he told himself. Or better yet, never.
Demascus advanced down the passage. He went a little slower than before, and kept his lips buttoned. The thief stayed silent, too; apparently she’d decided to hold her wisecracks in check as well. He doubted that’d last long.
He led the group along the same route as last time. Except for new variations on diguisting smells that he didn’t remember from before, nothing else surprised them on their way.
Finally they reached the chamber of the Gatekeeper. Overlapping vertical stone slabs framed the familiar courtyard, as well as a single arch on the opposite side of the chamber filled with orange haze. Sand was scattered across the floor. But unlike the first time they’d visited, it remained in random heaps, just as it’d fallen when they’d defeated the Gatekeeper. Claw- and footprints of many creatures made a furrow across the courtyard and up to the orange haze. That was new.
“They’ve gone through the portal,” said Arathane. “On the other side lies the Demonweb?”
“Afraid so,” said Chant. “Not the safest place to be if you’re not invited. We saw a vampire lord overcome by what might’ve been an unconscious defense of the Demonweb itself-or worse, some splinter of Lolth’s actual attention.”
“I could probably hide myself from notice,” Demascus said, glancing at one of the white runes of Exorcessum, “In fact, I know I could. But not the rest of you.”
“Hidden or not, I don’t really want to go back in there again,” Jaul said. “The drow witch got away. If she’s in the Demonweb, she could be anywhere by now.”
“I intend to go through,” said Queen Arathane. “I am not willing to turn around without at least looking.” She fished in her belt pouch and pulled out a greasy, stubby piece of chalk.
“This can shield us from direct observation,” she explained, and drew a circle on her forehead. The chalk left behind a white smudge on her lavender skin.
“I can still see you,” said Riltana.
“Which proves you are not a magical sensor,” replied the queen. She held the chalk out to the thief. Riltana accepted the chalk, examined it for a moment, then made a similar mark on her own forehead.
Chant went next, then Demascus. The chalk was slippery in his hand, and the circle he traced on his forehead tingled.
Jaul put up his hands, “You know, really, I’d rather not go back in there.”
Chant said, “No one’s asking you to, son. In fact, I’d rather you waited out here. In case we don’t come back …”
“Indeed,” interrupted the queen. “In fact, take it as a royal decree, Jaul Morven. Remain here, and if we do not return within one day, take this signet ring to the Court of Majesty. Explain to the Four Stewards all that has happened here.”
Jaul swallowed and palmed the ring.
Demascus realized he was grinding his teeth with impatience. The sooner they finished here, the sooner he could go look for Madri. “All right. Time to see if the queen’s sign will let us tread undisturbed in the Demonweb.”
“Good luck,” said Jaul, and turned away, rubbing at Raneger’s mark on his wrist.
Demascus entered the orange haze. He lost track of everything for a moment, as if the mist were slightly hallucinogenic. When it cleared, he was in a familiar stone corridor with the misted arch at his back. Ahead, the stone gave way to a spiraling tunnel of thick webs …
A large, blue-hued body lay at the intersection of stone and web. It was Lord Pashra, Chenraya’s oni ally. He advanced to study the body, ready in case it was actually some sort of ruse.
“It seems the drow have little stomach for alliances that outlive their immediate usefulness,” said the queen. The others had followed him through the portal.
“The drow are murdering, spider-fondling psychopaths,” said Riltana. “Everyone knows it. You’d have to be a complete idiot to imagine anything else.”
“Pashra is past imagining anything,” Chant said.
“And I’m not sad about that,” said Riltana. “The last time I saw him up close, he was no Prince Adorable, either.”
Demascus nudged the body with his foot. It was swollen and discolored with spider venom. He couldn’t restrain a shiver. When it came to considering various ways to die, he supposed he’d rather suffocate in a mine than be bitten to death by poisonous spiders.
A faint sound, like singing, sounded in the corridor.
Everyone heard it, but Demascus still put his finger to his lips. The singing rose and fell … rhythmic and purposeful, as if part of a ritual. And it was definitely a woman’s voice, probably belonging to Chenraya Xolarrin.
Demascus vaulted over the body and hustled toward the sound. A familiar acidic odor washed over him. Perhaps the smell was comforting to spiders and drow, but it reminded him of vomit. The tunnel was kinked and irregular; last time it had been a fairly straight shot to the temple-like nexus of doors. If the portal network was this changeable … Well, it was disconcerting. If you stayed in the Demonweb long enough and managed to remain unnoticed by the defenses, you’d probably get lost in a constantly mutating web of corridors.
He glanced behind, making certain everyone was still following. It wouldn’t do to lose any of his friends in here. Or for them to lose him.
He dashed around a corner and saw the same wide, high chamber as before, with the many gates. It was here they’d found a doorway into a dim tower castle, on the run from avenging vampires. Except … The nave and transept now hosted a small army. A brilliant light on the dais shone down on hundreds of ettercaps, spiders, and reanimated mine workers who filled the space like worshippers at service on a holy day. Demascus also noted a few driders, though they were larger and more bestial than the ones in the mine. Instead of hands, they sported lobster-like claws.
Chenraya was there, too, on the central dais. She’d acquired a ceremonial cloak since the debacle in the mine cavity, and new friends-four other drow gathered around her, all male. Three wore reflective black armor and the fourth wore wizardly robes spun of spider silk.
A silvery staff stood upright at the center of the dais. It sparked and flickered like a bonfire. The drow were entranced in its glow. Demascus squinted, and he saw that the staff’s headpiece was an oversized clenched first. Sort of like a miniature version of what they’d seen in the mine … Right. If Arathane was correct, the staff was the magically transformed arambarium relic. The last thing Demascus noted was the arched ceiling. Or rather, the lack of it. The web directly over the dais gaped, like a giant’s wet mouth.
Chenraya was singing in a deep, irregular tongue, melodic and haunting. The other drow called out an atonal counterpoint that made the back of Demascus’s throat itch. The cavity above the dais seemed to pulse wider with each completed verse.
“She’s forming a new portal mouth,” whispered Arathane. “It’s probably easy enough for a drow priestess, here in the Demonweb.”
Demascus managed not to jump. The others had caught up with him.
Riltana shook her head. “What now?” she whispered. “There’s no way we can fight through that press. I could fly over, but … I don’t fancy being out there all alone.”
Ar
athane said, “We must stop the drow before she completes the new passage. This is our last chance. I’d guess the next stop for the arambarium relic is either Menzoberranzan or … directly into Lolth’s demonic court itself.”
Demascus didn’t like the sound of that. And he worried Riltana and Arathane were being too loud. If even one of the drow or minion creatures looked up, they’d be seen. Actually, it was rather odd they hadn’t already been noticed …
Arathane saw his puzzled expression. She tapped her forehead, just below the white chalk mark. Oh. The queen’s magic chalk symbol was more potent then he’d realized. “As long as we don’t draw direct attention to ourselves, the enchantment will hold. But we must stop Chenraya from finishing her rite,” said Arathane.
Demascus said, “I can get into that circle and capture Chenraya’s attention before I’m noticed. If the rest of you can keep her lackeys busy for a few moments, I can end her.”
“Just take the staff,” suggested Riltana. “Flash in, grab it without starting a fight, and come back here. Then we all flee like scared children. How’s that sound?”
Not bad, actually. “Fine, that’s what I’ll do,” he said.
Though a part of him growled at the idea of avoiding what would otherwise surely be a spectacular conflict. He pushed that feeling away. They were here to retrieve the mother lode, not assassinate a drow priestess. And if Chenraya and her underlings gave chase, logic suggested that to face them outside the confines of the Demonweb would be better than within this dim cavity where the drow had all the advantages.
“Here goes,” he said, and leaped into the stafflight shadow of a drider.
He had several shadows to pick from on the dais, thanks to the staff’s glaring illumination. Demascus appeared in the dimness behind a male drow soldier who wielded a long-handled glaive.
The sound of Chenraya’s song slowed and dropped in octave as everything around him lapsed into languid action. The song was a basso rumbling, and the drow were caught motionless, open-mouthed, and in mid-blink. The priestess’s eyes were raised to the vaulted web ceiling, an expression of divine transport frozen on her face. Had he wanted, he could have killed two or three of them before the others even realized he was …
No. He’d come for the staff. Demascus slipped between moments and drow shoulders and grabbed the blazing length of transformed arambarium. He knew something was wrong the moment his fingers brushed the tingling metal. He jerked back. Or tried to. His hand remained stubbornly fixed around the buzzing shaft. The muscles in his arm and shoulders twitched, and he lost feeling in his legs. The stafflight pinched out, and time caught up with him like an axe stroke.
“Hello, deva,” said Chenraya, staring straight at him. “Welcome to my parlor. Trembles in the web suggested someone tasty would be along. Though I didn’t expect you; we dropped a mine on you to prevent that.”
“But here I am,” he managed to say through chattering teeth.
“Indeed. With your hand caught in the sweet jar, like a truant child. But I’m glad, because I have a use for you. I’d pegged Pashra to serve as the sacrifice I need to shift the Hand of Arambar back to its true form. Regrettably, he proved quarrelsome once too often. And so I had to deal with him before he learned of his surprise. But the Demon Goddess works in mysterious ways. Because here you are to take his place.”
“If you kill me, I’ll only return and hunt you down. I’m bound on the wheel of reincarnation.”
“No. You’re wrong. When I give your heart to Lolth, it won’t be just this mortal life she’ll strip from you. She’ll take every last future incarnation, too. She’s the Queen of the Demonweb Pits. When a soul is sacrificed to her, she lets no scrap fall between her mandibles.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DEMONWEB
21 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
Screams clawed the air, high and piercing. They emerged from the edge of the surrounding crowd of drow slave-soldiers. Chenraya’s gluttonous gaze shifted from Demascus as she searched for the cause. He didn’t volunteer that the sounds were likely the result of his friends attacking the army’s flank, to provide him a distraction. The momentary lapse of her regard lessened the paralyzing weight that’d settled over his mind.
He uttered a plea for divine radiance, made to the universe at large. In answer, a burning mark scribed the air directly over his head. The mark wasn’t as brilliant as the noonday sun, but it was still damn bright. The drow on the raised dais were creatures of the Underdark and unused to anything brighter than dim cave light. The robed drow and the two warriors turned, Chenraya fell back, and the last warrior threw a forearm over his eyes. If any of them had been vampires, they might have taken fire, too. Sadly, none sizzled, not even a little.
However, the dazzling light erased any shadows close enough for him to work with. He hadn’t thought his ploy all the way through. Worse, his body remained determinedly locked in paralysis to the staff, which itself was planted as solidly as a five-hundred-year-old tree in the forest. And the blades of Exorcessum were tidily sheathed in the scabbards he’d borrowed from Thoster. The red-runed blade was only inches from his left hand, but thanks to the aching rigidity of his muscles, it might as well have been a mile.
“Veil!” he rasped, “Help me!” The scarf uncoiled from his neck in billowing loops. One end wriggled down his arm and wrapped the staff’s headpiece. The other end whipped out like a striking adder. It caught one drow warrior around the neck in a winding grasp. The moment of contact between drow and staff closed, lightning cracked the air. And Demascus’s muscles eased, just as the drow warrior dropped, smoke issuing from eye sockets.
The Veil went limp, steaming and a little blackened at the edges. Demascus fell, too, in a convincing imitation of a rag doll. He hit the web floor with one shoulder and tucked into a flopping roll that moved him a few paces closer to the edge of the dais. He found himself staring up into the face of another drow warrior holding a glaive with a spike on the end.
The drow tried to stab him with the pointy bit.
Demascus jerked out of the way. The spike grazed his armor but failed to pierce flesh. As the warrior raised the glaive for a second try, Demascus pulled his knees up to his chest, then lashed out as if his legs were a released spring. He smashed a boot heel into the warrior’s knee. The joint made a funny popping sound. The drow collapsed, gasping in surprise at his sudden inability to hold his own weight.
And Demascus was up. He was shaking like a drunkard too long deprived of drink, sure, but being on his feet was better than on his back.
The three remaining drow-the last warrior, the fellow in the wizardly robes, and Chenraya-got their bearings. The howling ettercaps and driders kept up their din. Demascus hoped his friends were responsible. At least none of the driders had yet tried to climb the dais to help their mistress, despite that Demascus was in among the drow leaders, killing or disabling them one by one.
One by one … Yes. That was how it was supposed to be. None of this stealing and running. The Sword of the Gods might strike from the shadows, but he never, ever ran from a fight. A cold grin stretched Demascus’s lips.
The imprimatur of his ancient office swept the deva into its joyous, bloodythirsty embrace.
“The Sword has come,” he said, his voice suddenly resonant. His announcement gave all the drow pause. Even Chenraya blanched. His eyes sparked as he considered how he’d exterminate each one in turn. The wonderful thing about his office was that he was allowed to remove everyone who learned of its existence, at his sole discretion. Which was convenient.
His weapons were out and moving in a rhythm of defending curves and slashing threats, though he didn’t recall drawing them. The runes on each blade flared brighter and lifted slightly from the metal. The interweaving of his kata created a light painting in the air, a palimpsest of rune on rune, red on white, a fractal lure capable of fascinating the weak-minded.
None of the dark elves, however, apparently suffered fro
m that particular mental handicap. The last warrior narrowed his eyes, hefted his ebony shield, and flicked his short sword from its sheath, launching a fluid series of cuts. Demascus parried each with his weaving blades. But the warrior caught each of Demascus’s countering cuts just as deftly on his shield.
This one was skilled! And wasting the deva’s time. Each moment he spent fencing gave Chenraya and the robed drow time to marshal their own attacks. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the priestess gesticulating, purple light building on her fingertips.
“Lolth blast you!” screamed Chenraya, her arms suddenly motionless in a pose of exultation. The hair on Demascus’s neck lifted as if something immensely powerful moved beneath him like a sea monster under the waves threatening to breach.
The deva threw himself to one side. A gray bolt of power sundered the air where he’d been standing, brushing him, and where it touched, he lost feeling. The deadened spots were only a spattering, but each one was more than mere numbness; they were like holes in his existence. He laughed. He felt most alive when the stakes were highest! Even though a distant part of his mind was yelling at him to be careful, the Sword ignored it.
The drow warrior cut a trail of blood in the deva’s forearm with his flicking short sword. Demascus’s counterblows banged harmlessly on the shield. He should probably stop playing and neutralize them, before they coordinated their offensive. He lurched toward the muttering male wizard, whom the deva had left alone for too long. The warrior got in his way and, still startled, left off whatever spell he’d been concocting with a surprised exclamation that summoned the night. A natural ability these dark elves drew on instinctively when threatened, some past life whispered in his ear.
Blackness pinched out Demascus’s mark of radiance and settled over the central circle, blotting out all that occurred within its velvet cover. The drow could see perfectly in the dimness.
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