by Lisa Smedman
Or from a svirfneblin.
Spit me like a lizard, she thought. The svirfneblin who found this passage didn't drown, he got eaten by a water spider.
She twisted around to warn the Nightshadow. Ripples marked the spot where he'd just climbed out of the water. A heartbeat later, he plunged into the water in a dive. He was only waist-deep when his body abruptly halted and his eyes flared open in alarm. Then something yanked him out of the water, and he vanished from sight.
Mazeer took a breath from her bottle and shouted a spell. Her words exploded in a flurry of bubbles. She swept her free hand in a circle, fist clenched, then opened it. The water shimmered as magical energy infused it. At her command, the water elemental she'd summoned bulged toward the surface just as an enormous spider plunged into the water, dragging the web-bound Nightshadow behind it. The elemental crashed into the monster, snapping two of the spider's legs. Then the battle raged.
The water in the cavern churned into a whirlpool that slammed Mazeer into a wall. Over the tumult of rushing water, she heard a faint crack. Pain lanced through her hand as shards of glass drove into her palm. Her bottle-broken! She fought her way to the surface. She barely had time to draw breath before she was sucked under again by the maelstrom. It slammed her into another wall and one of her ribs cracked. Dizzy with pain, she tried to push off the wall, but couldn't. The force of the water held her fast.
"Help… me… surface…" The words cost her the last of the air in her lungs, but they were enough. A surge of water-one of the elemental's wide "arms"-hurled her toward the surface. She burst into the air like a leaping fish and slammed down onto stone.
She rose, shaking, in a room-sized cavern. A hole in one wall led to a larger cavern beyond. At the far side of the pool-the spot where the Nightshadow had climbed out of the water-strands of web draped the rock. Great gouts of water erupted from the pool, spraying the walls and ceiling. The Nightshadow's web-wrapped body momentarily bobbed to the surface next to a broken spider leg, then got sucked under again.
Mazeer drew a wand woven from green willow twigs and held it ready, in case the spider won the fight. When pieces of spider floated to the surface in a dark slick of blood, she knew that battle was at an end. She snapped her fingers and pointed at a dark shape in the water: the body of the Nightshadow. The elemental bulged, lifting it to the surface. Mazeer bent down and grasped him by his shirt. She hauled him out of the water, grunting at the pain that lanced through her side. Then she passed a hand over the surface of the pool, releasing the elemental.
She rolled the web-shrouded Nightshadow onto his side to drain the water from his lungs. His head flopped and came to rest at an unnatural angle. A crunching noise came from inside his neck: broken bones grinding together.
Mazeer sighed. She had no magic that could revive him. She was on her own. And she wouldn't be able to get back, she thought as she looked ruefully down at the broken chunk of bottle that dangled from the thong around her wrist.
She held her side and breathed shallowly against the pain of her broken rib. The water had stilled, and she could hear the staccato of clicking bone coming from the larger cavern beyond. It sounded like an entire army of skeletons on the march. She peered through the hole and saw distant white dots on the ceiling: the skulls the Darksong Knight had described.
She crept closer to the opening for a better look. The cavern beyond was filled with a vast lake, its depths illuminated from below by the Faerzress. At its center stood an island, capped with a forest of stalagmites that made up the buildings of the ruined city. The stalagmites crackled with blue-green light, as if it were a living city decorated with faerie fire, but that was only the glow of the Faerzress.
At the center of the island was a massive spire of flat-topped stone. It, too, pulsed with Faerzress energy, but the building that stood atop it was black as a starless sky. Mazeer could guess what it was: the Acropolis of Thanatos, temple of Kiaransalee, Queen of the Undead. Above the temple drifted the pale shapes of restless ghosts. Their wails echoed faintly across the lake. Even at a distance, the sound made Mazeer shiver.
Her teleportation spells were useless, thanks to the Faerzress. She couldn't escape. And it was unlikely that Daffir or Khorl would be able to use their divinations to find her. The protections that had prevented them from scrying the main cavern likely extended as far as the smaller cavern.
One avenue of communication remained open, however: Eilistraee's high priestess. Mazeer might be stuck, just like that time in the chimney, but this time when she called for help someone would hear her.
"Qilue," she whispered. Despite the cacophony of clattering bone from the cavern beyond, she was wary of raising her voice. "It is Mazeer, of the College of Conjuration and Summoning. One of those traveling in Cavatina's band. Qilue, can you hear me? I've something urgent to report."
The reply came a moment later: a female voice that seemed to sing, rather than speak. I'm listening.
"Tell Cavatina I've found the way to Kiaransalee's temple. It's a narrow fissure that leads down to…"
The words faded on her lips as a skull leered in through the hole in the wall. Mazeer could see right through it, and the Faerzress gave it an eerie, blue-green glow. The body was a trailing wisp of bone-white, with hands whose fingers tapered to dagger-sharp points. Its jaw creaked open. A ghastly din erupted from the blackness within-the sound of hundreds of phlegm-choked voices, groaning in agony.
Waves of despair poured from the apparition and enveloped Mazeer like a cold, moldy blanket. Trembling, with a stomach that felt hollow and sick, she remembered the wand in her hand. Somehow, she forced her arm to rise. She pointed the wand and sobbed out a word. A sickly green ray shot from it, striking the skull.
The apparition never even slowed. It loomed into the cave and clutched at Mazeer with skeletal hands that raked her body, passing through her chest. For a moment, she couldn't breathe. Her legs buckled, sending her to her knees. Then the hands retracted, yanking something from her. Mazeer felt a hollow open as all vestiges of hope and joy were torn from her.
Only bitterness remained.
It was enough. She clutched the emotion like an icy seed, using it to draw herself back to the here and now. Dropping the willow wand, she clawed a second wand from her bracer. This one had a pea-sized sphere of hollow glass at its tip. The creature screamed at her, a soul-numbing wail that slammed against Mazeer's eardrums. She felt her right eardrum rupture. Intense pain flared through that side of her head. Even as the skull's wail drove her past the edge of madness, she shouted the wand's command word. Ripples of energy shot from it. They slammed into the skull and expanded outward from it, encasing it in a bubble of silence.
The apparition raged impotently, mouth open. It clawed at the bubble that surrounded its head, but without effect. The silence ate at it like acid. A portion of the skull dimpled, then crumbled away, leaving a black hole. Hollow eyesockets glared at Mazeer. Then, still raging in utter silence, the creature turned and fled.
Mazeer? Can you hear me? Are you still there?
Mazeer whirled. Her heart pounded even faster than the staccato clacking in the cavern beyond. Thousands of skulls! What was that voice? It was inside her head. A skull! Thousands of them, pressing in on her from every side. She slapped her palms against her ears, and one hand became sticky with blood. The skulls were consuming her from within!
"Get out!" she shrieked. "Get out of my head!"
Mazeer, it's Qilue. You called me.
"The skull is stuck!" Mazeer wailed, beating her forehead with her fists. "Stuck inside the chimney. Light a fire. Get it out!"
It's Qilue, Mazeer, High Priestess of Eilistraee. Listen to me. Let me help you.
"No!" The skulls surrounded her like invisible walls. Mazeer could feel them digging into her back, her arms, her chest. Bones and teeth. Laughing at her. "Stupid girl, getting stuck in a chimney."
Her eyes widened. Had she just said that? Or had it been the voice inside her head?
What was that clacking noise?
Like spears, rattling. Spears stabbing her chest, the palm of her hand, the right side of her head. Throbbing. Pain. Her chest was tight. She couldn't breathe. She clawed out a wand, hurled it at the blue-green glow. The fire. It was all around her. Fire and smoke. Making her cough. Too tight, stuck in a chimney…
"Get out. Out of here. Must get…"
She fell backward. Splashing water choked off her scream. She was cold and wet. Sinking. The water hugged her close, extinguishing the fire. Something brushed against her: a sticky net. She remembered it had caught another drow. He was the one trapped. She laughed, and watched languidly as bubbles danced above her face. There was something she should be doing. Oh yes, the bottle. She raised it to her lips and inhaled deeply. Water slid into her lungs, smooth as a wand into a sheath. She didn't notice the coughing, or the hot flare of pain in her chest.
The skull was gone. At last.
She was free.
*****
Cavatina waited impatiently as Khorl cast his spell. A mirror of polished silver hung on one wall, enlarged by magic from a brooch the wizard had unpinned from his piwafwi. Khorl peered into it intently, oblivious to the harsh glare of the reflected Faerzress. The blue glow was painfully bright. Cavatina squinted, yet it still hurt her eyes. Backlit by its glare, Khorl's head and shoulders were a dark silhouette.
"Can you see anything?" she asked. "Mazeer told Qilue she'd found the way to the Acropolis. She mentioned a fissure in the rock."
"And a skull," Eldrinn added. "You said she mentioned a skull." He stood next to Daffir, fiddling nervously with a vial he held. If the boy wasn't careful, he was going to drop his potion.
Karas pushed past him. "What about Telmyz? Is there any sign of him?"
"Patience, all of you," Khorl said. His fingers flicked in front of the mirror as if turning pages. "A scrying cannot be rushed."
Gilkriz stood to one side, arms folded and fingers drumming restlessly. One of his wizards had gone missing. Perhaps he'd already accepted the worst. According to Qilue, Mazeer had been incoherent when her message abruptly cut off. That-and the silence that followed-didn't bode well.
All the other search teams had returned safely, if unsuccessfully. Despite more than a day's worth of searching, none had found the way to the Acropolis.
Khorl's hand dropped. "The mirror reveals nothing." A wave of his hand shrank the polished oval of silver back down to brooch size.
"Conjure up the eyes again," Cavatina ordered. "We need to find Mazeer and Telmyz."
Khorl shook his head firmly. "A second application of that spell will only produce the same result."
Cavatina turned to the human wizard. "Daffir?"
He inclined his head. "I will try, Madam."
As Daffir cast his spell, Cavatina brooded. The message about Mazeer and Telmyz hadn't been the only sending from Qilue. There had been two other sendings from the high priestess a short time after that. The first had contained surprising news: Halisstra lived! She'd somehow escaped the Demonweb Pits, and had been spotted in the Shilmista Forest. Priestesses and Nightshadows had died there, at the hands of Lolth's minions. Halisstra, however had managed to escape through the shrine's portal.
She'd portaled to the Moondeep, where Q'arlynd had spotted her. Not surprisingly, he hadn't recognized his own sister. Halisstra wandered the mine tunnels, somewhere between the Moondeep and the spot where the party rested.
Cavatina would have ordered a search for Halisstra, but Qilue had forbidden it. Eilistraee herself had warned the high priestess that Halisstra had some part to play in the attack on the temple-a role that might be disrupted if too many knew she was there. Cavatina had to trust in the goddess, to let Halisstra find her own path in the dance.
It rankled Cavatina, but an order was an order. A Darksong Knight always did her duty.
One thing was certain. The longer Cavatina and the others lingered there, the better the chance Halisstra would blunder into them. Knowing that, Cavatina had ordered the two priestesses guarding the shaft that was this tunnel's only access point to contact her with a sending at once if they spotted anything resembling a demon, and not to engage it in combat themselves-to let her, the party's only Darksong Knight, deal with any demons.
Cavatina turned to the human mage. "Daffir. Anything yet?"
Daffir leaned on his staff, eyes closed. "Mazeer and Telmyz are in a cavern."
"The Acropolis?"
"No," Daffir opened his eyes. "That much, at least, I am certain of. Had they reached it, the name Thanatos would have rung through my mind like a tolling bell."
"Are they still underwater?" Karas asked.
Daffir shook his head. "That, I cannot tell."
Cavatina struggled to keep her frustration in check. "Keep trying," she told the wizards. She turned to walk back to the spot at the bottom of the shaft, where the others had set up a fortified position, but Karas caught her arm. "Telmyz is dead," he told her. "This was the wrong way to go."
Cavatina rounded on him. "We don't know that."
"Yes we do. The prayer that allowed him to breathe water would have elapsed long ago. If he's still submerged, he's dead."
"Then we'll recover his body. Return him to the Promenade, where he can be resurrected."
Karas made a dismissive gesture. "That's not worth the cost."
Cavatina was inclined to agree, for different reasons. Yet her duty was clear. "Our numbers are small. We can't afford the loss of even one of Eilistraee's faithful."
"Precisely," Karas said. "Which is why we should abandon this route and go another way. You heard the reports of the search teams. There's a veritable labyrinth of passages down there. Trying to figure out which one leads to the Acropolis-if any even do-might take days. We should take a route that we know leads to the Acropolis. One that won't cost us any more lives."
"This is our way in," Cavatina said. "The Crones will be watching the other entrances."
"You said Mazeer mentioned a skull. Even if she did find the 'back door' the deep gnomes told you about, it may not be such a secret any more."
"He's right," Gilkriz said, stepping closer. "And the longer we sit here, the more likely we'll be discovered. What if your svirfneblin 'allies' were lying entirely, and this is nothing but a dead-end? I don't want to be trapped down here."
Cavatina stared down at him. "You'd abandon Mazeer?"
Gilkriz unfolded his arms and tugged at his gold sleeves, straightening them. Despite immersion in the Moondeep, his clothes were impeccable. "If she's dead, yes." He nodded at the Faerzress. "Solving our problem as quickly as possible is what's most important."
Cavatina glared at him. But she had to admit that Gilkriz was right. So was Karas.
"I've made up my mind," she told them. "We'll go in another way. One of those other entrances Karas is so fond of."
His mask hid the smirk she knew was there.
"But we stay together."
The smirk disappeared from his eyes.
"Gilkriz, Eldrinn, assemble your wizards. Get them ready to move. Karas, do the same for your Nightshadows."
"As you command, Lady," Karas replied.
Cavatina gave him a tight smile. She knew that Karas's obedience was the calm before the storm. When he found out how she planned on entering that "side door," he wasn't going to like it. She'd had it with this skulking about. It was time for something bolder.
She was just about to pass the word to the two priestesses who guarded the top of the shaft when one of them contacted her with a sending. Lady Cavatina, the demon you anticipated! Zindira just spotted it!
Fall back to the bottom of the shaft, Cavatina ordered, praying they would obey quickly. If they made the mistake of attacking Halisstra, they likely wouldn't survive. I'm on my way.
She turned and spoke swiftly. "Karas, keep the others together. Don't let them follow me up the shaft."
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Lady?"
"Our guards have sp
otted something-possibly a demon." She slapped the flask at her hip. "I'm going to deal with it. You're in charge until I get back."
She sprinted away down the tunnel.
*****
Leliana set a brisk pace through the abandoned mine. Q'arlynd hurried along beside her, glad to be moving again. The sooner he had Eldrinn back in his sight again, the better. The boy might be talented, but he was little more than a novice. There were all sorts of things down there that could kill him. Gigantic undead heads, demonic drow-things… why, even something so mundane as a cave-in, Q'arlynd thought as he ducked under a fungus-dotted shoring timber that stank of rot. If Q'arlynd were ever going to unlock Kraanfhaor's Door and plunder the riches that lay behind it, he'd need the secrets locked away in Eldrinn's mind.
In the meantime, he thought, glancing at the bluish glow that infused the tunnel, there was a job to be done: discovering what had augmented the Faerzress, and negating it before the College of Divination collapsed.
They walked in silence for some time. Then Leliana spoke. "Aren't you going to ask how Rowaan is, Q'arlynd?"
Q'arlynd took a deep breath. Here it comes, he thought. "I intended to, Lady, once there was time."
She halted abruptly. "No time like the present."
Q'arlynd slowly turned. "Lady, they enslaved me with magic that proved even stronger than Qilue's geas. I was forced to speak the words that-"
"What are you talking about?"
"The… the gate," Q'arlynd faltered. "Didn't Qilue tell you…?" Belatedly, he realized he'd just said too much.
"She did. She said you were the one who opened the gate that allowed Eilistraee to enter Vhaeraun's domain."
Q'arlynd raised his hands. "Not by choice, I assure you." Then he realized what she'd just said. "Vhaeraun's domain?"
