But Sylora grinned. “You are but twenty years old and I near middle age,” the sorceress explained. “You’ll one day understand. Now, go.” She pointed to the path, which seemed a tunnel through the dark trees lining its sides, branches intertwined so tightly that even the light of the full moon failed to penetrate.
“You’re going to perform the summoning of the devils,” Jestry said. “I would wish to witness the glory of your call to the Nine Hells.”
“No summoning tonight,” Sylora assured him. With a knowing smirk, Sylora glanced to her side and nodded as the lich Valindra came drifting out of the shadows, the Scepter of Asmodeus in hand.
“Through some magic I don’t know—perhaps with the scepter’s ties to the Nine Hells, perhaps with the skull gem I allowed her to take from my tent—Valindra has sensed something unusual on the outskirts of Neverwinter,” Sylora announced to Jestry and to the group of Ashmadai standing ready in front of the tree tunnel. “You will escort her as she demands. You will do anything that she demands!” Her voice rose powerfully as she finished, the threat all too clear. Her wide eyes scrutinized each and every member of the party.
“But not you,” she whispered to Jestry out of the corner of her mouth. “You are my eyes and ears and nothing more, whatever Valindra demands. Of you, I ask only that you return to me with a full recounting of the night’s events.” She turned to face him as she stepped back, putting him between her and the other Ashmadai. “I would not have my lover slain by a lich, to be raised horrid and cold and useless to my needs.”
Jestry could hardly draw breath. Her lover? Could it be? Was she at last offering him that which he had most desired since the day Szass Tam had put the Ashmadai war party under her command?
Sylora glanced back at him only once. “Don’t disappoint me,” she whispered in a throaty voice. “We will know great glory here, you and I. And great pleasure.”
She crossed paths with Valindra then, the lich drifting past her and tittering quietly, muttering something the distracted Jestry could not discern—not that he was paying her any heed in any case. He just stood there as Valindra floated past him as well, telling him to “Greeth Greeth, move along!”
But he couldn’t tear his eyes off the spectacle that was Sylora Salm. The high, stiff collar of her black gown perfectly framed her hairless head, her smooth and creamy skin glistening in the moonlight. That head struck Jestry as the perfect orb, held on the pedestal of that collar, and so entranced was he that it took him many heartbeats to allow his eyes to rove down the curving, shapely form, to the high slit in the back of the dress, and there he stared once more, his heart stopping then leaping at each flash of white skin, catching the moonlight with every alluring step.
Her lover, she’d teased.
Her lover.
He had to succeed, had to survive through this dangerous night. Jestry took a deep breath and steadied himself, finding the control required of an Ashmadai. He even managed to tear his eyes away from the departing Sylora, to spin around … and to realize that Valindra and the others had already started away.
He began to sprint, but barely took a step before he found himself glancing back yet again toward the woman he so desired.
But she was not to be seen, having melted into the night.
Jestry Rallevin reminded himself of who he was, and of the danger ever-present around him—danger to him and to his beloved Sylora Salm. They had faced Szass Tam and had barely escaped the archlich’s murderous wrath.
They had to start winning. Sylora needed the carnage to feed her Dread Ring. Jestry had to make it happen for her.
For them.
He ran down the dark tree tunnel toward the distant torchlight.
Sylora Salm was glad to be alone, at last. She brought forth the strange scepter of black wood from a fold in her cloak and held it up in front of her glistening eyes.
She could feel the energy in it, vibrating with power. This was a conduit to the Dread Ring, a dark scepter for a dark queen.
She glanced back at the cave complex she and her Ashmadai called home and an image came to her. Just to the left of the opening, up behind the front rocks of the cave, sat a small skeleton of a tree, just a single, twisted trunk with a single broken branch pointing forward, looking out like a sentry beside the cave entrance.
Sylora climbed the stones to stand beside the dead tree. She tapped the wooden scepter against the dark trunk and gasped as a blast of energy flowed through her. Her fingers tingled and a burst of ash came forth from her scepter, spraying the dead tree, covering it in blackness.
The ground shuddered violently and to the other side of the small hill, a boulder broke away and tumbled down.
Sylora looked around, not understanding.
The ground shuddered again, and on the other side of the small hill, another boulder broke away and tumbled down.
Sylora looked around, not understanding.
The ground shook again. The skeletal tree began to grow.
The sorceress backed away, nearly tripping and falling to the ground.
The tree widened, and with a great grinding sound, it climbed upward, ten feet, twenty, thirty. The hill grumbled in protest and stones tumbled. There came a cry from inside the cave, and an Ashmadai man stumbled out of the entrance, coughing and covered in dirt.
“Lady Sylora!” he cried.
She stood in front of a tower of ash, a tower that very much resembled a dead, skeletal tree. High above the clearing, beneath what had once been a broken tree branch, an opening had formed in the tower, creating a covered balcony.
The Ashmadai called to her again, but Sylora paid him no heed. She backed down the hillside, her gaze never leaving the ash tree tower. In her hand, the scepter called for more.
So Sylora, giddy with power, complied. She walked out some fifty paces from the cave opening and drew a line in the earth with the tip of her scepter, her conduit to the eager magic of the Dread Ring. By the time she completed the first half of her semicircle, moving to the side of the rocky hill, the initial points of her scratching bubbled with lava as the Dread Ring reached deep into the ground, bringing forth the residual power of the decade-old cataclysm.
She left a ten-foot gap before marking the second half of her creation, and by the time she was done with that curving line, the first wall had begun to erupt from the ground. Molten stone roiled and fell over itself as the wall climbed higher, to ten feet and more.
Sylora giggled like a child at play, and laughed all the more when the zealot called to her again, begging explanation.
His answer came gradually as Sylora Salm completed the wall, building a narrow channel moving out from the gap, turning boulders into smaller structures and two dead trees into smaller guard towers overlooking the wall.
Other zealots arrived from the nearby forest, all looking on with wide eyes, some falling to their knees to offer prayers to their devil god, others rushing in to see Sylora and to ask the same questions.
But she gave them no explanation and merely disappeared into the cave opening.
A few moments later, she reappeared, higher up in the tower, standing in the opening of the broken branch, her balcony.
“My lady?” the first of the Ashmadai inquired again.
There was reverence in his voice. There was awe showing clearly in all of their upturned faces.
Sylora liked that.
“Behold Ashenglade,” she said to them, a name that had just popped into her thoughts. “Finish it!”
She disappeared back into the tower and the zealots looked around in confusion.
“Double gates for the entryway!” one offered.
“And a roof!” said another, and so they went to work.
Inside the treelike tower, complete with three stories and a circling stairway, Sylora Salm reclined and listened to them going about their tasks. For a decade, the sorceress had lived in the forest or in the caves or in one or another abandoned house.
Now she understood�
�Szass Tam had made it clear to her. Since she had come to Neverwinter Wood, more than a decade ago, she had treated her time there as a step to something else, something grander. That had been her mistake. Now the Dread Ring had shown her the error of her ways, had forced her to take ownership of the mission, of the place, and soon, of Neverwinter itself.
DRIZZT AND DAHLIA FOLLOWED THE COASTAL ROAD NORTH OF Port Llast. Andahar’s steady gait moved them swiftly toward Luskan, his speed and endurance doubling the pace of a normal mount even though he carried two riders. With less than a day left in their journey, Drizzt surprised Dahlia by veering the unicorn from the road, turning west along a side trail.
Dahlia slapped him on the shoulder and offered him a quizzical look when he glanced back.
“I prefer a different gate,” the drow explained.
“Different? They are the same, all three,” the elf protested.
“I was in the city only recently. The guards—”
“Are never the same, and could be at any of the gates in any case,” said Dahlia. “You have not been in Luskan in tendays, and likely all the ships in her harbor are changed, and thus, most of the guards serving the high captains have rotated ship to dock and dock to ship. What matter then, which gate?”
Drizzt didn’t answer, other than to hunch a bit forward and urge Andahar on more swiftly.
Dahlia started to argue once more, but when she looked ahead and saw the rolling farmland, she reconsidered. Given their encounter south of Port Llast, and given what she knew of Drizzt Do’Urden, she could guess why he felt compelled to probe inland, the farmlands, before entering the city.
Even from afar, it was obvious that most of the fields were overgrown with high weeds and grasses. A few trees had even taken root. Saplings showed in many places, and one field sported a small copse that had obviously been growing for decades.
As Drizzt and Dahlia crested on a high rise, they came in sight of a rickety farmhouse and barn, and at last saw some cultivated land, but it covered far less than a single acre. It seemed more of a garden than a farm.
Drizzt held Andahar there for a bit, surveying the spreading lands below for some time. He kicked the unicorn into a slow trot, veering to follow the remains of a broken post fence.
“Look,” Dahlia said, pointing past him, beyond the tall grasses and near the garden to a pair of children. At the same time, the children spotted the riders and split away from each other, fleeing with all speed into the heavy grass. A third child, younger still, came into view near the barn only briefly before crawling into the darkness underneath the low entry porch.
“Not warm to visitors,” Drizzt remarked.
“Can you blame them?” Dahlia replied. “I’m sure that most who come this way are the goodly sort who would help with the harvesting, if not the planting,” she added sarcastically.
Drizzt kept Andahar moving at a slow and unthreatening pace. With a thought imparted to the magical unicorn, he bade the steed to enact the magic of the bell-lined barding, and each subsequent stride filled the air with the tinkling of sweet music.
“You think to tease them out with a happy song?” Dahlia asked.
Drizzt veered the unicorn through a break in the weathered fence, then cut a straight line toward the dilapidated porch of the farmhouse. On a couple of occasions, both riders noticed movement to the side—the sudden shift of grass and once, the brief glimpse of a mop-haired young boy.
But the drow didn’t react to any of it. He just kept his mount walking steadily, kept the bells ringing their song, and kept his eyes straight ahead.
At the base of the porch, he dismounted and casually tossed Andahar’s reins back over the unicorn’s strong neck. He offered his hand to Dahlia, but she fell away from him, rolling backward off Andahar to back flip to her feet on the other side of the steed.
“Of course,” the drow whispered, and lowered his hand. He paused and looked all around, noting some movement in the grass not so far away, and ending with his gaze locked on the eyes of the child under the barn’s entryway. He offered a quick smile before turning and walking up the porch steps. He pulled off his black leather glove and knocked on the door.
“They won’t answer, even if anyone is at home,” Dahlia remarked, coming up beside him. “If anyone even lives here, I mean.”
“The garden is meager, but it is tended,” Drizzt replied. “And there are animals.” He pointed to the side of the barn, to a chicken coop, where a few scraggly chickens walked around, pecking at the dirt.
“Someone might live in a nearby house and come here to reap,” Dahlia said. “Safely watching from a distant point when strangers come knocking.”
“Leaving their children to the whims of those strangers?”
Dahlia shrugged. Desperate people were capable of many things, she knew from long and bitter experience, even regarding the safety of their children.
The elf closed her eyes and fought the memory. She stood atop that cliff again, that long-ago time, a baby in her arms …
“There’s no answer to your call,” she said, a sudden urgency in her tone. “Let us be gone.”
In response, Drizzt pushed open the door and walked into the farmhouse.
It was a fairly large home, with several rooms and even a staircase leading up to a loft. It had once been a decent abode for the floors were not dirt, but made of wide oak planks, which squeaked when he walked into the entryway. A half-burned log lay in the hearth and a metal pot sat on the counter across from a small table. Truly the place had fallen into disrepair, but someone lived there.
“Well met,” he called softly, walking in farther and moving from doorway to doorway. “We’re travelers from the south, and no enemies of the good farmer folk of Luskan.”
No response.
“Let us be gone,” Dahlia said, but Drizzt held up his hand and cocked his head. Dahlia followed Drizzt into a side room. The creaking floor surely betrayed them, but once in that room, the couple waited and listened.
They heard the slightest hushed intake of breath, as if a youngster fought hard to not scream out in terror.
Drizzt moved suddenly, bending low and pulling aside the meager bedding, no more than hay and a blanket. He brushed the floor quickly, studying the creases and lines in the wood, then wedged his fingers in one crack and pulled open a secret hatch.
Then he stood, even more suddenly, leaning back as a trigger clicked and a crossbow bolt rose up from the hole, only narrowly missing his chin before finding a hold in the ceiling above him. Without the slightest hesitation, Drizzt rolled forward, reaching down to snatch the feeble crossbow from the hands of its wielder, then to grab the boy as well, by the collar. With frightening suddenness and speed, the drow plucked both from the hole and set the dirty child down on the floor in front of him.
“Quick to shoot,” he scolded.
The boy, no more than ten or eleven years of age, stared wide-eyed at the exotic drow, his jaw hanging open, in awe of the intruder’s white mithral shirt, the unicorn necklace pendant lying against Drizzt’s neck, at the pommels of his fabulous weapons, one gem-encrusted black adamantine fashioned into the likeness of a hunting cat’s head and maw, the other with a single star-cut blue sapphire set into its silver. Even wider went his eyes when he looked at the drow’s elf companion, with her exotic hair and that mesmerizing woad. He gasped and had Drizzt not been quick to guide him aside, he would have fallen back into the hole.
“Don’t hurt him!” came a shout from the crawl space, a woman’s voice. “Oh, please, good sir … err, good elf sir, don’t you hurt my boy!”
“Now why would I do that, good woman?” Drizzt calmly replied.
“Because it’s all she knows, you naïve fool,” Dahlia said from behind. She stepped past Drizzt and offered her hand to the woman, and to another child, a girl. The older woman hesitated and the young girl shied away.
“Take my hand and come out or I’ll fill your hole with hay and toss in a torch,” Dahlia warned.
> Drizzt wasn’t sure if Dahlia was bluffing. For an instant, he thought to shove Dahlia aside and reassure the woman in the crawl space, but he didn’t act at all. For not the first time, and surely not the last, Drizzt found himself perplexed and strangely intrigued by his new companion.
Whether bluff or honest threat, Dahlia’s words worked, and with surprising strength, she tugged the woman from the crawl space.
The woman wasn’t as old as she appeared, with her scraggly, thinning hair, tired eyes, and weathered skin. It occurred to Drizzt that she might be quite attractive, had she been among the aristocracy of Waterdeep or some other city. Life, not age, had taken the luster of her youth, for she was likely but a few years past thirty.
“Are those other children outside yours as well?” Dahlia asked, little tenderness in her voice.
The woman looked at her with suspicion.
“We are not here to harm you or your children, nor to rob you of anything, I promise,” said Drizzt. “In fact, quite the opposite.” He started to reach for a small pouch on his belt, but Dahlia intercepted him with her hand and when he looked at her, she scowled and shook her head.
Drizzt didn’t understand, but he could tell from Dahlia’s expression that she wasn’t preventing his charity out of any selfish reasons, so he held back.
“Your husband is …?” Dahlia asked.
The woman snorted and looked away, giving a quick shake of her head. She didn’t have to say any more for Drizzt and Dahlia to understand that he was long gone, murdered likely.
“Five children,” Dahlia said with a mocking tone. She reached for the woman’s hand and lifted it, turning it as she went so that Drizzt could clearly see the deep calluses, broken fingernails, and seemingly-permanent dirt stains.
Clearly embarrassed, the woman pulled her hand back. Dahlia laughed, shook her head, and walked back to the farm’s rickety door.
“I hope some of your children are old enough to help you around here,” Drizzt said, trying to put forth a better face. He flashed a stern scowl at Dahlia. She smirked.
Neverwinter: Neverwinter Saga, Book II Page 5
