“Almost,” Sull said. He affected weariness, but the pride was clearly discernible in his voice. “Joya had me helping out with the wounded. We’re set up in Haela Brightaxe’s old temple, and I was bringin’ food over two, sometimes three times a day. I didn’t really have anyone to cook for since Garn and Obrin left, and Ingara spends all her time at the forge.” Sull looked affronted. “Well then, what do you think happens? Ingara shows up and wants me to help with the cookin’ for her wedding feast. She said they weren’t plannin’ to have any food at all because of supply shortages. They were just goin’ to drink. Then Ingara said since I loved to cook so much and had a bit of talent makin’ a little bit of food go a long way, could I cook for her wedding?” Sull’s chest puffed up with pride. “How could I say no to that? Not have a feast on a weddin’ day—rubbish, that’s what that is. I don’t care if there’s a battle comin’.”
“Of course. But what’s this?” Icelin said, pointing to the pot. “Surely you’re not cooking already.”
“Ah, this is just a test batch,” Sull replied. “Goin’ to feed it to the wounded.” He glanced anxiously in the direction the dwarves had gone. “Think they’ll be comin’ back soon?”
“Don’t count on it,” Icelin said, grinning. “It’s good to see you, Sull. I’ve missed your grousing.”
“Anything’s better than that drow you’re shut up with.”
The butcher looked down at his hands. Something in his tone, the slump of his shoulders, caught Icelin’s attention. Fear stirred in her belly. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Nothin’ to be worried about yet,” Sull said hastily, but his guilty expression made Icelin’s heart speed up.
“What is it? What have you heard, Sull?” she demanded.
“Well …” Sull hesitated, and then he uttered a weary sigh. “Joya mentioned … well, you knew Garn and Obrin had gone out with Ruen and a bunch of other soldiers to secure the Hall of Lost Voices,” he said.
Icelin waved a hand impatiently. “Yes, I knew they were going on a scouting mission, but I thought they’d be back by now. What happened?”
“Some scouts brought word a little while ago that they fought with the drow in the Hall, and it was a big one,” Sull said. “There was some kind of explosion, and it sealed off the tunnels between there and Iltkazar.”
“Explosion?” Icelin felt lightheaded. “What happened to Iltkazar’s forces? Were they caught in the blast?”
“Nobody knows,” Sull said. “They’re tunnelin’ through to send reinforcements. We won’t know anythin’ until they clear the debris and make sure the tunnels are safe.”
“Ruen’s with them.” Icelin didn’t know why she said it. Of course, Sull knew that. “Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner, as soon as you found out?” she said, her voice rising. “We have to do something, go after them.”
“Icelin,” Sull said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “They’re already doin’ everythin’ they can. We just have to wait.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Icelin said, trying to quell the panic that gripped her. “All this time, I’ve been in the library reading, sitting in front of a warm fire like nothing was wrong, while Ruen …” She couldn’t finish. For all she knew, Ruen could be dead, his body lying somewhere in a dark cave. Maybe the dark elves had taken him prisoner, the way the dwarves took Zollgarza. What would they do to him? Hands trembling, Icelin covered her mouth. She thought she might be sick.
“It’s where he wanted you to be,” Sull insisted. “You’re helpin’ Ruen by gettin’ the sphere.”
No, I’m not, Icelin wanted to scream. She was no closer to finding the sphere than she had been when she’d first set foot in the library. All that time, she should have been out there with Ruen.
“What about the king?” Icelin asked.
“What about him?”
“I’ve heard the dwarves whispering about him, how he sits in his empty hall alone day after day.” Icelin spread her hands, encompassing the plaza. “Will he sit there, worrying about Zollgarza and what he might be plotting, while all this is wiped away? While his soldiers are dying in the Underdark?”
“Keep your voice down, lass.” Sull looked around, uneasy. A few of the dwarves had paused in their work to stare at them. “You can’t speak of their leader that way in their own home.”
“Then let him lead!” Icelin snapped. “Let him come out and show his face to his people—give them hope.”
Sull raised his hands in a placating gesture. “From what Joya’s told me, he has reasons for being the way he is.”
“You mean because that drow—Zollgarza—tried to assassinate him?” Icelin said. “But he’s still—”
“That’s not it,” Sull interrupted her. He guided Icelin over to a bench set against the temple wall and sat down beside her. “Joya told me the king’s been fightin’ the drow for a long time, ten times longer than you or I’ve been alive. He’s worn down with it and with seein’ his city taken apart bit by bit.”
Icelin felt a stab of sympathy for the king, but at the same time, she couldn’t understand him. Perhaps it was the difference between being a dwarf and a human. “He carries a heavy burden, but if it’s too much to bear, he should set it aside for another, for the good of his people.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Sull said. He shook his head and chuckled suddenly. “Look at the two of us, discussin’ dwarf politics, kings, and war.”
“A butcher and a shop girl from South Ward,” Icelin murmured, laying her head against Sull’s shoulder. “We’re in the middle of something too big, something neither of us fully understands, but I want to know all the same. Why is it more complicated?”
“Something happened to the king a few years ago,” Sull said, dropping his voice even though they were quite alone in the shadow of the temple. “Joya doesn’t speak of it readily, but being among the wounded and the dead has loosened her tongue. Joya said the king is different from other dwarves. He rules the city for only a quarter of every century.”
Icelin’s brow furrowed. “Only twenty-five years? What does he do for the other seventy-five? Does he leave the city?” Somehow, it didn’t fit with what she knew of King Mith Barak. Why would he abandon the city for so long?
“He stays in the city, but he ‘goes to the stone,’ ” Sull said. “Joya didn’t explain it all, but I figure it’s something to do with his god, Moradin. He transforms into a mithral statue and stays that way, locked in stone, for seventy-five years at a time.”
Icelin lifted her head to stare at Sull, stunned. “Gods,” she breathed, “but why? I’ve never heard of a ritual to any god lasting so long. Why would he leave his city for so long without a leader?”
“A regency council rules in his place while he sleeps,” Sull said, shrugging. “Only, something happened the last time he went to the stone. On the day he was supposed to wake up, he didn’t. Joya said it was awful, frightening. No matter what they tried to rouse him, he stayed in his statue form. Nothing like that had ever happened before.”
“But he woke up eventually,” Icelin said. “How long did he stay a statue?”
“Joya didn’t say, but I got the feelin’ it was a long time,” Sull said. “When he finally woke, he was … different. He’s still king, and strong, but Joya says there are shadows around him now that weren’t there before. The stone took something from him.”
“He didn’t say what had happened to him?” Icelin asked. “Didn’t his people demand an explanation?”
“They’ve enough to worry about with the drow,” Sull said. “Maybe they were just glad to have their leader back.”
Icelin tried to imagine it, a king locked in stone for years. It was a bard’s tale, if she’d ever heard one. She’d never have believed it if Sull hadn’t heard it from Joya. If the king removed himself from his city for so long, how could he truly claim to be a part of it? How could one person, even one as old and wise as Mith Barak, rule Iltkazar when he existed half
in the world and half in stone?
“Yet his people are loyal,” Icelin murmured. “What if he’s no longer fit to rule? Will they follow him to their own destruction?”
“I don’t know—maybe,” Sull said, his eyes filling with sadness. “The dwarves are tradition and honor bound, and they need their king now more than ever if they’re going to survive.”
But at what cost? Icelin thought. Ruen and an entire patrol of dwarf soldiers were missing, the city echoed with silence, and Mith Barak stood apart, believing a single drow was the key to it all. Was that true, or was the king losing touch with the world, with his people? Icelin’s mind was more troubled than ever, and she knew she had to go back to the library. She didn’t want to face her task now. It was small in comparison to what the dwarves faced—the extinction of one life compared to the destruction of an entire people, an entire history.
She hadn’t been reading about just the Arcane Script Sphere. She’d read about Iltkazar and Shanatar too. The names of dwarf kings, smiths, and scholars were a part of her now. She wouldn’t forget them, but in the end, what was that preservation truly worth? Death would come for her, too, and the knowledge would still be lost. One thing was certain in all her readings: cities fall and great civilizations end. Was that to be Iltkazar’s fate? If so, who would be left to remember the people who’d lived here and worked the stone?
All of this filled her mind, but her fear for Ruen overrode everything. Gods, please don’t let him be dead, she prayed silently. She’d lost too many people close to her—her parents, whom she’d never gotten to know, and her great-uncle, taken from her far too soon. Now Ruen.
“Making me worry like this, weeping and blubbering—one thing’s certain, Sull,” Icelin said, her voice quivering. “When Ruen gets back, you’ll have to hold me back from throttling him.” When Sull chuckled, she added, “I mean it this time.”
“Oh, I believe you, lass,” Sull said, “but I won’t be holdin’ you back. I’ll be gettin’ a good seat to watch.”
The seneschal placed the book on the table in front of Zollgarza. The black cover bore a single onyx gem nestled in gold embellishments, and a forked black ribbon marked the section where some unknown reader had left off. The reader was likely dead now, Zollgarza thought, but then perhaps so am I, if this is another of the king’s plots.
He reached for the book, but the seneschal’s voice stopped him.
“Will you not wait until she returns?”
She referred to Icelin, of course. Zollgarza scoffed at the notion. “What difference could her presence possibly make?” he said. “If I’m to go mad, as you claim is a distinct possibility, she can’t save me, nor would she want to.”
“Isn’t it preferable, even for one such as you, to go into the unknown with someone by your side?” the seneschal asked. “While she is present, you will know you are not alone.”
“You’re mistaken. ‘Alone’ to me means safety, Seneschal,” Zollgarza replied. “It means there is no knife poised at my back, no enemy waiting to take advantage of a weakness.”
“Icelin is not a drow. Her sense of treachery does not stand as a virtue,” the seneschal pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter. Vice or virtue, when it comes to survival, everyone has a drow heart,” Zollgarza said.
He flipped open the book. What he’d been expecting, Zollgarza couldn’t truly say. He’d avoided thinking about the consequences of delving into the tome, focusing instead on the seneschal’s promise of clarity and certainty.
If this tome will tell me who I am, he thought. I will risk madness. I will embrace it.
The first page of the book was blank. Zollgarza scowled and flipped to the next. Blank. He turned the pages rapidly, searching for the words, but there were none. “Are you playing with me?” He whirled angrily on the seneschal, but she was gone. Zollgarza slammed his fist against the tabletop.
He picked up the book, intending to cast it into the fire, but he stopped. Shifting his grip, he held the book open flat on his palms. He thought he must have been imagining what he was seeing.
The book’s pages stood upright—held by an unseen force. Zollgarza reached out with his index finger to touch a page. It turned over slowly, ever so slowly, and fell from the right side of the book to the left.
Zollgarza released the breath he’d been holding. The air felt different—heavier, somehow. Dust motes drifted in front of his face, hanging like miniature stars, crystal clear. He reached up to touch one, and the ground dropped out from underneath him. A dark void yawned, and Zollgarza felt himself falling, his stomach heaving.
A trap. I should have known.
He landed in a crouch on a cold stone floor. Zollgarza instinctively reached for weapons he did not have and turned in a quick circle, looking for enemies.
The library had vanished. He was in a room lit by bluish arcane light. The source was an altar at the back of the room. Zollgarza rose to his feet, but he felt more exposed and vulnerable than ever. He recognized that altar. Once he’d run his hands over the symbols carved upon the obsidian surface, symbols now outlined in fresh blood.
But when? When had he done these things? This was a priestess’s private chamber—he knew that as surely as he recognized the texture of the altar and the lingering camphor scent of incense—a sanctuary where a drow of his rank would never be allowed to go. Yet everything about it felt familiar, welcoming, as if he were coming home.
“Kneel,” said a voice from the darkness.
Zollgarza tensed. Was that Fizzri’s voice? No, this was deeper, colder. Pulled from the darkness, the voice crawled over his skin, a seductive whisper, and a command so forceful Zollgarza felt his knees give way before it. In a breath, he was on the ground with his back to the altar.
A figure stepped from the shadows. Zollgarza recognized it and fell prostrate upon the floor.
“Mother Lolth!”
The yochlol smiled at Zollgarza. She was the goddess’s handmaiden, a demon appearing as a young drow female with silky white hair, a form-fitting black dress with the figure of a spider belted at her waist, and a necklace of diamonds that glittered in the arcane light. She stood before Zollgarza’s prostrate body. The scent of night-blooming flowers wafted from her, but there was an underlying odor, a hint of decay.
Bending, she lifted Zollgarza’s chin and forced him to look into her bottomless red eyes. “Why are you asking questions, child? Why are you so lost?”
“I want to know who I am.” It hurt to speak, to look at her. She was a beautiful, all-encompassing creature, and in a breath, she could devour him, taking all the pieces that were left of his mind.
“You are Zollgarza.” The yochlol’s breath ghosted over his face, that same rich smell of flowers and rot, sweet and terrible. “Loyal servant of the Spider Queen.”
“My memories …”
“Do not think on the past,” the yochlol purred, but there was a note of warning in her voice, a deepening of her crimson gaze. “The past clouds your purpose. Identity, self—these mean nothing to the Spider Queen. You must surrender them to her greater glory.”
“I … but there is such emptiness. The void threatens to consume me.” Those places where identity and self dwell, they were gone. If he couldn’t fill them, he had to know why they’d been taken. “I must give the void meaning. I must know my purpose,” Zollgarza begged.
“You’ve failed in your purpose,” the yochlol said, her gaze turning hard. “Mith Barak lives, and you’ve failed to obtain the Arcane Script Sphere.”
“Forgive me,” Zollgarza said. “The dwarves should have killed me, yet I live. My failure in the eyes of Lolth should have meant my death, yet I live. What is the purpose of it?” His voice shook. “Am I meant to be trapped—caged—forever? Is that my fate? I beg you, Lolth, don’t waste me like this! Don’t damn me to a dwarven prison. I can be so much more to you.”
His voice gave out, and he collapsed, pressing his forehead against the ground at the handmaiden’s f
eet. The yochlol walked past him, pausing before the altar to run her hand over the blood-filled carvings. Zollgarza followed her with his eyes, not daring to breathe, to hope that she would show him mercy. Lolth was not merciful, but she might give him a second chance if she thought him worthy.
“Is that what you believe?” the handmaiden purred. She lifted her hand from the altar, examining the fresh blood on her fingers. Inhaling the scent, she closed her eyes and with obvious pleasure, licked the blood from her fingers. “Do you believe the goddess sees in you a worthy servant?”
Zollgarza raised himself to his knees and parted the folds of his dark tunic to expose his chest. “I would spill my lifeblood for her. She has only to ask.”
The handmaiden laughed—a hard, cruel sound that echoed in the quiet chamber. “And what is that worth, foolish male?” She held up her bloodstained fingers. “This is the blood of a thousand priestesses, beloved of the goddess, mingled upon the altar to Lolth’s glory. They, too, shed blood willingly for Lolth. Do you claim your blood is purer than theirs?”
“I …” The denial stuck in his throat. Questioning the goddess’s view was not only forbidden but would likely result in a slow and excruciatingly painful death. Yet the words burned in his throat, and the urge to shout a denial, to scream at the demon that she had no idea of what greatness he was capable. Instead, he bowed low again to the handmaiden. “I know my place,” he said through gritted teeth, “but I can be more—to Lolth.”
“Perhaps,” the yochlol said. “But not as you are now. In this form, you are beneath her notice and caring. When you spill your blood and lie dying upon the floor, screaming Lolth’s name, she will not be there to comfort you.”
“Why?” The scream burst from Zollgarza’s soul. He was unable to contain it. Let the handmaiden damn him. Do what she will. He needed answers, or he truly would go mad. “Why won’t the goddess accept my offering? Why am I not worthy?”
“Because you are still becoming.” The yochlol knelt before him and put her hand on his stomach. She let her fingers explore his flesh, drifting below his belt, nails digging in, penetrating his armor as if it were silk. Zollgarza closed his eyes and moaned as the pain and pleasure crashed over him. “You are a child, unable to comprehend what lies ahead.” She grabbed his flesh and twisted savagely.
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