Spider and Stone

by Jaleigh Johnson

  By the time Ruen worked his way to the front of the line of diggers, they’d cleared a path through the debris just large enough for a small man to crawl through it. Obrin stood near the opening. He gestured to Ruen.

  “You’re thin enough to go through. The king wants a report on the battle.”

  Ruen crouched down and, with his lean body, had little trouble squeezing through the makeshift tunnel. He came out the other side after a few moments to see a similar digging force assembled at the debris pile. They still had a long way to go before they’d be able to get the dwarves out in numbers.

  King Mith Barak stood at the front of the gathered diggers, looking as haggard and dirty as the rest of them. An amused smile flickered across his face when he saw Ruen poke his head out of the tunnel.

  “Should have known they’d send the scarecrow,” he said. He held out a hand to help Ruen to his feet. “Your girl will be glad you’re alive,” he said. “Save me another tongue lashing.”

  “We suffered heavy losses,” Ruen said.

  The king nodded gravely. He led Ruen to one of the smaller tunnels off the main passage so the diggers could continue their work. Ruen imagined he also did it so the others wouldn’t hear as he enumerated their losses and the strategy used by the drow to cripple them.

  “They’ll hit us on the morrow, the day after at the latest,” the king said. “Doesn’t hardly make sense, though. The drow threw as much at us as we did at them. They may have sealed us off in our own tunnels, but they paid for it. Or am I wrong?” he asked, looking at Ruen sharply.

  “You’re not wrong,” Ruen said. “We decimated their ranks as well. They have superior numbers, but I can’t believe they’d recover soon enough to attack us in two days.”

  “They’ve picked up the pace, hitting us hard and fast,” the king said. “It’s a risky strategy.”

  “Agreed,” Ruen said. “Drow scheme and plan their conquests for months—years—before they spring their trap, attacking and retreating like shadows. These strategies have been successful for them. Large-scale, brutal attacks fly in the face of their natures. Unless their target has nothing to do with the city.”

  “The Arcane Script Sphere,” Mith Barak said. “It’s the artifact. I knew it was calling out, trying to free itself. It wants to move on to other wizards, but its purpose was established before Mystra’s death. Now that she’s gone, I thought by keeping it I was keeping it safe, preserving a part of her. Instead the artifact hid itself from me, and I’ve brought doom upon Iltkazar because of it.” The king shook his head and muttered, “And there’s Zollgarza.”

  “It always comes back to that drow,” Ruen said. “What is his part in all this?”

  “I don’t know, but it could be his part in the scheme is the most dangerous of all,” Mith Barak said.

  Ruen frowned. “That’s suitably cryptic. Have you considered the possibility that he’s also merely a distraction?”

  Mith Barak waved a hand dismissively. “Call me a fool if you want, but I’ve felt the touch of their goddess on Zollgarza. He came to the city to kill me, but he has a purpose beyond that, and until I know what that is, I mark him a threat to my city greater than ten drow armies.” He looked Ruen over, and his gaze softened. “You should head back to the city. The girl will be wanting to see you.”

  Ruen abruptly realized how long he’d been gone. “Icelin hasn’t found the sphere yet?” he asked.

  “Talk to her about it.” Mith Barak turned away. “She’s stopped looking for it.”

  ILTKAZAR, THE UNDERDARK

  27 UKTAR

  HE’S GONE,” SAID THE MASTER ARMSWOMAN WHEN Icelin entered the hall.

  “Gone?” Icelin said, amazed. She’d thought the king never left his audience chamber. “Where is he?”

  “He went to supervise the digging. We’ve got a narrow passage cleared into the Hall of Lost Voices. The king went to see the first of the survivors through. Said he had to be there. No one expected it, but he insisted. I haven’t seen him so afire since …” The master armswoman shook her head. Pride shone in her gray eyes. “It’s been a long time,” she said thickly.

  Icelin could only nod. Her thoughts were a disconnected jumble. “Thank you for telling me,” she murmured.

  “You’re welcome, and oh, I almost forgot to tell you—Joya was asking for you. She’s at Haela Brightaxe’s temple.” The dwarf woman clapped Icelin on the shoulder and hurried away, leaving her alone in the great hall.

  Icelin went back out to the plaza, wandering aimlessly as the wedding preparations went on side by side with preparations for war. It was the most incongruous sight Icelin had ever beheld. War banners and white silk—the latter covering a raised dais where Ingara and Arngam would stand to face their loved ones during the ceremony and gift exchange. After that, a feast and celebration—a revelry to end all revelries, judging by the amount of ale on hand.

  On the morrow, they would go to war.

  In the midst of all this, there had been no word from Ruen. Whether he was alive or dead, Icelin had already decided that she would fight with the dwarves. She told herself it was not out of revenge, though she did feel that need burning inside her. It was pointless to lie to herself about that. She would also fight for the Blackhorn family, and even for the king. She would unleash the most potent Art within her, regardless of the consequences.

  Icelin made her way to Haela Brightaxe’s temple. Within the thick walls, silence reigned. Though the wounded dwarves—some of them came from the Hall of Lost Voices—still recovered here, the stone soaked up much of the sound, and the muted light coming from the silver lichen hanging near the ceiling created many dark corners and lonely alcoves.

  Lonely—that was the word for this place, Icelin thought. Not abandoned or neglected, but sadness lingered in the absence of the goddess who’d once gathered her flock here.

  She found Joya standing in front of an icon of the goddess. Arranged at the back of the temple, opposite the entrance, Haela Brightaxe stood clearly visible to all who entered. The stone sculpture depicted her with her hand raised as if in salute to those she welcomed to her house.

  Joya turned when she approached. Her distant expression made Icelin hesitate. “Am I disturbing you?” Icelin asked.

  “Not at all,” Joya said, laying her hand companionably on Icelin’s arm. “I was just meditating.”

  A glint of light at Joya’s breastbone caught Icelin’s attention. The holy symbol of Moradin hung there. Icelin glanced between symbol and statue, but she bit back the question that rose to her tongue.

  Joya must have seen it, for she smiled. “You wonder why I wear Moradin’s symbol, yet I walk in Haela’s hall?”

  “I think I understand,” Icelin said. “Sometimes I pray to Mystra, though I know the goddess can’t hear. What I wonder is, does Moradin mind that you stay here, instead of walking the halls of his temple?”

  “He and I have an understanding,” Joya said, her gaze lingering on the statue even as she gripped Moradin’s holy symbol in her fist. “I put my faith and trust in Moradin to guide me and my people, but what kind of servant would I be if I were so easily able to cast aside my former mistress? Moradin understands that I must grieve, even if that grief lasts for centuries,” she said. “Her loss is a weight on my heart that can never truly be removed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Icelin said. “We don’t have to speak of it.”

  “It’s all right,” Joya said, smiling. “Speaking Haela’s name keeps the goddess’s memory alive.” She steered Icelin to an antechamber off the main hall. Candles lit the interior, their sconces situated beneath red windows. Cut in the shape of anvils, the ruby-colored glass cast red glows all around the room that mimicked the light of the forge. Stone benches filled the room, but someone had stacked these against the adjacent walls, leaving the middle of the floor empty but for pools of red light.

  “This is your chamber, isn’t it?” Icelin said as Joya led her to the center of the room. She looked up at t
he ceiling and found herself tilting her head far back to stare at a dome lit by small clusters of lichen affixed to the interior like stars. “It’s lovely,” Icelin murmured.

  “The anvils of the forge symbolize our home beneath the earth,” Joya explained, “but the constellations mimic the world of Faerûn above. Between the two stand Haela Brightaxe’s followers. In answer to your question, it is a room for all, but I am the only one who comes here now. I thought it appropriate to bring you here. I have news to share.”

  “What news?” Icelin asked, her heart thudding against her ribs. “Is it Ruen?”

  “Word came not long ago of the first of the survivors. Ruen is among them. He and the others, including the wounded, are on their way back to the city even as we speak.”

  Icelin closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. Joya’s strong arm on hers kept her upright. “Thank the gods,” she breathed. “What of your family—your father and Obrin?”

  “They live,” Joya said. “His comrades say Obrin is speaking in the common tongue—whether that heralds a miracle or the end of all things, they cannot say, but clearly there’s a tale to tell of what they went through in the battle.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” Icelin said, her throat tightening around the words.

  “Are you all right?” Joya asked, looking suddenly concerned. “I thought this news would make you happy, yet your face is so full of sorrow. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing,” Icelin said, “nothing that can be helped or changed. I think I’ll go for a walk, if you don’t mind my leaving you.”

  “Not at all,” Joya said, squeezing Icelin’s hand. “Go out the rear door of the temple and circle around the waterfall. There is a hidden garden attached to the temple. Few go there, especially now. It is a good place to be alone with your thoughts.”

  “Thank you.” Icelin passed out of the red-lit chamber and exited the temple. She did not look around her or pay attention to the people she passed.

  Ruen was safe. Unspeakable relief washed over her, making her dizzy, but coldness had settled in her stomach. Ruen would return, and she’d have to tell him that she intended to stop searching for a cure for her spellscar.

  What would he think of her? Icelin thought she already knew the answer. He would leave, of course. What reason did he have to stay with her, if not for that goal?

  All of a sudden, Icelin felt very cold. She walked around the outside of the temple until she saw the waterfall Joya had mentioned. It enclosed the garden on three sides, creating a private little space accessed by a walkway.

  A perfect place to hide.

  When Ruen at last saw the buildings of Iltkazar reveal themselves through the widening tunnel, he wanted to go to Icelin immediately.

  Moradin’s clerics had other ideas.

  They pushed and prodded him into following the wounded to Haela’s temple, where he accepted more healing and let them clean him up and give him fresh clothes. He hadn’t realized how filthy he was with dirt and caked blood until he caught one of the dwarves wrinkling his nose in disgust.

  Amidst these ministrations, he asked for Icelin and learned that she’d gone out to the temple garden. He left to find her as soon as they let him.

  The temple garden was peaceful—not at all what Ruen would have expected from a goddess who’d reveled in battle, but perhaps even Haela Brightaxe needed peace and solitude sometimes.

  A waterfall spilled from channels in the upper balcony, enclosing the garden below on three sides with water and the fourth side with a wall of stone. The narrow footbridge Ruen stood upon provided the only access to the garden. The stone path gently parted the water curtain, revealing silvery blue lichen hanging from wire baskets on the far wall.

  Through the entry, Ruen saw Icelin. She moved past the opening and then behind the water curtain to become a distorted shape, a play of shadows and light, not quite real but no phantom either.

  Ruen’s silent steps carried him to the opening. His heart beat an aching rhythm in his chest. Her back was to him now. She faced the wall, her arms knotted around herself.

  The garden was made of stones. Beds of them ringed the base of the waterfall, the outermost stones dark with wet, and the inner ones silver from the light of the glowing lichen. Ruen allowed himself a small smile. He should have expected no less from the dwarves.

  He stalled. Ruen wanted to speak, to make Icelin turn and look at him, but now that the moment had come, he couldn’t speak. How was he supposed to give voice to everything that was inside of him, to what had been building for months.

  You’re a coward, Ruen thought. You always have been. You’re a coward, and she’s fearless.

  Not in that moment. In that moment, she trembled. He read the anguish in her hunched shoulders, neck muscles rigid. She would retreat into herself and disappear if she could.

  “It says on a plaque here that travelers used to visit this garden, bringing offerings of stone,” Icelin said, shattering the silence and startling Ruen so badly that he actually jumped.

  “How did you know I was here?” he asked, trying to tamp down his incredulity.

  She turned to face him. Her eyes were clear—clear, and so remote, so distant that he grew more frightened. Was he already too late?

  “She said travelers chose the rarest, most beautiful stones from their journeys in Faerûn and brought them back to Haela’s temple to place in the gardens.” Icelin walked along the stone beds, her eyes on the rocks. She seemed to be looking everywhere in the tiny garden except at him.

  “The goddess’s memory is strong here,” Ruen said. He could think of nothing else to say. The pain in his chest nearly overwhelmed him.

  “There are stones from Aglarond and Cormyr,” Icelin went on, “from Thay and Rashemen and from Mulhurond—lands that have disappeared from the world. Can you imagine it? It made me wish I’d brought a stone from South Ward in Waterdeep. A flat rock, worn down by caravan wheels and caked with dust, though I doubt Haela would have minded. So many goddesses lost,” Icelin murmured, speaking as if to herself.

  “You’ve been in that damn library too long,” Ruen said suddenly, harshly. “Surrounded by sorrow-filled lore and with that drow creature haunting your every move, it’s no wonder that you’re …”

  “What?” She did look at him then, waiting for him to finish, but he just stared at her. He took a step toward her, unsteadily, his arm half-raised.

  She backed away from him. If she’d used magic to erect a barrier, it could not have been more effective. Ruen dropped his hand to his side and closed his fingers into a fist.

  “Did I lose you then?” He said it in a whisper. The hand he clutched at his side trembled. “Did I go so far wrong that you won’t let me … that I can’t be with you?”

  Icelin closed her eyes, and a tear slid down her cheek. “I am so very tired, Ruen,” she said. “I’m very sorry too.”

  “Why?” he demanded. “What have you got to be sorry for?”

  “Because I couldn’t do it.” Her voice echoed in the small garden, swallowed up by the water. “The king’s library was beautiful. All those books filled with knowledge from dead dwarf scholars. Books that have souls, living memories, stories that draw you in—literally!—to their pages. So much that’s been lost, and I remember it all now. I can’t forget all the names I read or the people who used to inhabit the city and gave it life.” She slid into a crouch, leaning against the temple wall. “I don’t mind remembering it all,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “But Zollgarza is there too. He speaks, and I remember everything he says—”

  “I knew it—that bastard drove you out of there.” Ruen lashed out, kicking the stone wall in frustration. A wave of pain shot up his leg. It was a stupid thing to do. “The king told me you stopped looking for the sphere.”

  “That’s right.” Icelin stood shakily and faced him. Ruen again suppressed the urge to reach out and support her. “I don’t want the Arcane Script Sphere anymore. It’s over.”r />
  “Don’t say that.” Ruen heard the catch in his voice and despised himself for it. When had he become so weak? “We can still find a cure elsewhere. Faerûn is a vast place.”

  “How long will we search?”

  “What?” Ruen was absorbed in thoughts and plans. They would leave the city in the morning. Godsdamn the drow, Mith Barak, and all the rest. If they couldn’t find what they were looking for here, it was time to move on. Why waste more time?

  “Ruen, look at me.”

  “Icelin, it’ll be all right,” Ruen said. “We’ll find a way.”

  “I don’t want to look for a cure anymore.”

  “What?” he repeated. She wasn’t making any sense. The drow had done more damage than he’d thought. “You’re tired, and you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  She shook her head. “I do know what I’m saying, and I know what I want.” She clasped her hands in front of her, but when she looked at him, she was no longer weeping. Clear-eyed, she stared him down. “I want to live my life on my own terms. I won’t spend any more of it chasing down a cure for my spellscar. What happened to me shaped who I am. I’m not ashamed of it, and I’m not afraid to die. I’m more afraid of living without hope and love.” She laughed then, without humor. “Zollgarza showed me that, if you can believe it. His existence is so empty, so utterly devoid of warmth—of anything, that isn’t bitterness and hatred.”

  “You’ll never be like him,” Ruen said.

  “I know.” Icelin took a step toward him. Ruen tensed, but it wasn’t out of fear. His heart pounded in his chest. She lifted her hand, held it in the air an inch above his cheek. She looked in his eyes, seeking permission.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She laid her hand gently against his cheek—the lightest touch, but within it a world of meaning. The pulse of Icelin’s life beat against his skin, warmth and vibrancy radiating from each fingertip—but the whole was weaker than it should have been. The life force was brittle at the edges, cracks and seams running through it, flaws that would only spread until it ate away at all the warmth. Ruen gasped. The pain of it was a tangible force, like five needles in his skin.