Spider and Stone

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Icelin stepped forward, addressing the king. “None of the drow know your secret, do they?”

  “Not from what I’ve gathered from Zollgarza’s mind,” Mith Barak said. “What are you getting at?”

  Joya raised an eyebrow. “I think she’s suggesting you meet the drow as you truly are.”

  “As a dragon?” Sull whistled. “That’ll surprise them. You can be sure of that. What’ll your people think, though?”

  “They’ll think their king is willing to do whatever it takes to save his people,” Ruen said. “Even reveal a secret that makes him vulnerable.”

  Garn shook his head. “We’d never ask him to take such a risk.”

  “And why not?” Mith Barak said sharply. “Earlier you said my people have shed blood for me, and you were right. How can I do less?”

  Icelin nodded. “And while you fight, I’ll strip away the magic that cloaks Zollgarza.”

  “No,” Mith Barak said immediately. “It’s too late anyway. There’s no time to find the sphere.”

  “But I think I know where it is,” Icelin said.

  “Where?” Mith Barak asked, sounding skeptical.

  Icelin shook her head. “I want to be sure. I need to go to the library to speak with the seneschal.”

  “Lass, are you sure about this?” Sull asked.

  Icelin nodded. “Yes. I’m doing this because—” but she couldn’t finish. Her throat closed around the words.

  “Because Iltkazar isn’t dead yet,” Ruen said. “The city can still be saved.”

  “The city will be saved,” the king said, looking at Icelin. He nodded, as if coming to a decision. “Joya, Garn, Obrin—bring the master armswoman, the warmaster, and the regency council here. We have a lot to talk about and little time to do it. I want our scouts recalled as soon as possible. Collect all their information, their best guesses as to the strength of the drow force and where they’ll hit the city’s defenses first.”

  “They won’t attack the doors,” Obrin said. “That much we know. They’ll hit us at our weakest points along the wall and try to breach it.”

  “That’ll be perfect,” Mith Barak said, nodding. He pointed at Icelin. “Take yourself and your men to the library, but wait for me outside the doors. Do you hear? Don’t go in to Zollgarza unless I’m there with you. Whatever happens, I’ll do what I can to protect you.”

  “You’re needed with your army,” Icelin protested. “I can do this—”

  “You forget you’re arguing with a king,” Mith Barak said, “and a dragon. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that that’s not a wise thing to do?” His voice held a trace of humor, but his eyes were hard. “We do this my way or not at all, understand?”

  Icelin nodded and bowed. “As you say, my king.”

  Around her, the others bowed as well, and a chorus of “my king” echoed in the vast hall.

  ILTKAZAR, THE UNDERDARK

  28 UKTAR

  ICELIN WAITED WITH RUEN AND SULL OUTSIDE THE library doors. Nerves tossed about in her stomach, making her fidget and pace, until finally Ruen drew her near him and held both of her hands in his.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he reminded her. “You can change your mind.”

  “I’m not afraid for myself,” Icelin said. She squeezed his hand. “But I spoke for both of us back there. I never asked if … if you could accept it, if the worst happened.”

  Ruen looked at their joined hands. “My scar makes me confront death—the thing I most want to deny. That being said, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure the worst doesn’t happen,” Ruen said firmly. “Do you have a plan?”

  Icelin smiled crookedly at him. “Don’t I always have a plan?”

  Ruen and Sull shared a groan. “Aye, but sometimes they’re lackin’ in wisdom,” Sull muttered.

  Icelin made a face at him. “It’s the seneschal. I think she knows where the sphere is, she just doesn’t know that she knows.”

  “Now I’m confused,” Sull said.

  “Just trust me,” Icelin told him.

  The door to the plaza opened, and Mith Barak and an escort of guards came down the hallway to meet them. Mith Barak’s eyes gleamed with an eager light. Color suffused his face, and everything about his movements suggested new life. Icelin wondered how much of his energy was a mask he wore for his people’s sake. They and she would likely never know what this cost him.

  “Are you ready?” the king asked, pulling Icelin from her thoughts.

  “I’m ready.”

  Zollgarza sat in his customary place by the fire when they entered. When he saw them, he stood, putting his back to the wall as if expecting an attack. Icelin ignored him and called to the empty air. “Seneschal?”

  The dwarf woman appeared at her elbow, making Icelin jump. “I am here.”

  “I’ve come for the sphere.” Icelin was aware of a palpable tension in the room as the others, even Zollgarza, waited to hear the dwarf woman’s reply.

  “I do not know where the sphere is,” the seneschal said sadly. “If I knew—”

  “You said that you have access to—that you are—all the books in the library,” Icelin interrupted. “But you also said there was one tome about the Arcane Script Sphere you were forbidden to share. What tome is that?”

  “It is forbidden,” the seneschal said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Call forth the tome,” Mith Barak commanded her. “You have my permission.”

  “I …” Confusion passed over the seneschal’s face. “I … cannot.”

  “You can’t because the artifact is inside of you,” Icelin said, grateful that her hunch had proved correct. “It made itself a part of you, just like all the ancient tomes in this room, but it did so to hide.” Behind her, Mith Barak let out a breath. “I don’t know if I’m worthy to wield the Silver Fire or not,” Icelin rushed on, addressing the seneschal and the sphere. “But I want to help Iltkazar. Please, let me help the city.”

  The seneschal’s ghostly form wavered, and Icelin thought she was going to disappear. Then Icelin was staring at a tiny silver sphere hovering in the air in front of her, no bigger than a pea. Miniscule letters scrawled across its surface, but they were indiscernible to Icelin’s eyes. Despite its size, when Icelin beheld the sphere, her heart raced with excitement.

  Then it began to grow.

  The sphere expanded, spinning as it swelled to three, four, then ten times its original size. Transfixed, Icelin watched as the writing on the artifact’s surface sprang into focus. Spells revealed themselves, the incantations graceful, elegant, and unfamiliar, the spells of a lost goddess.

  “Written by Mystra herself,” Icelin whispered. A prickling sensation touched the back of her neck.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Icelin saw Zollgarza moving toward her, faster than Ruen, faster than she thought possible for anyone to move.

  Without thinking, Icelin grabbed the sphere in her two hands and called Mystra’s name in her mind.

  Zollgarza charged her, hands reaching for the sphere, but Ruen was suddenly between them, and the two men slammed into each other. Zollgarza howled, grasping for Ruen’s dagger. Ruen twisted out of the drow’s grasp and pinned Zollgarza’s arms behind his back.

  The sphere warmed in Icelin’s hands. Tendrils of silver radiance swirled from it and closed the space between her and Zollgarza. The energy enveloped the drow, and distantly, she heard him scream again.

  Mystra, Icelin prayed silently, may your memory protect us now.

  Her stomach clenched, and a familiar sickness took hold of her. The Silver Fire swelled, and Zollgarza’s mind opened to her in a rush. Images—an audience chamber where a drow female sat, then a gathering of drow prepared to go to war. She saw a temple made of crystal spider webs, beautiful and cold, where whispers drifted from the shadows.

  “The Black Creeper.”

  “Nameless, Houseless wanderer.”

  “How does he earn the mistress’s favor?”

  “He is nothing.”r />
  Sweat broke out on Icelin’s skin. Fire rose up from the spider’s web, hungrily consuming the temple. Somewhere, she heard Zollgarza’s scream of surprise and fear. This was no memory she pulled from his mind. It was her own memory, mingling with his—fire, the wild magic unleashed within her.

  Icelin gasped. She felt herself losing control, her body trembling. Every part of her screamed at her to rein in the spell, to stop now before someone died.

  No. I can’t do this.

  Then, from the depths of the fire, a new voice spoke directly into her mind: Let it go. I’m here. I will watch over you.

  Mith Barak’s voice, Icelin thought, dazed. Yet the rough scrape of the dwarf’s voice changed and distorted in her mind, becoming by turns a woman’s voice, gentle, soothing, and familiar, before turning back the Mith Barak’s again. A presence enveloped her, like cool hands clasping her shoulders, urging her to relax, and fall.

  Icelin released a breath and let herself go.

  The Silver Fire erupted in a storm.

  Distantly, she heard Zollgarza scream again. Perhaps the Silver Fire would tear both their minds to pieces—yet Icelin felt no such madness descend upon her, linked as she was to the drow. Wherever Zollgarza’s pain came from, the Silver Fire wasn’t causing it.

  Instinctively, she reached for the drow with her mind, seeking him among the fiery ruin of Guallidurth. She ran down unfamiliar city streets, rearing back as flames surged out at her, forming strange shapes in the air. Spiders, the face of a drow priestess, a demon formed of ripples of melting flesh. Icelin cried out and covered her eyes.

  “Icelin! Icelin, wake. Wake!”

  Ruen’s voice echoed above the roaring fire. Icelin uncovered her eyes, but a light blinded her. Unseen hands grabbed her and pulled her off her feet. She soared above the city. The buildings shrank beneath her, and the fire and black smoke became a dizzying blur.

  “Wake!”

  Her eyes snapped open.

  She was in the library, lying on her back on the floor, the sphere clutched to her breast. Ruen and Sull’s faces floated above her, their voices calling to her, but faint and jumbled, as if she were underwater and they slowly drawing her up.

  “What happened?” Icelin asked. She blinked to clear her vision and tried to sit up.

  “Take it easy for a breath or two,” Sull said. He supported her back so she could look around the room. Slowly, the objects and people in the library swam into focus.

  Mith Barak lay on the floor not far from her. His face glistened with sweat, and he was pale, so pale that Icelin instinctively reached out to him. “He’s hurt!” she cried.

  The dwarf waved away her concern. “I’ll be fine,” he said. He drew in a wheezing breath. “You can hold a lot of power for one little girl.” He coughed and wiped a stream of blood from his chin.

  “What happened?” Icelin repeated insistently. “Where is Zollgarza?”

  “Here.” Ruen laid a hand on Icelin’s shoulder. Icelin twisted to look behind her.

  A figure lay sprawled on the floor, naked, obsidian skin slick with sweat. A thick fall of pure white hair obscured its features. Muscles stood out in rigid lines on bare arms and legs. As Icelin watched, the figure moaned softly and rolled over.

  “Oh, gods,” Icelin said, breathless. “What have I done?”

  Beside her, Sull grunted and shook his head. “Not what I was expectin’ either.”

  The drow lying on the floor was Zollgarza. Echoes of his features shone through plainly in the face.

  A face that was also unmistakably female.

  Zollgarza’s last coherent knowledge of his surroundings was the thin man holding his arms behind his back. Mith Barak’s eyes glowed silver; then the girl, Icelin, released the sphere’s power. After that, reality faded, and suddenly she was in his mind.

  He’d braced for an immediate assault, fully expecting that this was the end. Something was wrong, though. She didn’t try to probe his thoughts the way the dwarf had. She only watched, waited, hovering at the edges of his consciousness. Her terror filled his mind until he gasped with the force of it. What was she frightened of?

  Pain tore apart Zollgarza’s world.

  He remembered once, long ago, he’d been hit by a spell that sent dark bolts of black lightning rippling across his skin. He didn’t remember who had cast the spell at him, but the energy had seized his heart and threatened to explode it out of his chest. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and he’d lost all control over his muscles.

  That pain had been nothing compared to what he felt now.

  Muscle ripped off his bones, swelling and reshaping while he howled in agony. Then even his voice failed him when one by one his bones shattered and reformed, grating against each other and pushing at his skin. Zollgarza squeezed his eyes shut. The pain made him weep. He didn’t think he could stand to witness whatever transformation his body was undergoing. It would drive him mad. He gritted his teeth and tried not to bite through his tongue as his body convulsed and slammed against the stone floor.

  It was over faster than he’d expected, or more likely, the pain had made him lose consciousness. When he opened his eyes, the first thing Zollgarza noticed was the curtain of white obscuring his vision. He reached up to brush it away. That was the moment he realized he still had hands and hair—though the latter had lost all its black color and was now pure white.

  Pushing the hair out of his face, Zollgarza noticed something curious about his hands. He held the left one up in front of his face and tried to discern what the curious thing was.

  His hands were larger than they had been before—larger, yet the fingers were long and slender, ending in finely sculpted nails. Had he seen such hands on a female drow, Zollgarza would have called them exceptionally beautiful. Running his thumb along his palm, Zollgarza discovered more curiosities.

  His calluses, those hard skin patches where his dagger always pressed into his palm, were gone. For some reason, this absence disturbed Zollgarza more than anything else that had happened to him. His hands trembled, and an oily knot of panic welled in his stomach.

  Wrong—this is all wrong. What have they done to me?

  A soft moan escaped Zollgarza’s lips. But the voice—the voice wasn’t his. The sound that came from his throat was soft and rich as velvet. It put him in mind of the mistress mother as she whispered in his ear.

  Zollgarza could bear it no longer. He rolled over and pushed himself up so he could look at the rest of his body. What he saw was stranger than anything he could ever have imagined.

  Breasts.

  Naked, Zollgarza could take in the full extent of his alteration. Hard muscles had reshaped themselves into feminine curves. The muscles were still there, and the power, but that power came from a different source. He no longer had the body of a drow warrior, one who fought with a dagger and crept in the shadows. The lithe body he inhabited now most closely resembled that of a drow priestess. Female drow were naturally bigger and stronger than males—what they lacked in a warrior’s training they made up for in sheer physical girth.

  Zollgarza licked his lips—even those felt different, strangely full under his tongue—and angled his naked body toward Icelin and the others. Mith Barak had collapsed several feet away, no doubt spent by the force of the magic needed to transform him into this.

  “Why?” he asked in his new, unfamiliar voice. “Why did you change me?”

  The four of them stared at him without speaking for several breaths. Zollgarza swallowed, trying to force down that knot of panic that continued to swell within him. Why were they staring at him that way, their mouths open like dumb beasts? Were they playing with him?

  Finally, Icelin answered. “The Silver Fire didn’t change you,” she said, “but it stripped away the magic that did.”

  She was lying, of course. Zollgarza laughed at the absurdity of it. Did she really expect him to believe she and the others weren’t responsible for his condition?

  “You’re a
ll mad,” he said.

  A chill passed over him. With his nakedness came awareness of how vulnerable he was. Zollgarza crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his knees up close to his body. The empty space between his legs jarred him. Gods, they’d taken everything from him. Goddess, why? The question wracked him. What’s the purpose of it all?

  “Watch him … her, I guess,” the red-haired man crouched next to Icelin said. “She’s goin’ wild through the eyes.”

  “Gods,” the thin man said, addressing Mith Barak. “If this is her true form, she had no idea.”

  “She must be one of their higher-ups,” Mith Barak said. “A priestess or some other ranking female—must be why they’re coming after us now. They want her back.”

  “Stop calling me a female!” Zollgarza screeched. The high-pitched sound mocked him. He wanted to kill every one of them. Hatred roiled in his belly, suppressing the panic for a moment. “You did this to me! You—”

  “No,” Icelin said, interrupting him. Compassion shone in her eyes, which made Zollgarza hate her more. “Hear me, Zollgarza,” she pleaded. “I don’t know why this was done to you, or what it means, but this is your true form. There is no more magic left on you.”

  “Lying bitch,” Zollgarza snarled. He couldn’t contain himself any longer. He lunged at Icelin, a feral cry ripping from his lungs.

  Next to her, the thin man reacted, drawing his dagger, but he needn’t have worried. Zollgarza’s strength had not yet returned in the wake of Icelin’s spell, and he was not used to this new body. His limbs refused to obey him properly, and he ended up collapsing on his stomach, the breath knocked from his chest, his long hair spread around him. Sucking in ragged breaths, Zollgarza tried to channel his hate into energy but to no avail. He slammed his fist against the floor and screamed in impotent rage.

  “She’s as weak as I am … or nearly,” Mith Barak said. Zollgarza didn’t look at the king. He couldn’t bear to see that smug dwarf face, those silver eyes he wanted to tear out. “If she is someone valuable, we might have the advantage over the drow.”