Spider and Stone

by Jaleigh Johnson

  If he allowed them beyond the river, his soldiers would not be able to purge them from the city. Zollgarza’s information, Mith Barak’s own strategy, Icelin’s sacrifice—all of it had given them hope, but in the end, they didn’t have the numbers.

  Iltkazar—his home. He had to save it, no matter the cost.

  Reaching out through a mindlink still active—though the one on the receiving end was not aware of it—Mithbarakaz sent one final command to his army.

  Icelin screamed and clutched her head. She lost her grip on the sphere, and it spun away into the chaos below. Dizziness seized her, and she felt herself slipping, falling off the side of the stone flyer.

  Distantly, she heard Ruen curse. He snatched her wrist and hauled her back upright, but he must have jerked the reins sideways to do it. For that violence, the stone flyer had apparently had enough. The beast went into a dive and skidded across a stone path on the opposite side of the river from where Icelin had cast the Silver Fire. The flyer crouched and shook itself, dumping Icelin unceremoniously onto the ground.

  Ruen landed beside her a touch more gracefully, but he immediately went to where Icelin lay.

  “What happened?” he demanded. “Was it the sphere?”

  “No.” Icelin started to shake her head but thought better of it. A throbbing that started up in her temples threatened to make her sick. “It’s … something else.” An image of Mith Barak’s dwarf face flashed in her mind, intensifying the pain. More images followed it—the river, the bridges, more instructions, and an overwhelming urgency that set her heart pounding in her chest.

  “Watch out!” Ruen cried.

  Icelin looked up in time to see a group of three drow surging over one of the smaller bridges toward them. They carried rapiers, not crossbows, thank the gods, but Icelin had no ready defense. She’d dropped the sphere. Gods, it was gone!

  The pain in her head made it hard to concentrate. Was Mith Barak trying to contact her, mind to mind? Not now, she pleaded silently.

  Ruen sprang to his feet and hurled his dagger. The metal flashed once and buried itself in the neck of one of the running drow. He choked and went down at the foot of the bridge. The other two ignored their comrade and kept going.

  Dropping into a crouch, Ruen ducked the lead drow’s rapier swing and slammed his shoulder into the drow’s stomach. The force of the impact was audible, and for a moment, Icelin didn’t think Ruen’s slight weight would slow the drow, but suddenly Ruen thrust his hands out and shoved the drow away from him. Reeling, the drow fell and struck his head against the stone bridge. He lay still, dazed.

  The other drow was faster than his comrade had been. He ducked a wild punch Ruen threw and stabbed him in the shoulder. Ruen hissed and danced back. He brought his hands up, palms out but held close to his body, as if gathering his strength. When the drow lunged at him again, he thrust his hands forward, catching the drow in the chest. The drow fell back, driven to the edge of the river. He fell and clutched his chest, gasping for breath.

  Ruen pressed a hand to the wound in his shoulder and went back to where Icelin lay. “We have to move,” he said. “There’s no cover here, and they’ll be coming over the bridges in waves. How are you doing?”

  “I have a message from the king,” Icelin said, though she could hardly believe what she’d heard Mith Barak say in her mind. “We have to pull all the soldiers across to this side of the river.”

  Ruen glanced around. “I’ll find someone to sound a call,” he said. “What’s the king planning?”

  “Do you remember what Garn did to that bridge on our trip down to Iltkazar?” Icelin said grimly.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s going to do the same thing, only a lot bigger.”

  Fizzri watched the silver dragon circle overhead, a thread of fear working its way into her heart like the most subtle poison. She had only felt such doubts and conflicts on one other occasion, and that had been just before she asked Lolth for the power to transform Zollgarza.

  Zollgarza, this is all your doing, Fizzri thought. A surge of hatred for her old lover went through the mistress mother. If only Zollgarza had succeeded in obtaining the Arcane Script Sphere, this attack wouldn’t be necessary.

  Rage and frustration burned in Fizzri. Ever since the Arcane Script Sphere began calling to her, disturbing her dreams, she’d been planning her tribute to Lolth. The artifact that held Mystra’s essence—in Zollgarza’s hands, the conduit would channel the arcane and the divine. Zollgarza’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of a piece of Mystra—all to Lolth’s glory. Fizzri would earn ultimate favor with the goddess.

  When Zollgarza had been captured, she’d feared all was lost. Now they were on the verge of taking the city, yet they still hadn’t located Zollgarza or the sphere.

  “Press forward!” she shouted to Levriin, who stood with one of his apprentices, looking worn and battered from the continuous magical assault. “The priestesses will deal with the dragon.”

  She filled her voice with confidence, but in truth, Fizzri had noticed that several of the priestesses had disappeared since the battle began. For all she knew, they were dead or separated from the main army.

  “Aagona,” Fizzri called out to her second in command, who’d been directing the wizards and watching for treachery at the same time.

  No answer came.

  Fizzri turned and saw Aagona lying on the ground, sightless eyes staring up at the cavern ceiling. Cursing, Fizzri approached the body. A dagger protruded from the dead drow’s chest, a dagger affixed with the figure of a spider. Fizzri drew the dagger out, saw the remnants of the poison seeping from the spider’s hollow leg, and a chill passed over her.

  “Hello, my lover,” said a velvet-soft, feminine voice behind her.

  “Zollgarza,” Fizzri whispered, slowly turning to face the priestess. “You’re back.”

  “I never truly left, Fizzri,” Zollgarza purred. “You knew that.”

  The noise and frenzy of the battle faded into the background. Amid the bodies of dwarf and drow, the two females faced each other. Zollgarza’s dagger fell from Fizzri’s hand. The look on Zollgarza’s face—the crazed, triumphant light and the hatred smoldering in her scarlet eyes—Fizzri felt that up until this moment she’d never seen Zollgarza’s true face, whether male or female. This face heralded something entirely new, something that frightened Fizzri terribly.

  “What happened to you?” Fizzri demanded, trying to hide her fear. “How did you return to your true form?”

  “You won’t believe it,” Zollgarza said with a wistful smile. “A human girl, a child, broke the spell. She’s one of Mystra’s faithful.”

  “Mystra is gone,” Fizzri said. “You speak blasphemy.”

  “Oh, my beautiful Fizzri, the truth has unknotted my tongue. I sought purpose, and purpose found me.” Shudders wracked Zollgarza’s body. “A battle rages inside me, brighter and bloodier than anything you see on this field.” She kicked aside a dwarf corpse. “Purpose will win. Female will win. I know this.” Sweat shone on her face, and she breathed heavily, as if she’d been running for miles through dark tunnels.

  “You’re insane,” Fizzri said, lip curled in disgust. She had nothing to fear from this broken creature. “Lolth has revealed your weakness—”

  “Weakness?” Keening laughter burst from Zollgarza’s throat. The sound raised the hairs on Fizzri’s arms. “I have played the game from both sides. Secrets live in me that wizards and priestesses would kill to know.” She pounded a fist against her chest. “I understand now. The strongest will win out. I will tear the weakness from my soul. If it destroys me, so be it.” A pensive expression creased her sweaty face. “But if I win … if I win, I will have found my purpose—Lolth be damned.”

  Fizzri hissed and drew her snake-headed whip. “I will tear your tongue from your mouth.”

  Zollgarza smiled indulgently at her, which incensed Fizzri more. “I don’t blame you, my precious one.” Her smile widened, and her shoulders shook—w
ith contained laughter or hysterics, Fizzri couldn’t say. “You’ve not known true desperation. Throw yourself on the ground, prostrate yourself before the goddess, crawl, crawl, and crawl, and all will be well again. Lolth needs those like you, the pliant and the blind, those she can twist to suit her.”

  “Godsdamn you,” Fizzri cried. “Let your sacrifice be now. I will take the sphere without you.” She didn’t bother with the whip. Hissing the words of a spell, she reached for Zollgarza, fingers curled in a clawlike grip. Black lightning poured from her hands. The dark energy struck Zollgarza and twisted around her, encasing her like a cage.

  Zollgarza staggered, but her fixed, hysterical smile remained in place. She lifted her trembling hands in the air and shouted an answering spell. She thrust out her hands and poured the energy back at Fizzri.

  Fizzri had her defenses in place, but the shadow of the dragon passing overhead distracted her, and the black energy poured past her spell shield and seized her. Gasping with the pain, Fizzri suddenly looked to the sky.

  A build-up of arcane energy—power that sizzled, crackled, and threatened to tear apart the air itself—came from the dragon. Zollgarza must have felt it too. She tipped her head back, white hair spilling amidst the black energy of Fizzri’s attack. Spreading her arms, she sketched a shaky bow to the silver dragon soaring overhead.

  “What have you done?” Fizzri screamed at Zollgarza. She spit out a phrase and hurled a sheet of flame at Zollgarza, but the drow leaped nimbly aside and took cover behind a large rock. “You’ve destroyed everything! For what? Lolth, why have you let this happen?”

  The exclamation burst from Fizzri before she could stop it. She covered her mouth in horror at her own words. Trembling with fear and pain, she backed up a step.

  Fiery pain erupted at the small of her back. Fizzri looked down and saw the tip of an axe blade protruding through her stomach. She tried to turn, but her legs would not obey her. With a jerk, the axe came free, and Fizzri dropped, loose-limbed, to her knees. Her attacker circled around so she could see his bloody axe. Three black horns protruded from the weapon, all stained with blood. The dwarf stared down at her and muttered something in his own language that Fizzri didn’t hear. Then he was gone, running across one of the bridges over the river.

  Above her, the arcane energy continued to build, along with Zollgarza’s laughter. Fizzri tried to summon the strength to care about any of these events, but her thoughts were getting fuzzy around the edges. She reached out with her fading consciousness, seeking Lolth’s power, but her cry was a hollow echo, met with only silence.

  Icelin squinted through the smoke of a dozen fires that raged on this side of the riverbank. The battle had begun to shift, the dwarves pouring across the river at the sound of a horn. Garn and Obrin stood at the bridges, shouting to anyone within earshot to fall back. The drow forces seemed confused by the sudden exodus and did not immediately follow. Perhaps they sensed a retreat and wanted to take advantage of the lull in the fighting to regroup and hit the dwarves while they fell back to more secure ground.

  Icelin saw this from her vantage on the ledge at the edge of the plaza, the same spot where she and Ruen had watched Ingara and Arngam’s wedding. It felt like a tenday ago.

  “He’ll do it now,” Icelin said as she levitated to the ground. Sull and Ruen stood waiting for her. “Gods, the power—I can feel it in the air, as if the whole city is one huge conduit for magic.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

  “He’s calling upon the runes,” Garn said, pushing through the stream of dwarves flowing into the plaza. “Protective spells placed all over the city—they react to the king’s will, and he can use them—or destroy them—as he wishes.”

  “The same thing you did to the bridge on our way down here,” Ruen said.

  Icelin remembered the look of sorrow and loss she’d seen etched on Garn’s face when he’d destroyed the ancient piece of architecture. Her heart ached for what the king was about to do. “Is this the only way?” she asked.

  Garn nodded once. His expression softened somewhat as Joya and Ingara came through the crowd, looking pale and weary. “Where have you been?” he asked. “We were worried.”

  “At the temple,” Ingara said. “I asked Joya to tend to Arngam.”

  “Is he all right?” Icelin asked.

  “I think so—took in too much smoke. He’s unconscious.” Ingara glanced at her sister. “Are you ready?”

  Joya nodded. “We should hurry.”

  “Where are you going?” Garn demanded as the two women headed for the bridges. “The king ordered us to fall back.”

  “There are wounded on the other side of the river,” Joya said. “I’ll get as many of them up and moving as possible.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Garn said, “and even if you got there in time, the drow will tear you apart as soon as they see you.”

  “They’ll be too distracted by the king,” Joya said. “I can’t abandon the wounded.” She put her hand on her father’s shoulder and said something in Dwarvish. Garn’s expression hardened, and he shook his head. But Joya was equally stubborn. She took her father’s face between her hands, kissed the runes on his face, and then she pressed her forehead against his. A breath passed, and Joya pulled away. Ingara took her place and repeated the gesture. Then the women headed for the bridge.

  “Wait, Joya!” Icelin cried.

  Joya turned to look at her, but Icelin found herself at a loss for words. She didn’t know why she’d called out to the cleric. A lump rose in her throat.

  Joya smiled and nodded. Then they were gone, passing through the smoke and hidden from sight.

  Icelin turned to Ruen, but before she could speak, a tremor shook the cavern, raising dust clouds from the stone. Awareness surged in Icelin’s blood, a massive buildup of power, pulsing, raging …

  As if in a dream, Icelin looked up, and for an instant, all the magical runes in the city flashed with brilliant, blue-white radiance. In the heart of the magical storm, the silver dragon pulled up, wings beating the air, and released a breath of gas in a line along the opposite side of the river. The drow caught in the blast collapsed, paralyzed.

  The dragon flew higher, and the runes continued to pulse until Icelin raised her hands to her head as if she could ward off the surge in magic. Frantically, she turned to Sull and Ruen.

  “Get down!” she cried, but the words were lost in an explosion that deafened her.

  All around her, drow and dwarf eyes turned to the sky, their expressions reflecting fear and awe. Icelin looked with them, but she could barely see Mith Barak beyond the glow of the magical light. The runes burst apart before her eyes, and the cavern ceiling above the dragon collapsed. A roaring filled Icelin’s ears, and the tremors became a shuddering that threw her to the ground. Sull and Ruen crawled to her, and the three of them huddled close as the world came crashing down around them.

  She floated in darkness, broken only by surges of arcane light—magic that burned where it touched her skin. Icelin flinched in pain, but there was nowhere to go.

  Gods, make it stop, she cried silently. I can’t bear any more.

  Let go.

  The feminine voice came from the darkness, and again Icelin had the sensation of hands encircling her from behind. The same soothing coolness and sense of calm she’d felt in the library when she’d been connected to Zollgarza’s mind reached out to her now.

  She’d heard the woman’s voice before, in her dreams.

  Who are you? Icelin asked.

  Let go, the voice repeated. Don’t fight the storm. All will be well.

  I’m afraid. Icelin let the invisible hands draw her through the darkness, as if she floated on her back in a pool of deep water. She was terrified of sinking, but she wanted to relax into the arms that held her. Warm hands they were, like a mother’s touch.

  That’s better. The more you fight, the more the magic will bind and drag you down into the abyss.

  Who are you? Icelin
repeated, desperate. Please tell me.

  You know. Humor touched the woman’s voice. We haven’t been formally introduced, but I think we’ll get on well.

  Mystra? The memory of the goddess, speaking to her through the Arcane Script Sphere? Had the artifact been speaking to her through her dreams all along? All this time she’d been connected to the goddess and hadn’t known it. Icelin’s fear evaporated. She floated in the dark, but she no longer felt alone.

  Lady, she called out in her mind, I am very, very glad to know you.

  ILTKAZAR, THE UNDERDARK

  29 UKTAR

  THE NEXT SEVERAL HOURS WERE LARGELY A BLUR FOR Icelin. She remembered waking, her head jostling against Ruen’s shoulder. He carried her, stumbling, across the rubble-strewn plaza. Staring up at the smoke-filled sky, Icelin saw that half the temple of Haela Brightaxe had been blown away by the explosion. The stone garden lay in ruins. The king’s hall and the temple of Moradin had both sustained damage, but they and most of the other buildings in the plaza still stood. Ruen carried her in the direction of Moradin’s temple.

  “I’m all … all right.” Coughing, Icelin tried to slip from Ruen’s arms, but he held on to her.

  “Try not to move,” Ruen said. “You hit your head. You need healing. Sull’s already at the temple.”

  “Joya,” Icelin said faintly. “She can … heal me.”

  “She’s missing.” Ruen’s arms tightened around her. A weight settled in Icelin’s stomach.

  Gods, I’m so weary, she thought. Fires still burned throughout the city, and soldiers moved through the plaza, but she saw no sign of the drow.

  “Is it over?” Icelin asked.

  “The drow fled in the wake of the explosion,” Ruen said. “The soldiers are dealing with the stragglers. From what I hear, there’s no sign of the mistress mother or any of their other leaders.”