Arathane, though, was still as a statue, majestic and deliberate. It was only the tightness in her neck and the slight quiver of her lip that betrayed her to Chant.
Recognizing the monarch’s sorrow finally broke the pawnbroker’s own reserve. Moisture gathered in his eyes. He dropped his face to his hands. “Demascus, you were a friend,” he whispered. “One of the few I made in this crazy world. Why’d you have to get yourself killed?”
The slap of water against the side of Green Siren was his only answer.
“Hey!” came Captain Thoster’s voice from aft. “What in Umberlee’s name is that?” The captain pointed at the island.
Chant strained to look. Was it Demascus? Had the deva burrowed his way free? At first he didn’t understand what he was seeing. A cloud rose from the island summit, like steam off a teakettle. He squinted. No, it wasn’t vapor-the cloud was composed of spiders. Hundreds of spiders. Each had deployed some kind of wavering filament. Caught by the wind, the strands pulled the creatures en masse into the sky.
The largest ones held ettercaps and undead miners in their eight-fold grips …
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Pretty obvious,” said Riltana. “The drow are evacuating the island.”
A larger shape climbed into the leaden air: A balloon spun of spider silk, shaped like a massive arachnid. Hanging beneath it on a forest of thin webs, and serving as the balloon’s ballast, was a cocoon the size of a small house. A silver sheen glinted dully through a thin section of the cocoon covering.
“That’s the arambarium mother lode,” said the queen. Her voice was weary with disbelief.
Riltana said, “They didn’t use the Demonweb to reach the island-they flew! Those rat-coddling leech-kissers!”
It took only a span of breaths for the soaring spiders and arachnid blimp to ascend into the cloud ceiling.
“Gone,” said Chant. He was having trouble thinking. The image wanted to push everything else out of his head.
“Will they wing directly over the Sea of Fallen Stars?” said Queen Arathane. “Or take a ship from Airspur? If the latter, we may still catch them.”
“Why would they take a ship when all they have to do is reach the mouth of the Demonweb?” asked Riltana.
The queen gave a curt nod. “Right. We could still conceivably stop them there …”
Arathane’s was staring at a stranger who’d walked up the deck to stand with them. A human woman in green gowns with eyes nearly as tumultuous as the queen’s. Her perfume preceded her: orange rind with a hint of something sharper. Chant wondered if Captain Thoster had other paying charters on his ship.
“I know you,” Arathane said to the woman. “You were outside Demascus’s home. You’re his householder? But that doesn’t make any sense …”
“I told you then I was not his householder. That hasn’t changed.”
“Then who are you?” the queen asked.
“My name is Madri. Listen-time is short,” the woman in green said. “If you want to save your friend, you have a splinter of a chance. But he’ll certainly pass from this life if you fritter away the time with pointless questions.”
“What?” said Chant. “Are you talking about Demascus? He’s alive? Who are you?”
“He was alive, but he’s buried in a tiny tomb of fallen stones. His air is going bad. If someone doesn’t get him out in the next hour, he’ll die.”
“You’re the ghost!” said Riltana suddenly. “The one who lured me into House Norjah, so you could steal that painting! I owe you payback for that deception.”
The woman in green shrugged. “You can try. But as you say, I’ve already lost my life. Though it might be interesting to find out the limits of my existence in this realm.”
A hundred questions occurred to Chant-what was Madri talking about? Was she a ghost, or wasn’t she?
But the queen spoke. “You were with Demascus?”
Madri nodded. “Moments ago. We shared a tender moment of reflection concerning times long gone.”
Arathane frowned.
Chant broke in. “There’s no way we can get back to the island in an hour, let alone dig him out. We already tried and failed.”
“Then he’s dead after all,” said Madri. “As I told him.”
“Wait,” said Riltana. “If you were just there, could you go back again?”
“I’ve said my good-byes.”
“Even if by going back, you could save him?”
Madri glared at the thief as if the windsoul had just uttered the most shocking profanity.
“When I … flicker between destinations, I am unable to carry another being with me. Anyway, I’ll not save the one who killed me.”
“Then why’re you here?” said Chant. “If it’s his death you want, you have a damn odd way of showing it.”
Madri shared her glare with him, too. When her eyes flashed at him, it was all he could do not to look away.
Riltana snapped her fingers. With a mage’s flourish, she produced a small yellow sphere. She held it out to Madri. “Give this to Demascus. Tell him to recite what’s inscribed on it. It might get him out. If it doesn’t work, tell him … Riltana says sorry.”
Madri looked at the marble as if it was a poisoned candy.
“Take it,” urged Queen Arathane, her voice regal with command. “Save Demascus.”
Madri scowled at the ruler of Akanul, but snatched the stone from Riltana. The ghost said, “I do this for me, not because you command it or because the rakshasa desires the opposite. If the future spirals into unknowable chaos, where no prophecy remains true, what do I care?”
“Rakshasa?” said Chant. “You mean Kalkan?” The pitch of his voice went up with surprise.
Madri ignored his question. “Demascus may follow directives, even those a child would think better of. I, though, will go my own way. And achieve my own ends. Although, if this does save him, tell him to look me up, won’t you? Tell him to come by the Copperhead and ask for me.”
Then Madri was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SEA OF FALLEN STARS
21 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
The water washed the grit from Demascus’s mouth and soothed the raw ache of his throat. It was sweet as anything he’d ever tasted.
“Easy. Don’t drink too much at once,” said Chant.
The deva stopped gulping liquid only when a cough racked him.
The pawnbroker clapped Demascus on the back, which sent the skiff rocking. “I told you!”
“Yeah.” Demascus shook his head. Relief still made him giddy. His escape from the rockfall had been nothing less than magical. He’d been gasping on the last of his stale air when a pebble dropped on his head. He figured it was the beginning of a fresh cave-in, until he saw the flash of yellow. He’d picked up the stone, saw a cramped message inscribed across its diameter, and muttered it. Then the boulder at his back slipped aside as if on greased rollers. He’d slid dozens of yards along a dirt chute. Up the chute, which was confirmation enough he was hallucinating. The earth shuddered and groaned as if all the spirits of stone and earth were trying to crush him. Delirious with lack of air, he blacked out.
The next thing he remembered was being pulled from the mine depot on the surface of Ithimir Isle by his friends.
The thief had plucked a gold-colored globe from his belt loop just before they pulled him aboard the skiff. He’d been too confused to make anything of it then, but … it finally occurred to him what it must have been.
“Riltana, how’d I end up with your Prisoner’s Stone?”
The windsoul darted a guilty look at Chant.
Demascus turned to the pawnbroker. “Well?”
“It was Madri. She brought you the stone; I gave it to her.”
“What?” He cocked his head, certain he’d misheard. “She told me she wanted to see me die!”
“She must’ve changed her mind,” said Chant.
Demascus swallowed. Sud
den grief clutched him. That Madri or her ghost would save him, despite that she thought he’d killed her … it was overwhelming. She was a far, far better person than he. If their places were reversed, would he be so forgiving?
“Who is this Madri, and how’s she entangled with you?” asked the queen. “You must’ve done something terrible for her to hate you so. Yet you had something more, didn’t you?”
“I … We had a relationship,” he admitted. “A previous version of me did.” He was tired of making that distinction, between whom he was now and who his shards of memory suggested he’d been before. It was beginning to sound like a pretext, even to his own ears.
“You were lovers,” said the queen, more as a statement than a question.
“Yeah. And for some reason I can’t remember, my previous incarnation took a contract to end her life. She committed a crime the gods of Toril couldn’t forgive.”
Arathane’s eyes widened.
It occurred to him how difficult it was to surprise a monarch. But he’d managed it. Shame pierced Demascus. “I only claim a few oddments of memory and a few possessions from the one called Sword of the Gods. I didn’t kill Madri; he did. As Madri must have finally realized was true. Why else would she change her mind and save me?
The queen shrugged and gazed across the water. “Perhaps she has a more disagreeable surprise for you later.”
Green Siren II rolled along the Sea of Fallen Stars, making for the Bay of Airspur. Demascus savored the spray on his face, the cool wind, and the brine tang of the air. Unfortunately his physical relief at escaping the death trap under Ithimir Isle couldn’t wipe away his worry over what Madri was up to. Chant had told him that his “old flame” was somehow involved with the rakshasa Kalkan. Who should still be dead! Even if rakshasas reincarnated after each death, it was too soon for the tiger-headed monstrosity to trouble Demascus again. Or so he’d assumed …
Six months ago when he’d defeated Kalkan Sword-breaker, he’d sworn to be prepared for Kalkan’s return; that he’d take charge of his own destiny before his destiny took charge of him; that he’d try to reformulate his old identity by finding and taking up the Whorl of Ioun. He’d failed to even begin that process. Of course, he’d thought there was still time enough to start; only a quarter of the time span he’d arbitrarily decided it would take for Kalkan to return had elapsed. Still, nothing like waiting to the last moment before executing on a deadline …
But Madri changed things. The shard of memory containing his awful deed lay like a snake in his mind, coiled and ugly. He didn’t want to be tempted or expected to do something like that ever again.
The Whorl of Ioun would help protect him from Kalkan-but he feared it would also return him to the kind of person who’d kill a lover at a god’s command.
If the Whorl fell into his hands right then, he decided, he’d throw it into the sea. Because putting it on would murder who he’d become as fully and finally as the tons of stone in the mine almost had.
He wondered if it was Kalkan’s plan that he renounce finding the Whorl. Or was he meant to have died in the mine cave-in after all? Madri’s theft of the Whispering Child, itself a long-lost relic of Oghma, was also unlikely to be coincidental. But how Oghma connected to Kalkan, how Kalkan connected to Madri, and how it all tied to him was impossible to understand without a few more clues.
“Madri,” he said to the empty air. “Come see me?” If he could just talk to her one more time, maybe she’d explain what was going on and what her true role was in all this. The rakshasa must have brought her back from the dead, or arranged for it somehow. He couldn’t take any decisive action without some answers.
He unsheathed Exorcessum. The last time he’d changed its configuration, Madri had appeared. She was somehow linked to the blade. If he transformed it again, perhaps she’d emerge before him. And maybe be more willing to listen to his apology.
An explosive report ruffled the sails as his sword went from a single blade to two, one in each hand. His ready stance and his tight-yet-loose grip on the hilts seemed somehow familiar while simultaneously alien. It sort of made his teeth hurt.
Madri did not appear. “Shadow take it,” he cursed.
She was somewhere in Airpsur, probably. But where, exactly? And even if he knew, he couldn’t go to her. Not yet. Not until after they’d raced back to the portal mouth, where they’d defeated the Gatekeeper and found the Demonweb.
The drow had to be dealt with, their point of infestation in Airpsur cauterized, and if possible, the mother lode of arambarium retrieved. The spiders already had a head start. And their approach to the city would go unmarked, and thus unopposed, because the floating arachnid armada, as Riltana described it, traveled high above the screen of clouds. Airspur’s peacemakers would never even know a flight of spiders flittered high over their heads.
Queen Arathane commanded Thoster to full speed. Thoster laughed at the prospect of a race, even if he didn’t exactly know the reason for it. He put Green Siren full sails into the wind. The man was bright enough to recognize the ruler wanted to return as quickly as possible to Airspur to prevent the drow spider cloud from doing … something. The queen didn’t deign to describe the existence of a Demonweb entryway in Akanul. The captain had already learned enough state secrets, starting with the arambarium mine’s location.
“Bring her into dock,” came Thoster’s voice, as if summoned by Demascus’s reverie, “but not so fast you stave in the prow, or I’ll have the lot of you dancing the hempen jig!”
They were already between the cliffs of the Bay of Airspur. Demascus went to see about borrowing two proper sheaths from the ship’s armory before they moored.
The streets of Airspur pulsed, but with commerce, not panic. No one had spied a flight of drifting invaders over the city. The only thing drawing excitement and occasional alarm was the skidding carriage they rode in, as it raced up the cliffside switchbacks. They rode on two wheels whenever they cornered, and each time Jaul whooped in delight. Queen Arathane had commandeered the first conveyance they’d come across upon reaching dry land. But that was only after she shouted down a courier and had a message delivered to the Court of Majesty, the contents of which essentially boiled down to a strict command to wait for her return, and that Tymanther was most assuredly not involved in the arambarium mine disruption.
“This one!” Demascus cried as they neared an herb shop, whose alleyway entrance to the Catacombs they’d taken the previous time they sought the Gatekeeper. Last time, the proprietor grudgingly allowed accessto the secret door in his cellar, in return for a few silver coins.
“That doesn’t look good,” said Riltana when they reached the shop. The roof of the shop was caved in, as if something large had landed on it. Or smashed down through it. The door at alley level was closed, but a trickle of dark fluid spilled under it.
Demascus smashed the door open with his shoulder. The main room of the shop was slathered in webs, covering the counter, the floor, and the aromatic wares in pale strands. Clouded daylight illuminated the room. The shopkeep was bound on top of his counter as if on an altar. His chest cavity had been scooped out. Dark blood pooled where his heart and lungs should have rested. One eye stared up in naked terror. The other was a charred ruin.
“Monsters,” said Arathane. She slammed the butt of her spear on the shop floor.
“A sacrificial slaying,” said Chant. “Drow priestesses are big on that kind of thing.”
Demascus heard a quaver in the pawnbroker’s voice. He understood. The brutality perpetrated here was sickening. He’d been a killer, but he was certain he’d never tortured any of his victims selected by divine decree. Well, mostly certain.
“The blood hasn’t clotted,” said Riltana.
“Which means we’re not far behind them,” he said. He flew down to the cellar three stairs at a time. The others followed close behind.
The concealed door leading to the tunnels was off its hinges.
“Stop!” Chant yelle
d before Demascus could plunge into the Catacombs.
“What?”
“How in the name of Waukeen’s empty purse do you suppose they got a piece of mineral the size of a large shed down these steps or through that door into the tunnels? No way it’d fit.”
“Huh,” said Demascus. Of course the pawnbroker was right.
“Maybe they didn’t bring it through here?” said Jaul.
“What, you think all the spiderwebs up there and the shop owner missing his innards is the work of some other crazed spider priestess?” said Riltana.
“Don’t be an idiot, Pa. They must have come this way.” Jaul muttered something else under his breath and scowled.
“Maybe the shopkeep’s killing wasn’t just a sacrifice of opportunity,” said Chant. “It could have been part of a ritual to temporarily make the silver hand more manageable.”
“What, you mean like store it in an extra dimension?” said Riltana, and fanned her gloved fingers.
“Or enchant its shape,” said the queen. “I sense the residue of a powerful spell of transmutation. Chant’s right; Chenraya probably changed the relic into something easily transportable, like an amulet or a child’s stuffed toy.”
“A toy?” said Riltana. “More likely a dagger or a spool of web.”
“Could be,” allowed Arathane.
“How long would such a transformation last?” said Demascus.
“Does it matter?” said the queen. “We need to catch them before they slip away.”
“Right,” said Demascus. He turned and plunged into the Catacombs.
“Hey, do me a favor?” Riltana called from behind. “Warn us before we come to the sewer tunnel, so I can breath from my mouth. I don’t want to smell what I caught a whiff of last time.”
“Don’t worry,” he threw over his shoulder, “If you see me skid and slip, you’ll know I’ve just found a-”
An ettercap dropped on him. It bore him to the tunnel floor and knocked his swords flying. Its claws and mandibles scratched at his face. Demascus tried to grab it, but it was slick with sewer water. It scored a vicious cut across his palms and another down one arm with a serrated mandible.
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