Spider and Stone

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ILTKAZAR, THE UNDERDARK

28 UKTAR

"You need healing,”Ruen said. “We’ll get you to Joya.”

Trying to be as gentle as possible, he and Sull helped Mith Barak to his feet. The dwarf swayed unsteadily, breathing hard, but he waved off their support. “Don’t worry about me. I’m thinking about that one,” he said, nodding at Zollgarza.

The female drow lay on her back, chest heaving, staring vacantly at the ceiling. Every few breaths, she laughed, a horrible sound that raised the flesh on Ruen’s arms.

Icelin walked carefully up to the drow and spread a blanket over her to cover her nakedness. “Can we leave her like this?” she asked.

“We don’t have a choice,” Mith Barak answered. “If we can’t question her, then we’ll use her as bait. I’ll send the scouts out with a message, see if her mistress wants to parlay for the return of her pet-or whatever this is.” Mith Barak looked at the drow in disgust.

Ruen met Icelin’s gaze. Surely he saw the compassion there and the guilt. He must have known she felt responsible for Zollgarza’s current state. “We have hope for the battle now that we didn’t have before,” he told her. “And she may recover in time. You’ve given her back her true form.”

Whatever reply Icelin might have made was interrupted when Mith Barak succumbed to a fit of coughing. “Are you well enough to fight?” Icelin asked the dwarf, “or even to parlay with the drow?”

“Aye, I think I can manage not to plunge my axe in the mistress mother’s skull while we have a conversation-a short one,” Mith Barak said with a dark smile as he wiped a blood smear across his lips. “Whatever’s amiss inside me isn’t going to be cured quickly. May as well live with it while I can.”

When Icelin stepped out of the hall, she swallowed an awed cry.

The dwarves of Iltkazar had assembled.

Bodies filled the plaza as if again in preparation for a wedding feast. The difference was the light from the glowing lichen that reflected off thousands of swords and axes, and the finest suits of armor in all Faerun, by Icelin’s judgment. Beyond the plaza, they stood shoulder to shoulder, filling the city streets. Banners from the dwarf clans waved when King Mith Barak emerged from the hall behind Icelin. Grim-faced and deadly, Iltkazar’s sons and daughters had gathered for a fight. They awaited only their king.

The master armswoman stepped forward. “The scouts have reported in,” she said. “We know the location of two of their attacking forces for certain-the western and southern walls. They must be planning to break through the magical barriers. The rest of their forces, if there are more, have the advantage in that we don’t know where they will strike.”

“My thanks, Dorla,” Mith Barak said. He turned to the gathered army. Icelin heard him mutter a word under his breath, and a tingling sensation kissed the back of her neck, a momentary flush of arcane power.

“Warriors of Iltkazar!” Mith Barak cried, and his voice carried to the farthest corners of the cavern, amplified by magic. “We knew this day was coming, and now we stand on the precipice. The drow press us from all sides, attacking from the west and the south. They have already desecrated the Hall of Lost Voices, slain thousands of our people in these endless battles, century upon century. We have suffered, bled, but we have not fallen!”

A deafening roar arose from the crowd. Boots stomped and blades pounded on shields, striking sparks in the cold cavern air. Gooseflesh rose on Icelin’s arms at the fervor in the dwarves’ faces.

Mith Barak raised his hands, and the army quieted. “There are those who would have us believe we are a doomed people. They would have us roll over quietly and accept our fate, abandon our city to the shadows.”

“Never!” cried a single voice, and the cry echoed through the crowd like wildfire. “Never!”

Mith Barak raised his hands again for silence. He hesitated, gazing with shining eyes over the army, though only those standing closest to him saw the tremor that passed over his face, the breath of sorrow and joy that seized him. “I have lived long enough to dwell among the greater and lesser races of this world. Along that path, I’ve seen the towering spires of mighty empires and the hovels of the poorest, meanest wretches. I have walked alone and with others at my side. In all that time, I have never claimed a true home or family for myself. Clanless, I called myself, and clanless I remained. Until now.”

Icelin expected shouts and cheers from the crowd, but a hush had fallen over the army. Thousands of dwarf bodies pressed close, hanging on the words of their king, a kind of desperate longing in their eyes. Tears standing in her own eyes, Icelin reached behind her for Ruen’s hand.

Mith Barak bowed his head; then, gazing at those dwarves nearest him in turn, he nodded. A peaceful stillness descended over his weary face. “This day, I say that Iltkazar is and ever was my home, my clan.” He moved forward, passing into the gathered throng.

The crowd parted, but only enough to let the king pass. The dwarves reached to meet the hands Mith Barak stretched out to them. In a minute, the army had enveloped him, and the only way to follow his progress across the plaza was by the joy that broke over the faces in the crowd.

The master armswoman followed the king. Icelin smiled as Joya and the rest of her family emerged from the crowd. Ingara and Arngam followed close behind.

“We should get ready,” Ingara said. She turned to Icelin and Ruen. “Our family is overseeing the defense of the city near the main gate. We’d be honored if you joined us there.”

“The honor is ours,” Ruen said. “Lead the way.”

Icelin hesitated. She glanced back at the great hall. “I need to do something first.”

“You’re not thinkin’ of goin’ back in there to see the drow?” Sull asked. “He’s … she’s out of her head, lass.”

“Then it won’t matter one way or another,” Icelin said. “I won’t be long.”

“I’ll come with you,” Joya said. “She might benefit from healing.”

“Don’t be long,” Garn said. “The king walks among his people for a purpose. He’ll be getting the army into position, and we don’t know yet if this ‘parlay’ is going to happen.” His tone left little doubt what he thought of negotiating with the drow.

Icelin followed Joya back through the hall to the library door. Joya drew her axe. “Just in case,” she said in answer to Icelin’s questioning glance.

When they entered, Zollgarza was sitting up by the fire. Icelin blinked in surprise when she recognized the seneschal standing over her.

“Any change?” Joya asked, tension stiffening her posture.

The seneschal looked up at them and smiled faintly. “I knew you would come back one last time,” she said, addressing Icelin. “I am pleased you found what you sought.”

“Thank you,” Icelin said, “for everything.” She glanced at Zollgarza and was surprised again when the drow met her gaze. A bright, feverish light danced in her eyes. Icelin didn’t know if that was a sign that she was coming out of her madness or descending further into it.

“You,” Zollgarza said. She had a beautiful voice, soft and husky. “You’re the one I need.” She spoke with an effort. “I can’t … kill you.”

“Better you don’t try, either,” Joya remarked, though she made no move to brandish her axe.

Zollgarza didn’t seem to hear her. She reached out a hand to Icelin, who tensed but let the drow clasp her wrist. “Take me to him,” she said hoarsely. “To Mith Barak. I have what he needs.”

“The king?” Icelin said. Understanding dawned on her. “If you’re a drow priestess, you have information about the attacking force, don’t you?”

“Part of me does,” Zollgarza said. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. “It’s not strong yet, dominant. It fights with him, with the unclean parts of me. But it won’t win,” she said, gritting her teeth as if fighting off physical pain. “We have to hurry.”

“What’s your price?” Joya asked, suspicious. “And how are you just remembering this information now? The king already rooted through your mind and found nothing.”

An ugly smile flitted across Zollgarza’s face. “He was looking in the wrong mind,” she said. “I have lain in dark rooms and whispered plans with the mistress mother of the snake-headed scourge. I know why Fizzri-no, why Lolth-wants the Arcane Script Sphere.” Her hand tightened around Icelin’s wrist. “My price is my freedom-safe passage out of the city.”

“The king will never release you,” Joya said. “You know too much.”

“If I win my battle against what’s inside me, if female dominates male, all that knowledge will be gone,” Zollgarza said. “I will purge it with the rest of this disease. It’s a sacrifice I gladly make.”

“Why are you doing this,” Icelin asked, “betraying your people, your goddess?”

The light in Zollgarza’s eyes dimmed, and a shudder wracked her body. “I have no goddess-not while I am … this.” She held her hands up in front of her face, as if she didn’t recognize what she was looking at. “Half of one being, half of another. She did this to me, made me into an abomination, a sacrifice.” She looked up at Icelin with pleading eyes. “I will not let it happen.”

Icelin nodded. “We’ll take you to the king,” she said. “I just hope we can get to him in time.”

Ruen tensed when Icelin and Joya came out of the hall with the drow in tow. Garn and Obrin cursed and gripped their weapons. Ingara turned away in disgust.

“I can’t wait to hear this,” Ruen said, raising an eyebrow and looking pointedly at Icelin.

“Why do you always blame me?” Icelin said, putting a hand on her hip. “I never ask for the sort of trouble that follows me around like a plague, do I?” She related Zollgarza’s request quickly. “The king can decide what’s best to do,” she added. “We need to get to him, quickly.”

“You can use the stone flyers,” Garn said. “This way.”

He led them over the bridge to a set of caves in the back of the cavern wall. Iron bars set across the entrances kept in two massive creatures with skin made of stone. To Icelin, they vaguely resembled wolves with wings folded alongside their flanks. Garn spoke to the stable master and got the keys to one of the pens.

“The rest of them are already being used by the army. These are older, but the stable man says they’ll fly true. The king’ll be at the front of the army near the main gate,” he told them as he swung open the door to the pen. He raised a hand and spoke soothingly to the stone creatures, who watched the group warily. Stroking the necks of two of the beasts, he led them out of the pen. “Obrin,” he said to his son, “you carry the drow.”

“I want to go too,” Icelin said. “Will they carry Ruen and I?”

“Can you ride a horse well?” Ingara asked, looking concerned.

“Yes,” Icelin said.

“That’ll help,” Garn said. “We’ve trained them as aerial cavalry. They’ll follow a leader, and Obrin’s riding one of the ones we’ve trained to lead. Guide them only when you have to. They know what they’re about.”

“Just be careful,” Sull said, wringing his big hands.

“I will,” Icelin promised.

Obrin mounted the lead flyer, and Zollgarza crawled up behind him, being careful not to touch the dwarf but instead holding on to the raised stone ridges along the beast’s flank. Icelin and Ruen mounted the second flyer. The roughness of the flyer’s stone skin scratched and caught at her breeches. Could statues fly?

She wrapped her arms around Ruen’s waist for balance and held the Arcane Script Sphere tightly in the other. The lupine creature rocked back and spread its wings. A weight pressed down on Icelin as the creature’s wings came down, lifting them off the ground. Beating its wings furiously, the flyer took off, gaining momentum as the cavern floor disappeared beneath them. In a breath, the weight lifted, and a light, giddy sensation clawed at Icelin’s stomach. She tightened her grip on Ruen’s waist. It was then she noticed how rigid he sat on the flyer’s back, as if he, too, were made of stone. They were very high up in the air.

“Sorry,” Icelin said, wincing as she looked down at the stone buildings passing beneath them. “I never expected we’d be doing this.”

A gust of wind hit her, and the flyer changed direction slightly. Ruen put up a hand to hold his hat in place. “Which part?” he said dryly. “This whole adventure is starting to look a little bit mad from where I’m sitting.”

Below them, the army assembled before the main gate. Other flyers hovered in the air in formations of ten and twenty beasts, flying their own banners and following a single lead. Ballistae arranged in a semicircle near the main gate stood poised to fire. The king stood near one of the machines, surrounded by a group of scouts.

Soldiers looked up and saw the flyers descending. They hurried to clear a path, but several pointed at the drow and murmured in alarm. Icelin wondered briefly if they’d made a miscalculation, bringing Zollgarza into the middle of the army. There was a chance the dwarves would slay the drow on sight. Then they landed, and Icelin had no more time for doubts.

The king must have seen them approach as well, for he pushed through the crowd when the flyers’ feet hit the ground. “What is this, Obrin?” he growled, pointing at Zollgarza.

“Ask her,” Obrin said in Common.

Icelin flinched as the gazes of hundreds of dwarf soldiers and their king turned her way. Surprisingly, Zollgarza spoke.

“I have what you wanted,” she said to the king. “I can tell it to you, or you can rip it from my mind-more damage won’t matter.”

“Speak,” the king said bluntly.

“The mistress mother’s armies will distract your forces while her infiltrators seek out the Arcane Script Sphere,” Zollgarza said. “When they find it, and me, they will use my body and the sphere as a conduit for a ritual that will aid in the creation of a new Weave, reshaped by Lolth’s power. She will become the new goddess of magic.”

Icelin gasped. “Can she do that? The sheer power involved …”

“Preparations are being made in drow cities all throughout the Underdark,” Zollgarza said. “Artifacts, powerful tools of arcane might, are being gathered by the faithful. The Arcane Script Sphere bears a piece of Mystra’s essence and memory, and my body and mind are the union of male and female, arcane and divine. I would have been the nexus for the power Fizzri intends to channel. At least that was her intention.”

“Was?” Mith Barak said, gazing at Zollgarza narrowly.

“All I want now is to go free, away from this city, away from Guallidurth, away from every living thing. I have lived as a male. I am already tainted. I will not be Lolth’s sacrifice.”

Mith Barak raised an eyebrow. “And if you’re lying? What if you’re captured again? Why shouldn’t we kill you to make sure Lolth’s plan doesn’t come to pass?”

Icelin spoke up. “I believe Zollgarza speaks the truth,” she said.

“Why?” Mith Barak asked sharply. “Because of what you saw in her mind? She could spin lies to ensnare you too. Be careful with your compassion.”

“Not just because of what was in her thoughts,” Icelin said. “I saw it in her eyes, the same shadow I saw over Joya-and in me,” she added softly. “I know what it’s like to grieve the loss of your goddess, whether by death, betrayal, or simply never knowing her at all.” She met Zollgarza’s feverish gaze. “The drow betrays her people because she herself has been betrayed.”

The king considered Zollgarza. The lines around Mith Barak’s face had deepened, and he moved more slowly than he had before, but Joya was right. A new fire kindled in his eyes. He clapped his hands together and grinned. “So be it, then. We’ll have a hell of a fight, and you’ll have your freedom. Dorla!” he cried. “Prepare the doors, and sound a call to march.”

“You’re opening the doors?” Icelin said.

“Aye,” Mith Barak said, smiling wickedly. “We have guests, so it’s only right that we surge out the doors at full strength to meet them. With a bit of luck, we’ll be able to circle around and flank the dark elf forces at the western wall. Numbers mean less when you’re surrounded, trapped like rats in a tiny hole.”

“You’ll leave the city open to invasion,” Ruen said.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Mith Barak said. “Too bad we haven’t got flyers poised above the city,” he waved at the stone beasts hovering overhead, “or a thousand more dwarves hiding in the homes and temples all along the river.”

“You have more soldiers than those assembled here?” Icelin said. “But your numbers-”

“The drow aren’t the only ones able to deceive,” Mith Barak said. “They use illusions to make us think their numbers are overwhelming. I told every one of my warriors that if they were captured and interrogated, to say that Iltkazar’s numbers were less than a third of what they actually are. Oh, we’re still outnumbered and probably outmatched, too, but we’ll give them a surprise or two that might give us the edge we need to win.” He looked at Icelin. “I’ll be defending the city as well.”

Icelin’s eyes widened. He truly was going to reveal himself. Gods, they might win the battle yet.

In the distance, a horn blared, a loud, ominous sound that drew the attention of the assembled army. The soldiers around Icelin raised their weapons and pounded fists once against their chests.

“It’s started,” Mith Barak said. “The drow are here.” He gestured impatiently to Zollgarza. “You’re with me. The rest of you know your stations.” He nodded to Icelin briefly. “Go,” he said, “be safe, and fight with the Blackhorns.” Then he was gone.

Icelin and Ruen hastily mounted the stone flyer again as one by one the doors to the city opened, and the army marched to meet the drow.

Ruen had the passing thought that, years later, they would call this the Battle of the Nine Doors. King Mith Barak’s forces flowed out the doors in rivers of glittering mithral, darksteel, and hizagkuur. Mith Barak’s plan carried much risk, but he won his first victory when half the dwarf soldiers circled around the perimeter of the city and flanked the drow army burrowing at the western wall.

Scouts brought back word that the magical defenses had triggered at the drow dig sites. Gaping stone mouths opened in the walls to attack and swallow the diggers, while waves of magical force blasted the army back, crushing dozens of drow soldiers and slaves in the tunnels.

Into this chaos, Iltkazar’s forces attacked, and the echo of Dwarvish battle cries passed through each of the nine doors to the ears of the defenders within. The cry strengthened them, and they would need that strength, Ruen thought, for once the drow forces realized Mith Barak had thrown open the doors, they’d launched a massive assault on the city.

Drow poured into caverns and engaged the city defenders at the River Dhalnadar and the Deepflood. The water slowed their progress, but the fighting had become one bloody snarl between the rivers and the doors. Reinforcements trickled in from either side, but neither had gained significant ground after hours of fighting.

Ruen and Icelin flew over the battlefield on their stone flyer, along with the other aerial cavalry units. From the skies, they were able to pick out drow targets, but they had to be extremely careful not to hit their own soldiers.

Icelin held the Arcane Script Sphere in a white-knuckled hand. “Go left,” she told him, “angle toward the back of the cavern.”

“I can’t,” Ruen said. “There’s too many cavalry already picking out targets.”

Icelin cursed.

“Not very ladylike,” he remarked. Then he added, “Be patient. I’ll find you a suitable spot to hurl down death and destruction.” He dug his knees into the flyer’s stone sides, and the beast flew higher, making a tight circle that had Ruen gripping the reins and Icelin clutching his waist in a death grip. “Sorry,” he tossed back over his shoulder. Though he’d gotten more adept at guiding and controlling the beast over the past few hours, he suspected his knees were going to be covered in bruises from digging them into stone flanks. “Are you sure you can control the Silver Fire?” he asked.

“No,” Icelin admitted. “That’s why I want to find a spot as far away from the dwarves as possible. Then it won’t matter if the Silver Fire goes out of control.”

“And you?” Ruen asked, feeling a clench in his gut. “What will happen to you?”

He felt her press her forehead against his upper back. “I’ll be as careful as I can. I promise.”

“That’s all I ask.” Ruen murmured a prayer for protection to whatever gods happened to be listening. “There,” he said, pointing, “in that alcove.”

“I see them-perfect,” Icelin said. She readied the sphere. “Wait for my signal.”

Ruen brought the flyer in on a level course that would pass right over a portion of the drow force regrouping at the back of the cavern. When they got close, Icelin clutched his arm, giving the signal. Ruen fell forward, wrapping his arms around the flyer’s neck, and sent it into a dive. It gave Icelin a clear line of sight ahead and below them. She raised the sphere, and the cavern erupted in Silver Fire.

The silver radiance raced through the air to strike the drow. It bounced from one drow to another, knocking them to the ground. Harsh screams and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Behind him, Ruen heard Icelin gag, but she kept a firm grip on the sphere and on the Silver Fire, as far as he could tell. She brought the sphere up and held it in both hands above her head.

Sheets of silver poured forth, this time shielding them as the drow on the fringes of the spell saw them and aimed their hand crossbows. The black quarrels burned away to nothing when they struck the silver barrier.

They approached the cavern wall. At the last moment, Ruen pulled up on the reins, and the stone flyer struck its clawed feet on the wall and turned, wings pumping furiously to get them out of their dive and back to a safe height.

Icelin shifted the shield around to protect their backs as more quarrels poured in. They leveled out at the same moment a ball of fire streaked past Ruen’s left ear. He flinched away from the heat of the orange mass, and the flyer staggered in midair.

“He’s getting tired,” Ruen said. “We have to land.”

“Can we make one more pass?” Icelin asked.

Ruen shook his head. “Even if he had the energy to keep going, they’ve seen we’re a threat. They’ll be looking to blow us out of the sky.”

“Gods, look at that!” Icelin cried. She pointed at a spot below them, where the Dhalnadar and the Deepflood joined.

A silver dragon burst from the river and took flight.