Shadows of Amn

Chapter Sixteen

"Adalon has agreed to your demands. . ma'am," Imoen said, her voice echoing through the tall-ceilinged chamber in the alien tones of the drow language.

They'd come a long way through the Underdark and into a deeper cavern, following Solausein yet trying to make it look as if they knew where they were going. The pure brashness of the whole thing was enough to fool the already frazzled drow. His failure with the dragon had shamed and shaken him, and the last thing he suspected was a party of human adventurers disguised as drow. To Solausein they were indeed the "advance party."

They'd learned a lot from Solausein on their way, though it was difficult not being able to ask direct questions. If they showed their ignorance of drow ways, or Solausein's mission, their cover would be weakened or even slip away completely. What they knew by the time they reached Ust Natha was that Solausein worked for the daughter of a drow matron (Imoen in particular seemed enamored with the drow's apparently matriarchal society) who was rapidly gaining power in the city. She was the one who took the dragon's eggs, though he did not know quite why.

Still unable to mark time in any reliable way, Abdel had no idea how long it had taken them to get to the city, but once there, it was almost overwhelming. It wasn't the biggest city he'd ever seen, but the fact that it was enclosed in a single enormous cavern made it seem somehow huge out of all proportion.

For their own part, they told Solausein that his young matron wouldn't know them, that they'd been assigned by one of her people. Solausein didn't press them in any way to know who that person might have been. He seemed accustomed to lies, accustomed to knowing only a small part of anything he might be involved in.

Their drow guide had led them through the remarkable city and straight to the compound that served as his matron's residence. There they'd been quickly ushered into this tall-ceilinged room with arched windows overlooking the skyline of Ust Natha. Abdel had to marshal every bit of his willpower to keep from shaking. His nerves were on edge knowing at any moment he'd surely have to defend himself against an entire city full of trained drow warriors, mages, and priests. He'd never been in a situation where he felt so completely at a loss. A dull yellow haze settled over his vision, and he had to just pretend it wasn't there.

Solausein made the introductions—they'd given him hastily contrived aliases out of simple caution—and it was obvious that the young drow woman was interested only in Imoen, who for her part seemed to be reveling in her position of contrived authority the same way she was reveling in her jet black skin.

Solausein obviously assumed the drow woman he introduced as Phaere knew who they all were—they were the advance party after all—so he went into no details. Phaere didn't seem too concerned with who was who and wanted only to know the outcome of the raid against the dragon.

"I'm surprised," Phaere said, eyeing Imoen up and down with a surprised but favorable eye. "I was almost thinking it would allow its eggs to be destroyed first."

"Apparently, it… uh …" Imoen started.

"Its mate is dead," Jaheira said, coming to Imoen's rescue. "Those eggs are its only chance to reproduce."

Abdel just kept his eyes down, waiting for things to require him to lead their fighting retreat. He knew it would inevitably come to that. How could they possibly pull off this insanity?

"Well, then," Phaere said, her attention still on Imoen, "that explains more than a few things."

The drow woman turned to Solausein, who would not meet her gaze. "Are these all?" she asked him.

"Mistress Phaere," he said, "I—"

"You left with twenty warriors," Phaere pressed.

"The dragon overwhelmed them," Imoen said.

Her voice was cold enough to send a chill down Abdel's spine. Was she liking this too much? Liking it at all was too much.

Phaere smiled broadly at Imoen and said, "So it did."

"Mistress, I—"

"Will close your stupid, ineffectual mouth," Phaere finished for him. Solausein stepped back one step and kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

"Jaenra," Phaere said, using Imoen's alias and addressing her directly. "I think I'm beginning to remember you now."

Imoen nodded curtly and offered a wry smile. Phaere stepped closer to her—very close—and said, "You will replace the ineffective Solausein in all his duties."

"Yes, mistress," Imoen answered.

"All his duties," the drow emphasized.

"Yes," Imoen answered, more slowly this time, looking the drow woman directly in the eyes, "Mistress Phaere."

"She can be … difficult," Jaheira said, doing a good job of sounding familiar with the drow mistress.

Solausein took a deep draft of the strange beverage that Abdel thought smelled a little like beer and forced a smile.

"It is to be expected," he said.

Abdel took a third tentative sip of his own beverage and looked around the tavern room again. Drow taverns, if this one was typical, were quiet, serious places full of quiet, serious people with skin the color of the darkest ebony. It was dark, lit sparsely with candles, and the menu consisted of things Abdel could never bring himself to eat. Live spiders … he'd rather starve.

Jaheira had quickly picked up on some of Imoen's more successful lies, and Abdel was honestly happy to see that she wasn't nearly as good at it as Imoen was. Solausein was trying to be stoic about what was obviously a tremendous failure, a major demotion that he might never recover from. Having a female there who appeared even a little understanding seemed to make him feel better, and Jaheira was playing it all very carefully.

"Of course," she said, "you can't be too surprised that she would be disappointed."

Solausein nodded and said, "I failed my mistress."

"But to humiliate you like that," Abdel said, "I would have—"

"Tzvin!" Jaheira barked, using Abdel's drow alias.

Abdel worked at being appropriately chastised and looked away.

"Perhaps," Jaheira said to Solausein, "what you need is a change. There are other houses to serve, aren't there?"

Hopefully, Abdel thought, Solausein won't realize that was not a rhetorical question.

Solausein looked at Jaheira—really looked at her for the first time.

"Others have ambitions," she said, staring directly into the drow's eyes with a look that made Abdel instantly and intensely jealous.

"Ja—" he started to say, but stopped himself before he used her real name. He tried but suddenly couldn't remember her peculiar alias, so he said nothing.

Jaheira faked a chastising glare, and Abdel looked away.

Solausein didn't fail to notice the exchange. He looked at Abdel and said, "It is what men are here for, my friend. It is the natural order of things."

"Yes it is," Jaheira said.

Solausein took another long sip of his beverage, and so did Abdel.

"Speak," Jaheira prodded.

"The eggs," Solausein said. "You want the eggs."

Phaere's bedchambers were rather different than anything Imoen would have expected. Of course she'd heard the tales and legends of the drow since she was just a little girl. Always it was about spiders and monsters and cruel tortures. They were always described as a hideous, even malformed race who kept slaves and reveled in hour after hour of continuous bloodshed and thrill killing.

Her actual experience of the drow was rather different.

First of all, they were far from hideous and not the slightest bit malformed. In fact, Imoen found Phaere quite compelling. The drow's skin didn't glow—it did just the opposite. The blackness of it seemed to draw light into it, never to escape. Phaere's face was long and regal with a pronounced chin and cheekbones. Her nose was small and turned gently upward. Her eyes were big, almond-shaped, and a sparkling violet color Imoen couldn't stop staring at. Her white hair smelled as clean as it looked—even from a distance—and it cascaded down her long neck, over her tight shoulders, and down her slim back nearly to her waist.

Her body was hard from long hours of daily training. Phaere was at least two inches shorter than Imoen, but Imoen knew the drow woman could kill her with her bare hands. Imoen was attracted to her ears as well. They were perfectly shaped, symmetrical, and pointed, the tips peeking out from under her hair. Phaere's hands were lithe and smooth. There was no hint of blemish or imperfection on her at all, and the low-cut, backless robe showed enough of her to make that all the more impressive.

Imoen looked at her own hand and marveled at the deep black color.

"I've had a bath run for you," Phaere said, her voice low and intimate now.

Behind her, a thin-framed drow boy scurried about with a huge amphora of warm, scented water.

"Thank you, mistress," Imoen said, keeping her own voice low as well.

Phaere smiled and nodded toward the curtained room just as the last of the amphora-toting boys passed out of it and scurried off into the corridor beyond.

"Please …" Phaere said politely. "Bathe, and we can talk."

Imoen nodded and stepped lightly across the marble tiles to the simple beaded curtain. She passed through into a room easily as large as most of the houses she'd ever been in. The center of the room was dominated by an enormous round marble-tiled tub. Steam rose in gentle tendrils from the water into the cool subterranean air. The bath looked so good to Imoen after countless days of travelling and sleeping on gravel, and the thought of washing away the sweat, the blood, and the fluids of this creature and that monster sounded very appealing.

She'd been enjoying the ruse and would never have trouble admitting that she found the drow attractive—she even found herself more attractive as a drow—but she'd still been rather nervous around Phaere. Now, though, all she could think about was the bath. She shed her torn clothes quickly enough, not even thinking to try to explain them and their state to Phaere. They weren't drow clothes.

Phaere sat down on a low marble bench lined with rich cushions. As she sat, she pulled from a concealed pocket in her robe a long, thin wand that seemed to be made from crushed gemstones.

Imoen slid into the tub and let the water wrap around her. She closed her eyes and let out a long, relieved breath.

"It's been a long time?" Phaere asked. Imoen opened her eyes and saw Phaere twirling the wand between two fingers.

"What is that?" Imoen asked.

"Do you mean am I going to kill you with it?" Phaere asked, not looking at her.

Imoen wasn't sure how to answer, so she didn't. The warm, perfect water was like satin on her skin, and it was quickly making her sleepy.

"It's a wand," Phaere said, almost bored. "Lightning bursts from it on my command."

"Impressive," Imoen said, her voice even lower still.

Phaere looked at her and Imoen closed her eyes.

"Tomorrow is an auspicious day," the drow said.

"Is it?" Imoen asked, not even sure why she needed to keep the conversation going.

Phaere stood slowly and stepped toward the bath. "I truly begin my ascent tomorrow," She said. "I mean to replace my mother."

Imoen said nothing, not even sure what Phaere meant.

"That information would be worth a lot to her," Phaere said. "I'd have to kill you if you sold it to her, though, so please don't."

Imoen opened her eyes and regarded Phaere calmly. "I know who my friends are," she said.

"Good," Phaere answered and let her robe slip to the ground. Imoen pulled in a short breath and opened her mouth too speak, but no sound came out.

Phaere, eyes still on Imoen's, stepped into the tub and lowered herself into the water as slowly as Imoen had. The bath was huge enough that a good half dozen yards of warm water separated the two women.

"Do you know what a mythal is?" Phaere asked.

Imoen shook her head, her body suddenly tense.

"In a few days' time I'll have one at my disposal, and all I have to do is march a few hundred of my mother's all-too-expendable soldiers through a gate into some surface-elf forest. How long have they been expecting that? The arrogant fools actually think we're down here with nothing more interesting to occupy our minds than plans for their meaningless downfall."

Imoen closed her eyes again, willing herself to relax, and said, "So why give them their wish?"

"I must have been six the first time my mother told me never to make a deal with a vampire," answered Phaere cryptically.

The word «vampire» gave Imoen a chill, and her hand came up enough to disturb the water around her.

"Yes," Phaere said, misinterpreting the gesture. "It's not an easy thing to stomach, I assure you, but I'm getting the better end of the bargain. They have some secret weapon—some unsuspecting humans who carry some kind of curse that's supposed to help them. It's typically ham-handed human conniving—transparent and unmotivated amateurs that they are. The vampire even sent some chubby little human to help lure these others in or send them on their way through the gate for some reason. How this little man doesn't realize his mistress plans to kill him immediately afterward, I certainly don't understand. Not that the vampire's any smarter. I'm sure that bloodsucking bitch doesn't even know what a mythal is—has no idea what she's giving up in favor of a diversion."

"Diversion?"

Phaere slipped closer to Imoen in the bath, sending warm waves lapping against the soft underside of Imoen's chin.

"They have some grudge against one of the surface elves," Phaere said, obviously growing bored with the conversation. "I make this elf think the great drow invasion has finally come, and in all the chaos that follows, Bodhi and Irenicus do whatever it is they've set out to do. In exchange, I get power enough to ascend to the highest position in Ust Natha."

"A good bargain," Imoen said.

When Phaere had mentioned Bodhi and Irenicus by name, another chill ran down her spine. When Phaere touched her, a sensation of an entirely different nature followed.

Abdel was worried about Imoen. She was surprisingly good at pretending to be someone she wasn't, but Abdel realized that every second they spent in Ust Natha brought them closer to being found out. Not to mention the fact that the dragon had warned them that they didn't have much time. If the spell wore off and they were revealed to be human, suddenly couldn't even speak the language, they'd be in serious—very serious—trouble.

Jaheira was getting better at the ruse herself, but she wasn't as good as Imoen. Abdel watched her carefully and took some consolation in the fact that Solausein took his odd behavior to be simple jealousy. The drow thought Jaheira was doing to Abdel what Phaere had done to Solausein only hours before. Let him think whatever he wanted, Abdel decided, it had brought them to the eggs.

Getting past the guards was easy enough. Solausein was their captain, and they deferred to him, not daring to question why he might be there or who his unfamiliar companions were. Abdel had done enough of that kind of work to understand the soldiers' point of view. It wasn't so much that they were afraid to ask, they just didn't care.

"Perfect," Jaheira said, standing in front of the row of enormous eggs.

Solausein, maybe a little drunk judging by the sway in his walk, grinned openly at his new mistress's reaction. "As I promised."

"A fortune," Abdel offered, still reluctant to play along.

"Enough to establish my own—" Jaheira said, stopping when she realized the guards could overhear.

Solausein picked up on that right away and barked, "You men, load these things onto the cart outside, and be quick about it—quick but careful. The mistress has need of the eggs elsewhere."

Satisfied easily enough with the order, the guards hopped to. It took two of them to move each of the eggs, and Jaheira, Abdel, and Solausein stood in silence, watching, until they were done.

When the guards finished, Solausein said, "Leave us, there's nothing here to guard."

The drow guards nodded and took full advantage of their opportunity to stop standing around eyeing a bunch of giant dragon eggs by practically falling over each other to leave.

It was all Abdel could do not to follow them. Outside was Solausein's cart, hitched to a lizard three times longer than a horse. The lizard seemed to make a good enough pack animal. It was surefooted in the cavern terrain and strong enough to pull heavy loads. Abdel judged it to be as strong as a team of three, maybe four horses.

"We should be going, mistress," Abdel prodded.

Jaheira turned and said, "Indeed, we need to—"

"They're being moved?" an all-too-familiar voice sounded in the empty room. Abdel, Jaheira, and Solausein turned simultaneously, and Abdel's head spun at the sight of Yoshimo, flanked by two unhappy-looking drow guards, strolling casually into the room. "I was hoping to see these great dragon eggs for myself."

Jaheira said, "Uh—" and turned away.

Abdel tried to do the same thing without being obvious.

"What is this … thing doing here?" Solausein asked the guards.

"It's a human, sir," one of the guards reported flatly. "It's a guest of the mistress's."

Abdel caught the look on Yoshimo's face and realized the Kozakuran didn't understand what was being said.

Abdel's mind reeled. What could Yoshimo possibly be doing here?

He was in league with Irenicus, then … it was all starting to make sense. Abdel realized that it really was important to make sure Yoshimo didn't recognize him or Jaheira. So far, it appeared he didn't.

"This man is known to us," Jaheira said to Solausein, and Abdel felt a short wave of panic wash over him. Jaheira had met Yoshimo in Irenicus's prison but didn't know the rest of it. She didn't know what Abdel knew. "He's of use to me," Jaheira continued. "Dismiss the guards."

She turned her back on Yoshimo, and Solausein, without hesitation, said, "You heard the mistress. We'll take it from here."

These guards were a little more reluctant to be relieved of their duty, but they still bowed to Solausein and left the room. Yoshimo plastered an inane grin on his face. He was surprised by this turn of events and even without looking too directly at him, Abdel could tell he was nervous.

"I did not mean to intrude," Yoshimo said.

Abdel didn't want to look at him—didn't want to show any sign that he understood what the Kozakuran was saying.

"I don't understand this human," Solausein said.

"I must beg your pardon, my black-skinned friend," Yoshimo said, "but I am unfamiliar with the tongue of your underground city."

Abdel felt a tingling feeling shudder through his whole body and was surprised—even a little disappointed—by his nervousness.

"Abdel?" Yoshimo asked, quietly, tentatively.

Solausein said something Abdel didn't understand, and Abdel suddenly realized the feeling wasn't nerves. He wasn't a dark elf any more.

Imoen quivered lightly from fatigue and nervousness as she tiptoed lightly, barefooted, across the cold marble tiles of Phaere's dark bedchamber.

The tub was drained now, and her tattered clothes had been taken away. She wore a luxurious spidersilk robe borrowed from Phaere's extensive closet, and scared as she was, she felt better than she had in—how long? Days? Tendays even? She was clean; they had eaten, relaxed, and grown intimate in a way Imoen was never afforded in the monastery-fortress of Candlekeep. Her mind was a blur of conflicting emotions, but she was realistic enough to know what she had to do. She couldn't stay a dark elf forever, as tempting as that might be.

She found the wand easily enough where Phaere had left it, and slid it into a fold of her robe. She turned halfway around, but stopped when Phaere spoke.

"Another bath?" The drow's voice echoed in the otherwise silent, empty marble-lined room.

Imoen drew in a breath and said, "You startled me."

"Shall I have the boys draw you another bath?" Phaere persisted.

"No," Imoen replied, "no, thank you. I was just. . just. ." she made a hopeless gesture with one hand while keeping the robe closed, and the wand secure, with the other.

"Well," Phaere said, apparently understanding what Imoen was trying to say. "I'll leave you to it."

Imoen nodded, and the dark elf paused briefly, maintaining a long, comfortable eye contact Imoen didn't want to release. Phaere finally turned and slipped back into the darkness of the bedchamber.

Imoen's skin crawled, and she was surprised and ashamed of the sensation … until she realized that her beautiful black skin was no more.

Abdel punched Solausein in the face so hard the drow's nose shattered in a spray of blood. He went down fast and hard.

"It is you!" Yoshimo exclaimed. He seemed legitimately happy to see Abdel and Jaheira. "My friends, am I happy to have found you!"

"Save it, Yoshimo," Jaheira said, surprising Abdel, who was rubbing bruised knuckles. Solausein didn't stir. "What are you doing here of all places?"

"Why, looking for you, of course," the Kozakuran replied.

Abdel had his sword out and at Yoshimo's throat before he could say anything else. "What in the Nine Hells is all this?"

"I can explain all," Yoshimo said, eyeing Abdel's blade with a mixture of fear and haughty offense. "I think we should be leaving this city of drow elves first, though, yes?"

"Easier said than done," Abdel growled. He turned to Jaheira and said, "We wasted too much time."

"I know a way out," Yoshimo said, "but it will take a while to get there from here."

"We have a cart," Jaheira said. She noticed Abdel's perturbed look and told him, "We need to get out of here. If he can get us to the dragon, I honestly don't care why he's doing it."

"He's working for Irenicus," Abdel said. "I should gut him now."

"Oh, my good friend, I have no idea what you're talking about," Yoshimo said weakly. "I have come to help—that is my one desire."

Solausein grumbled, still unconscious, and rolled slightly to one side.

"He's waking up," Jaheira warned. "We need to get out of here."

"I can get you straight to the surface through a most impressive magical gate."

"We're not going to the surface," Abdel said, glancing at Jaheira with a look of resignation.

"We have to give a dragon back its eggs first," Jaheira said.

"After we find Imoen," Abdel corrected.

"Imoen?" Yoshimo asked.

"We came with another woman—a human disguised as a dark elf," said Abdel.

"Ah.. "Yoshimo said. "She's with Phaere."

"Still?" Jaheira asked, though she didn't expect an answer.

"And the gate will take you to the dragon," the Kozakuran proffered.

"How's that?" asked Abdel, already pushing Yoshimo to the door.

"It was explained to me that you but think of the destination in your mind, and away you go."

"I can't think of anything better, Abdel," Jaheira said quickly, "and we need to get out of here right now."

Abdel smiled, looked at Yoshimo, and said, "Lead the way."