Spinner of Lies

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. Sudden 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 yelled 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.

Then a crossbow quarrel punched the ettercap in the side of its head. It relaxed and tumbled to one side. Demascus grabbed his swords and stood. He was embarrassed, but shrugged it off as he scanned the tunnel for more attackers. It looked empty, though he could only see a few tens of feet with the light from Chant’s sunrod. Speaking of the pawnbroker …

“Nice shot, Chant. Burning dominions, that thing caught me flat-footed.”

“Is that what happened?” said Riltana. “I thought you’d found a new playmate to wrestle with.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, apparently Chenraya left it behind to slow down any pursuit.”

“If there’s one, there’s likely more,” said the queen. Her hands were curled in tight fists around her spear, and a flicker of lightning danced on its point. She cut an impressive, beautiful figure …

Later, he told himself. Or better yet, never.

Demascus advanced down the passage. He went a little slower than before, and kept his lips buttoned. The thief stayed silent, too; apparently she’d decided to hold her wisecracks in check as well. He doubted that’d last long.

He led the group along the same route as last time. Except for new variations on diguisting smells that he didn’t remember from before, nothing else surprised them on their way.

Finally they reached the chamber of the Gatekeeper. Overlapping vertical stone slabs framed the familiar courtyard, as well as a single arch on the opposite side of the chamber filled with orange haze. Sand was scattered across the floor. But unlike the first time they’d visited, it remained in random heaps, just as it’d fallen when they’d defeated the Gatekeeper. Claw- and footprints of many creatures made a furrow across the courtyard and up to the orange haze. That was new.

“They’ve gone through the portal,” said Arathane. “On the other side lies the Demonweb?”

“Afraid so,” said Chant. “Not the safest place to be if you’re not invited. We saw a vampire lord overcome by what might’ve been an unconscious defense of the Demonweb itself-or worse, some splinter of Lolth’s actual attention.”

“I could probably hide myself from notice,” Demascus said, glancing at one of the white runes of Exorcessum, “In fact, I know I could. But not the rest of you.”

“Hidden or not, I don’t really want to go back in there again,” Jaul said. “The drow witch got away. If she’s in the Demonweb, she could be anywhere by now.”

“I intend to go through,” said Queen Arathane. “I am not willing to turn around without at least looking.” She fished in her belt pouch and pulled out a greasy, stubby piece of chalk.

“This can shield us from direct observation,” she explained, and drew a circle on her forehead. The chalk left behind a white smudge on her lavender skin.

“I can still see you,” said Riltana.

“Which proves you are not a magical sensor,” replied the queen. She held the chalk out to the thief. Riltana accepted the chalk, examined it for a moment, then made a similar mark on her own forehead.

Chant went next, then Demascus. The chalk was slippery in his hand, and the circle he traced on his forehead tingled.

Jaul put up his hands, “You know, really, I’d rather not go back in there.”

Chant said, “No one’s asking you to, son. In fact, I’d rather you waited out here. In case we don’t come back …”

“Indeed,” interrupted the queen. “In fact, take it as a royal decree, Jaul Morven. Remain here, and if we do not return within one day, take this signet ring to the Court of Majesty. Explain to the Four Stewards all that has happened here.”

Jaul swallowed and palmed the ring.

Demascus realized he was grinding his teeth with impatience. The sooner they finished here, the sooner he could go look for Madri. “All right. Time to see if the queen’s sign will let us tread undisturbed in the Demonweb.”

“Good luck,” said Jaul, and turned away, rubbing at Raneger’s mark on his wrist.

Demascus entered the orange haze. He lost track of everything for a moment, as if the mist were slightly hallucinogenic. When it cleared, he was in a familiar stone corridor with the misted arch at his back. Ahead, the stone gave way to a spiraling tunnel of thick webs …

A large, blue-hued body lay at the intersection of stone and web. It was Lord Pashra, Chenraya’s oni ally. He advanced to study the body, ready in case it was actually some sort of ruse.

“It seems the drow have little stomach for alliances that outlive their immediate usefulness,” said the queen. The others had followed him through the portal.

“The drow are murdering, spider-fondling psychopaths,” said Riltana. “Everyone knows it. You’d have to be a complete idiot to imagine anything else.”

“Pashra is past imagining anything,” Chant said.

“And I’m not sad about that,” said Riltana. “The last time I saw him up close, he was no Prince Adorable, either.”

Demascus nudged the body with his foot. It was swollen and discolored with spider venom. He couldn’t restrain a shiver. When it came to considering various ways to die, he supposed he’d rather suffocate in a mine than be bitten to death by poisonous spiders.

A faint sound, like singing, sounded in the corridor.

Everyone heard it, but Demascus still put his finger to his lips. The singing rose and fell … rhythmic and purposeful, as if part of a ritual. And it was definitely a woman’s voice, probably belonging to Chenraya Xolarrin.

Demascus vaulted over the body and hustled toward the sound. A familiar acidic odor washed over him. Perhaps the smell was comforting to spiders and drow, but it reminded him of vomit. The tunnel was kinked and irregular; last time it had been a fairly straight shot to the temple-like nexus of doors. If the portal network was this changeable … Well, it was disconcerting. If you stayed in the Demonweb long enough and managed to remain unnoticed by the defenses, you’d probably get lost in a constantly mutating web of corridors.

He glanced behind, making certain everyone was still following. It wouldn’t do to lose any of his friends in here. Or for them to lose him.

He dashed around a corner and saw the same wide, high chamber as before, with the many gates. It was here they’d found a doorway into a dim tower castle, on the run from avenging vampires. Except … The nave and transept now hosted a small army. A brilliant light on the dais shone down on hundreds of ettercaps, spiders, and reanimated mine workers who filled the space like worshippers at service on a holy day. Demascus also noted a few driders, though they were larger and more bestial than the ones in the mine. Instead of hands, they sported lobster-like claws.

Chenraya was there, too, on the central dais. She’d acquired a ceremonial cloak since the debacle in the mine cavity, and new friends-four other drow gathered around her, all male. Three wore reflective black armor and the fourth wore wizardly robes spun of spider silk.

A silvery staff stood upright at the center of the dais. It sparked and flickered like a bonfire. The drow were entranced in its glow. Demascus squinted, and he saw that the staff’s headpiece was an oversized clenched first. Sort of like a miniature version of what they’d seen in the mine … Right. If Arathane was correct, the staff was the magically transformed arambarium relic. The last thing Demascus noted was the arched ceiling. Or rather, the lack of it. The web directly over the dais gaped, like a giant’s wet mouth.

Chenraya was singing in a deep, irregular tongue, melodic and haunting. The other drow called out an atonal counterpoint that made the back of Demascus’s throat itch. The cavity above the dais seemed to pulse wider with each completed verse.

“She’s forming a new portal mouth,” whispered Arathane. “It’s probably easy enough for a drow priestess, here in the Demonweb.”

Demascus managed not to jump. The others had caught up with him.

Riltana shook her head. “What now?” she whispered. “There’s no way we can fight through that press. I could fly over, but … I don’t fancy being out there all alone.”

Arathane said, “We must stop the drow before she completes the new passage. This is our last chance. I’d guess the next stop for the arambarium relic is either Menzoberranzan or … directly into Lolth’s demonic court itself.”

Demascus didn’t like the sound of that. And he worried Riltana and Arathane were being too loud. If even one of the drow or minion creatures looked up, they’d be seen. Actually, it was rather odd they hadn’t already been noticed …

Arathane saw his puzzled expression. She tapped her forehead, just below the white chalk mark. Oh. The queen’s magic chalk symbol was more potent then he’d realized. “As long as we don’t draw direct attention to ourselves, the enchantment will hold. But we must stop Chenraya from finishing her rite,” said Arathane.

Demascus said, “I can get into that circle and capture Chenraya’s attention before I’m noticed. If the rest of you can keep her lackeys busy for a few moments, I can end her.”

“Just take the staff,” suggested Riltana. “Flash in, grab it without starting a fight, and come back here. Then we all flee like scared children. How’s that sound?”

Not bad, actually. “Fine, that’s what I’ll do,” he said.

Though a part of him growled at the idea of avoiding what would otherwise surely be a spectacular conflict. He pushed that feeling away. They were here to retrieve the mother lode, not assassinate a drow priestess. And if Chenraya and her underlings gave chase, logic suggested that to face them outside the confines of the Demonweb would be better than within this dim cavity where the drow had all the advantages.

“Here goes,” he said, and leaped into the stafflight shadow of a drider.

He had several shadows to pick from on the dais, thanks to the staff’s glaring illumination. Demascus appeared in the dimness behind a male drow soldier who wielded a long-handled glaive.

The sound of Chenraya’s song slowed and dropped in octave as everything around him lapsed into languid action. The song was a basso rumbling, and the drow were caught motionless, open-mouthed, and in mid-blink. The priestess’s eyes were raised to the vaulted web ceiling, an expression of divine transport frozen on her face. Had he wanted, he could have killed two or three of them before the others even realized he was …

No. He’d come for the staff. Demascus slipped between moments and drow shoulders and grabbed the blazing length of transformed arambarium. He knew something was wrong the moment his fingers brushed the tingling metal. He jerked back. Or tried to. His hand remained stubbornly fixed around the buzzing shaft. The muscles in his arm and shoulders twitched, and he lost feeling in his legs. The stafflight pinched out, and time caught up with him like an axe stroke.

“Hello, deva,” said Chenraya, staring straight at him. “Welcome to my parlor. Trembles in the web suggested someone tasty would be along. Though I didn’t expect you; we dropped a mine on you to prevent that.”

“But here I am,” he managed to say through chattering teeth.

“Indeed. With your hand caught in the sweet jar, like a truant child. But I’m glad, because I have a use for you. I’d pegged Pashra to serve as the sacrifice I need to shift the Hand of Arambar back to its true form. Regrettably, he proved quarrelsome once too often. And so I had to deal with him before he learned of his surprise. But the Demon Goddess works in mysterious ways. Because here you are to take his place.”

“If you kill me, I’ll only return and hunt you down. I’m bound on the wheel of reincarnation.”

“No. You’re wrong. When I give your heart to Lolth, it won’t be just this mortal life she’ll strip from you. She’ll take every last future incarnation, too. She’s the Queen of the Demonweb Pits. When a soul is sacrificed to her, she lets no scrap fall between her mandibles.”