Spinner of Lies

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL

18 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

"Chenraya,” came a deep voice. “Why must you leave a litter of corpses wherever you go?”

Chenraya Xorlarrin frowned. She turned to face Lord Pashra, taking care to avoid the expanding pool of blood leaking from the still-twitching servitor.

“It’s no concern of yours,” she replied.

The blue-skinned oni glared, as if he had the authority to demand her answer.

He was one male she’d grown particularly tired of. At first, it hadn’t seemed so bad; he wasn’t a drow.

“Is it not?” he finally asked. But drow or not, she decided, the oni’s usefulness was fast drawing to a close. If it wasn’t for Pashra’s special knowledge concerning the arambarium, she would’ve already whispered the same dread word of arcane magic to him that she’d just used on the ettercap servitor. Even though it was created by men, it was a lovely spell … but it tasted filthy in her mouth. She’d learned it from a Bregan D’aerthe mercenary the Matron Mother had pressed upon her. Spells had their uses, even those fashioned by males. Matron Mother Zeerith, head of House Xolarrin, perhaps wasn’t entirely mad to accept opinions and input from the male drow of her house. Indeed, Lolth had commanded her daughters in every house to learn something of the magic that men wove in their stinking academies. Doing so would advance the Spider Queen’s new goal. A wondrous objective, though its potential implications left Chenraya unsettled.

“Are you drugged?” said Pashra, shaking her out of her reverie. “Why was it necessary to remove this ettercap’s heart and set it flopping on the floor?” The oni gave the dying organ a kick.

“Simple pleasures, Lord Pashra,” Chenraya replied. “They’re what get us through.” She bared her teeth-perhaps the oni would choose to interpret it as a smile-and mentally promised herself the treat of removing one of Pashra’s vital organs as well. Soon.

Openly she had gave praise to Lolth’s new direction and accepted her Matron Mother’s commands. Zeerith’s policy of tolerating males might even put the Fifth House of Menzoberranzan in the vanguard, and should Lolth’s plan succeed, all the daughters of House Xorlorrin would reap the benefits. But, sadly, so would all the sons.

“Besides, we have an army of ettercap servitor-slaves. A few here and there aren’t worth your concern.”

“Yes, priestess, but hardly any of them are with us. Most of them are out at the dig, an inconvenient distance from the nexus.” The oni gestured along the winding corridor of webbing that stretched into the dimness, the newest endpoint hub of the Demonweb.

The oni had a point. Damn it. And he had become less respectful and more critical. Connecting this leg of the Spider Queen’s network in Akanul had been a triumph, given the Demonweb’s recent and troubling instability. She’d had to locate an endpoint that wouldn’t immediately collapse under the strain when the connection was made. Unfortunately, no such endpoints existed out on the island. That would have been too convenient. Apparently the Spider Queen didn’t believe in making life easy for her followers. Chenraya supposed she was lucky she’d found any endpoint at all.

Which meant that transporting the prize still required secrecy and finesse. At least time was on their side. Thanks to false information fed by a couple of well-placed spies to the Akanul “intelligence” branch, the mining disruption was being blamed on a hostile foreign nation. This had allowed her to do with the mine as she pleased. Diverting the initial scraps of arambarium had been just the first step, of course. A test. The true mother lode had yet to be seized, thanks to one last group of hold-out genasi defenders in the mine’s heart. They needed to be dealt with soon. After they were quashed, it would all be hers. And to transport it, and indeed her entire force of servitor slaves, she’d devised a special surprise, praise Lolth.

“The Throne of Majesty knows about us,” said Pashra.

“No, Pashra. We’ve been over this-”

“They’ve found the warehouse. They know arambarium was shipped through it. How long before the Throne sends an army to the island? We can overcome the occasional spy or strike force, but not an entire troop of peacemakers.”

“Why are you wasting my time repeating these things?” asked Chenraya.

The oni said something curt and explosive in an unfamiliar language. But she recognized the tone. Then he said, “Humor me. What if, despite everything we’ve done, the Stewards are actually on to us?”

This was growing tiresome. Perhaps if I lay it out to him, as I would to a girl child who had not yet reached five years … “Listen, I’ll say this only once more. The Throne of Majesty is closer to learning the truth, yes. But they’re also in turmoil. The queen remains unengaged, hiding in her royal suite. The Stewards are convinced Tymanther is the author of their misfortune. Yes, the pale-skinned warrior and windsoul in the warehouse were remarkably capable compared to earlier spies. Eventually, yes, they’ll learn what we’ve really been up to. But by then it’ll be too late.”

“How can you be so certain? Did you see what they were capable of? What if they track us to the Demonweb endpoint, or visit the mine before we’ve unearthed the relic?”

Chenraya sighed. “The mine swarms with the balance of my slave-soldiers, my harem of arachnids, and a company of reanimated miners. Should any spy manage to defeat all those threats, the deadfall I’ve devised will smash even a small army of peacemakers to paste. Or anyone else that displeases me.”

The oni frowned. He understood her implicit threat.

“What about here? I see no defenses. If they get past the Guardian-”

“The Demonweb will rouse if nondrow should dare tread its paths. It’s a manifestation of Lolth’s mind, after all. The only reason you haven’t been ripped to shreds by swarming spiders is because I’ve granted you safe passage. Pray I never have cause to lift that protection. So, actually, I hope the spies do find us here. It’ll be their very last success.”

“Not that damned smell again,” said Riltana.

Demascus glanced into the intersecting passage ahead. Fluid slithered down the corridor like a snake made of feces. He wrinkled his nose. Chant came up even with Demascus and Riltana. His sunrod cast additional light on the putrid scene. Behind the pawnbroker trudged Jaul, who kept one hand clutched on his dagger hilt.

The kid shouldn’t be here, Demascus thought. But including Chant’s son was a condition Raneger insisted on before cooperating any further.

“Maybe we can give this tunnel a pass,” said Riltana.

Demascus studied the marked-up map Raneger had provided. “I think we need to check it out,” he said.

“Listen,” she replied. “What’re the odds this’ll be the one that goes to the Gatekeeper? The last six were a bust. Wait, I’ll answer my own question: Odds are low. Let’s avoid the shit-road and check out the next passage.”

“I agree with her,” said Jaul.

Riltana flashed Jaul a sugary smile. The kid returned an unabashed grin, his eyes sparkling.

Oh, great, thought Demascus. Jaul was setting himself up for a fall if he thought Riltana might have any interest in him whatsoever. The thief still carried a torch for Carmenere that wasn’t going out anytime soon. But Riltana wasn’t above flirting. Charisma was just another tool in her bag of tricks. Chant started to speak, maybe to disagree with his son. But he coughed instead. A fake cough.

Demascus suppressed a sigh. He saw how it was going to be. And it wasn’t like he wanted to wade in ankle-deep sewer water either, but …

“We could turn aside,” said Demascus. “But these leads are arranged, according to Raneger, by order of relative likelihood. He’s already got squads running down other clues. Finding this so-called ‘Gatekeeper’ is our best bet for tracking the oni and drow. So I’d rather not waste time on less-likely options. And anyway, Jaul …”

The kid looked away from Riltana and blinked. “What?”

“You’re Raneger’s proxy. Do you think he’d be all right with us choosing at our whim, or do you think he’d rather we go in the order he indicated?”

Demascus thrust the map into Jaul’s hands. Jaul dropped his gaze to the parchment, then to Riltana, then to Demascus. He rubbed at the tattoo of wave and dagger on his left wrist.

“Well … Um. I suppose we … should follow the order Master Raneger wanted …”

The thief frowned. “If I get crap on my favorite steel-toed boots, some leech-son is going to be sorry.”

Demascus swallowed a smart comeback. He sensed Riltana wasn’t merely being dramatic. The last time she’d been in the Catacombs, with his stolen scarf in hand, she’d almost died.

“I knew tunnels were under these cliffs,” Jaul said, “But I didn’t imagine so many.”

“They go on farther and deeper than anyone knows,” replied Chant. “Leftover from a series of previous excavations, before the genasi came. If we’d entered closer to the bay, we would’ve had to spend hours detouring around haunted cemetery tunnels and a detachment of peacemakers.”

“I wish we were far enough in not to have the deal with city runoff,” Riltana said. “What the Hells are people eating up there?”

“The sewage either ends up down here, or in the bay,” said Chant. “Most people prefer down here.”

“You sure seem to know a lot about waste runoff,” said the windsoul. Jaul chuckled.

Demascus said, “Stop fixating on the smell, Riltana. Besides, it’s working in our favor; the majority of tomb robbers turn around when they see something like this.”

“Except for those too stupid to take a hint.”

Demascus took a breath and held it before entering the corridor. He tried his best to skirt the liquid burbling down its center.

Chant followed. Despite the man’s bulk, he managed to sound light on his feet.

“You next,” he heard Riltana tell the kid. “I’ll take rear guard. I want to be farthest away from Demascus, in case he triggers some sort of crap slide.”

They followed the stream.

After a while the pawnbroker said, “They say these deep paths open on crystal caverns, sunless seas, and fungus forests hung with carnivorous vines. Or even-”

“Everyone knows those stories, Pa,” said Jaul.

“Ah, do they now?”

“They do,” said Riltana. “Sorry.”

Demascus laughed. “Even I’ve heard them. And my memory isn’t-”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it,” said Chant. The pawnbroker gave a long-suffering sigh.

The deva raised his hand for quiet. The sunrod showed the far end of the tunnel where the trickle of waste water fell away into a fissure. And beyond that, the rutted path gave way to cut gray stone. This was promising. At least something was here, unlike each of the previous leads on Raneger’s map.

Demascus moved soundlessly forward. The light spread into an open, square space, like a courtyard. Overlapping vertical slabs of smooth stone on the far side of the area narrowed down to a single arch filled with orange haze. Demascus could just make out a stand-alone structure beyond the mist that partly protruded from the cavern’s far wall. The stone roof of the structure was unbroken gray stone, curved like a gargantuan turtle’s shell.

“What kind of building is that?” said Jaul.

Demascus put a finger to his lips, and advanced. An odor reminiscent of rusted iron wafted through the room, ruffling his hair in a light breeze. He stopped. So did the breeze. He was almost halfway across the courtyard when he noticed that the sand scattered across it possessed two distinct shades-gray-black and brown-black-in a spiral arcing pattern that moved outward from a single point just a couple of feet in front of him.

He crouched down and traced a finger along a curve. The discontinuity between the lighter and darker colored streaks was sharp. The design must be recent-it would’ve been blurred if any appreciable amount of time had passed since its creation.

“Is anyone here?” he said, standing.

A sigh like wind through a desert was his answer.

“If you’re the Gatekeeper, show me the gate! We’re looking for drow!”

It turned out Raneger had heard of the Gatekeeper-someone or something left over from before the Spellplague crashed most of Faerun’s magical portals. It had been the guardian of a nexus used by Chondathan merchants, before Chondath’s scattering of city-states was destroyed by a chunk of genasi-infested Abeir.

Demascus wanted to complete Arathane’s commission. But if they found the Gatekeeper and a working portal system, he wasn’t about to give Master Raneger access to it.

The breeze returned, with the sound of air shuddering across empty dunes. This time, a whisper, too. It sounded like, “Drow?”

His neck prickled. Something unseen was in the room with them. “Yes,” he replied to the presence. “Have you allowed dark elves through your gate? Or a large blue creature?”

The wind stiffened. The spiral of dust lifted from the floor, becoming a haze of whirling arms composed of black sand. They were so long they spanned nearly the entire chamber. Demascus covered his eyes with one hand and staggered backward.

Then the gale roared like an awakened lion. He separated his fingers and looked through slitted eyes to see the dust devil draw its arms in, increasing its speed and density. It collapsed into a howling pillar of darkness, around which hunted hungry arcs of lightning. Silence smothered the room, except for the sound of Jaul’s too-rapid breaths.

The sand was gone, as was the dust-devil. What remained was a shape almost twice as tall as a man, made of glass-sharp obsidian splinters. Its face was a shivering, flexing nest of black stone shards.

“Son of a piss-pickled leech,” said Riltana.

“You can say that again,” Demascus agreed.

“It’s a golem, I think,” said Chant. “A magical construct.”

“All right, Lord Obvious,” Riltana said, “How do we make friends with it?”

The golem said something. Hundreds of stone splinters rubbed and clacked together. The effect made Demascus want to sick up on the cavern floor.

“What? I don’t understand.”

The golem spoke again. This time, Demascus heard, “I abide.”

Jaul pointed at the construct. “It’s gotta be the Gatekeeper.”

Demascus shot Jaul a look.

“I see,” he said. “Are you indeed the Gatekeeper?”

“I am. The gate is functional once more.”

“Once more? That’s good, I suppose. Did you allow through any drow? Or an oni? We’re looking for them.”

“The drow woman repaired the way. It is to her I now give fealty. Are you her servant, too?”

Gods of shadow, that was a complication! But … He shrugged and said, “Why, yes. Yes, we’re her servants. Please open the link for us, so that we may follow our lady.”

“Opening the gate is the function for which I was fashioned,” said the golem. Demascus couldn’t look it in the face when it spoke-the movement and sound together continued to make him queasy.

“I shall open the proper conduit, once you-”

“Conduit?” said Chant.

“The ways beyond the link were originally fixed and few,” said the obsidian golem. “But with the repair by Chenraya Xorlarrin, the possible routes have become … chaotic. It would be easy to get lost in the web of passages that now open from this door.”

The golem stopped speaking. Without eyes, it was difficult to tell where the thing’s regard rested, but Demascus got the feeling it was waiting for something. “You said you were going to open the conduit?”

“Once you speak aloud the pass phrase of dispensation.”

A pass phrase? Shadow take it! He tried, “Chenraya indicated you’d tell us the pass phrase.” Demascus suspected it wasn’t a particularly good lie, but how smart could this animate chunk of obsidian be?

The golem cocked its head like a bird catching sight of a particularly choice worm in the grass. Was the golem buying his line? The thing’s body language was impossible to read. Was it about to step back and usher them toward the arch? Or was it-

The golem slammed its hands together. A fistclap of sound and obsidian shrapnel exploded outward, catching Demascus in the thunderous wave front. He tumbled feet over head. It was like he was underwater, struggling in a current, and didn’t know which way was up. Then the back cavern wall batted him out of the air. He couldn’t hear anything or feel anything except a body-wide tingle that quickly became an all-over ache. Shapes flashed before his eyes, but they were out of focus. His sense of time suffered …

Something not good was happening in the cavern, he knew that. The golem had pierced his bluff, and then some. He realized he was slick with sweat, as if all the water in his body had decided to escape. Why was he just lying here? Demascus gritted his teeth. He tried to lever himself up the wall. Ouch! He wished the tingles would come back. He slid back down. Low, rumbling noises grumbled in his ear, as if he was deep underwater listening to a fight raging just above the surface.

His eyes finally focused. Riltana was facing the obsidian golem alone! She whirled like a snowflake in a wind flurry, just out of reach of the construct’s massive fists. But lines of blood painted on her exposed limbs and face showed that merely being near the creature’s razor-sharp body was slowly slicing the thief to ribbons.

Three bolts slammed into the construct’s side, splintering the black stone. Chant was still up and part of the fight, he realized. As he himself should be! Demascus struggled to pull himself up again …

Someone hauled him upright. Who? Jaul. The kid’s mouth moved, but the deva couldn’t hear anything. He nodded anyway and said, “Thanks.” The sound of his own voice was one more unintelligible rumble.

Demascus drew Exorcessum. The runes along the blade immediately flickered to life, red and white. “Help me,” he said.

A white rune flared. His body-wide ache faded. The clash of combat invaded his ears once more. Then the rune went dark. The one next to it, the one that had cleansed his blood of spider venom in the warehouse yesterday, was also still dark. Odd. Weren’t they supposed to … renew themselves? He shrugged, and decided to save that worry for later.

Demascus careened back toward the golem, sword in one hand. His other whipped the scarf from around his neck, so that the far end grazed the golem, but failed to grasp a raised arm as he’d intended.

The obsidian humanoid was still trying to mash the thief. Demascus rushed up on its opposite flank and jammed his sword deep into the thing’s core. It convulsed and shrieked like a caged drake poked with a stick.

Riltana yelled, “There you are! Why do you always lie down when things get serious?”

“Because your wit tires me out,” he said, hauling back on this sword. It didn’t budge.

Exorcessum was stuck!

The golem wheeled, yanking the sword out of his hands. Stone shards abraded the deva’s face and outstretched hand. Demascus evaded a hammer fist of black stone. Lords of light, what the Hells had he been thinking? Slashing strikes were better than extended lunges, even for live targets-less exposure to a counterattack. And for a creature composed of animate stone, he might as well have gift-wrapped his sword before he slammed it point first into the golem’s obsidian body.

Another of Chant’s bolts stuck the Gatekeeper’s face. It didn’t care. Despite the damage the pawnbroker and thief had already inflicted, its attention was fixed on Demascus. Apparently it was put out that Demascus had gotten back up.

“It really doesn’t like you,” yelled Riltana, as the golem chased him down.

Retreating, Demascus replied, “You think?”

If he could summon his-

The golem “screamed” in his face, rubbing its head-splinters together so rapidly it looked like a hive of swarming bees. The sound hit him like a club.

For a moment, he saw two golems winding up to deliver a massive punch. Two Riltanas shot him a worried glance. He couldn’t distinguish the floor from the walls. Then his vision snapped back to true, but not soon enough. He wasn’t going to be able to avoid the stone fist hurtling at his head … Except he did, swaying under the golem’s half-ton haymaker like a tree in the wind.

Riltana seemed pinned to the air. Two of Chant’s bolts inched forward like slugs through air thick as clear jelly. Jaul’s slack-jawed expression of surprise, as he stood in the doorway, was graven as if in clay.

Demascus had produced a catch in time. The tables had just turned, though the Gatekeeper didn’t yet know it. Mounting bliss painted everything a sort of glowing orange, like right before sunrise. Time to end this thing.

The deva gazed into the shadows that suddenly welcomed him, whispering their secrets. He took hold of the wavering profile of the Veil of Wrath and Knowledge. He let its moth-wing sheen fall over the Gatekeeper. Points of light shone out. They summarized the golem’s being to the deva’s practiced eye. Its strengths were obvious. Its weaknesses were nearly nonexistent. But every creature, even a monster of animate stone, is tied to the world in some fashion.

And then Demascus saw the emerald flower of light that pulsed in the Gatekeeper’s chest. It was where the power of the golem’s animation was fixed; a magical “heart” of sorts. No, that wasn’t quite right. For there were two emerald flowers. And to fold this creature instantly into death’s embrace, Demascus would have to simultaneously pierce both. Difficult, to say the least.

First things first, he told himself. Before time’s gears renewed their clacking pace. He darted in, under the still-outstretched arms of the Gatekeeper, coming up behind where he’d planted Exorcessum. He draped the Veil around his neck, then snagged the hilt with both hands. Like a wagon precariously balanced atop a hill, where the slightest touch could launch its headlong rush, time raced back into dizzying motion at the contact. Demascus clung to the side of a creature made of razor-sharp rock and hauled on a sword so damnably long it might as well have been nailed into the Gatekeeper purposefully. There was no way he was going to get the sword out! It was jammed in too deep. In its current configuration, he would have to call upon the strength of …

In its current configuration? What an odd notion.

“Demascus!” screamed Riltana. “Let go! That thing’ll slice you to bloody strips!”

She was right about that. But … Exorcessum’s length had always struck him as absurd. And wasn’t it funny how its runes were calming white along one side and savage red along the other? As if they represented an unhappy compromise between two opposing ideals? Two sets of runes. On a blade two sizes too big. Hm.

The Gatekeeper ceased thrashing. It turned until the side of its body where the deva clung was lined up with the closest wall. Demascus realized it was going to throw itself against the stone and use his body as a cushion.

Now or never, he thought. He relaxed his grip on the hilt. Instead of trying to pull the blade straight out, he imagined pulling the hilt apart, separating the sword into-

Exorcessum split with a report like a cannon shot. The Gatekeeper’s body reverberated as if it had swallowed an exploding fireball. It stumbled and dropped to one knee. Demascus remained standing. He gripped two swords. Scarlet runes writhed in murderous glee down the blade in his right hand. White sigils like angel’s wings graced the one in his left. In their mixed light, Demascus smiled.