They came to themselves in shadow, except for six dim lamps that formed the circumference of a rough circle around them. And soon even these lamps guttered out, leaving them in purest darkness. The floor was made of polished tile, Lukas decided. It was warm here. The air was stuffy, rich, and fragrant, with too much oxygen to comfortably draw breath.
He wondered who was there with him and whether he was the only one awake. He wondered where they were, and he breathed in through his nose, searching for clues. He smelled dirt, and cobwebs, and lemon grease, and incense, and wet, growing things, and blood. Hmmm. A poser. He listened to the others soft, hesitant breath. Who was there with him? Someone was in tears.
In Al Qahara at the desert s edge, said Gaspar-shen in his high, calm voice, They make a concoction out of flour, chicken s eggs, sugar, and cow s butter, which they mix together into a sort of paste. Then they add small pieces of chocolate, which they bring on camel-back from ancient Okoth. They bake small circles of this paste on an ungreased pan. They call this a cookie, I ve been told. Because you cook it, I suppose. Things you boil, perhaps they are called boilies in that language.
Who told you this? Perhaps your head could be considered a boilie, if it were properly prepared.
A traveler from a far country
Or maybe a soakie, Lukas mused. related this strange narrative. He told me people eat these things by dunking them into cow s milk.
Bullshit, said Lukas indulgently. Who ever heard of such a thing?
In distant Al Qahara, this is considered normal. What is happening now, perhaps they would find difficult to believe.
Then they re not so stupid as they sound, Lukas grumbled. Are your clothes wet?
Yes. It is a pleasant feeling.
Amaranth said, You are talking about the desert of Ruarin. I have heard of this place in my lessons when I was young. There are ruined cities in the sand, which are full of efreet and devils and djinn of all kinds. So I was told by my professor, the same wise man who explained to me why the fey can t set their hearts on mortal creatures, because their lives are short and full of suffering.
She was talking about her brother Coal, Lukas guessed. But she was not the one who was weeping in the darkness. That must be the girl dressed in the wolf s skin, whose name he didn t know. The Savage had not crossed the portal with them.
And what about the opposite? this girl now said, when she was able to speak. What about a mortal woman if she sets her heart?
I wouldn t know, said Amaranth primly. And then in a moment, Oh, but I know where we are. The Earthmother told me about a gateway in the marsh. A gateway that would bring me home.
Lukas, resting comfortably for the moment, felt her sit up next to him. She rummaged for something in her clothes. Then she held out her hand, and something glowed in it, a blue light that slowly gathered strength. Someone gave this to me when I was nine years old, she said. A final gift.
She stood up, and raised her arm above her head. Something to lighten the darkness, she said, and as she spoke the light got brighter, glowing from between her fingers, making her entire hand transparent, and showing them the place where they now found themselves, a high, square chamber full of pale vegetation and pale blooms of every kind, colossal succulents and bloated flowers. The four of them were on a circular stone dais about twelve feet across, with the humid earth beneath it, thick with vines. In each corner of the chamber stood an elaborate wooden screen carved to resemble a spider s web. The work was intricate and fine. And in front of each screen stood a statue of a single female deity in four incarnations, one fashioned out of gold, one of ebony, one of bronze, and one of stone. Closest to Lady Amaranth, the ebony statue showed an image of the Spider Queen, personified as a maiden of the dark elves, her cap of white hair carved in ivory, and balls of ivory in her eyes. Slim and graceful, she carried a spear in her right hand and a net in her left.
The other images were different. The one closest to Lukas was carved from sweating bloodstone, as if permanently greased. The goddess was human and hypersexed, with bloated, glistening breasts and a bulbous ass. With a seductive leer on her beautiful face, she squatted over some vanquished adversary, humbled through another force than violence. The wooden image was half spider and half woman, and the golden one, the smallest, was a spider only, its egg sac full to bursting.
This is not good, said Gaspar-shen. The strange patterns underneath his skin, like living tattoos, began to pulse with sea-green light.
No, Lukas agreed.
They had no sense of a ceiling above them. The walls ascended into obscurity. There was one doorway, which seemed to lead into a tunnel, and as they watched, a light started to flicker there.
They clambered to their feet. Lukas had lost his bow and quiver, but still kept his sword, and Gaspar-shen raised his scimitar. They were caught in the drow s web Lukas could see that now a shrine to the dark elves loathsome deity. He wondered, though, why he could feel no sense of menace. The wolf-girl sobbed quietly to herself, and Lady Amaranth, the bulb of light in her left hand, stared at the carvings and the heavy, hanging plants with wonder and delight. No doubt in her sequestered life on Moray she had heard nothing of the Spider Queen, full of venom and deceit, dragging her distended body through the bottomless layers of the Abyss and then up through the burrows of the Underdark, spinning her stratagems and nursing her regrets.
Ware, said Gaspar-shen.
But there was nothing to fight or be afraid of. Breathless, a girl slipped into the chamber, holding a lantern that swung from a small chain, a pierced-metal cylinder that cast a crazy swarm of lights.
Ah, so it s true, she said. She pressed through the pallid stalks of undergrowth until she stood next to the dais looking up, an elf maiden who in human terms looked to be between fourteen and nineteen years, dressed in a simple linen shift, fastened at the waist with a red cord. The white linen and her cropped white hair contrasted with the utter blackness of her skin. Lukas got a quick impression of a wide mouth and heavy lips, an arched, proud nose and wide eyes. She made a circuit of the dais, the light from her lantern scattering like a swarm of bees. I saw the green-eyed white girl chasing a black kitten through the grass. And my sister saw the golden spider hanging from its branch, struck with a burning arrow of sunshine that lit her web on fire. We all saw it. And the green-eyed girl is Chauntea the Earthmother in her human shape, and the kitten is the king of beasts. And Chauntea told us that this portal would be open for a moment, from Moray to the citadel no one has come this way in oh-so-many years!
As she spoke, breathless with excitement, three others had come in to join her, drow maidens dressed in the same fashion, all carrying their little swinging lamps. And they also started chattering as they rushed around the chamber, bowing as they did so to the four altars, and reaching up to touch and push apart the masses of white and yellow leaves. Soon Lukas could no longer tell which of them had spoken first, or distinguish which of them was speaking now. Their voices rose together, sometimes in unison, sometimes breaking apart into conflicting stories: My sisters and I had the same dream not the same, exactly. It was looking down into the well of paradise where the gods live. And the girl had the kitten in her lap. No, he was bad and scratched her, and she swatted at his nose. No, but the spider was in the moonlight, and her web shone with it.
Then they stopped moving. Each had found a corner of the room, and their voices fell into a kind of unison, as if they were reciting a catechism they all knew by heart: Of all insects, she is the most industrious, the thriftiest, and the most useful, a model for all mothers at their looms, and fathers at their nets in the dark water. All storytellers owe a debt to her, all musicians and artists, and all kings and queens who strive to weave a pattern in the world s fabric. Cruelly abandoned and cast into the Abyss, despised by Corellon Larethian, her children s father, still she was able to redeem herself, because of the thousand female virtues that we celebrate in our lives
All this was part of Araushnee s lament, Lukas guessed, the Spider Queen s self-serving liturgy. Other races had different ways of spinning this same narrative. He was interested, though, in the language of redemption, which seemed fresh to him, a fresh motif in the goddess s history. Cast into the Abyss, given a new disgusting name and shape, she had dragged anyone who worshiped her down into darkness, away from the light. Thousands of years before, the dark elves had left their forest halls to migrate downward to the Underdark, drawn into a web of lies. But perhaps they had dreams now of returning to the surface, which were echoed and reflected in the goddess s prayers: Soon she will come back, the elf maidens chanted. The Earthmother has permitted it. She will guide her to her rightful place among the Seldarine, just as she raised Malar the Beastlord out of the Abyss
This sounded delusional to Lukas. But there is no creature so debased that she cannot dream of rehabilitation, and in any case he wondered if this new story was connected to the mystery he d been untying and retying in his mind since Lady Amaranth had told him the story of her flight to Moray on the hippogriff s back. Not the spite of her leShay relatives, which was only to be expected, so much as their association with the drow, because it was the dark elves who had ambushed the princess and her dragonborn guards in the highlands above Myrloch Vale ten years before.
As he watched Amaranth now, entranced, her face pretty with delight, holding her own light source above her head, Lukas felt his regrets overtake him and confuse his way forward. He stood, sword in hand, on a raised dais in a shrine to Lolth he didn t know where. But if Lady Amaranth was correct, and if her vision had been a true moment of transcendence and not some illusion perpetrated by her enemies, then they had found their way to Gwynneth Island, perhaps through some tunnel in the Underdark. In the dumb luck that sometimes smiled upon him, perhaps, he had succeeded in bringing her to Sarifal, to the kingdom of the fey, as Lady Ordalf had asked of him. In which case he might win Suka s freedom from the dungeon where she rotted with the others, the disgusting fomorian giantess and the lycanthropic pig.
But how could he feel happy about delivering the princess to her enemies? And even if he had warned her against them, still his responsibility could not end there, because she had been raised in innocence. Her memory of Karador was tinted with nostalgia, nor could she have any understanding of the treacherous whims and stratagems that moved like weather through the beautiful landscape of Sarifal. Her sister had required her death, had been willing to pay a hoard of gold for it, for reasons she had not bothered to explain. But that was tendays ago, and Lukas could only hope she had forgotten, or the caprice had left her almost immortal, the leShays memories must be made of cheesecloth, doddering intellects preserved in perfect bodies, and it was no wonder if their wishes and commands were senseless, or changed from hour to hour. Whoever sent these girls to welcome Amaranth back home meant her no harm.
Where are we? he said.
Near him the wolf-maiden had risen to her feet, a dark-haired girl with high cheekbones and blue eyes. She stared at him, her face still streaked with tears, and he felt another quick surge of regret where was the Savage now? Where was the daemonfey, his friend, who had fought against the Beastlord to cover their escape?
You are in Citadel Umbra, said the leader of the drow priestesses. I am Amaka, and these are my sisters, Onyiye, Chinedu, and Kemdelime the others curtseyed.
We are the handmaidens of Araushnee, whom you call Lolth, the Spider Queen. We are in search of Lady Amaranth leShay, to bring her to her rightful place in the house of her ancestors, where a masquerade has been commanded in her honor, a festival of lights, prepared for the spring solstice by Prince Araithe, her nephew, the ruler of this land They chattered on and on, a circle of high, laughing voices. Amaka raised her lantern. I recognize you, she said to the wolf-girl. The beauty of the leShays is legendary in all of Faer n.
No doubt, said Lady Amaranth, stepping down from the stone dais onto the temple floor among the blooms and vines. She looked back and smiled uncertainly. I am Amaranth, she said.
My name is Eleuthra Davos, returned the wolf-girl. I am an emissary of Derid Kendrick, the Ffolk king of Alaron, sent to
The Ffolk king, the Ffolk king, chattered Amaka and the rest, oblivious to their mistake. Perhaps he will come to our masquerade.
Lukas thought it was unlikely. Nevertheless, there was something touching about these misplaced hopes.
Oh, the drow girl went on, perhaps besides the solstice and Lady Amaranth s return we might celebrate for one night only the end of fighting in these islands, when the elves and the fomorians, all of us, will dance under the moon. When Queen Araushnee takes her place among the Seldarine, and the family of gods comes together, just as this family, here, has woven itself together with a spider s silk. At long last the dark elves will see the morning come on and on, until Lukas had to wonder if they were drugged or drunk, stung with some enchanting spider s venom. He himself felt his heart rising as he stepped down to the ground, and allowed one of the priestesses (Chinedu? Kemdelime? He had already forgotten the rest of their names) to guide him toward the tunnel s mouth. Surrounded with such pretty women, who could feel sad, and who could dread the future? He had sheathed his sword. He looked back for Gaspar-shen who stalked behind, unaffected and bemused.
Citadel Umbra I remember my uncle, said Lady Amaranth, drawn on by Amaka ahead of Lukas. I think I was seven years old when I came here. I remember combing his gray hair, even though he was my nephew, thinking how handsome he was
The tunnel was carved through living rock, and the light from the lanterns caught at seams of glistening minerals along the raw, unfinished surface. They passed the black, gaping holes of many side corridors and caves. Amaranth had put her light aside, but up ahead, a new source of illumination burst from the tunnel s end, and there was music up there too, a dancing jig that nevertheless managed to maintain the haunting sadness of all eladrin melodies. Finally they stepped out into a larger grotto, through whose entrance they could see the firelight outside in the open air under the night sky how long had they lain, dazed, in Lolth s shrine? Lukas had thought these transformations to be instantaneous.
He guessed the tunnels they d traversed had once been mines, cut by the shield dwarves and then enlarged, perhaps, by the drow, a route below Winterglen into the Underdark. The grotto looked natural to him, its roof gleaming with semiprecious crystals, green and yellow, peridot and citrine. A small cliff, perhaps thirty feet tall, formed the curved edge of a clearing in a forest of evergreens, a deep grassy glade with a stream running through it. On the other side, along the border of the forest, stood a half circle of silk pavilions, richly colored, and lit from the inside with charcoal braziers. By the banks of the stream there was a bonfire, and around it a small crowd of elves of all colors, eladrin and other fey, and nearby a small orchestra of a dozen human musicians, Ffolk slaves playing a tune Lukas recognized. It was a reel composed by Cymon the False, but tarted up in this performance with timbrels and bells. Better would have been a simpler arrangement of woodwinds and strings, played to a faster tempo. Better would have been a little joy. Instead, as often with the fey, you got a kind of brittle, frantic, melancholy gaiety lords and ladies, dressed in silks and velvets, capered on the grass, their faces hidden behind leather masks fringed in ostrich feathers. Painted and bejeweled, spotted and discolored, with witchlike noses and leering mouths, these masks concealed or else at least attempted to conceal the dancers endless beauty and eternal health, boring and tragic even to themselves.
This was not the first time it had occurred to Lukas to thank the gods for his mortality. Lady Amaranth was behind him, and she touched his sleeve. He paused to take her hand, but she didn t want anything like that. Instead she pushed past him, murmuring excitedly, for she had seen a gray-haired man in a golden mask and a long velvet cloak, untied and open down the front. He stood near the fire. Turning, he reached out his hands then came toward them while the handmaidens of Lolth spun out into the field, chattering and singing.
Lukas guessed this was Prince Araithe, the son of Lady Ordalf, whom he had last seen in Caer Corwell. He was of medium height, and his cloak, when it flapped open, revealed a silver doublet, plum-colored hose, and a silver, tasseled codpiece, a style both ugly and pathetic, in Lukas s opinion. Lukas was not disposed to like Araithe anyway, but was surprised by the violence of his own reaction as the man approached. Araithe lifted his mask with a right hand that also seemed fashioned entirely of gold, with the elegant, contrived fingers of a clockwork mannequin.
Is it really you? he asked. When the priestesses told me of their dream, I thought it was too much to ask.
And Lady Amaranth, because of her vulnerability and the blindness of her need, never hesitated. Lukas watched the two of them come together as if partners in a different dance, to a different rhythm.
I ve prayed for this, said Prince Araithe, his voice soft and pretty. A long time there are too few of us to keep apart. Whatever reason you had for leaving us all is forgiven now.
He put his arm around her shoulders. The price you have paid, the hardships you have endured, let us not speak of them. Or if we must, imagine them as a test to bring you to this place. Your mother and father are dead now. But I am guardian of this tower, and I will be everything to you mother, father, brother, sister, nephew, uncle, and more besides. There are too few of us to make distinctions, and we will be together for a long time. Everything I have is yours, and I will share it with you equally, for the sake of our shared blood. The world is vast, but we will find shelter
She laid her cheek against his breast. Lukas stayed near enough to listen to the prince s murmurings, and now he caught his eye above her hair. Araithe s golden fingers made a little gesture of dismissal. But Lukas persevered until a crease of anger marred the perfection of the prince s forehead, and he moved away from the girl s embrace. Make yourself useful, he said. Bring my lady something to drink.
Hogsheads of wine were open on the turf, and Amaka came toward them, a goblet in each hand. She herself had had enough to drink, Lukas decided, judging from the unsteadiness of her little dance, the way the wine slopped from the crystal cups, the delirious sparkle in her eye.
Lukas put up his palm to forestall her. Sir, he said, your mother promised me three hundred thalers to bring your aunt to Gwynneth Island. In addition, she was keeping a friend of mine in Caer Corwell as her guest, in security
The prince interrupted him. My mother promised you more gold than she had, and paid you more than you are worth. I encourage you to drink a glass of wine then take your leave of us in safety, with your friends. He glanced at Gaspar-shen. As for the person you speak of, I m afraid I have bad news. She endeavored to escape from my mother s hospitality, and was killed in the attempt, not by any force of ours, but by a treacherous lycanthrope, a pig from Moray Island.
He was not clever, Lukas decided, this prince who lived for thousands of years. Time had robbed him of that. Lady Amaranth stiffened, and with her forefinger she touched the climbing rose tattoo under her jaw. She looked toward Lukas and he turned away, wanting to let her think about the possibility of spending eternity in this place, with its bad music and bad company and wine that, he guessed, would have been eighth rate even if it hadn t been poisoned or full of magic the fey were no good at ephemera, which was after all what most of civilization was. He waved to her without looking, as if he were washing his hands of the whole business job well done cut his losses Suka was dead; he doubted that. This lump of leShay shit wasn t capable of telling the truth. If he said she was alive and well, then Lukas might worry. He affected a frown, as if he were afraid the prince might possibly rescind his offer of safe conduct and, nodding to Gaspar-shen, he went in search of the wolf-girl, whom he found squatting near the border of the trees, head in her hands. He went down on one knee beside her.
Tell me, he said.
And so she told him about Bishtek Dlardrageth strange to call him that. The Dlardrageth had mixed their elf blood with demons out of the Abyss millennia before. More recently, in Spellplague times, Sarya Dlardrageth had gotten loose from prison and had fought some stupid war. From her defeat, Lukas guessed, his friend s father had escaped and hid himself, had tried to cleanse his son of all demonic traces, and had failed.
These thoughts went through him in a moment. They occupied one part of his attention, while with the other he listened to the druid; how she had fought in Malar s temple below Scourtop, where the Savage had gone to help his friends she gave him that much credit, though he had failed, of course; they had both failed, and Malar had been hauled out of the pit, and Chauntea s priestess and the boy were dead.
Lukas didn t look at her. He stared out toward the bonfire where the elves danced, dark elves, mostly. Two others drew his attention, one a tiny, emaciated, gossamer-boned fey, scarcely taller than a gnome, but with enormous feathered wings that rose over his head, his jeweled cap. His face was scrunched up like a monkey s as he admired the dancers.
He was one of the avariel, the winged elves from the mountain peaks above Cambrent Gap. The other stood apart, a drow captain in black steel half armor, out of place among the revelers, his white hair fastened down his back. And he was staring at Lukas with a dyspeptic, fierce expression, a hand on his sword hilt. Lukas dropped his eyes and listened to Eleuthra Davos tell him about the king s tomb, and the loregem that had opened the pool among the beech trees and brought them here to safety.
The king s gold, she said, maybe had begun to heal him where he d been maimed. I felt the spines that had broken through the skin along his vertebrae, and his shoulder blades blossoming where his father had torn away his wings. I was afraid of him. Gods help me. I didn t know how long it would take to feel his dragon s tail curl around me. Oh, but he has broken my heart.
The drow soldier, a warlock or a swordmage, Lukas guessed, was still looking at them from across the clearing, his lips twisted in an expression Lukas couldn t read nothing good, though. Contempt, anger, whatever. As Lukas watched, the dark elf spat at the ground between his boots.
I heard what you said to him, Lukas told the druid. It didn t sound to me like heartbreak.
He found himself mimicking the drow, pulling his lips back, spitting. He watched Gaspar-shen take a crystal goblet from one of Lolth s handmaidens. He sniffed at it, a pensive expression on his face. He wouldn t drink it. His interest in food and drink was abstract, metaphorical.
The half moon rose above them, breaking through the curtain of the trees. By its light Lukas saw the tower of the citadel as if conjured into being, a stone spire that appeared and disappeared according to the pattern of the mythal that protected it. Some of the dancers stopped what they were doing and applauded the sight with more politeness than enthusiasm, Lukas thought. He watched Prince Araithe, one arm around Amaranth s waist, gesture modestly toward the tower as if claiming credit for a magic trick. Lukas despised him.
I didn t hear much love in what you said to him.
What do you know about it? said the druid girl.
Good point, Lukas conceded. He could not but remember Marikke and the boy, whom he had found in Caer Callidyrr mired in courthouse bureaucracy, impoverished and without hope. He had taken them in, telling himself he would protect them, at which task he had failed, and the Savage had failed also.
Where will you go now?
Back, Eleuthra said. King Derid will need eyes in Moray now the Beastlord has returned.
Her own eyes were red with tears. Gaspar-shen stalked toward them, a smile on his face. What did you think of the wine? Lukas asked.
I detected hints of blackberry and smoke. A high glycerin content. You can tell from the streaks along the glass. Perhaps we should go.
Lady Amaranth had lost her brother, Coal. She also had a distinctive way of showing her grief, which was to simper adoringly with her hand on Prince Araithe s arm as she approached them.
My nephew has consented to let you stay. He said you could play in his orchestra.
Lukas glanced up at Gaspar-shen. What did I tell you? he thought.
The prince does me too much honor, he said without rising to his feet.
Then you accept? Her eyes maintained a wistful, pleading look, at odds with the rest of her expression.
My dear, I think it best to take the captain at his word, said Prince Araithe.
Lukas looked beyond them toward where another figure had entered the circle of firelight, a woman in a long, flowing gown that, like the prince s raiment, seemed to project a kind of desperate sensuality. The velvet clung to her breasts like a layer of skin. Despite her witch s mask, Lukas recognized her. For reasons he couldn t decipher, he d been expecting her.
Ware, said Gaspar-shen.
Lukas stood up. The lines on his friend s forehead pulsed dimly, red and gold. Which meant what, exactly? You d think he d know by now. People were like undiscovered continents, what they did, what they said, what they meant. As the leShay queen moved toward them, tripping lightly over the grass, as you might say, he allowed himself a small, sweet moment of sadness, and in his mind he captured three small images from the past, because he guessed there d be no time for contemplation once High Lady Ordalf opened her mouth first, Marikke, her stiff yellow hair hanging down over a face flushed with concentration she was performing some ritual in Chauntea s honor, some brimming liquid in a bowl of light. Second, the calico-haired boy, his fingernails extended in surprise. Third, the Savage, but not wrecked to pieces the last time he d seen him, a new self erupting out of him, but at his ease in his black clothes, his dark face shining, a gold coin in his outstretched hand.
My dear boy, said the queen. My love, how could you invite so many to your party, and not me? Who is this whore? she said, not deigning to look at anyone except her son, peering up into his face, so close to him now that he was obliged to take a step backward and let go of Lady Amaranth s arm. Who is this diseased slut? Does a mother s advice mean nothing to you? Your father died of a venereal infection, as you know. And he was in his prime.
Well, that should get the ball rolling, Lukas imagined.
At first he d thought Lady Ordalf, not to be outdone, had assumed a mask that was the ugliest in the entire citadel, a grotesque apparition of white skin patched with scabs, a long, beaked, unblown nose, and broken teeth. But now he saw her mask was actual flesh, a small piece of illusion that was now undone, melted away, revealing the golden eyes, sweet features, and laughing, purple mouth of the leShay queen.
Really, Prince Araithe was not clever. Madam, he said, his face stiff with shock, may I present to you my aunt
Ordalf whipped her head around, and any thought Lukas might have had that she d relaxed or forgotten her malice toward her younger half sister was immediately dispelled. But then her face again reformed into beauty, and she held out her hand, displaying a ring on her right forefinger that, Lukas imagined, she wanted Amaranth to kiss.
Or maybe not. Amaranth, also, had taken a step backward. The queen spoke again, her voice lovely and melodious. Captain, I believed we had a bargain, and that you were to deliver to me one small spherical part of this merchandise, and not, as I see now before me, the entire shipment. Was it too much to ask, that my wishes be fulfilled? Here you ve given me too much of a good thing, which is worse than nothing at all. I believe that voids our contract, and that you can expect nothing more from me, and the matter of three hundred gold pieces
Of all the world s races, Lukas decided, the eladrin and elves cared the most about coin, perhaps because they lived so long. Still, it astonished him that she could not refrain from haggling, even at a moment like this one.
Of course, she said, I also was unable to keep my side of the bargain, to keep your gnome on this side of the Nine Hells. The giantess I showed you, she separated her torso from her legs without even the benefit of a knife and fork.
These words were worth more than any of the gold she owed, Lukas thought, because they showed both she and her son were lying, and Suka might be alive for all they knew.
Thank you, he said, and she glanced at him briefly, stuffed with contempt for his sincerity, which she could not hope to understand.
Sister? Lady Amaranth began.
The music was silent now, as if everyone in the clearing had become aware of this knot of difficulty under the tall trees. Ordalf held out her hand. The ring on her forefinger began to glow, an amethyst.
And as if it had been pushed out from its center, Lukas felt an odd sensation travel through his body and then beyond him out into the clearing, a wave of inertia that dulled and numbed his senses and made it hard to move, hard to think. He imagined the synapses and ganglia of his body set alight as with a gentle electricity, impeding his control. Or it was as if time had slowed for him and all the others whom the wave had touched, the force out of the jewel. Only Lady Ordalf was unaffected, the author of the spell. She sauntered easily to stand next to her sister, immobile and, as Lukas could see, petrified with fear. The leShay queen reached out with her left hand, and with a cruel familiarity she moved her fingers over Amaranth s face, brushing her cheek, pulling at her hair, tweaking her ear then moving down her neck over the yellow rose tattoo, while at the same time murmuring as if to herself a soft commentary on her sister s plainness and defects, her unpleasant pallor, her red freckles and red hair, filthy and unbrushed, and was this a twig in it? You must have gotten your complexion from your father. And what are you wearing? She moved her hand down the front of Lady Amaranth s shirt, modest and androgynous, homespun in her Moray workshop, dyed in earth colors Lukas could scarcely move a muscle. His body trembled, and with great difficulty he turned his face an inch or so to see if Gaspar-shen was having any luck, but the genasi stood beside him like a statue. Eleuthra was no better. The musicians, instruments still raised, had stopped their playing. Time itself had stopped, or almost stopped, for all but the night birds that still passed over head, and for the drow captain, who had come closer, sword drawn, a puzzled expression on his face a warlock, then. Lukas had been right.
Mother, admonished Prince Araithe. He also was unaffected, because this demonstration was for him.
Full of anger and distress, Lukas watched the queen hesitate at the collar of her sister s shirt then find the hidden buttons and undo them one by one, whispering all the time, Let s see what you have under there. Ooh, gooseflesh. Is my hand cold? Now tell me, do they have baths on Moray Island? Or I suppose when you lie down with your wolves, you can expect some fleas my son, are you listening? If you feel some itching down below, you ll get no sympathy from me. No soothing liniment. You ll have to work on that yourself. Look here, an undershirt. She s playing hard to get. Look at her bosom, do you like that? So pert and fresh. It s because she s never borne a child.
She s going to strip her bare, Lukas realized. She s going to strip her naked in the middle of a crowd of strangers. Frustrated, he tried to raise his hand. With his utmost strength, he turned his head to look at Amaranth, and saw that she was staring not at her tormentor, but at him, her cheeks on fire, a pleading look that animated every feature of her beautiful face. And so he did not allow his eyes to shift from hers, as he listened to the leShay queen continue her repetitive litany: waist and hips too narrow, unsightly and disgusting hair, thighs too bony and muscular don t you see?
Lukas did not see.
Mother, said Prince Araithe, his voice petulant and sharp, and Lukas tried to guess its tone. Certainly there was no pity in it. As Gaspar-shen had tried to analyze a glass of wine without tasting it, so the ranger followed the music of the prince s voice, until he knew the melody: irritation. Hurt pride. And that was all.
And so suddenly, with the force of a blow, Lukas understood what they were talking about, the mother and the son. And Amaranth also understood. He d seen her weep on several occasions, and now he waited for the tears to form, and overflow her eyelids, and drip down her motionless cheeks she was too horrified for that.
Mother, stop. The prince was humiliated to see his property displayed like this, ruined for him.
No, my son. This is how it must be. Look where my hand is. Over her womb. Oh, but I will twist her up inside. I have the power to do that. I can make her worse than barren. She will breed monsters. You have not seen such monsters yet.
Lady Ordalf had gone too far. Enraged, the prince struck at her with his golden hand, knocked her to her knees, cutting her cheek so that the amber blood flowed out. He reached down, grabbed hold of her right hand and dragged the ring from it, threw it off into the shadows, and at that moment everybody staggered free. But nothing could be the same. The musicians rose to their feet, kicked over their stools, threw down their fiddles and guitars they knew they d be punished for what they had seen. The drow priestesses cowered in the entrance to the cave, then disappeared inside. By the time Lukas reached Amaranth she had covered herself, but when he tried to touch her and comfort her, she struck at him wildly stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid. Eleuthra Davos was with him, and Gaspar-shen.
Come, Lukas said, and led them out of the circle of torchlight. Lady Ordalf had collapsed onto the grass, and now her son knelt over her, sobbing, his golden fist clenched. Lukas imagined they might have a few minutes, and he led the way out of the clearing, into the dark, sticky forest of evergreens. This way, he said, not knowing where to go. Come this way.
Not wanting, for sentimental reasons, to leave the shape in which she d last seen the daemonfey, Eleuthra held out as long as she could. These were the lips that he had kissed. When the red wolf with the black mark had come into the clearing, she had climbed down into her bestial self to goad him, to signal her regret, if only for a moment he was disgusting to her, after all. But when the Savage had wrestled with the wolf in the pool, had slit his stomach and dyed the water red just at the moment the gate began to swirl, she felt he had penetrated with his knife the wolfish part of her, cut her to the heart. In Callidyrr, in her druidic studies and devotions she d discovered her animal nature, had rejoiced in it for years, but at a cost. Two creatures in one body how could she expect to feel unmixed emotions? One part hated what the other part loved.
So as she squatted listening to the music in the clearing, she had resolved to hold onto her human shape, for the sake of the music, the dancing, the fine clothes, the wine, and the memory of the daemonfey. But like an addict she had become more nervous and distracted as the moments passed, particularly as the knot that tied Lady Amaranth to her family grew more twisted and strained, and finally burst apart. She had found herself scratching her armpits and rubbing her lips, itching beneath her uncured wolf skin until she could scarcely tolerate her own humanity. And so when the ranger brought them in under the trees, she found herself subsiding gratefully into her lupine form, a drunkard forgetting her own promise of sobriety, happy to see the bright colors grow dim, at the same time that the darkness brightened. She leaped away into the night forest, and immediately forgot the lover she had left to die.
Forgot him even though, as her senses sharpened, she caught the stink of other fey and realized the danger they were in. Doubtless the ranger knew it also: These pines and fir trees had kept down the undergrowth, and they could make good time along the woodland paths, over a turf of silver needles that deadened their footsteps. But among the heavy tree trunks she could see the fugitive shadows of other creatures, fell denizens of Winterglen, who had gathered in around the citadel to listen to the music, the human music the fey loved, because it spoke of transience to eternal creatures, and passion to the passionless. And so they had come like moths to a flame, night hags and feygrove chokers.
But the music was over now. Released from its power, they looked about themselves, their anger and their spite redoubled, because they d been forgotten for a little while. Caught and released, now they looked to enslave others. And as the druid, the genasi, the princess, and the ranger made what speed they could, they picked up stragglers behind them, and on either side, and now in front. Where the largest trees were choked with vines, long sinewy arms with three-fingered hands reached down to snatch at them. The ranger had lost his bow in the gate but had retained his sword. He and the genasi slashed at them while Eleuthra hung back. A dusk unicorn, blood flanked and grotesque, loomed out of the shadow and she swiped at it with her claws, while all around them she heard yelps of pain out of the howling hags that shambled toward them through the trees, their hands held out, their bodies stinking of rot.
The ranger didn t know where he was going. How could he know? His only thought was to bring the girl away. But now Eleuthra wondered if in the minutes that had already passed since they had left the clearing, Prince Araithe had forgotten his distractions and was weaving a spell out of Citadel Umbra, a web of Feywild creatures to disarm them and bring them back. She leaped after the unicorn, chased it away. But beyond it, back they way they d come, she saw the moving shadows of a pack of hounds, saw their yellow eyes as if reflected in a fire. Had the princess lit her beacon again? That would have been foolish. No, the light was from elsewhere, up ahead. She turned and ran back to the others, who had paused in a boggy open space, where the pines gave out into the softer, deciduous trees. There in the middle burned a bonfire, which had not been there even a minute before, and around it turned, as if following the steps of some simple dance, a circle of figures eladrin, the druid guessed at first. That would have been a welcome sight, and doubtless that was what had drawn Lukas out of the trees. But then she saw him raise his sword, and saw also the faces of the graceful creatures illuminated in the firelight fey lingerers, knights and ladies who, zombielike, refused to die. Still animated by hate, or malice, or thoughts of vengeance against those who had stolen their enormous lives away, they had gathered near their living brethren, a pack of ruined ghosts. Only in the darkness did their skull-like features retain even a shadow of their beauty, and now the darkness had fled. Bowing and turning, they circled forward, clad in moldy, slimy armor, though their swords were bright.
Shit, said Lukas. Fall back.
In her wolf s shape, complicated human speech was hard to care about, hard to listen to, hard to understand. But she could handle shit, fall back. So where? Behind them were the chokers and the hags and the hounds now spreading out around them, weaving back and forth among the trees. Eleuthra wondered if this was still her fight, and what would happen if she slunk away into the trees, protected by her beast s shape no. These were the daemonfey s friends, and she would fight for them. She d left him to die facing Malar the Beastlord.
They hung together in a knot, the four of them. But now others were converging out of the shadows: drow soldiers. And to Eleuthra s astonishment they cut and hacked through the whimpering fey. A choker, its arm severed, howled from a bole of vines. The lingerers, undaunted, still moved forward, but Eleuthra could see there was some magic with the drow, a warlock or other conjurer. Snarling, his lips drawn back, she could feel the electric thrill of magic in her heavy teeth. The bonfire snuffed out as if the gods had pissed on it, and in the stinking smoke she could see a drow captain in black armor, the same one from the clearing at the citadel, his white sword burning with a lambent flame. Lukas was with him, and the fire-striped genasi, and she also bounded forward, seizing a dead knight by the arm, dragging him down into the mud, trying to kill him once again. Above them, lightning flashed out of a cloudless sky, and it began to rain.
The drow s ears were full of iron rings. His white hair was fastened behind his neck with an iron pin in the shape of a crab. His voice was high and soft and unpleasant, a sound like the rushing of the wind. Come, he whispered. Come with me.
There were seven drow soldiers, and also one of the priestesses or handmaidens of Lolth, the first one who had spoken to them in the temple of the Spider Queen Amaka, she had called herself. Her eyes were wide with fright, but she ran with them under the trees, barefoot, her pretty white dress stained and ruined, the red cord missing from around her waist. The drow captain led them onward, still away from the citadel, and once again into the pine forest. In time Eleuthra could see they followed a stone road that had risen out of the accumulated needles. Now there was a low stone wall on either side, and a series of carved bas-reliefs. Still they hurried, and the wall rose higher, and Eleuthra realized it was because the road was sinking, a tunnel now, as the wall closed over their heads.
There was a light up ahead, a thin light spilling from a doorway, which the captain pulled open to reveal a guardroom lit by a smoldering brazier, and a couple of astonished guards. He swore at them, pulled them from their chairs, chased them out into the tunnel to wait with the rest of the drow, while he brought Lukas and the others into the room. His sword was still drawn, still smeared and smoking with the slimy yellow blood of the lingerers.
He threw it across the stone floor, wiped his fingers, then turned to look at them, his lips drawn back to show his filed teeth, his dark face simmering with suppressed rage. Wearily, wearily, he whispered, scarcely out of breath, we would think it best for you to die, all die, all of you, die in the darkness, except for one of you, except for her, that one, dead in the swamp, red blood on my blade, except for that one, except for you. He extended his long black arm, black hand, black forefinger, and stretched it out toward Lady Amaranth, and did not let it drop.
Eleuthra sat down on her haunches, licked her teeth, and let her tongue protrude. She let the sense of the drow s words flow over her, and focused instead on the sharpened black nail that reached out toward the princess s face. She swallowed, and let her tongue slide out again between her teeth.
But Lady Amaranth flinched as if from a blow. Though he had intervened to help her and had brought her here, had rescued her, partly, from her sister s hate, still the malevolence in his red eyes was hard for her to tolerate. As in the clearing below Citadel Umbra, she felt powerless to move, and the fingernail, as it descended from her face, seemed once again to uncover her and leave her bare.
All die, he whispered. Hot blood mixing in shadow and black mud, except for you. This is what Araithe tells me. Why is that? Tell me why.
On one side of the smoky guardroom, lit only by a plate of charcoal on an iron tripod, the drow captain stood with the priestess behind him, the young handmaiden of Lolth. With his left hand he held her by the forearm. On the other side of the stone room, Amaranth and the wolf and the watersoul genasi, and Lukas also holding onto her forearm, until she drew her arm away.
Too late, whispered the drow. Araithe sent me to bring you back. To bring you back and kill the rest, press their blood out in the dark. Because I have not done this, do not think I pity you.
The little room was full, but he spoke as if it were empty save for him and her, as if even the whimpering girl he held fast by the forearm did not exist. Let their blood flow in the dark, he repeated. Then he smiled. Or at least, he twisted his black, thin lips in an approximation. Lady, the citadel is not a bright or healthy place for you. I believe you will not thrive there or be glad. You would not shine there like a jewel or a seam of silver.
Over the past hour, Amaranth had come to much the same conclusion. Standing erect in the low, smoky room, she felt too exhausted to be frightened. She had left her refuge on Moray Island with mixed feelings; part anger and sulky spite, to see her work there disparaged and destroyed. Part longing for home, and to be with her own kind. Part heartsick with the transience of mortal creatures. And partly from a sense of frustrated destiny, which she had used to muffle any fears she had for her reception.
Now her fears were more than realized, and now she had felt the sting of her sister s malice, her nephew s selfishness and bloated arrogance. Yes, they had humiliated her and shamed her, and she had found the experience exhilarating. Frozen in place, she had willed Lukas to look at her, and he had turned his stupid mortal eyes away. But maybe it took shame to set her free. Cheeks burning, she had willed them all to look at her, while at the same time she was thinking: Is this all you have for me? I am Princess Amaranth leShay, the Yellow Rose of Sarifal, untouched by mortal laws.
In this way and in this way only she was like the other members of her family. When they were struggling and scrounging in the grass under her feet, she had felt her power over them. For ten years in the wilderness she had built a fortress of virtue and rectitude, and the gods had plundered it, knocked down her walls. Now she was home.
She said nothing, but she raised her chin, staring down the drow captain, her cheeks red with shame. For the first time she felt the permanence of her endless life, in which one day or ten years was as nothing. These other creatures in the room with her, they were as shadows in the smoky air.
If the drow understood anything of what she was thinking, he gave no sign. He grimaced, hissed, and expelled his breath as if in pain.
By the black Lady Araushnee, I fear you. Weak as you are, weak as dry dust, I believe I see in you the fall of leShay. Already the knights of the Llewyrr have left the boundaries of Synnoria. They are riding through the darkness and the light, hoping to find you and put you on the crystal throne in Karador. But my pact is not with you. It is with your sister and Prince Araithe. Tell me, if you were queen of Sarifal, would you let me bring my people from the Underdark, my daughters and my sons, to walk under the night sky? Would you let us build a temple to our goddess here in Winterglen?
The princess did not lie. For half a minute the drow captain studied her face, before he stuck out his black tongue. I did not think so. Ten years ago Araithe sent me to bring you back, because you had almost come of age to serve his purpose. I lost you in the highlands at Crane Point. Too late to fix that. If I give you to the prince, if I give you to the queen, they will kill each other no mistake. Same result. And then what happens to me? Araithe has promised me Winterglen and the citadel, all of it, when he moves to Karador after his mother s death.
Not that he longs for that, he continued moodily, lowering his head, staring into the glowing brazier. He would destroy anyone who touched a hair of her head. He is a dutiful son, that way.
His voice, despite its harshness, was so soft that Amaranth had to strain to hear. In these last murmurings, she imagined it had passed beyond the range of human ears, and that he spoke to her only or to the wolf. Now he spoke a little louder, Aah, I must send you away. Or I will take back the head of one of you and say the rest escaped. No, but what a failure that would be. Ah no. His face twisted with frustration. All of you must leave me. All of you must go. My daughter will show you Amaka will show you the way. Go to Synnoria, to Chrysalis, and find your knights, and raise your rebellion. That is the only chance for you. Mark you, when I meet you again, and lead the dark elves into battle, I will do your family s bidding, I will promise you. Whatever they ask, I will do it. If they want you cut apart so they can share you, that is what I will do. Heart on one side, bowels on the other. Living head on one side, living womb on the other. I will avenge years of failure. Remember that. Remember what I say, if in the future you are tempted to hope for better things. The drow will always choose the winning side.