They had gone on for hours, following the drow priestess Amaka until Lukas called a halt. Chilled, they lay down to rest in a dark cavern half a mile below the surface, and huddled together for warmth.
Or else that s what they should have done. Instead, each lay apart with his or her own thoughts. Gaspar-shen was the most comfortable because he did not feel the cold. He lay on his back, his scimitar beside him, the energy lines throbbing blue and green across his chest. This is what he dreamed:
He had dived down deep below the surface of a black sea. Stroking through the inky dark, for a long time it made no difference if his eyes were open or shut. The water had a soft, creamy feel, such as he had felt in various southern seas, diving down into the pearl beds of Alamir, for example, through crusts of water always and ever more sweet, and differing from each other also in the minute fluctuations of texture and temperature. But in his dream, as the water thickened around him, he saw deep below him a slash of light, a red fire burning at the bottom of the sea, like a vent or fissure to the center of Toril, though the water was still cool and getting colder. But when he reached that place he felt the world invert, and instead of descending he was now swimming up into the light, until he burst onto the surface in a shock of red spray and foam. And there was the light all around him, because he found himself in the harbor of a great city on fire, as perhaps Caer Corwell or Caer Moray had burned in the old days, the barges set alight, the ships on fire at their docks, the air full of soot and smoke and sparks. In his dream he imagined the burning streets, the wooden houses on fire, and in the street of the pastry chefs the long bazaar with its canvas roofs blistering upward, and all the delicacies ruined, the marzipan melting, and the candied orange dripping from the charred tabletops into the gutters.
Amaka sat near him, hugging her knees and weeping. In an alcove cut and shaped in the living rock, Lukas and Amaranth lay side by side, not touching. Before they had lain down, Lukas had imagined a moment of privacy, in the tender space of which he could have leaned toward her and reminded her of the battlements at Caer Moray, when they had stood together above the gate and watched Malar the Beastlord shamble toward them down the causeway. That night he had kissed her, and she had responded to his kiss, but if she remembered it she gave no sign.
She was not thinking of that night. She turned onto her back.
Why did he let us go? she asked, meaning the drow captain.
Lukas rolled onto his stomach, laid his cheek against the dry, cold sand. It s because you weaken any side you re on, he said, choosing his words. Here, at Umbra, you divide Lady Ordalf and Prince Araithe, because they want you for different purposes. And you make their enemies strong, because they seek to free you. If the knights of Synnoria march on Karador, if they hope to succeed, it is because they ve promised Captain Rurik they will put an end to the leShay, and to human slavery on Gwynneth Island, in Sarifal. But Rurik will not fight for you.
Lady, he continued, This is your home, but there is nothing for you here. I will protect you if I can, but you must find a way to help yourself. What is it you desire, here?
To Amaranth, his language and his voice sounded stilted and unreal. And what the drow captain had told her, that she should travel south through the Cambro Mountains, and meet the knights of Llewyrr, and fight with them against her sister and her nephew (if it made sense to call him that) for the sake of the Yellow Rose of Sarifal none of that sounded real either. But if not that, what then? Nothing was real in this underground cavern, where at the limit of her senses she could hear the drop of water upon stone. She had sacrificed her brother Coal, she had abandoned Moray to the Beastlord, and for what?
But at the same time that, full of despair, she asked herself this question, she remembered standing in the open glade below the tower while her sister and her nephew fought over her like dogs over a bone the exhilaration she had felt. On Moray Island the wolves and pigs had grown old and left her. And Lukas would grow old and leave her, in the blink of an eye. And even the elves and eladrin of Winterglen and Karador would grow old and frail and leave her. Only her family would be left, the ageless leShay, as permanent as the rocks and stones of Faer n, speaking a language of emotion no one else, perhaps, could understand. What had her sister said? She had sent Captain Lukas to Moray to bring back not her, not Amaranth, but something spherical, part of the whole. What could that be, if not some magic essence of herself, her own inviolable soul, caught as if in an alchemist s orb, as she had heard described by her professors when she was a child in the crystal city, in the lake? And perhaps her sister, tearing Amaranth s clothes away, only meant to remind her that the small moralities of men were not for her. And perhaps that was a hard lesson, unnatural, yet she must learn it if she truly hoped to find her path.
Farther away down the tunnel, beneath an outcropping of quartz, Eleuthra lay in her wolf s shape at first, comfortable and warm. But as she dreamed, she regained her humanity, and her wolf s skin pulled away from her until she shivered and rubbed her naked arms. In her dream she saw the daemonfey above her, not stunted and maimed as when she had last seen him, but in his glory, his high-arched, sharp-spined leather wings curling above him, his fat tail hanging down between his legs, his skin shining and golden, his eyes black and red. Fire and blood in the black pool.
Come to me, he said, his voice rich and commanding and seeming to come from somewhere inside her she was looking at his ridged black lips, and they didn t move.
She woke with the image in her mind. But how could she go to him? He was dead. He had died saving the lives of his companions. Miserable, she let herself sink down again into her beast s body. Curling her spine into a circle, laying her face onto her thigh, she tried to discover a little warmth and comfort, and chase after a beast s furtive dreams, run them down like prey. But they eluded her, scattered away, and even the one she succeeded in cornering turned on her at the last, desperate, its eyes black and red.
Lukas sat up, stretched his arms, rubbed the crick out of his neck, and buckled on his sword. We must go, he said. He had no doubt the leShay would chase them for Amaranth s sake, and if they could not use the drow, then they would use others to come after them, Ffolk slaves or else the fey.
Show us the way, he said. Shivering, Amaka got to her feet. Little was left of the thoughtless, delighted girl who had roused them in the temple of Lolth the evening before. She scratched her arms and sniffed at the black air.
Bring us south through Cambro to the surface, he said. Once out of Winterglen you can leave us and go back. Three days and you ll be home. Is there food along the way?
There is food, she said, her eyes wide and nervous.
The others had roused themselves. Lady Amaranth held up her lamp, and by its light they could see the walls of the cavern rise above them, the smooth, shaped blocks of stone, quarried by dwarves in the old days. Over time, some of the masonry had fallen, and rivulets of water had stained the limestone face and carved it into copper, bronze, and mud-colored stripes, tinged now in the blue glow.
Lukas watched Gaspar-shen returning to the circle of light, the energy lines snaking over his chest and shoulders he had gone to relieve himself in a corner of the wall. The wolf arched her back and thrust out her forelegs. She curled her lips and growled softly as the genasi swaggered up. Yes, Captain?
You ll take the leShay princess southeast to the far coast, to Kingsbay. From there to Snowdown across the straits, and then to Alaron. The druid will go with you. She is an emissary of the king.
And you?
I ll leave you at the sacred grove. I ll go find the gnome at Corwell, if I can.
Gaspar-shen wrinkled his forehead. If he d had eyebrows, he would have drawn them together. From long exposure to human beings, he had begun to mimic their expressions. He was not happy, clearly.
He said: On the island of Xxiphu, in the Sea of Fallen Stars, they make a pastry in the shape of a bug. The wings are spun sugar. But inside, if you split the mille-feuille thorax, there is nothing but a nauseating greenish goo.
Lukas turned his head. He watched Lady Amaranth push the red hair from her face. I don t want to hear it. You ll do as I say.
They had miles to argue, and had best be started. He turned to the drow priestess. Bring us to the gap. To Cambrent Gap.
She stared at him. All the light was gone from her face, except where the whites of her eyes were touched with pink. Yes, she said. Yes, come with me.
As if dazed, she staggered to the south end of the cavern, where the ceiling slanted down. Where they had camped, it was too high to see. But now, cracked and fissured, it bulged down until its wet, rough, uneven surface was only a few feet above Lukas s head. By contrast, the floor was laid with hexagonal stone tiles, polished and discolored by the tramp of many feet.
What about there? Lukas said. That looks more direct. He indicated another way, an arched tunnel at the cavern s southern end, higher and broader and straighter than the path Amaka had chosen. An army could have passed under the brick vault.
Amaka shuddered. That s the fomorian road, now. Have you seen them? Giants grease-colored skins, and they make a stink. A hundred of them together could come through here. And their eyes
What?
They kill you with a look, if they come close.
Her step was unsteady, her speech slurred and halting Lukas wondered if her own father had somehow poisoned her. But then she glanced at him and glanced away, and he thought that she was merely afraid, too afraid to function. What sense did that make? She was a drow. These corridors should have no power over her. The Underdark had been her home.
If anything they were too shallow still. The way she led them, the tiles continued for a quarter mile or so then gave out. The path sloped down precipitously, a curling spiral of rough steps hacked out of the rock. No dwarf had shaped this stone. Lady Amaranth lit the way, but even without her the passage would not have been completely dark, because of the phosphorescent fungus on many of the rocks, where the drow had cultivated a pale glow to steer them up and down.
It occurred to Lukas how foolish they were being, to trust in this uncertain guide. This goes too deep, he said.
We ll take the other way. We ll take our chances with the fomorians. Anyway, I saw no one
No, said Amaka, seizing him by the wrist. She was in front, leading the way down, but now she turned and grabbed hold of both his hands, as if in supplication. The leShay will catch you there. Already they will have sent their soldiers. But they ll never dare to follow you down here. And if they did, one man could hold the passage. It s so narrow.
Lukas hesitated.
They go to the same place! she said. Cambrent Gap, just as you wanted. I swear to you on the Shrine of Araushnee s Virginity, before she was abandoned long ago.
What kind of oath was that? Lukas thought. The dark elves goddess was the biggest slut in the entire pantheon, and that was saying a great deal. This curving staircase reeked of them, a sweet yet poisonous scent that reminded him of night-blooming jasmine, which his stepmother had grown in her kitchen garden.
And yet he still found himself climbing downward through the rocks. Why was that? Simple the girl begged him. Her beautiful dark face was streaked with tears, impossible to resist. She needed his help. It would have been cowardly to turn away, abandon her for something as ephemeral and uncertain as rational decisions or good sense. This was why, Lukas told himself, it was absurd for him to be or to ever have been captain of this crew. This was why the Sphinx was at the bottom of the sea. And yet it was why the others followed him without a murmur of dissent, why they clambered single file after him; first Amaranth, holding up her lamp, then Gaspar-shen, and finally the druid, now in her human shape, barefoot, dressed in her wolf skin.
Besides, he told himself. There was another reason he allowed the girl to pull him downward. All his life he had heard stories of the Underdark, the system of enormous caverns and limitless tunnels that founded the entire continent of Faer n, puncturing the rotten rock and causing sinkholes, cave-ins, and whirlpools on the surface a system part excavated and part natural, inhabited by hundreds of thousands of creatures who never saw the light, entire races and civilizations. Lower down, Lukas imagined, he might find dark cities and monstrous farms of bloated vegetables and pale livestock. He might find subterraneous rivers and even seas, where the fishermen lit torches to lure enormous purblind creatures from the deep.
For a moment he had a crazy notion that he could raise up Lady Amaranth to rule here as a queen, in a black and shadow palace lit with crystal lanterns. What else? Did it really make sense to bring her penniless to Alaron? To do what work in a shop for a thousand years and more? Perhaps she and Suka could open a tattoo parlor in Llewellyn Harbor or Callidyrr: Feywild Dreaming, or maybe Madame leShay s Skin Boutique Body Shoppe, or maybe even The Rose of Sarifal whatever, as Suka herself might say. She wouldn t want to spend even remotely that much time with another female, in any case. Two weeks was about her limit, as Lukas had learned on board the Sphinx. Though of course Lukas himself would be long dead, a pleasant thought under those circumstances.
The way broadened and the ceiling rose above them, beyond the princess s light. Every step they took, Amaka seemed more terrified. She had her hand on Lukas s wrist, and she pulled him onward, while at the same time she muttered words that seemed ridiculous to him for a drow priestess, a handmaid of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Ah, Goddess, never to see the sun again or walk under the stars, never to feel the wind on my face or the grass under my feet
As they moved farther into this new cavern, Lukas would have welcomed a little less wind in his face. He didn t know what she was complaining about. They had climbed down into a new circle where the air was hot and humid and full of grit. Up ahead, fire burned at the entrance to another tunnel, a line of flickering red flame on the surface of the rock. Sulfurous gas escaped from a wide vent.
Beside the entrance to this farther tunnel, the stone had been worked a statue, one collapsed and broken, one whole, on either side of the red entrance. Amaka pulled Lukas forward, but he resisted, and freed his hand with a twist. He looked back toward the narrow defile behind him, where Gaspar-shen stood with his scimitar drawn, and then to the other dark niches in the cavern s walls grottoes, or else the entrances to other tunnels in the porous rock. Flames flickered in some of them, or else a faintly glowing haze.
Lukas smiled and shook his head. I m not going in there.
The statue on one side was a knight in armor, his head bowed, his back against the living rock, his sword held like a cross in front of him, the blade between his hands. He was bareheaded, and his features were noble, though eroded, perhaps, by the same constant wind that filled Lukas s nose with powdery sand. On the other side only the base was left, a reptilian shape with powerful legs and claws, perhaps a dragon or a basilisk.
Lukas put up his hands. I m not going in there, he said again. We ll go back up, take the fomorian road.
He already knew he had been played. It wasn t the first time. But as he looked at Amaka s desperate face, he wondered if she d done this thing against her will. Please she faltered, as her red eyes darted wildly from one entrance to another. Lukas drew his sword. Lady Amaranth and Eleuthra stood behind him, the druid still in her human shape. The princess was holding her lamp high. Douse the light, he said, too late. They were surrounded by the drow swordsmen, who had stepped forward from the niches and wormholes in the rock.
He held up his own sword, wishing for a moment that the Savage stood with him. Then they d have had a chance. He smiled, held out his hand toward Amaka, and made a little bow, while at the same time he looked past her toward the tunnel s mouth, where a dark figure stepped forward from between the statues, an unarmed woman, her white hair glistening pink in the red light. Give your father my thanks, she said to Amaka. I knew he would not disappoint us.
Now she came out into the brighter glow, and he could see her face. She was smaller than many of her race. She was beautiful, like all the dark elves, but with a haunted, used, imperious expression she had none of Amaka s freshness even in despair. Her pink hair was streaked with black and gray and rust. Lukas imagined she held some kind of cold magic in her hands, as she moved her fingers in a practiced gesture. I am no, you don t need to know my name. I am the guardian of this sacred place. Then she threw back her head in a false, simpering laugh. Lady, she said to Amaranth, we are pleased we have been chosen to receive you. Almost we had given up hope.
Another gesture with her long, painted fingernails, and seven of the drow stood away from the others.