A shriek erupted from a shadowy corner of the crypt, followed by the sound of Yurz's cackling laughter. "Me find it!" the goblin proclaimed loudly. "Come, friends of Pretty Lady! Yurz find the door. We not far now!"
For what seemed like the first time in quite a while, a smile split the grim terrain of Taen's face. "Perhaps," he said to Borovazk, "our adventure will end sooner than we had hoped!"
With a grunt and a sigh of effort, the half-elf pulled himself to his feet, gathered up his gear, and strode toward the now-open secret door. Without a second thought, he walked through it.
Chapter 23
The Year of Wild Magic
(1372 DR)
Marissa breathed fire.
It seared her lungs; her chest burned with each labored inhalation. The druid struggled once more against the bonds that held her, but the steel chains just cut deeper into the skin of her wrist with each movement. The room was dark-it was always dark, except when the hag came. Shadow and flame defined her universe. She wanted to scream, but her voice, too, had become fire, so Marissa wept glistening trails of tears that were her only comfort.
The druid had no idea how long she'd been a prisoner. She remembered the bridge, remembered the sting of spider venom, and the next thing she'd been aware of was the cold kiss of her steel shackles and the bitter voice of the hag whispering hateful secrets into her ear. At first Marissa's mind seemed numb and sluggish-as if wreathed in a chill gray fog that drained thought and speech. She fought off the sensation, realizing at the last moment that it was merely a spell cast by her captor.
That was when the pain began-physical and psychic assaults that left Marissa barely conscious. She cried out again and again to her god for some measure of mercy but received nothing but more agony.
It was all about the Staff of the Red Tree. The hag had made that clear from the first moment. Somehow the artifact resisted her attempts at mastery, and the monster assumed that Marissa held the key. Perhaps she did, the druid thought bitterly, for even now she could hear the voice of the staff, muted, like a distant whisper, calling to her in the depths of her mind. If Marissa held the key to the staff's power, she had no idea how to access it.
She hung in the darkness, weeping, waiting for the hag's next visit. She thought now and again of Taenaran and her friends battling for survival somewhere in the bowels of the earth below the citadel. She had no idea if they were still alive or if the hag's minions had slain them. She remembered, dimly, the promise of a conversation with Taenaran, a conversation that she had put off until the end of their journey. Endings, she thought bitterly, have a nasty habit of coming when you least expect them, yet Marissa still held out hope that she and Taen would see each other again. She hung by that thin silver thread of hope over the abyss of despair as surely as she hung by the steel chains that bound her.
She was surprised, therefore, by the voice that cut through her interior wrestling. "Do not think that anyone will come for you," the voice said. "You are alone."
At first Marissa expected to see the hag, green skin and misshapen face leering out of the darkness. It only took her a few moments, however, to realize that the voice sounded different, huskier than the hag's. Dim light filled the room. The druid blinked hard as the illumination aggravated her eyes. When she could focus, Marissa saw a brown-haired figure standing before her. At first her heart leaped at the sight of the stranger- until she caught sight of the ore rune hanging around the figure's neck. The stranger's scarred face and her flat, gray eyes confirmed what Marissa suspected-the half-orc standing before her was no sympathetic rescuer but rather a servant of the hag.
A servant, she thought, and something more.
Power emanated from this creature. Marissa could sense it-a darkness as deep as the Abyss filled her. If she served anyone, it certainly wasn't the hag. That thought sent fear knifing up her spine.
"You've caused Yulda quite a bit of trouble," the stranger said, "you and your friends."
She drew closer to Marissa, reached out a thickly muscled hand, and ran her fingers lightly down the druid's cheek. The captive half-elf tried to turn her head, but the stranger grabbed it harshly with her other hand. Marissa could feel the barbed points of steel claws pressing harshly into her head.
"You won't give up the secrets of your staff to the hag," her tormentor whispered. "I respect that." The half-orc released Marissa's head. "You will reveal them to me, or I promise you the torments I have prepared for you will make you beg for the hag's return."
Marissa closed her eyes for a moment and prayed desperately for strength. The voice of the staff rose in her mind. The whole of her journey in Rashemen flashed before her. The druid knelt once more beneath the trunk of the Red Tree, spoke face-to-face with the ancient telthor. The memory of that time eased her fears. She had seen wonders and experienced moments of peace within Rashemen of which she had never even dreamed. If this, then, was Rillifane's will, that she should suffer and die in the darkness, then Marissa would accept it. Who was she to enjoy the wondrous gifts her god had given her while rejecting the rest of her life, which was also from him? She knew that suffering, too, could be a kind of gift, one that brought the sufferer closer to the divine. The hierophants spoke of that often enough. Now, within the ancient citadel of her enemy, Marissa would live that reality.
With Rillifane's name ushering forth silently from her lips, she opened her eyes and gazed steadily at her interrogator. "I can tell you nothing," she exclaimed, "and even if I did know something, I would never reveal it to you."
The half-orc smiled in response, and Marissa felt her heart begin to falter once again. "We shall see," she said and placed a rough hand upon the druid's head, whispering a prayer to her god as she did so.
Marissa tried to shut out the cleric's voice, but the harsh cadence and sibilant syllables of the half-orc's whispered devotion filled the room with a dreadful cacophony. She shuddered and twisted against her bonds, writhing in pain. Though she couldn't understand her torturer's words, Marissa felt their power; it washed over her, stinging and lashing her spirit with each phrase. Her cell grew dark once more-pitch black-and chilled, as if the half-orc's spell were drawing all of the energy from the room. The chill intensified, deepened, stealing her life with each knife-sharp breath that she took. Memories of her life beneath the sun, time spent with friends and loved ones, laughter, life, joy-all of it was falling away from her into an icy void. Marissa knew with a terrible certainty that there would soon be nothing left, that she was being hollowed out, emptied, until all that remained was ice and darkness.
The druid struggled against her fate, summoning thoughts from her childhood, shouting prayers to Rillifane and any god who might hear her cry. Nothing helped. She felt herself falling. Her last thought before the darkness took her was of Taenaran.
The corridor stood empty.
Smooth, polished stone-so different from the highly decorative craftsmanship of the citadel's undertomb- caught and reflected the dim light of torches that burned fitfully in iron sconces. The passageway ended in a solid stone door shut tightly almost twenty feet in the distance. Taen and his companions stood silently in the shadows and listened for any sound that might indicate the presence of their enemies.
They heard nothing.
Taen crept forward carefully, making sure his weapon did not scrape against either wall of the small passageway. When nothing jumped out at him, he waved for the others to follow. Despite their apparent safety, a sense of unease rose up in him, like delicate fingers of ice running along his spine. Bitter experience had taught him to trust his instincts. The half-elf peered intently down the corridor.