An oak door reinforced with iron bars stood ajar at the bottom of the stairs. Behroun frowned, passed through the door, and closed it behind him. He locked it with a key from his tunic. It wouldn't do for Malyanna's latest toy to escape back into the city. The eladrin noble might think the possibility added extra spice to her game, but the mere thought of such an escape drew an acid pang of alarm from Behroun's gut. For a man so young, his digestion had grown painfully troublesome.
His hand automatically reached up to feel the amulet under his shirt. He hated having to wear it concealed, but Malyanna knew he kept the warlock's pact stone within it. The woman's moods were so impenetrable... he was afraid she might simply rip it from him if the thought crossed her mind, even though he was certain she would not figure out how to open it. Mostly certain.
Behroun tramped farther into the dank, niche-lined catacombs. Instead of moldering bones, the shelves on each side were half filled with grape vintages bottled in heavy smoked glass.
Most of it had probably turned to vinegar years earlier, he mused. He allowed his hand to trail across a hand- lettered label, brushing off a decade of dust. What did it say? He grunted in disgust. The script was in a language he didn't know or even recognize the name for.
The bay of the hunting mastiff resounded through the narrow corridor, so loud that he wondered if he had become the quarry.
"By the gods, I wish I'd never thrown in with her!" he muttered. When he'd met Malyanna, she seemed incidental to his plan, an ally of chance. And someone with strengths too potent to ignore. She'd claimed she was an exile from a Feywild kingdom who needed his aid to reclaim her rightful throne.
Lately he wondered if it wasn't she who had found him rather than the other way around. Malyanna had somehow known he was on the cusp of retrieving the relic. She never treated him with all that much respect, even back when he'd thought he was the one calling the shots. And she never talked about the kingdom she was supposedly trying to reclaim either.
Sometime in the last few tendays, their roles had reversed. Behroun couldn't put his finger on exactly when. His abilities were mostly bureaucratic, while the waves of bone-chilling winter that rolled away from her spoke of a strength more potent, one that made him afraid. He should have known what would happen the moment the eladrin noble approached him.
He moved into a larger vestibule. It was lit by rows of candles lining catacomb shelves. A block of cracked stone sat in the center of the chamber. Besides the one he entered through, three other archways opened on darkness.
Behroun paused, not really seeing the chamber. He wondered, not for the first time, if Malyanna wanted the Dreamheart. She'd never said so, but...
He murmured, "I wonder if every word from her mouth is a lie?"
"Talking to yourself again, Lord Marhana?"
Behroun gasped.
A woman reclined on a narrow balcony above the vestibule. Her slender limbs and graceful poise transcended mere humanity. Her white skin glowed like moonlight, and her eyes were coal.
She was an eladrin noble, an entity who surpassed the powers of humans and mortal fey alike. One thing was sure—she was old. By her stray words and stories, he'd learned she had lived hundreds of years at least. She had piled on more winters than her kin in Faerun managed, despite her youthful skin.
"Did you hear my question?" she said, gazing down at him as a sated cat might eye a skittering mouse.
"Ahem," coughed Behroun. He'd been staring at her. "I was considering our problem—"
"Hold!" she interrupted, her voice dagger sharp. "My entertainment is drawing to a close. Do not distract me!"
A scream of hunger splintered Behroun's facade of confidence. It was the sound of a hunting beast, but not one born in the mortal world. Comprehension dawned. "Is that thing loose in here?" he choked out.
Malyanna snorted. "Of course, what else?"
Lord Marhana stumbled to the wall beneath the balcony. He scrabbled for a grip, finding purchase in dusty crevices for fingertips only. He levered himself up half a foot. His left boot discovered a toehold, but his right scratched ineffectually at the smooth stone.
The hungry bay echoed through the chamber again, its volume redoubled.
Behroun pulled himself higher, but a tremble in his left thigh grew quickly into a full -scale shake. He was unused to such effort.
"Pull me up!" he gasped.
The eladrin spared him a glance, her expression unreadable. She didn't move.
Behroun moaned. He was to be the entertainment! "Malyanna, please—"
The woman leaned down and extended a pale hand. Behroun grasped it. Her fingers were icicles, but he didn't let go. She pulled him up with little effort or attention. Her eyes were back on the three lightless exits. She was breathing harder, but he guessed it was from excitement, not exertion. When he pulled free of her grasp, his hand tingled as if waking from frostbite.
A man burst from one of the dark archways. The fellow's eyes rolled in his head like a fire-maddened stallion.
He was panting something, over and over—a prayer perhaps. If Lord Marhana hadn't known the man well, he doubted he would have recognized the crying, scratched, terrified man as Councilor Yenech, the second most feared and hated administrator in New Sarshel.
That could be me, Behroun thought. Before all was said and done, it might be. A sliver of pity flared in Lord Marhana's chest for Yenech.
The councilor ceased his headlong flight through the darkness. Though the light must have hurt his eyes, having come so recently out of unrelieved darkness, the man stared up at them as if they were his salvation.
"I knew the light would draw him here," murmured Malyanna. "Perfect."
Yenech flinched. His gaze slid off the woman and focused on Behroun.
"Lord Marhana!" yelled the councilor. "Help me!" Behroun looked away.
Yenech's scream of terror pulled his eyes back a heartbeat later.
Something else was in the room. A shadow with the outline of a large dog. Its coat was smooth as oil and just as black. But its teeth were white. A growl rent the air. The mastiffs prey soiled himself.
The eladrin had earlier described her pet to Behroun. She said it was a beast that could pursue its quarry no matter how far it fled, even should that quarry cross into realms apart from the mortal world. As long as that realm contained some bit of shadow, the mastiff would find a way in, and from there a path to its target. Councilor Yenech didn't manage another ten steps before the mastiff was on him, bearing the man down to the stone floor. Its jaws seized onto the back of the wailing man's head. It shook Yenech like a rag doll. The wailing scream cut off the moment the administrator's neck snapped.
Malyanna drew in a sharp breath. An uncharacteristic flush warmed her skin. Her eyes didn't leave her pet as it began to feast on the fruits of its kill, but she said, "One less obstruction to your rule in Impiltur, Lord Marhana.
Isn't it grand?"
The smell of blood mixed with the odor of excrement turned Behroun's stomach. More than anything else, he wanted to gag. He closed his eyes instead and tried to gain control of his breathing and thundering heart.
"Yes," he finally managed, his voice hoarse. "When I do so, and you become my, um, queen... then you'll fulfill the requirement of your exile. You'll be able return to the Feywild kingdom and rule once more. Perhaps we do not even need the relic."
The eladrin's laughter was like hail on tile roofing.
"You amuse me, Behroun. I will remember that, when everything is through. But enough with your jokes.
"Tell me, where is the Dreamheart?"
"Thoster has communicated with me—he's still loyal, at least. I think... Anyhow, the captain says the warlock stole it."