"Certainly not," Liet said. "No one can tell lies from truths better than you, love."
Twilight didn't bother to correct him. "And the third…"
"That there is no spy," the youth said.
Twilight bit her lip, then her eyes narrowed. "Have I been acting strangely of late?"
Liet gaped. "You can't be serious," he said. His surprise was a lie.
"It could be me," said Twilight. Her voice came out calm, a lie to the turmoil within. "How long was I unconscious without the Shroud? Any of my foes could have done this. I could be acting under magical compulsion-a spell I'm not even-"
Liet caught the shadowdancer by the shoulders and shook her. "Nonsense!"
No one did that to her. No one.
She formed a rebuke, but he laid two fingers across her lips. "This has been hard on us all-you especially, as our leader."
With effort, Twilight calmed herself. She'd hurt him without steel. "I have seen you lie once, well enough to deceive me."
Liet grinned. "I've watched you with open eyes and ears." He climbed onto the bed on hands and knees, aiming for her lips. "I lie in your bed. I don't lie in it."
"I'm no stranger to enemies lying to me," she said. "In my bed, to my face, or otherwise." Twilight stared at him levelly. "You're just one more."
She watched his face fall, then a surge of anger. "Like your Uncle Nemesis, eh?"
Twilight felt cold. "Fair even, Liet." She dismissed him with a wave.
The youth's face went pale. He realized once again that he had just said the wrong thing. "I–I didn't mean it," he said, suddenly sad. "It just-ah-"
Twilight slapped him. "Aren't you angry? Do you have a spine, or do you just apologize for everything?" She fended off his damnably comforting hands.
"Why don't you scream at me, or beat me if you want-at least something. Aren't you going to fight for me?" She shoved him off the bed. "Why don't you say something, damn you?"
Liet stared at her, shocked. "I–I'm sorry, I…"
Twilight sighed, the fire in her blood dying down. It was pathetic, but it was endearing. A soft smile came over her face, and she hated herself for it.
"I know," she said. "I'm the one who should be sorry." She felt that way, too.
She reached down to help him up, and her fingers scraped his wrist. Liet gave a shiver but didn't pull away. He looked at her, his eyes so sad and longing…
She pulled away. "I just-" she said. She was shivering. "I just can't do this."
The youth looked at her for a long time. Then he nodded. "I understand." He gave a knight's bow. "Fair eve, for a fair maid."
"Sweet water," she whispered, "and light laughter."
Then he walked away, and Twilight turned to weep as quietly as she could against the wall. No tears came-her eyes were dry.
After a ten-count, she sprang up and pushed the table against the door. No one would intrude-not companion, nor monster, nor nightmare. Not her mysterious attacker, if it even existed. And if it did after all, well, she could die.
That would be all right. Without Liet.
She knew, somehow, that they were done. Some things are not forgivable.
The youth walked away, but he didn't leave.
Sinking against the door, Liet thought about Twilight's drawn, haggard face. Nearly two days without food, and little water, and that mysterious incident that morning had taken their toll on the lovely elf. But her nerves hurt her far worse than that.
The tragedies of the last days, especially the deaths of Asson and Taslin, had struck them all, but none harder than Twilight, who seemed to take full responsibility. And now that her suspicions about the spy had come out, and she had been proven so wrong in an incident that might have condemned their friend…
Liet tried not to think about Twilight going mad before his eyes. He contemplated the others. The way Gargan had stared at Twilight, murderously, still chilled Liet. And Slip-clearly she had been a bit unhinged from the beginning. Ironically, Liet thought the sanest, safest of his companions was the power-hungry, blood-thirsty Davoren.
His hands clenched open and closed. He couldn't get angry, but how could he do anything if he…
It only took the thought of her tears, her shoulders shuddering with repressed strain to stir up pain in his heart and push the anger aside.
Liet promised himself he wouldn't give up-not on her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"Are we sure this'll work?" Slip asked, for perhaps the eightieth time.
" 'Twas your plan," Twilight sighed, for perhaps the eightieth time.
"Oh." Slip considered. "Right."
Twilight could tell by the way Davoren's lips moved that he prayed to Asmodeus, perhaps for strength. Having an archdevil on one's side wasn't all bad, she decided. She wouldn't pray to Erevan. What was the point?
The five had risen after a reasonable amount of sleep. Day was night in the cavern, though Twilight knew it to be several bells after midnight on the surface, from her "gift." They could not have been imprisoned by Tlork long, but it seemed years had passed. Had her entire life until this point been an illusion, and the notions of "bells" and "midnight" just dreams? Perhaps Erevan did not really exist, and she truly was free-if freedom existed in a place like this.
That terrified her.
Twilight suppressed a shiver and shoved the thoughts violently aside. Liet had attempted to convince her of her sanity the previous night, but her own mind seemed Hells-bent on proving him wrong.
"If we climb that tower," Slip repeated, "we should be able to get out, right? I mean, we're underground, and going up takes us aboveground, aye?"
Twilight didn't have the heart to bring up complications like cave ceilings or the inability to fly. "If only it were that simple," she muttered.
"Aye, love?" Liet whispered at her side.
Twilight just shook her head. She wished he wouldn't call her that.
The High Tower-Davoren had assured them it must be the High Arcanist's Tower, if this had truly been a floating enclave, but Twilight was not comfortable so naming it-was free of the hive but not the garden. The Nocturnal Garden, he'd called it, and that name, Twilight did not dispute.
They wandered through a nightmare landscape of twisted, alien stalks and blossoms of myriad, disturbingly vibrant colors. Fumes and spores that could only come in dreams threatened to send them dizzily to the ground, but Gargan seemed able to guide them around the more dangerous plants. When they saw one giant snapping beast indistinguishable from the surrounding ferns lash out with its tentacles to pull a passing bee-creature down its pod-gullet, Twilight was glad she wasn't leading the way.
They made their way slowly, in relative silence, avoiding carnivorous flowers and attention from the bees. Several times, they ducked and hid in the shadows of Negarath to avoid a flight of three or four. Most of the time, the creatures stopped to harvest nectar from the various unearthly plants, and Twilight understood the purpose of the garden. The necter-dependent bees would be hard pressed for a for a food source if anything were to happen to their garden.
Within a bell's time, they entered the overgrown, moss-ridden High Tower.
The rooms had long since faded into a dizzying array of vast, empty affairs that must have held opulence beyond reckoning in the days of Netheril. Tapestries remained, but they had withered to blank sheets of cloth canvas. Most of the rooms and the curled furniture were entirely of some sort of metal-iron or steel-coated with cracked marble, sandstone, or obsidian, while some-the dangerous ones-were but broken glass.
The stairs that led up through the many stories snaked treacherously and madly, inside and outside the building, over and under balconies. A dozen times, steps crumbled underfoot, and a companion leaped to solid ground with a curse. Some sections of stair twisted upside down, unsettlingly, and these the five climbed over awkwardly.