After he swam, and rested, and swam a while longer, Valas saw a glow in the darkened water ahead. As he made his way toward it, the glow resolved itself into a pattern of tightly clustered, greenish-yellow globes that brightened and dimmed, brightened and dimmed.
Are those the lights of Zanhoriloch? Valas thought as he stroked toward them, only to be disappointed as he drew near enough to see the lights more clearly.
The glowing globes turned out not to be the lights of the aboleth city but a school of luminescent jellyfish. There were hundreds of them, each the size of Valas's palm. They moved together, their tendrils contracting, then pulsing in unison, each pulse pumping up their light from greenish-yellow to yellow.
Valas started to turn away, disappointed, when he spotted a silhouette swimming between him and the jellyfish. The scout froze, not wanting to betray himself with movement. Drifting with the current, he hung in the water, watching.
The silhouette was the same size as a drow and had two arms and two legs, each of which ended in a wide webbed hand or foot. It also had a fluked tail?but no tentacles. Definitely not an aboleth then. . but what race was it?
The creature swam beside the jellyfish, herding them with a staff it held in one hand. The head of the staff emitted crackling bursts of light whose frequency matched the pulsing of the jellyfish. Valas could just barely hear the sound that came from it, a low-pitched thum, thum, thum, like the sound of a muted drum.
Intent upon its glowing flock, the creature hadn't spotted Valas, which left the scout with a decision to make. He could approach and try to communicate, in the hope that the creature would tell him where Zanhoriloch was, or exercise his usual caution and swim away.
He touched his star-shaped talisman, reassuring himself that it was still pinned to his shirt. If necessary, he could always use its magic to escape.
He swam toward the creature.
As he drew nearer he could see that it had skin as dark as a drow's. Its head was bald, and its body glistened in the light of the jellyfish. A layer of greenish slime covered its skin. When Valas was perhaps ten paces from it, the creature must have sensed his presence. It turned with a sudden, whiplike flick of its tail. Seeing its face, Valas gasped. The high cheekbones and pointed jaw gave the creature a distinctively drow appearance. It even had red eyes, but no ears?or at least, only gnarled ridges around holes in its head that looked like the melted remains of ears. The thing's hands?one sculling back and forth, keeping the creature in place; the other holding the staff?had a thumb, but only two fingers, with a wide web of skin between them.
Valas opened his mouth, then remembered he was breathing water and was unable to speak. On a whim, he tried drow sign language instead. He chose a carefully neutral message. He still didn't know if the creature was a friend or foe of either the drow or the aboleths.
This is the lake of the aboleth, is it not? he asked. Is their city nearby?
He didn't expect an answer. The scout who'd told him about Lake Thoroot had said that only a handful of drow had ever ventured that way.
Valas was shocked, then, when the creature replied in sign?albeit a sign that was made clumsy by his awkward, webbed fingers, You seek the aboleth? Are you insane? Go back, before they?
The drow-thing convulsed as if it had been struck a blow. Releasing its staff it curled into a fetal position, webbed hands clutching its head, mouth open in a silent scream. Valas twisted around, reaching for his daggers as he searched for the threat, but before he could draw them a high-pitched scream pounded in through his skull.
Louder than any noise he had ever experienced, the scream shattered thought and forced his body into spastic jerks. He found himself curled in the same fetal position, eyes squeezed shut in a pained grimace and hands pressed over his ears.
It didn't help. The scream continued, echoing against the inside of his skull until he was certain the bone would shatter like crystal. Then, mercifully, silence and darkness claimed him.
Chapter Eleven
Halisstra sat cross-legged on the wet stone floor of a cave whose only exit was far overhead. The walls of the cave were covered with pictures, the paint daubed onto the stone itself, the lines following the natural contours of the rock. Life-size figures of drow strained toward the ceiling, hands extended overhead and eyes glowing with rapturous desire. All of the figures were adult, but each had an umbilical cord that snaked down toward the floor of the cavern like a root.
Halisstra's wrists were no longer bound, but she could no more escape the cave than the painted figures could step away from the rocky canvas that held them. The walls were at least three times her height and curved inward to meet the hole in the ceiling, making climbing impossible without the aid of magic. She had been carefully and thoroughly stripped of all magical devices and weapons, and the curse the priestess had placed on Halisstra prevented her from singing or even humming?from using any of her bae'qeshel magic.
After Ryld had gone, the priestess who'd slain the troll teleported Halisstra into the cave, then disappeared. The First Daughter of House Melarn had remained there for an entire day, at first restlessly pacing the cave, looking for a way out. When she finally accepted the fact that she was trapped, she sank, cross-legged, into Reverie. Once she'd emerged from her meditations, she'd watched the circle of sky above grow gray, then black. The rain had stopped but the sky was still overcast. Neither the stars nor the moon could be seen. Looking up, Halisstra could almost imagine that she was in the Underdark?that above the cave was a tunnel or passage. But the earth-and-bark-scented breeze blowing in through the hole destroyed that illusion, as did the low rumble of thunder in the distance. So too did the ferns hat surrounded the opening like a fringe of hair. Beads of rain dripped from their sodden stems.
From outside came the sound of singing. The voices were those of the priestesses who'd gathered to decide Halisstra's fate. Their song was accompanied by the silvery tones of a flute and the rapid clash of swords, a staccato of metallic clangs marking the beat. Halisstra thought it might just be her imagination, but it sounded as if the song was reaching a crescendo. She assumed that one of Eilistraee's followers would appear in another moment and announce how Halisstra was to die.
Halisstra braced herself for the inevitable. One way or another?by the magic of their traitor goddess or the cold steel of a sword?she was going to be put to death. The priestesses would have come to their senses and realized that Halisstra had only been buying time when she swore fealty to Eilistraee. The time had come for Halisstra to pray and prepare for entry into the next realm?but pray to which god?
Halisstra knew hundreds of prayers to supplicate Lolth?prayers she could recite with her hands, using the silent speech?but they would go unheard, unseen. Lolth had vanished and was no longer listening to prayers. She wasn't even punishing blasphemers. The Demonweb Pits had been devoid of the souls of the dead, and Halisstra had to presume that Lolth's faithful were disappearing into oblivion, just as their goddess had.
Should Halisstra pray instead to Selvetarm, Lolth's champion? For all she knew, he might be locked in battle with Vhaeraun still and unable to hear her?or worse, slain. Was there any god who was still listening?
Halisstra shivered and drew her knees up against her chest, wrapping her arms around them. At least Ryld was safe. Her surrender had saved him. She started to rest her chin on her knee, hen winced as it touched the cut from Ryld's sword. The wound was a tiny one, no bigger than the crescent of her thumbnail, but it burned like a fresh brand. It had broken open and was bleeding again, even though Halisstra's chin had barely touched it.