"The people who followed us will be here soon. They've been to see the dragon by now," Bodhi said.
"Amazing," Phaere breathed. "The lengths … I lost warriors getting those eggs."
"Well," Bodhi said, taking a step closer to the humming gate, "good for you. When the three of them get here, they'll have to think they've succeeded in getting the eggs back. They'll want to escape the city and bring the eggs to the dragon, who they think will send them to Suldanessellar. I'll have someone here who they'll think is a friend, who'll nudge them in the right direction— through the gate."
"You'll send them back to the dragon?"
Bodhi smirked. "This gate doesn't lead to the dragon, Phaere. It will bring them where I want them to go."
"Humans in Ust Natha," Phaere said. "It's not right."
Bodhi ignored the dark elf and said, "Here he is."
The humming of the gate changed timbre for just the slightest moment, and the color shifted away from violet and more toward blue. A small, round-faced man with the features of an elf but the ears of a human stepped tentatively onto the marble tiles of the square in Ust Natha.
"Yoshimo," Bodhi said.
The Kozakuran looked around himself once, his mouth open in awe, and took a moment to find Bodhi.
He smiled weakly and said, "Bodhi, you have most unusual friends."
"People say the same about you," she replied, "I'm sure."
Bodhi stepped forward, and Yoshimo flinched back. This made Phaere laugh and Yoshimo blush.
Bodhi looked at Phaere and said, "Take care of him for me, will you?"
Phaere smirked sourly and nodded. Bodhi stepped through the gate and was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
"Adalon has agreed to your demands. . ma'am," Imoen said, her voice echoing through the tall-ceilinged chamber in the alien tones of the drow language.
They'd come a long way through the Underdark and into a deeper cavern, following Solausein yet trying to make it look as if they knew where they were going. The pure brashness of the whole thing was enough to fool the already frazzled drow. His failure with the dragon had shamed and shaken him, and the last thing he suspected was a party of human adventurers disguised as drow. To Solausein they were indeed the "advance party."
They'd learned a lot from Solausein on their way, though it was difficult not being able to ask direct questions. If they showed their ignorance of drow ways, or Solausein's mission, their cover would be weakened or even slip away completely. What they knew by the time they reached Ust Natha was that Solausein worked for the daughter of a drow matron (Imoen in particular seemed enamored with the drow's apparently matriarchal society) who was rapidly gaining power in the city. She was the one who took the dragon's eggs, though he did not know quite why.
Still unable to mark time in any reliable way, Abdel had no idea how long it had taken them to get to the city, but once there, it was almost overwhelming. It wasn't the biggest city he'd ever seen, but the fact that it was enclosed in a single enormous cavern made it seem somehow huge out of all proportion.
For their own part, they told Solausein that his young matron wouldn't know them, that they'd been assigned by one of her people. Solausein didn't press them in any way to know who that person might have been. He seemed accustomed to lies, accustomed to knowing only a small part of anything he might be involved in.
Their drow guide had led them through the remarkable city and straight to the compound that served as his matron's residence. There they'd been quickly ushered into this tall-ceilinged room with arched windows overlooking the skyline of Ust Natha. Abdel had to marshal every bit of his willpower to keep from shaking. His nerves were on edge knowing at any moment he'd surely have to defend himself against an entire city full of trained drow warriors, mages, and priests. He'd never been in a situation where he felt so completely at a loss. A dull yellow haze settled over his vision, and he had to just pretend it wasn't there.
Solausein made the introductions—they'd given him hastily contrived aliases out of simple caution—and it was obvious that the young drow woman was interested only in Imoen, who for her part seemed to be reveling in her position of contrived authority the same way she was reveling in her jet black skin.
Solausein obviously assumed the drow woman he introduced as Phaere knew who they all were—they were the advance party after all—so he went into no details. Phaere didn't seem too concerned with who was who and wanted only to know the outcome of the raid against the dragon.
"I'm surprised," Phaere said, eyeing Imoen up and down with a surprised but favorable eye. "I was almost thinking it would allow its eggs to be destroyed first."
"Apparently, it… uh …" Imoen started.
"Its mate is dead," Jaheira said, coming to Imoen's rescue. "Those eggs are its only chance to reproduce."
Abdel just kept his eyes down, waiting for things to require him to lead their fighting retreat. He knew it would inevitably come to that. How could they possibly pull off this insanity?
"Well, then," Phaere said, her attention still on Imoen, "that explains more than a few things."
The drow woman turned to Solausein, who would not meet her gaze. "Are these all?" she asked him.
"Mistress Phaere," he said, "I—"
"You left with twenty warriors," Phaere pressed.
"The dragon overwhelmed them," Imoen said.
Her voice was cold enough to send a chill down Abdel's spine. Was she liking this too much? Liking it at all was too much.
Phaere smiled broadly at Imoen and said, "So it did."
"Mistress, I—"
"Will close your stupid, ineffectual mouth," Phaere finished for him. Solausein stepped back one step and kept his eyes fixed on the ground.
"Jaenra," Phaere said, using Imoen's alias and addressing her directly. "I think I'm beginning to remember you now."
Imoen nodded curtly and offered a wry smile. Phaere stepped closer to her—very close—and said, "You will replace the ineffective Solausein in all his duties."
"Yes, mistress," Imoen answered.
"All his duties," the drow emphasized.
"Yes," Imoen answered, more slowly this time, looking the drow woman directly in the eyes, "Mistress Phaere."
"She can be … difficult," Jaheira said, doing a good job of sounding familiar with the drow mistress.
Solausein took a deep draft of the strange beverage that Abdel thought smelled a little like beer and forced a smile.
"It is to be expected," he said.
Abdel took a third tentative sip of his own beverage and looked around the tavern room again. Drow taverns, if this one was typical, were quiet, serious places full of quiet, serious people with skin the color of the darkest ebony. It was dark, lit sparsely with candles, and the menu consisted of things Abdel could never bring himself to eat. Live spiders … he'd rather starve.
Jaheira had quickly picked up on some of Imoen's more successful lies, and Abdel was honestly happy to see that she wasn't nearly as good at it as Imoen was. Solausein was trying to be stoic about what was obviously a tremendous failure, a major demotion that he might never recover from. Having a female there who appeared even a little understanding seemed to make him feel better, and Jaheira was playing it all very carefully.
"Of course," she said, "you can't be too surprised that she would be disappointed."
Solausein nodded and said, "I failed my mistress."
"But to humiliate you like that," Abdel said, "I would have—"