“You’re lying.” He said it automatically, the denial rising easily to his lips. He looked down at his body, fettered by chains and bleeding from wounds he’d received during his capture. Nothing had changed there. He was himself. He was Zollgarza.
Your features are misplaced, the voice of dead Derzac-Rin taunted him. The sculptor was merely a stuttering novice when he crafted you.
“No!” The word tore from Zollgarza’s throat. He stared hatefully up at the king. “Why haven’t you killed me?” he repeated.
“Oh, you’ll die soon enough, but not before I’ve turned you inside out a few more times.” The king rapped on the door to the cell and a guard stepped inside. “We’re done here,” he said. “Make sure he’s fed, and fetch more water. I don’t want him too weak.”
“What do you want with me?” Zollgarza said, louder.
The king ignored him and followed the guard out of the cell.
Zollgarza lunged forward, straining against his chains. He landed on his face as the cell door slammed shut. “Why don’t you kill me!” he screamed, his face pressed against the dirty floor.
Silence answered him.
CHAPTER TWO
ILTKAZAR, THE UNDERDARK
13 UKTAR
King Mith Barak entered his audience chamber, A cavernous hall with barrel-vaulted ceilings and towering stone columns inscribed with centuries of Dwarvish runes, names of kings and scholars, miners and smiths. His footsteps echoed the long, lonely distance to his mithral throne, where two other figures stood. They heard the heavy tread and turned.
“My king,” they said, more or less in unison, bowing deeply to him.
Mith Barak waved away the gesture. Instead of seating himself upon the throne, he stood before his counselors, though that wasn’t exactly the right word for them. They held no official rank in his court or among the regency when Mith Barak was in his mithral form, but they were the closest a king could have to friends, the two dwarves Mith Barak trusted most.
He allowed himself a heavy sigh. To no other would he show his weariness, certainly not to the damned drow he had caged, and who had been vexing him with his mysteries.
“He told me nothing new,” the king said in response to the dwarves’ unspoken questions.
“The drow will attack in force,” Joya said. “That hasn’t changed. They’re already invading our outposts, as their mistress commanded.” She touched the holy symbols of Moradin and the lost Haela Brightaxe that hung around her neck. The hammer and the anvil, overlaid by the flaming sword-the symbols looked right together. Mith Barak knew Joya touched the symbols not out of fear, but as a way to draw strength from the presence of one god and the memory of another. Every time he saw the gesture, it reminded Mith Barak how much he loved the girl.
“Yes, they will attack,” Mith Barak said, “but if I squeeze that drow long enough, maybe he’ll tell me when and how big an army to expect.”
The other dwarf, Joya’s father, had been silent, and Mith Barak knew what that silence meant, but he waited for the Blackhorn family patriarch to give voice to his disapproval.
“You said yourself you learned nothing new, my king. It’s time to prepare our own forces and put an end to the drow,” the dwarf said. Torchlight reflecting off the walls cast his features into shadow, but the runes tattooed on his left cheek showed clearly, as did the plaited strands of his gray beard. Chips of white stone hung from those plaits, with more runes inscribed upon them in black rivers. “Give the word, and I will see to it.”
“You were never so bloodthirsty before, Garn,” the king said. “What makes you so eager now to kill the drow?”
“Besides the obvious,” Garn said grimly, “that his people are poised to invade my home and slaughter my kin, we still don’t know why he’s been altered. I don’t want the hand of the spider bitch in my city any more than you do … my king,” he said.
Mith Barak nodded. “Do you agree with him, Joya? What does Moradin reveal of this matter?”
“You know I don’t speak for the Soulforger,” Joya replied with a faint smile, but the humor disappeared quickly. Joya was fair-haired, the blond strands cropped close to her chin. Round faced, pretty, and sweet tempered, her dark blue eyes alone betrayed the infinite grief she bore. “I watched him while he was unconscious, dreaming, and while you probed his mind. It’s as you said-the Spider Queen’s power is all over him and terribly strong. It would take an incredible feat of magic to break down the barriers in his mind. I can think of none in this city capable of it. Whatever secrets he’s hiding, someone wanted them buried deeply.”
“If we can’t hope to uncover his secrets, then all the more reason to destroy him,” Garn said vehemently.
Joya shook her head. “If this drow’s purpose is to bring destruction to the city with his dark magic, who is to say his death will eliminate the threat? What if his death triggers the magic? What if it dooms you, my king? You were his target.”
“And the Arcane Script Sphere,” Mith Barak reminded her. “The artifact is of greater importance to the drow than my death.” Damn the thing, anyway. He hadn’t realized how far the sphere’s call echoed through the Underdark until he’d seen the image of Fizzri mooning over it in Zollgarza’s memories. “It’s trying to free itself,” he said.
“I know,” Joya said quietly. “Its call is strong, enticing. It whispers to me in my dreams as well, begging me to take it up into the World Above.”
“Really? It never speaks in my dreams,” Mith Barak said, though that hardly surprised him. When he slept at all-which was rare-darker voices filled his dreams, waking him in terror. Even if they hadn’t, the sphere knew its appeals were wasted on him. He couldn’t let the artifact go, couldn’t risk it landing in the hands of the drow, especially one so warped by Lolth’s magic as Fizzri Khaven-Ghell. Yet if he killed his drow prisoner now, he might never learn Fizzri’s intent for the sphere and Zollgarza.
“Your daughter is right, Garn, as she usually is,” Mith Barak said. “We can’t risk killing the drow until we know more about Guallidurth’s plan.”
“We’ve got bigger problems anyway,” Garn said, sighing. “There’s a good chance we don’t have the numbers for this fight, my king. If the drow are mustering more than one House against us, we’re in trouble. You know I’d be the last to say it if it weren’t true.”
“I know,” Mith Barak said. “We need to pull back from our outposts, close off as many extraneous routes to the surface as we can. The weaker the drow make us, the more susceptible we’ll be to attack from other quarters. The surface dwellers will take advantage of weakness.” His fists clenched. “They always do.”
THE VILLAGE of THARGRED, TETHYR
20 UKTAR
Arowent Martran did not consider himself a complex soul. He ran a small inn and general store in a village that was little more than a way station north of the city of Saradush. Loving his work as he did, he always chatted with the folk who passed through, whether they were merchants replenishing caravan supplies or adventurers come to purchase one of his own hand-drawn maps of the area.
He prided himself on knowing exactly what sort of folk had walked into his place before they even spoke a word. Tethyrian wine merchants-he could spot them in a breath; escaped Calishite slaves-he’d seen more than one and given them aid; Flaming Fists of Baldur’s Gate-he’d dealt with them too. He was not a complex soul, but he saw clearly all the people who came into his inn.
Maybe that was why the young girl standing before him irritated Arowent so much-he couldn’t immediately see who she was. Well, clearly, she was an adventurer-Arowent wasn’t stupid, after all-but she was so young and yet … not … so fresh, naive looking and yet … she smiled as if she knew something he didn’t-such a damned mystery.