Mith Barak stared at her. For an instant, his expression distorted, offering a glimpse of pain that smote Icelin’s heart. But before she could speak, Mith Barak turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
It was the last reaction she’d expected. The guards obviously thought so as well, for they exchanged uneasy glances as they returned to their posts by the door.
The seneschal glided up to Icelin. Icelin thought for a moment the dwarf woman was going to touch her, but she did not. She placed The Black Tome carefully on the table. “You’ve seen now what this can do,” she said calmly, as if Icelin’s outburst with the king had not taken place. “Will you use it to seek your answers?”
Tearing her thoughts away from the king, Icelin glanced at the book. The cover and spine were beautiful, the supple black leather and the gem nesting within. There was nothing threatening about that cover, but Icelin knew better. For some reason, she was terribly weary. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep for a tenday.
“What will I gain from that book?” she said, not really addressing the seneschal. “Will I discover truths I didn’t want to face? I’ve already done that. Will I find the answer to what I’m seeking? I thought I wanted the Arcane Script Sphere, that Mystra or whatever piece of her is left in the artifact, was the answer, but it’s not.” She looked at the seneschal and felt a pain pierce her. “It’s not.”
“What is it you want?” the dwarf woman asked gently.
“I want to stop.” Icelin said. Her voice was calm and cold, remote. “Ruen is lost to me, maybe dead. All he wanted was to find a cure for my spellscar. I told him I would get the Arcane Script Sphere, but I don’t want it anymore.” Icelin closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “How can I worry about one life when an entire city stands on the brink of destruction? So much of my life has been taken up with that godsdamned spellscar, and I’m tired of it! Whether I die tomorrow or live another twenty years, I don’t want to give another breath or thought to that spellscar. I want to put that part of my life away and start anew. Yet, Ruen-” after all he’d done for her, she felt like every word she spoke was a betrayal of him. “Am I a terrible person for wanting that?”
“I can’t answer your question.” The seneschal lifted her hand and let it hover over the tome. The book disappeared, sent back to whatever high, hidden shelf from which she’d pulled it. She smiled approvingly at Icelin. “You have wisdom beyond that of many your age and older. It will serve you well.” Her voice and form faded, and Icelin was alone in the room, with only Zollgarza and the guards.
Icelin straightened. She had to leave. There was nothing left in this library for her, except … she turned to Zollgarza, but the drow stood with his back to her, staring at the fire.
He was never more dangerous than he is right now, Icelin thought. I can’t approach him, even with the guards standing watch. She’d invaded the most private spaces of his mind, places Mith Barak had not even seen. He might want to kill her now as much as he wanted to kill the king.
She turned and quietly walked to the door. Her hand on the knob, she heard the drow call out to her.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “You’ve got what you came for, have you?” The hatred in his voice pressed on Icelin like a physical weight, a sickness. “Well, enjoy your bit of peace. I hope for nothing now except that my people slaughter every dwarf in this city. They will kill your protector slowly and make him scream for mercy they will never show.” He paused. “And if they do not, I swear on my faith to the Spider Queen that I will kill him myself.”
Icelin didn’t reply. She opened the library door and went out, closing the door behind herself like a shield.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE HALL OF LOST VOICES
26 UKTAR
Ruen awoke in the dark, in unbearable pain.
At first, he didn’t realize how badly he was hurt. He was too surprised and relieved at being alive to appreciate the large, solid weight pressing down on his right arm. Ruen tried to shift to see if he could pull himself free. A white-hot bolt of pain shot up his arm, and darkness swirled up to claim him again.
He floated between consciousness and oblivion, dreaming little half dreams that ran together in his mind. In his dreams, he crouched on the ground as a bugbear came for him, raining blows down upon his head. The punches burned where they struck his flesh, hotter and hotter, until Ruen looked up and saw the creature was on fire. Its flesh melted and reshaped into Sull’s bright face and red hair.
The butcher shouted at him, laughing, but Ruen couldn’t hear what he was saying. He raised his hands imploringly, trying to tell Sull to slow down. Couldn’t he see Ruen was hurt? Ruen tried to grab Sull’s arm, but the butcher pulled back, and a spasm of fear twisted his face.
Sull was afraid of him. He didn’t want Ruen to touch him. Ruen moaned and turned away from the butcher. The scene faded, and he was in the dark again.
When he opened his eyes, he beheld a wall of moving green. His vision focused on oak tree branches stirring in the breeze. He sat up and saw that he was in a grove of the tall oaks. And he wasn’t alone.
Icelin sat with her back against one of the tree trunks. She wore the same plain linen dress he’d seen her wear in Waterdeep. A book lay open in her lap.
“It’s all right,” she said, speaking to him without taking her eyes off the page she was reading. “You’re not broken.”
“I …” Pain shuddered through his body. He was hurt, maybe dying. Why wouldn’t she look at him? “Help me, Icelin.”
“I can’t.” She turned the page.
“Why?” He crawled to her, reaching out to lay his trembling hand over hers. He wasn’t wearing his glove.
“Don’t!” Icelin jerked her hand away. She stared at him as if he’d stabbed her. Tiny fires kindled in her eyes. “You’ve ruined everything!” Heat radiated from her body, suffusing her skin with a hellish glow.
“No!” Ruen screamed an instant before she burst into flames. He screamed and screamed, but he couldn’t look away as Icelin burned to death in front of his eyes. The darkness came for him again.
When he awoke from the dreams, cold sweat stood out on his face, and he was shivering. Ruen licked his dry, cracked lips and smiled bitterly into the darkness. The expression pulled at cuts and bruises all over his face. Learned my lesson. He wouldn’t try to move his right arm again, but his left arm was free.
Ruen lifted it, flexed his fingers and twisted his wrist. He reached up and felt for his neck pouch-seeking the small steel vial that he kept there, the healing potion he saved for the worst, most debilitating wounds. This one certainly qualified.
His fingers closed around the vial. Ruen worked the stopper free and put the rim to his lips. The liquid stirred up stone grit in his mouth. He swallowed it all, wincing. Dust burned in his eyes, so he kept them closed while he waited for the potion to take effect. There was nothing to see anyway. Darkness lay over the cavern like a shroud.
The pain in his arm slowly ebbed, and the dark cloud around his thoughts receded. With clarity came purpose. Lying quietly and listening, Ruen began to make out other signs of life around him. Whimpers, coughing, cursing, and the scrape of boots on stone told him he wasn’t alone.
As far as he knew, he was still in the Hall of Lost Voices-what was left of it. Thinking back, Ruen remembered the explosions, the falling stone as the cavern collapsed around him. The drow had planned it all, sacrificing their own soldiers and slaves to decimate the dwarf forces.
But why engineer a cave-in? Why not occupy the tunnels and press forward, begin the siege of Iltkazar in earnest? After this victory, what were the drow waiting for?
Unless they didn’t intend to take the city. Ruen considered the drow’s strategy. So far, they’d struck at Iltkazar in a series of small-scale engagements, harrying the dwarves and dwindling their numbers, never committing too large a force to any single attack. What if it was all a ruse to distract from their true objective?