But Madri changed things. The shard of memory containing his awful deed lay like a snake in his mind, coiled and ugly. He didn’t want to be tempted or expected to do something like that ever again.
The Whorl of Ioun would help protect him from Kalkan-but he feared it would also return him to the kind of person who’d kill a lover at a god’s command.
If the Whorl fell into his hands right then, he decided, he’d throw it into the sea. Because putting it on would murder who he’d become as fully and finally as the tons of stone in the mine almost had.
He wondered if it was Kalkan’s plan that he renounce finding the Whorl. Or was he meant to have died in the mine cave-in after all? Madri’s theft of the Whispering Child, itself a long-lost relic of Oghma, was also unlikely to be coincidental. But how Oghma connected to Kalkan, how Kalkan connected to Madri, and how it all tied to him was impossible to understand without a few more clues.
“Madri,” he said to the empty air. “Come see me?” If he could just talk to her one more time, maybe she’d explain what was going on and what her true role was in all this. The rakshasa must have brought her back from the dead, or arranged for it somehow. He couldn’t take any decisive action without some answers.
He unsheathed Exorcessum. The last time he’d changed its configuration, Madri had appeared. She was somehow linked to the blade. If he transformed it again, perhaps she’d emerge before him. And maybe be more willing to listen to his apology.
An explosive report ruffled the sails as his sword went from a single blade to two, one in each hand. His ready stance and his tight-yet-loose grip on the hilts seemed somehow familiar while simultaneously alien. It sort of made his teeth hurt.
Madri did not appear. “Shadow take it,” he cursed.
She was somewhere in Airpsur, probably. But where, exactly? And even if he knew, he couldn’t go to her. Not yet. Not until after they’d raced back to the portal mouth, where they’d defeated the Gatekeeper and found the Demonweb.
The drow had to be dealt with, their point of infestation in Airpsur cauterized, and if possible, the mother lode of arambarium retrieved. The spiders already had a head start. And their approach to the city would go unmarked, and thus unopposed, because the floating arachnid armada, as Riltana described it, traveled high above the screen of clouds. Airspur’s peacemakers would never even know a flight of spiders flittered high over their heads.
Queen Arathane commanded Thoster to full speed. Thoster laughed at the prospect of a race, even if he didn’t exactly know the reason for it. He put Green Siren full sails into the wind. The man was bright enough to recognize the ruler wanted to return as quickly as possible to Airspur to prevent the drow spider cloud from doing … something. The queen didn’t deign to describe the existence of a Demonweb entryway in Akanul. The captain had already learned enough state secrets, starting with the arambarium mine’s location.
“Bring her into dock,” came Thoster’s voice, as if summoned by Demascus’s reverie, “but not so fast you stave in the prow, or I’ll have the lot of you dancing the hempen jig!”
They were already between the cliffs of the Bay of Airspur. Demascus went to see about borrowing two proper sheaths from the ship’s armory before they moored.
The streets of Airspur pulsed, but with commerce, not panic. No one had spied a flight of drifting invaders over the city. The only thing drawing excitement and occasional alarm was the skidding carriage they rode in, as it raced up the cliffside switchbacks. They rode on two wheels whenever they cornered, and each time Jaul whooped in delight. Queen Arathane had commandeered the first conveyance they’d come across upon reaching dry land. But that was only after she shouted down a courier and had a message delivered to the Court of Majesty, the contents of which essentially boiled down to a strict command to wait for her return, and that Tymanther was most assuredly not involved in the arambarium mine disruption.
“This one!” Demascus cried as they neared an herb shop, whose alleyway entrance to the Catacombs they’d taken the previous time they sought the Gatekeeper. Last time, the proprietor grudgingly allowed accessto the secret door in his cellar, in return for a few silver coins.
“That doesn’t look good,” said Riltana when they reached the shop. The roof of the shop was caved in, as if something large had landed on it. Or smashed down through it. The door at alley level was closed, but a trickle of dark fluid spilled under it.
Demascus smashed the door open with his shoulder. The main room of the shop was slathered in webs, covering the counter, the floor, and the aromatic wares in pale strands. Clouded daylight illuminated the room. The shopkeep was bound on top of his counter as if on an altar. His chest cavity had been scooped out. Dark blood pooled where his heart and lungs should have rested. One eye stared up in naked terror. The other was a charred ruin.
“Monsters,” said Arathane. She slammed the butt of her spear on the shop floor.
“A sacrificial slaying,” said Chant. “Drow priestesses are big on that kind of thing.”
Demascus heard a quaver in the pawnbroker’s voice. He understood. The brutality perpetrated here was sickening. He’d been a killer, but he was certain he’d never tortured any of his victims selected by divine decree. Well, mostly certain.
“The blood hasn’t clotted,” said Riltana.
“Which means we’re not far behind them,” he said. He flew down to the cellar three stairs at a time. The others followed close behind.
The concealed door leading to the tunnels was off its hinges.
“Stop!” Chant yelled before Demascus could plunge into the Catacombs.
“What?”
“How in the name of Waukeen’s empty purse do you suppose they got a piece of mineral the size of a large shed down these steps or through that door into the tunnels? No way it’d fit.”
“Huh,” said Demascus. Of course the pawnbroker was right.
“Maybe they didn’t bring it through here?” said Jaul.
“What, you think all the spiderwebs up there and the shop owner missing his innards is the work of some other crazed spider priestess?” said Riltana.
“Don’t be an idiot, Pa. They must have come this way.” Jaul muttered something else under his breath and scowled.
“Maybe the shopkeep’s killing wasn’t just a sacrifice of opportunity,” said Chant. “It could have been part of a ritual to temporarily make the silver hand more manageable.”
“What, you mean like store it in an extra dimension?” said Riltana, and fanned her gloved fingers.
“Or enchant its shape,” said the queen. “I sense the residue of a powerful spell of transmutation. Chant’s right; Chenraya probably changed the relic into something easily transportable, like an amulet or a child’s stuffed toy.”
“A toy?” said Riltana. “More likely a dagger or a spool of web.”
“Could be,” allowed Arathane.
“How long would such a transformation last?” said Demascus.
“Does it matter?” said the queen. “We need to catch them before they slip away.”
“Right,” said Demascus. He turned and plunged into the Catacombs.
“Hey, do me a favor?” Riltana called from behind. “Warn us before we come to the sewer tunnel, so I can breath from my mouth. I don’t want to smell what I caught a whiff of last time.”
“Don’t worry,” he threw over his shoulder, “If you see me skid and slip, you’ll know I’ve just found a-”
An ettercap dropped on him. It bore him to the tunnel floor and knocked his swords flying. Its claws and mandibles scratched at his face. Demascus tried to grab it, but it was slick with sewer water. It scored a vicious cut across his palms and another down one arm with a serrated mandible.