The Rose of Sarifal (39 page)

Now in extremity, with the drow closing in, her wolf’s shape erupted out of her and she fell down on all fours into a crouch. But at the same time she dreamed a series of tiny, encapsulated dreams, each one large on the inside, tiny on the outside. She saw the daemonfey above her as if lit by intermittent flashes of lighting, now in one place, now in another, now naked, now clothed, now as she remembered him on Moray Island where they had found shelter, now as she imagined him in dreams or fantasies. Sometimes he spoke to her, though the movement of his lips did not conform to the words she heard, which were always versions of what he’d said to her earlier, when she’d been asleep: “Come to me. Give up and come to me. Dare to leave this place and come to me.” At the same time, even in the moments she was conscious and aware, then also she remembered him as if in a series of afterimages, which enabled her to superimpose him on the surface of the real world, almost as if he hovered above her in the dark cavern where they were surrounded by drow, and where the hierophant of Lolth conjured her magic, silhouetted by the fire burning in the entrance of her shrine, between the broken statues of the knight at the basilisk, and the curtain of flame that moved across the surface of the rock.

Eleuthra’s body changed rapidly and completely, as if in a series of orgasmic shudders, and as she looked up from her wolf’s crouch she saw the daemonfey as if suspended above the hierophant, his barbed tail hanging down as if to touch the dark elf’s black and white streaked hair, which writhed and twisted around her delicate, small head as if it had an independent life, a trick, perhaps, of the lashing wind. Eleuthra heard a roaring in her ears: “Come to me.”

Gaspar-shen, his scimitar in his right hand, a short sword in his left, his bare torso glowing with a lambent, frustrated energy that snaked around his chest and arms and belly in blue lines, watched the she-wolf in the moment of her spring, watched her dig her claws into the rocks, watched the hair rise on her body and the thick ridge of her spine as if charged with static. He himself found it hard to move, because the drow witch had conjured away his strength and Lukas’s also. Swords drawn, they also stood like stones, waiting for the seven warriors to surround them and conquer them, while the rest of the dark elves waited behind. But the wolf felt nothing of that conjuring, designed to immobilize more complicated brains, and as she broke across the rocky, uneven floor, he also felt the magic strain and snap—the witch could not sustain it and defend herself at the same time. Lukas also jerked alive, as if suddenly released from the constraints of an invisible net, and
with his sword raised he leaped upon the closest of the drow, insolently sauntering toward him, protected—so he must have thought—by the hierophant’s spell. The blade bit into his skull. He dropped like a bag of sand, and Lukas, spinning, caught the warrior next to him with a back-handed slash across his throat then drove his sword’s point through someone else’s eye.

Someone must tell him, the genasi thought, of the benefits of striking below the neck, where the target was larger and softer. His own scimitar, he noticed, had punctured the belly of one of these treacherous creatures, popped it like an inflated bladder, and now he turned to the next. These drow had no culture, he thought grimly, as he severed one dark elf’s arm from his body—they overcooked their vegetables and undercooked their meat, and boiled too many pale tubers, and relied too heavily on spiced sauces and hot oil, or so he’d heard. They baked no bread, made no pastry. There was no lightness to their cuisine, and now, by the gods, they’d pay for it.

Amaranth threw down her lamp. It shattered on the rocks and spattered a blue, glowing liquid. Likewise released from the magic, she drew the short sword she had carried from Caer Moray, and as the drow raged close she struck then jumped back. Surprised, she saw Amaka was still with her and, though unarmed, had seized one of the drow’s arms as she pressed her blade
between his ribs, watched the hot blood flow down. Under the hierophant’s spell, all time seemed to have slowed and thickened. Now, released from it, she felt a burst of frantic energy, as if gravity were weak, as if the air were thin and offered no resistance, and as if all the processes of her body were quick beyond control. It could not last. Lukas was cutting through the drow as if through scarecrows, and the genasi had raised a barrier of murdered corpses, some of which still twitched erratically. There were several dozen drow at least, but they fell back from the onslaught of the blades. It could not last.

Eleuthra had reached the creature, drawn her claws down her face and neck, opened up her flesh and then sprung for her throat, and missed. Instead her jaws had closed on the hierophant’s shoulder, cracking her collarbone and her upper arm, such was the fury of the wolf’s assault. She’d fallen on her prey like a crashing wave, but like a wave, now, she drew back after marking her high tide. As she did, she felt the hierophant’s magic reinvest itself, flow into the spaces she had left, fasten itself around her like a living chain, squeeze her chest so she couldn’t breathe, and all her struggles drew it closer. Desperate, she struck again, cutting with her heavy paws, and this time she felt the softness of the drow’s breast, and tried to cut through that and through her ribs and through the plastron of her chest to reach her heart.
But the wolf could no longer breathe. She released her grip on the hierophant’s arm so she could strike again, and miss again, and now her jaws closed upon nothing, and instead she felt a coldness overtake her lungs, like a cold liquid poison injected in her viscera, causing the failure of her organs one by one, and the closing of her body processes until only her heart was left, fluttering in a bath of ice.

“Come to me,” said the daemonfey, and she saw him spread his leather wings until he filled the entire vault of the cavern, his red eyes diabolical, his gold skin and body perfect in her mind. “Come to me.”

And she went.

The hierophant stepped back from the wolf’s corpse. Staggering, she fell against the statue of the knight, seizing the haft of its stone sword to stay upright. The blood flowed down her arms and face. But she was in a rage. She lifted her uninjured arm, and Gaspar-shen felt the air congeal around him, slowing his weapon and offering resistance as he drew it back and raised it up to strike. It seemed too heavy for his strength. One of the drow caught him by the arm and pulled him forward, and he realized suddenly they were not trying to kill him but disarm him, capture him alive. Again he struck at them, the circle of black faces which were close enough for him to see the silver rings in their nostrils and lips and in the ridges of their ears, even the scarified, raised
patterns on their cheeks, even their filed and pointed teeth as they grinned at him in fury and drew him down.

After a moment he flopped helpless as if resting on a bed of slaughtered bodies, pinioned at his wrists, while at the same time he heard the noise of the hierophant’s harsh breath next to his ear, and he felt her hands fumbling over his chest, and smelled her blood dripping over him. Nor did he have to hear her tell him that a spider must immobilize her prey with a cold bite, before wrapping it in pale cords to save for later, when she is hungry. The eating habits of spiders, he had always thought, should not be emulated by any higher being with a claim to civilization.

Far above, in the fomorian highway that ran under the Cambro Mountains from Harrowfast in the south and all the way to Winterglen, Suka rode on Marabaldia’s shoulder. Sixty miles they had come in just a day. The princess seemed to gather and grow in strength as time progressed. Suka was exhausted even so. She had not wanted to be carried like a sack of potatoes, but every stride of the giantess was four of hers. And she had not expected they would never stop, or pause, or rest, or eat, or drink, hour after hour. Irritated, she had never complained, which was unlike her. But the mystery was easy to solve.

Suka felt the weight of Ughoth’s death, caused, she imagined, by her own clumsiness on the borders
of Synnoria. And she imagined, in this punishing pace, that Marabaldia was working something out, expressing some profound emotion. Suka didn’t blame her for wanting to move quickly, leave the surface of Gwynneth Island, and burrow down deep into the Underdark. She would deny the princess nothing for the sake of her own dignity, so grateful she was that Marabaldia hadn’t punished her, or even questioned her about what had happened between her and Captain Rurik and the Marchlord Talos-claere in Synnoria. She could only remember how her friend, and Ughoth too, had backed her without question in the council hall, supported her without hesitation when Lord Askepel had demanded that she stand trial, and answer for what she and Rurik actually had done, the mistakes she actually had made. Even now, even after the price she’d paid, Marabaldia did not question her. It was as if the past were gone, and Suka were the only one still carrying its burden.

They had not paused, neither to draw breath nor drink some water from one of the subterranean streams. Long used to human beings, now Suka had grown accustomed to the heavy stamp of the cyclopses, though she could not hope to copy its rhythm. Their single eyes glowed like lanterns. She looked back to see Mindarion and Altaira, similarly carried. Behind them, the tunnel was in darkness.