Condemnation (8 page)

Something the Tlabbar guards wear, then, Nimor decided.

He briefly considered shouldering the dead wizard and carrying the fellow along in case he needed to pass another warding inside the castle, but decided against it. Stealth and speed were his best defenses, and lugging a corpse through the castle was not particularly subtle. Besides, the Tlabbars were not likely to have two forbiddings in their palace, or to use the same key for both if they did. He unceremoniously dumped the wizard on the other side of the doorway, and headed inside.

The archway opened into a long, high-ceilinged corridor that ran above one of the Tlabbar halls. Doors made of pale zurkhwood lined the hall, opening into studies, parlors, trophy rooms, and other such chambers if Nimor’s old maps were correct. He ignored them all and darted swiftly down the hall, reaching a small staircase at the end that descended to the level below. Here he encountered a magical glyph barring passage on the stair, but he sensed the trap before stepping close enough to trigger it. He simply vaulted over the rail instead, dropping lightly to the stairs below. The stairs swept around in a grand curve and led him to another gleaming black corridor near the center of the Tlabbar castle, leading to the House shrine. The floor was polished black marble that would have gleamed like a mirror had there been any light to see by. Not far ahead, a pair of House guards stood watch over a great double door leading into Lolth’s sanctuary.

Nimor smiled invisibly and congratulated himself on his timing. The matron mother, and perhaps a daughter or two, would be within, performing some empty ritual to their mute goddess.

Carefully staying out of sight, Nimor took one more look around to make sure no one else was approaching. He studied the two guards outside the door. They seemed no more than young officers, proudly attired for their exalted duty as guards to the matron mother, but Nimor did not trust his eyes. The two were more than they seemed, he was certain of it. He decided to bypass them if he could.

Gathering himself, Nimor raised his left hand, on which gleamed a ring as black as jet. The ring of shadows was perhaps his most useful weapon, a device that conferred a number of useful magical powers. He called upon one of those powers, and melted into the shadows of the black corridor only to step out on the far side of the shrine’s door, into House Tlabbar’s most sacred sanctum.

The temple almost filled the central floor of the great palace, its graceful dome rising overhead, chased in silver and jet with Lolth’s spider insignia. The shrine was lit with a sinister silvery radiance, the better to display the lavish wealth House Faen Tlabbar had expended in decorating the Spider Queen’s chapel. Nimor spared no admiration on the gold baubles and gem-encrusted images, though.

Matron Mother Ghenni and two of her daughters abased themselves before the towering black idol of the silent goddess, groveling before Lolth, no doubt beseeching the Spider Queen to restore her favor to the House. No one else waited within. Apparently the matron mother felt that her guards and servants did not need to see her and her daughters prostrate themselves in their private adorations. Nimor’s information on Faen Tlabbar had once again been proven accurate.

The assassin silently drew his rapier and advanced, eyeing his prey. Ghenni was a striking dark elf, a female with a voluptuous body and a sinuous grace that allowed her to carry her years better than many females a hundred years younger. He noted the dark glint of mail beneath her emerald robes, and smiled. Apparently even the matron mother of a strong House didn’t feel entirely safe in her own home without the Spider Queen’s protection.

The matron mother paused in her observances, warned by something—a small sound, the flicker of a shadow, possibly just intuition. She raised herself up to her knees and looked around, wariness plain on her face.

“Sil’zet, Vadalma,” she hissed. “We are not alone.”

The two girls halted at once, still stretched out on the cold stone floor. They glanced about warily. Ghenni stood carefully, reaching for a wand at her belt.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Who dares intrude on our devotions?”

Nimor made no answer but glided closer. The matron mother didn’t see him, he was certain of that, but just as he drew within sword reach, he felt a presence coalesce in the room. An unseen demonic force took shape in the air near the top of the dome.

“Beware, Matron,” a cold voice hissed. “An assassin approaches you unseen.”

To her credit, the Matron Mother of House Faen Tlabbar did not quail. As her daughters scrambled to their feet, Ghenni took two steps back and quickly gestured with her wand, snapping out a word of command. A sphere of roiling blackness hurled forth from the wand and burst behind Nimor in an inky blot of frigid shadows that lashed out like living things hungry for prey. The assassin ignored the spell, as he was already leaping forward. With a precise thrust, he ran the Faen Tlabbar through with his rapier. The blade was as black as night, a long stiletto of intangible shadowstuff that simply glided through the matron mother’s mail shirt as if the armor wasn’t even there. Its effect on the priestess was as lethal as one might expect. He twisted the blade in her heart and grinned, though she still could not see him.

“Greetings, Matron Mother,” he hissed aloud. “Perhaps you will find the answers you were seeking when you reach Lolth’s black hells.”

Ghenni gasped once and coughed blood. She staggered back, clutching at the blade in her heart, and her eyes rolled up in her head and she toppled to the floor. Nimor withdrew his rapier and whirled on the daughter on the left, Sil’zet, while the demon took shape over Ghenni’s body. It was a skeletal creature wrapped in green flames, armed with a black-glowing scimitar of pale bone.

The demon evidently could see him perfectly, for it set on Nimor at once. It aimed a ferocious cut at his head, which he simply ducked, but the creature reversed its blade with surprising speed and backhanded a second cut waist high. Nimor scowled and skipped back, momentarily thwarted. Behind the demon, he saw Sil’zet unrolling a scroll to read, while Vadalma held her ground, stooping to retrieve her mother’s wand while guarding herself with a dagger.

“You will not escape this room with your life, assassin,” Vadalma cried. “Guards! To me!”

Nimor heard the guards outside fumbling at the chapel door. He ducked and darted, keeping away from the bone demon, but unwilling to engage it. Slaying a guardian demon was pointless, after all. He had only a few moments more, and he wanted to make the most of them. The assassin took one quick step and rolled beneath the demon’s guard, coming up beside Sil’zet as she declaimed the words of her scroll. He rammed his dagger into the small of her back while parrying the bone demon’s scimitar with his own black rapier. Sil’zet shrieked in agony and wrenched away, but Nimor tripped her expertly. She sprawled to the ground and writhed. Nimor followed her and sank the point of his rapier into the notch of her collarbone.

This time, the demon made him pay for ignoring it. Screeching in rage, it flailed at him with its bone sword, cutting a long, burning gash across his shoulder blade as he tried to spin out of the way. Nimor gritted his teeth against the pain and rolled away before the creature could cut him in two.

Vadalma barked out the command word for her mother’s wand and blasted blindly with the shadow sphere in Nimor’s direction, flaying the assassin’s flesh with ebon tendrils as cold and as sharp as razors.

The door guards burst in with blades bared, their faces cold and expressionless. They closed with uncanny swiftness, sword points weaving as they groped closer to Nimor, following him with quick jerks of their heads as if the scuffle of his boots and panting of his breath betrayed him.

I’ve done what I came for, Nimor decided.

Ghenni was dead, and Sil’zet clearly dying. Her heels drummed on the marble floor as she drowned in her own blood. He would have liked to have killed Vadalma as well, but the demon and the door guards—whatever they actually were—simply complicated matters beyond practical resolution.

With a grimace of resignation, Nimor backed off several steps and blinked away with the power of his ring, emerging an instant later near the balcony where he had first entered the castle. The forbidding kept him from escaping in a single dimensional leap, but the assassin simply seized the body of the Tlabbar wizard he’d left by the door and darted outside again. The cut across his shoulders burned abominably, and his legs ached where the icy tendrils of the sphere had lashed him, but Nimor drew in a deep breath and allowed himself a feral grin of triumph.

“Fortunate fellows,” he said to the dead males at his feet. “When the Tlabbars determine that you guarded the door through which I came, you will be glad that you are dead.”

The bodies made no response, of course. They never did.

He glanced out at the faerielight glimmering over the battlements of the castle, listening to the alarms and cries of dismay rising from within. He would have liked to savor the sounds for a long time, but pursuit could not be far behind. With a sigh, he clenched his fist around his black ring and willed himself away.

FOUR

Halisstra and Ryld played two games, using a small traveling board the weapons master kept in a pouch at his belt. Ryld Argith won both games, though Halisstra pressed him hard in both. She’d always had a knack for sava, though she could tell early on that she was playing a master. Long, silent hours passed in the darkness, with no sign that the lamias had discovered their hiding place.

I can’t believe they haven’t followed us, Halisstra remarked at the end of the second game.

We slew many of their favorite thralls, I guess. The lamias were careless of the lives of their slaves, and perhaps do not have enough left to do a proper job of searching the city for us. Ryld smiled coldly. For that matter, we slew a few lamias, too. Perhaps they’re not very anxious to find us.

As long as they leave us be, Halisstra replied.

With the sava game no longer holding her interest, she realized that she was dreadfully hungry. They’d eaten a thin breakfast before sunrise from the few supplies they’d brought from Ched Nasad, but Halisstra was certain that the day was drawing down. Drow could stand privation better than most, but hard combat followed by hours of vigilance had left her physically exhausted.

I’m starving, she flashed at Ryld. Things seem quiet. I’m going to slip back to the camp and break out some stores. Stay alert.

The weapons master nodded, and whispered, “Hurry back.”

Halisstra rose and wrapped her piwafwi close around her. The hall was still and dark, as it had been for hours. She stole quietly back to the chamber where the others waited for Pharaun to ready his spells, using all the stealth she could muster. She could hear soft voices ahead, Quenthel and Danifae conversing quietly in the ruined gallery.

A dark shadow flitted across Halisstra’s heart. When she thought about it, there were few things she wished Danifae and Quenthel to speak about.

I should not have left them alone, she chided herself. I let Quenthel order me about like a male!

Deliberately, she crept closer, a silent shadow in the darkness. She could see Pharaun sitting wrapped in a blanket, deep in Reverie as he leaned against the wall, his eyes heavy and half-lidded. Quenthel and Danifae sat close together, turned a little away from the wizard, which brought them close to the passage in which Halisstra stood.

“What do you think you will do when we return to Menzoberranzan, girl? Do you think some high station awaits your mistress there?” Quenthel said, her whispers scornful and acidic.

“I do not know, Mistress,” Danifae said after a long time. “I have not thought that far ahead.”

“Orcswill. You have been thinking hard from the moment I laid eyes on you in the audience hall of House Melarn. In fact, I’ll even hazard a guess as to what must occupy your thoughts. You are wondering how you can bring about your return to House Yauntyrr in Eryndlyn, with Halisstra Melarn as your battle captive.”

“I dare not entertain such a thought—”

Quenthel laughed cruelly and said, “Save your innocent protests for someone more gullible, girl. You still have not answered my question. Why should I take you and your mistress back to Menzoberranzan?”

“It would be my hope,” Danifae said in a faltering voice, “that I might have an opportunity to demonstrate my usefulness to you, so that you might choose to give me the opportunity to serve.”

“I see you do not presume to answer for your mistress this time,” Quenthel snorted. “So I should reward your faithless insolence by shielding you in House Baenre, when I know that you are nothing more than an opportunistic viper who will abandon her mistress as soon as the mood strikes her?”

“You misjudge me,” Danifae said. “The tradition of adopting the best and most useful nobles of a defeated house is a way of life among our people. My mistress and I—”

The vipers of Quenthel’s whip hissed and cracked close by Danifae’s face, silencing her.

“I think,” said Quenthel, “that I misjudge nothing at all. You are a simpering fawn of a girl who lacked the strength to keep herself from being taken as another’s slave. You are nothing more than a useless ornament to me—or you are a very patient and very clever little sycophant, in which case bringing you into my home is not very useful, either.” She sat back, sneering at Danifae. “Perhaps I should simply advise Halisstra of this conversation. I doubt your mistress would be pleased to know how much you presume in her behalf. It is most unbecoming in a handmaiden, after all.”

“It is your prerogative, Mistress,” Danifae said, bowing her head. “You may do as you please with me. I can only place myself at your convenience.” She looked up again from her submissive pose, and licked her lips. “In captivity I have come to understand something of the nature of power, what it means to hold absolute power over someone else. If I am not to wield that kind of power myself, then all that remains is to place myself into the care of a female who understands these things, too. Halisstra Melarn is my mistress, but only at your pleasure. When the time comes that you choose to consider the matter, I pray you will allow me to demonstrate my more useful qualities and earn the chance to live as your slave. You, more so than my mistress, understand the exercise of power.”