Marsheila Rockwell - Skein of Shadows

“Apparently,” Sabira said, remembering Xujil’s matter-of-fact comment about a “usage fee.” The drow had seemed oblivious to the hostility of the taverngoers-he certainly hadn’t evinced any guilt or shame that she could see. She dared to hope he hadn’t been involved in the tragedy Laven had recounted, but she had to be sure. A good player could still win with the deck stacked against them, but not if they didn’t know about it beforehand.

“So exactly what role, if any, did Xujil play in all this?” she asked.

They were walking up the steep slope now, and it took the Vadalis man some time to answer. Sabira thought at first it was because he was winded, but then she saw his face.

“Your guide? He’s the baby-killer.”

The conversation lulled after Laven’s revelation, and Sabira focused on her surroundings. Mostly so she wouldn’t have to focus on the fact that the drow that was going to help her find Tilde was the worst sort of murderer, someone she’d gladly bring to justice herself if she didn’t need him so badly. She wondered if Tilde had known, or if it would have made a difference if the sorceress had. By all accounts, she’d been as much at Breven’s mercy in this situation as Sabira herself was. Maybe more, because Sabira liked to at least imagine that she could have refused. With Tilde’s all-consuming need to be accepted by the House that had turned its back on her mother, Sabira wasn’t sure Ned’s sister had really had that option.

The path wound its way up the side of the mountain in between boulders larger than some of the mechanical wagons below, and along the edge of sheer escarpments that promised a painful end to anyone inattentive enough to step out of its globe-lit boundaries. Small tufts of desert grasses grew here and there, brown and sickly but stubborn. Lizards long since grown accustomed to the steady tramp of feet up and down the slope sunned themselves unconcernedly on small rocks, or scampered away with a hiss if they felt themselves threatened. Every so often they would have to press themselves up against the edge of the path as other groups made their way back down from the caverns, usually with empty soarsleds after a delivery of supplies, but some few bringing back spoils from their expeditions. Sabira saw piles of what looked like hardened cobwebs, a cluster of black blades with cruel, serrated edges, and slabs of stone covered with alien glyphs that glowed an angry red in the sunlight.

“More draconic?” Sabira heard Skraad ask behind her, gently ribbing Greddark, who she imagined had probably been quite intrigued when those slabs passed by.

“No. Though it does look somewhat familiar… a little like the writing the duergars use, but harsher. More primitive.”

Sabira felt something cold tiptoe down her spine at the dwarf’s words. She’d never seen duergar writing, and only knew one word in their language: eddarghe. The name for a ghastly white flower that was also shared by the half-duergar assassin who’d kidnapped and tortured Ned, and had ultimately been responsible for his death. Eddarga- Nightshard — had also killed almost two dozen people in her decade-long killing spree, almost adding Sabira, Aggar, and the entire population of Frostmantle to her tally before she was done.

Sabira had hoped to never cross paths with another of the deep-dwelling dwarves again-though she knew Gunnett, Eddarga’s sister and accomplice, was still out there somewhere, plotting against Aggar and the rest of the Tordannon family. Her family, now. But it somehow hadn’t occurred to her that she might encounter duergar on this excursion into the depths, and the idea filled her with dread. A dread she quickly stomped on and kicked aside. She was here to save Tilde and if any of Nightshard’s distant kin got in her way, they’d suffer the same fate the assassin had. It was that simple.

They rounded a boulder the size of a small house and the cavern that housed the rest of Trent’s Well and the entrance to Tarath Marad opened up in front of them like the mouth of the mountain. Here, the path was shadowed, and the everbright globes along its edge sprang to life, bathing them all in an icy bluish light. As they walked from the heat of the desert morning into the relative coolness of the cave, Sabira couldn’t repress a shiver that had very little to do with the temperature change.

The last time she’d gone beneath a mountain, her companion had died-a slow, agonizing, brutal death. She couldn’t help but wonder which of her new companions would do the same on this trip.

Several buildings dominated the floor of the huge cavern, situated on either side of a rushing river that flowed in from the west and went back out again on the east side. A stone bridge led from one side to the other, lit by more of the blue everbright lanterns, though these ones floated overhead instead of protruding from the ground.

Sabira could see a smithy, what looked like the sort of general supply store common to rural towns and even a small tent with a hand-lettered sign set outside that read, “Artifact Collector.” There were other buildings, built mostly of stone and scavenged wood, that Sabira assumed were homes.

It didn’t take much guesswork to determine which one belonged to the mayor. A massive two-story structure, it was the only house that boasted a facade constructed from the remains of giantish ruins, complete with massive faces on either side of the door. They had to have been transported all the way from Stormreach at considerable cost. Sabira wondered again at the “usage fee” and the mind behind it.

There appeared to be a line of people waiting to see the mayor, so Sabira turned to Greddark.

“No point in all of us wasting our time here. Why don’t you take the others and see what sort of supplies you can scrounge up for us? I’d like to head out tonight. Tomorrow, at the latest.” She pulled out Breven’s letter of credit. “Charge what you need to; don’t worry about the cost.”

“Because none of us will be around for the Baron to collect from if we go over his limit, anyway?” Greddark asked semi-seriously as he took the paper and tucked into a pocket.

“No. To make sure we are,” she replied, making sure they all heard her. Whatever her private thoughts on their odds, she needed to project confidence. “What we don’t have in quantity, we’re going to have to make up for in quality. Nobody I’d trust more to make that call than a dwarf.”

“A fellow dwarf,” Greddark corrected, raising a few eyebrows among Laven’s men. No — her men, now. Best to make sure they knew it before they headed into the darkness.

“Greddark’s my second in this. Whatever he asks or tells, it comes from me. Clear?”

Laven answered for them all.

“As a diamond, and twice as precious.”

Sabira nodded.

“Get to it, then. Hopefully I’ll be done with this nonsense by the time you get back.” As they began to disperse, she called out. “Zi! A word?”

The wizard looked at Laven first, but the Vadalis man ignored him, sending a not-so-subtle message that he wasn’t the one Zi should be asking for direction anymore. Sabira appreciated the support; she’d had a feeling the bald man would prove troublesome.

Zi walked over to her side, looking at her warily.

“Yes?”

“Where’d you get your training?’

“Excuse me?” He drew himself up, clearly affronted that she’d felt the need to ask. But she had neither the time nor the inclination to coddle his ego.

“It’s a simple question-the kind I normally expect my employees to provide an answer to, not another question. Do I need to repeat it?”

Zi’s face was a smooth as his head so he had no brows to draw together in anger, but he didn’t need them. It was there in his eyes and in the hard set of his jaw.