Marsheila Rockwell - Skein of Shadows

Wir, Lharvion 11, 998 YK

Somewhere beneath the Menechtarun Desert, Xen’drik.

Donathilde ir’Thul stepped over another fissure in the tunnel floor, cursing. She’d already twisted her ankle in one such fungus-covered chasm, and had had to slow down what was left of her small group while she performed a brief healing spell; she wasn’t about to let that happen again. The fragment of the draconic Prophecy that Baron Breven had given her spoke of a night when “the Anvil next is silent, the Book is closed, the Warder dreams.” It had to be referring to when three of Eberron’s twelve moons were dark-Vult, Rhaan, and Eyre. By her calculations, tonight was the last night when that condition would be met for at least another four years, and the next alignment wouldn’t be perfect like this one, as Rhaan would just be moving out of the dark phase while Vult moved into it. If she didn’t find what she was looking for now, this whole expedition and the deaths of her men would be for nothing.

There were only three of them left, after entering Tarath Marad with a contingent of thirty. House Deneith had paid only cursory attention when the vast caverns beneath Xen’drik’s Menechtarun Desert and the jutting peaks of the Skyraker Claws had been discovered earlier this year. They became much more interested when powerful artifacts started appearing in the Stormreach Marketplace, and in Khorvaire itself. Determined to beat the other twelve dragonmarked Houses to the loot, they’d sent in Tilde, a former instructor at Arcanix and a draconic Prophecy hobbyist. With her had come thirty Blademarks, some of whom had served with her brother, Leoned. Now, only one of Ned’s former comrades-at-arms remained, the others having fallen to the perils of this deep, dark place.

“I don’t like this, my lady,” Harun said, eyeing the close tunnel walls warily, his long sword out and ready. Though there was nothing unusual about that-they’d learned early on that one did not sheathe one’s weapon in Tarath Marad, not even while sleeping.

“Is there anything you do like, Run?” Tilde rejoined halfheartedly as she stroked the fur of the small bat on her shoulder. She was tired of the Blademark’s constant grousing, but in truth, she didn’t like it much herself, and judging from her familiar’s restlessness, neither did he. Though that was no great surprise-there was nothing in this Hostforsaken pit to like.

Harun grunted, but didn’t respond. He kept his attention focused on the floor and ceiling, sparing an unfriendly glance at their Umbragen guide, Xujil. The black-eyed drow had come highly recommended by Brannan ir’Kethras, the Wayfinder whose money and persistence had been instrumental in unearthing the caverns of Tarath Marad in the first place. Apparently, Xujil’s people, a heretofore unknown branch of the dark-skinned elves, had been looking for a way out of their underground home just as eagerly as Brannan had been looking for a way in. But while the Umbragen had come to the surface after a centuries-long exile, seeking new magic to defeat their ancient enemies in the depths, Brannan’s goals-like most of those of the members of the Wayfinder Foundation-had been a bit more mercenary. Discovering new cultures meant cornering the market on their artifacts, though the Wayfinder’s exclusive access hadn’t lasted long, and now he made the bulk of his money outfitting other people’s expeditions into the deeps, including providing guides like Xujil.

When it came to their guide, Tilde couldn’t blame Harun for his suspicions. The drow spoke seldom and with odd inflections; he practiced disturbing, barbaric rituals; and he moved with an eerie, oily grace, as if he were made of the very shadows that had already housed so many horrors on this damnable expedition. First there had been the ranks of ghouls in the desert night, then bloody slimes that dripped from the cavern ceilings, subsuming and inhabiting the bodies of whomever their rancid ichor touched, and finally that unholy behemoth in the lake that had wiped out half of what was left of their party.

And then, of course, there were the spiders.

The eight-legged creatures crept and climbed at every turn, more and more of them the deeper Tilde’s group went into the vast network of caves. Giant hairy spiders, swarms of smaller transparent spiders, spiders with scales, even creatures that looked humanoid but scuttled about and spun webs like the arachnids that crawled all over them. Dol Dorn, but it was disgusting! Tilde was no shrieking maidservant to be frightened of an insect or a mouse, but there was something so alien and repulsive about these deep spiders, with their creeping, segmented legs and their knowing, multifaceted eyes that she couldn’t help but shiver whenever she encountered one-right before she blasted it back into the depths of Khyber, of course.

Harun didn’t much care for spiders either, going out of his way to crush the creatures underfoot whenever he saw one, even the ones that appeared harmless-if that word could truly be applied to anything in Tarath Marad. Xujil had tried to stop him from destroying a fat-bodied female, heavy with eggs, shortly after they entered the caverns, and the Blademark hadn’t trusted him since. Truth be told, neither had Tilde. The only thing spiders were good for was getting rid of flies, and considering bats like her little Shieldwing did the same thing without biting you in the process, there really was no earthly need for the abhorrent creatures at all.

As if awakened by her disparaging thoughts, a mound of fungus to her left began to tremble as she passed. The mosslike green growth sloughed off to reveal an egg sac ready to burst and release its chitinous burden on the world. Before Tilde could bring her own magic to bear, Harun was there, stomping on the sac with his heavy boots, the look of relish on his face not unlike that of a child jumping in puddles after a welcome spring rain. Xujil looked back as the Blademark ground the pulpy mass into the rock, his dark face betraying nothing and his eyes too veiled to read. Still, the hairs on the back of Tilde’s neck bristled, and she vowed to watch the drow more carefully from here on out. As Ned had always loved to say, when dealing with the unknown, there was no such thing as too cautious.

They followed the drow for an indeterminate amount of time through the dim tunnels, and the only sure evidence Tilde had that they weren’t actually walking in circles was the gradual disappearance of the omnipresent fungus. She’d become so inured to the monotony that the reason for the fungus’s absence didn’t register until Harun called for a stop at the entrance into a small cavern, pointing down to a portion of the tunnel floor made of the strange living rock they’d seen several times on their journey. Marginally softer than the inanimate stone around it, the rock held only the faintest of impressions, but the Blademark could read them easily, even in the gloom.

“Footprints. Booted. A lot of them.”

He and Tilde looked up at Xujil expectantly.

The drow came back to where they stood and glanced down at the stretch of stone, which to Tilde looked no different than any of the surrounding rock.

“Sentries,” he confirmed. “We are below the City of Shadows. What you seek lies ahead.” He blinked at them, owlish. “Vigilance is recommended.”

“Oh, truly?” Harun scoffed. “A Deneith is ever-vigilant, elf-and ever-vengeful.”

The old saying made Tilde think of her brother again, and she reflexively reached for the medallion at her neck. Made of thin gold, the chimera-inscribed disk had been Ned’s gift to her when he entered the Blademarks, leaving her alone in the big old house that had belonged to their parents. She was already deep in her own studies by then, and would leave for the Tower of the Twelve soon after, but he knew how the loneliness would weigh on her in the meantime. He’d given her the necklace as a reminder, and a promise. If she ever needed him to come home, all she had to do was snap the thin gold in two and send half of it to him. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, the moment he saw that half-moon shape, he would return to her.