Jess Lebow - Obsidian Ridge

They were inside what amounted to a large hole in the brick wall. The floor was big enough for four or five men to stand around comfortably without bumping into each other much. The crack they had jumped through was up high in the wall, maybe twice his height from the floor. He could just make out the faintest bit of purple glow, rimming the broken stone above him.

As he looked on, the spider's legs shot through the opening, probing the air and the stone.

"Are we trapped in here?" asked the Claw.

"No. There's a passage," she replied, taking him by the arm. "It's small, and we'll have to crawl, but it'll lead us out of here."

"What about the spider? Holes in walls seem like the last place we want to fight one of those things."

"It won't leave that room. It's bound to the deepspawn that created it."

Jess Lebow

Obsidian Ridge

The Claw looked up at the spider. So far it wasn't making any real attempt to follow them, only waiting at the opening.

"So that thing's called a deepspawn?" he asked.

"No," replied Evelyne, dragging him toward the crawl-space. "It's called Clusterfang."

"A deepspawn with a name." He was shoved toward an opening in the wall, down near the floor. "I can't wait to hear this story." Dropping to his knees, he held his palm out and followed the light into the darkness.

Everything shook. Only slightly, but it shook all the same. The walls hummed with power. The floor swayed like the deck of a ship on a gentle sea. The chandeliers, "decorative reminders of a time long past, swayed gently, constantly.

Resting his bone-thin arm on the chiseled obsidian throne, Arch Magus Xeries twirled the stem of his wine goblet between his fingers. He watched the red liquid inside swirl. Its surface trembled, never smooth, shifting like everything else.

On the dais in front of him, an image fluttered-Erlkazar, the plains of Llorbauth. His pets gathered below, waiting. And they would continue to wait, just as he would.

He had not been patient as a younger man. He had, in fact, hated waiting for anything. In truth, he didn't much like it now. But as an immortal, waiting had become a simple fact of life.

He had grown better at it, through practice. He had had a lot of practice waiting, though he wasn't as rash and reactive as he had been long ago. There was a limit to all of his learned patience.

Xeries was approaching that limit now.

"Do you remember our first ride through the countryside here?" he asked, not taking his eyes off of his wine.

"I've… never been here before," replied a weak, shaky woman's voice.

Xeries turned his attention to his left, where his wife, his queen, sat. Their thrones were carved from the same piece of obsidian, chiseled from the same huge piece of stone as the floor itself. They were attached to each other and to the floor. And when Xeries and his queen sat in their thrones, they could feel the vibrations of the entire citadel, amplified above all other places.

"I know you haven't," he said to his wife, his voice echoing as it always did. "I wasn't speaking to you."

"Oh," she said. She wore a long, black veil that covered her face and shoulders. When seated, its hem collected in her lap.

"This was my home, long ago," he said, looking down on the image at his feet. "Well, a piece of it anyway. As a young man."

"Is that why we are here?" she asked. She wheezed a little as she spoke these words.

"In part," he said. "I need something they have. Something to help me."

His wife's voice grew cold. "Something to maintain your immortality, you mean."

Xeries "stood, his knees popping and creaking as he did. He shuffled down from the dais. His body was bent from age, and he sported the wicked marks and deformations of a man who had dabbled with powers well beyond his control.

"Have you not lived a good life?" he asked. "Have you not been given everything your heart desires?"

"You have shown me places and given me baubles," she replied. "But you have taken more than your fair share in return."

"I have loved you more than I have loved any of my other wives. Does that not please you?"

"That is not true." She spoke these words so forcefully that it caused her to cough. She struggled for air with long, gasping breaths. When her lungs were clear, she continued. "What you call love is merely a memory. The memory of your first wife. I have been little more than a replacement. And not even that. I have been a means to an end for you."

Xeries picked up a glass bottle and filled his goblet fuller. He had servants who would do this for him, but there was something enjoyable about pouring his own wine-something left over from the days when his first wife was alive.

"Then why did you marry me?" he asked, not looking at her.

"You seduced me with your promises of riches and power."

"Did I not deliver?" "Does it matter?"

Xeries thought for a moment. "No. I suppose it doesn't."

He gazed at the highly polished obsidian floor. He did not think of himself as the bent-over wizard who looked back at him from the reflection. His thin, pale skin, wrinkled and baggy, hung from his narrow frame. His cheeks stuck out at odd angles, and disfigured lumps protruded from his chin, forehead and ears-the leftover remnants of the day things all went wrong.

There were bits and pieces of Xeries in this man. But it was not really him.

The man looking back from the floor was something Xeries had become. Something he had transformed into, not entirely on accident. His mind wandered back to that day, so many hundreds of years ago…

Xeries could see her face as clear as if she had been with him yesterday. She was so beautiful. Golden brown hair, almost blond but more like the color of spun honey. Intelligent and kind, wise and patient, she was everything he had ever hoped for.

They married young. He, the fourth son in line for the throne of Tethyr. She, the eldest daughter of a rich and powerful baron. They made magic together, both literally and figuratively.

It was here, the kingdom now known as Erlkazar, where they had first concocted their plans. Back then, it was called Elestam, and it was little more than annexed wilderness on the outskirts of Tethyr. Xeries's father, King Strohm II, had only just made this overgrown patch of land an official part of the kingdom within the last year.

Xeries and his wife had been married since before the annexation. They had ventured out for a long ride, exploring the newest piece of what could one day be part of their lands.

"Do you wish you were in line to become king?" his wife had asked him.

"I am in line to be king," he had replied.

They rode side by side, their horses picking their way through the pass at the top of the Cloven Mountains. An entire unit of King Strohm's army accompanied them.

"Yes," she said, "but you're the fourth son. Your oldest brother will become king, and his son will inherit the throne."

Xeries nodded. "That is how it usually works, yes. But that doesn't mean I'm not in line for the throne. If for some reason my three4rothers and father are no longer fit to rule, then I shall become king."

"And I would be your queen," said his wife, a wide smile on her face.

He smiled back. "Yes, Shylby, you would be my queen."

Shylby cocked her head. They had only been married a few years, not a long time by most people's standards, but he knew well what that look meant. "You have an idea," he said.

She nodded, her smile turning a little more devious. "If we were to live longer than anyone else in the family, we would be the rightful heirs to the throne."

Xeries spun around, looking to see if any of the soldiers could hear them talking.

"Shh!" he said. "Someone may hear you. These soldiers all work for my father."