Richard Baker - Prince of Ravens

Jaeren’s good humor vanished. He spared one more glance for Jack, and gestured to the two warriors with him. “Take him alive,” he said. “I must deal with this.” Then he leaped into the air, hurling bolts of black ice at the mercenaries accompanying Jelan.

The two warriors facing Jack struck as one; the rogue barely parried the first blade, and twisted awkwardly away from the other. The dark elves tried again, and this time Jack took a shallow cut along his ribs. The drow grinned and circled him, flashing finger signs at each other, and then they attacked again. The first warrior pressed Jack closely, and their blades flashed and rang in the middle of the chaotic ballroom. But the second warrior stepped back, drawing his hand-crossbow and loading it with a poisoned quarrel. He took deliberate aim at Jack while Jack was fully engaged by his comrade … but before he could shoot, Arlith slipped up behind him and stabbed him with her dagger. The drow cried out and twisted, firing his quarrel randomly into the fray before sinking to the ground. The warrior dueling Jack glanced back at his comrade for just an instant, but it was long enough for Jack to circle his rapier under his foe’s blade and skewer him. “What a scene,” the halfling said to Jack. “Things aren’t often boring around you, are they?”

“Not often,” Jack agreed. He started after Balathorp again, only to realize that the slaver was no longer where he thought. Jelan’s mercenaries had turned the tide of the fighting by the entrance, and the assembled nobles with their armsmen had blunted the drow assault. Battle spells thundered and crashed across the manor as Jaeren and other drow spellcasters traded blasts of ice and seething acid with Halamar and other wizards among the assembled lords. The dark elves were giving ground everywhere Jack looked. He finally caught sight of the slaver again, this time standing among the drow who were retreating toward a large alcove where a stage had been set up for the evening’s entertainment.

Jaeren abandoned his duel with Halamar and abruptly flew back to the stage where the dark elves gathered. The sorcerer reached into his robes and pulled out a rod or scepter of silver, shouting the words to a spell. A swirling, dark portal formed in the wall … and the drow once again used their darkness spells, blotting half the ballroom in magical darkness. The clash of arms ebbed, although many of Balathorp’s brown-hooded ruffians were still on their feet. This time Jack watched Halamar and Jelan’s elven wizard Kilarnan hurriedly cast counter spells to remove the inky barrier, wiping away the unnatural blackness shadowing the area by the stage.

The drow were gone … and so, too, were Balathorp and Seila.

“No,” Jack groaned. He surged toward the black, rotating disk of magic that hovered before the far wall, along with half the remaining nobles and armsmen in the room. Marden Norwood stood close by him, his face ashen, his guards in a tight knot around him. But Jack merely stared at the portal. Seila was in the hands of the drow again, and the gods alone knew what sort of tortures they would invent to punish her for her previous escape.

Myrkyssa Jelan strolled up beside Jack, cleaning the blood from her katana. “A useful trick,” she said, glancing at the portal. Then she looked back to Jack. “I came as you asked. Do you have what you promised me?”

Jack reached into his inner pocket and withdrew the pages he’d cut out of the Sarkonagael. Jelan smiled and extended her hand-but Jack folded the pages from top to bottom, and deliberately tore them in half. He handed the top halves to Jelan, who stared at him in amazement and growing anger. “This is the one spell in that book that you were concerned about,” he told her. “You didn’t trust Norwood with this spell, but I remember what you did with it when it was in your hands. Keep this half, and you will be assured that no one will create a shadow simulacrum without your consent.”

“That is not what you promised me in your message,” Jelan said, her eyes flashing.

“Read my note again, my dear Elana. I promised you that Norwood would not have it, and I lived up to my word. I have learned better than to make you a promise I do not intend to keep.”

Their conversation attracted Marden Norwood’s attention. The lord looked at Jack and Jelan, and his eyes narrowed as he saw the dark parchment with its silver lettering in Jack’s hands. “What do you have there?” he demanded.

“The spell of umbral simulacra from the Sarkonagael,” Jack replied. “I doubt that you will forgive me for this, but I do not trust anyone with the entire spell. However, if you wish to assure yourself that no one will employ this magic against you, you need only keep this somewhere safe.” He handed the remaining fragments to the old lord.

“You are the one who recovered the Sarkonagael?” Norwood asked in amazement. “You had the gall to extort two thousand more crowns from me, and then you give me an incomplete book?”

“Did you want the book to make use of its powers or to make sure no one else did?” Jack asked. “I would like to think it was for the better reason, but if not, then yes, I cheated you. If we meet again, I will make good on any restitution you require of me.”

“If we-” Marden Norwood glowered at Jack. “Where do you think you are going?”

“Chumavhraele, of course. Seila is there, and she needs my help.”

Jelan glanced at the portal in surprise. “Jack, don’t! If the dark elves left it open, it is almost certainly a trap.”

“I agree,” he replied, “which is why I would not recommend following. Elana, you may distrust Norwood here, but he has fought the dark elves and their friends on the Council for years. Lord Norwood, Elana here knows other ways to Chumavhraele, and she is no friend of the dark elves. Persuade her to guide you, and bring all the soldiers you can-I am counting on you to storm Dresimil’s castle. The two of you together can defeat the drow.”

Both Jelan and Norwood began to protest, but Jack ignored them. He took two quick steps and hurled himself headlong into the magic darkness.

The drow were waiting on the other side.

Jack awoke in darkness. His head was pounding as if he’d downed ten flagons of cheap wine, and he felt shaky and weak. With a small groan, he opened his eyes to a dishearteningly familiar gloom. He was in the Underdark again; the dim echoes of faerie-fire that illuminated his surroundings did nothing to dispel the cool dampness in the air or the absolute blackness brooding in the shadows. For a long moment he wondered how he had come to be in the cavern-world again, until the throbbing in his hip, chest, and shoulder reminded him that he’d been shot by small, poisoned crossbow bolts. He remembered stepping through the portal into an open place below the walls of the castle, the sudden snap of crossbows and the whirring flight of their bolts …

“Damn the drow, and all their mischief,” he groaned, sitting up and holding his head in his hands. At least they’d taken the trouble to dress the small bolt punctures. He seemed to be in a tiny, windowless cell, with nothing more than a simple pallet and a chamber pot for his convenience; one wall of the cell was made of iron bars, through which he could see cells like his own, along with a dark, smooth vault of stone blocks. There was a guardroom down the hallway to his right, from which faint purple-tinted wizard light glowed. “My accommodations have improved,” he muttered. “It seems this time I will be staying in the tower instead of the pastures.”

He heard a faint rustle from the cell to his left, and a soft voice called out. “Who’s there?”

“Seila?” Jack jumped to his feet-too swiftly, because his head reeled and his knees felt weak-and staggered to the front of his cell, trying to look down the row of cells.