Mel Odom - The Lost Library of Cormanthyr

The complete lack of light in the caverns didn't bother her either. The lights back at Golsway's home had hurt her eyes. Drow vision was capable of seeing the heat of a living body, or even the subtle changes in temperature from rock to wall to rodent. She navigated the path through the broken rock with ease. Mice and rats scurried before her, finally packing together enough that they dared try to rush her and bring her down.

She read their predatory thoughts easily, then twisted the silver band on her left ring finger and said the activation phrase. The spell filled her and she directed it at the gathering of rats.

The wall of telekinetic force slammed into the vermin, knocking their bodies back against the cavern wall. The ones that weren't killed outright died when they struck the wall in a series of meaty smacks. Twisted, broken corpses littered the rocks and uneven terrain.

Krystarn smiled to herself. Every death viewed, even the small ones, were worth watching. She would remember Fannt Golsway's passing for a long time with joy. Her only regret was that there had been no time to savor it before being yanked out of the house, no time for the torture that could have been the prelude.

All around her were the dead of Myth Drannor. Some of them had been buried by the cataclysmic forces that had brought the City of Songs down so many years ago. Others had been hauled underground by the remnants of the Army of Darkness that had overwhelmed Myth Drannor. Gnolls and hook horrors and other flesh-eaters had joined up in the forces that had ripped the city to shreds.

Not many knew of the wide-spread system of pocket caverns that existed under the grounds where Myth Drannor and other cities had been. The ones that did know of the subterranean areas were not aware of the connecting tunnels that were often times disguised by corrupted and diseased bits of the mythal that had been laid to protect the city. The left-over magic forces these days were fickle things, choosing when and how to work, and often on whom.

She continued walking for a time, content in the darkness and the old death in a way that she hadn't been settled in the Under-dark. She preferred the solitude, even though it lessened the number of potential victims. Each victim she did choose, however, she was able to devote all of her energies to, Lloth willing.

A cacophony of cluttering and squeaking and sometimes challenging growls kept her company as she passed through narrow valleys that had been riven in the land, and through the remnants of dungeons and houses that had fallen in the battle. The only things she feared in the subterranean world beneath the corpse of Myth Drannor were the Phaerimm, the Sharn, and the baatezu. Only those stood a true chance against the magic forces she controlled. And those she knew how to avoid.

She walked into a large cavern that she identified immediately.

Turning, she reached into the bag of holding at her waist and took out a pair of climbing claws that would cling to the rock better than her hands would. She put another set on, strapping them on over her boots.

Lean and limber, she scaled the side of the cavern with ease. Her piwafwi caused her to blend in with the shadows even as she moved. From a distance, she knew she would only be detected as an occasional ripple of movement, if at all.

At the top of the wall she put her climbing gear away and located the trail she'd been looking for. The path was scarcely two feet wide. She had to turn sideways to ease through the rift splitting solid rock. Sixty feet further on, the rift widened into another cavern.

She knew Shallowsoul couldn't have been hoping to get her lost. In the four years she'd been down in the caverns with Shallowsoul, she'd explored much of the surrounding territory. She knew her way around the areas here. So she wondered what Shallowsoul's intentions might have been. Second-guessing someone skilled in treachery was second nature to the drow, but Shallowsoul's psychology added in the mercurial element of madness and paranoia. It was frustrating that one who had so much of what she wanted also came so powerful.

Voices below her caught Krystarn's attention.

She froze in the opening and listened. They were still too far away for her to hear properly. Taking up her hand crossbow in her free hand, she crept to the ridge in front of her. The tip of the quarrel in the pistol was coated with poison, guaranteeing no human-sized survivors.

From the coloring of the ruby glow in front of her, the drow knew that someone had a fire going below. She peered over the edge.

A group of hobgoblins sat around a cookfire. Krystarn did a quick accounting, finding there were more than forty of them in all. Nearly half of those were male warriors. The rest were divided almost equally between females and children. She shifted, getting ready to creep even closer till she could hear them.

"You're still doing his bidding, aren't you?" a voice said at her side.

Krystarn leaped to her feet, the morning star and the hand crossbow at the ready. Her eyes narrowed when she spotted the figure in front of her. "Shouldn't you be off rattling chains and haunting your crypt like a good little ghost?" she asked sarcastically.

The being drew himself up to his full height. Obviously of elven blood, he wore raiment fit for a king. He looked far too pale to be healthy, even for a Moon Elf. "You know very well I am no ghost," he declared haughtily. "I am a baelnorn, sworn and loyal protector of my family's wealth and power."

"An annoyance by any other name."

The baelnorn pursed his lips, the pride suffusing him coloring even his undead face. "You know that I have no respect for you, drow. Your kind were never welcome in fair Myth Drannor, even when the city opened its arms to the humans and dwarves."

"Then allow me to pass in peace, ghost I know that you won't offer me any harm as long as I don't try to unlock your family's crypts or the secrets they left hidden behind when they fled before the Army of Darkness. And I have no intention of trying. I have found the treasure I seek."

"Yes," the baelnorn agreed, "and you scurry around Folgrim Shallowsoul's feet like a sniveling lapdog. And you call yourself a warrior of the drow race. Hah!"

Anger threaded through Krystarn. If not for her training to prefer treachery and duplicity over face-to-face confrontation, she would have struck the baelnorn with her morning star. "You talk brave words, ghost. Is this your true form, or do you taunt me from a projection of yourself?"

"I should tell you?" The baelnorn grinned and shook his head. "Better that I should wear at you like the conscience that you do not possess."

"Do not wear too heavily, ghost. If you try my patience too hard, it may be that I find it necessary to track you down to your lair and destroy you." Krystarn gave the baelnorn a harsh look. "Or maybe you've lived so long down here that you no longer remember that it is possible to die a true death?"

"I would never fear a drow." The baelnorn curled his lip at the thought.

"That is your choice, foul creature," Krystarn said. "But in the year and a half that I have known of you, I find it interesting that you have never given me your name. Perhaps this is because I will find out who you are, and where you hide."

"Finding me would only bring you your death, heartless wench."

"I would find death, true, but that would only send me on my way to the Spider Queen. If you were to die, where would you go? You've already turned down the elven afterlife as your people see it."

The baelnorn remained silent.

"And what of the precious treasures of the house you yet guard?" Krystarn taunted. "I have seen you fret and worry because of the wights and skeletons that roam these tunnels who might discover your secrets. Can you imagine the hands of a drow going through those treasures?"