Victor Milan - War In Tethys

Zaranda felt her wrist being turned until the dagger pointed at her own body. She was taller than the Sword-Master, but his strength was greater than hers. Inexorably the dagger point was forced toward her flesh.

Sorceress and swordswoman as she was, Zaranda had found little time in life to study unarmed combat. Still, in her travels, she had gleaned a trick or two from the hand-fighting arts of distant Kozakura.

The dagger tip touched her stomach beneath her breastplate's lower edge. Shaveli smiled a ghastly smile and pushed harder.

In grappling the Sword-Master, Zaranda had moved several feet away from the lava. Now she shifted her left-hand grip from the man's wrist to Crackletongue's hilt and cast herself onto her back. Her not-inconsider-able weight drew the Sword-Master along. As he fell onto her, she put a boot in his stomach. Then she pulled with her arms and pushed with her long, strong leg.

Shaveli flew over her head. She twisted Crackle-tongue from his grasp as he passed. With a despairing wail, he pitched headfirst into the lava.

Zaranda rolled over and sat up. "At last," she said, "you've found yourself a willing embrace."

Something moaned past her ear and went into the lava three feet in front of her. She gasped as molten-stone droplets seared her cheek. The bowmen on the steps above were drawing bead on her.

One screamed and pitched forward off the stair. He landed with a whump on the stone beside the lava and lay still. An arrow jutted from his back.

His comrades turned to stare upward. Zaranda's gaze followed. "Stillhawk!"

The ranger stood at the top of the stair, legs braced, a short bow in hand. He plucked an arrow from his breast, nocked, drew in one smooth motion, and shot a second guardsman through the forehead.

The blue-and-bronzes cried out in consternation. Some shot back, others forsook bows for blades and ran up the stairs. None had any attention to spare for Zaranda and Chen; shooting with almost elven speed and accuracy, Stillhawk could drop them all unless they found a way to deal with him.

The women ran toward the doorway, piled through it, and came up short.

It was a great round bubble of a cave, ill lit by a smat-tering of torches in sconces hammered into the rough walls. By the far wall rose a glittering mound of treasure: gems, jewels, golden idols with gemstone eyes, a seeming infinitude of coins—silver, platinum, gold. Lying in the midst of the wealth, as in a nest, was a mass of glistening gray flesh almost thirty feet around.

From the mass protruded things— beings. Duergar, drow, orcs, humans—they seemed to grow from the sub-stance of the thing. Some showed as no more than bumps on the surface; others were all but fully formed. Three tentacles, each as thick around as Shield's torso, reared from the obscene bulk, bearing great-toothed jaws. Three eyes mounted on impossibly delicate stalks weaved above the mass.

"What is it?" Chenowyn asked.

"A deepspawn," Zaranda said. "I should have sus-pected."

Near the mound crouched Tatrina, her eyes red from weeping. Her cheeks bled where her nails had gouged them. She appeared quite bereft of reason.

"Where's Faneuil?" Zaranda asked.

Something erupted from the horror's flank. Zaranda jumped back, raising her weapons defensively—for all the good they'd do against a creature that huge.

Slime sloughed away from the writhing thing. It was the upper half of Faneuil I, king of Tethyr. The head still bore its modest crown.

The man spat filth and craned to look at the newcomers. "Zaranda!" he croaked. "Help me!"

He stiffened. Tension seemed to flow from him. A blissful smile crossed his face.

"Welcome," he said—and his voice was the Voice from Zaranda's dreams, dry as desert wind stirring sand. "I've waited a long time for you, Zaranda Star."

"What in hell are you?" Zaranda asked.

"Not in hell, but in your world. I am lord-to-be of Faerun. I am L'yafv-Afvonn."

Chen wrung her hands convulsively before her breast. "What is that thing? What's going on?"

"It's a monster called a deepspawn," Zaranda said. "It loves to feed on intelligent prey. And anything it eats, it can duplicate from its own flesh. A perfect copy of the original in every way—except that it exists only to serve its creator's will."

She shook her head. "I should have seen it before. Here's where the darklings came from. And the All-Friends—those poor children were all replaced by spawn. Except Tatrina."

"She won't remain the exception long," the false Hardisty said. "She'll be very helpful in persuading her self-righteous old fool of a father to accept your author-ity when you return to the surface. Except, of course, it won't be you at all, but another of my children." The head laughed uproariously.

"What about the king?" Zaranda asked.

"Useless fool. I shan't even bother to duplicate him."

Head and body went rigid again. Then Hardisty said in his own voice, "Kill. . . me."

Zaranda stepped forward. Crackletongue flared and sparked and it lashed out. The king's head sprang from his shoulders and bounced to a stop at her feet.

The mouths hissed. Fool! the Voice exploded in her mind.

Two sucker-studded tentacles—as big around as the ones that bore the mouths, but vastly longer—shot from the pile in a spray of treasure to seize Chen and Zaranda. Zaranda felt another magical compulsion try to claim her, but bent all her will to fighting it and felt it pass.

Resist as you will, the Voice said in her mind. It only adds spice.

A third tentacle erupted forth. As Zaranda tried to hack at the tentacle that held her, the tip of the other grabbed her wrist and bent it cruelly back. Her fingers went numb; the sword slipped free.

Now I will exact the price of your meddling, the Voice said. Rejoice that I must assimilate your flesh to replicate you, else your suffering would be protracted indeed.

From outside the door came a drumming as of giant wings. Then screams, none in Stillhawk's voice.

A guardsman appeared in the doorway. He took three steps forward on wavering legs. In the torchlight, Zaranda saw that his eyes stared between bloody paral-lel slashes that ran down the front of him from crown to crotch. He fell upon his face.

A woman walked in. Black hair cascaded past slen-der shoulders and down the back of a midnight-blue gown. Her austerely beautiful face bore no expression.

Nyadnar, the Voice hissed. You have picked a curious mode of suicide. The free tentacle quested for her.

She raised a hand. "Don't even try. Look into my eyes, L'yafv-Afvonn, gaze upon my true soul. You can never hope to best me."

Never is a long time, mage.

"We'll see."

"Who is this?" asked Chenowyn, squirming fruit-lessly to free herself of the tentacle wrapped about her slim waist. "Are we saved?"

"No," Zaranda said in a leaden voice. "This is Nyad-nar. She'll do exactly nothing."

"It is not my way to act directly on the world," the sorceress said. She gestured at the dead guardsman at her feet. "Unless, of course, I'm compelled to defend my-self." She walked to the wall opposite where Tatrina crouched, and stood as if carved.

Now, said the Voice, where were we? A mouth-arm darted forward and seized Zaranda's feet in its jaws.

"No!" Chenowyn screamed as the horror began to feed her friend into its maw. Zaranda thrashed violently, but was swallowed up, inch by inch.

The girl turned a tear-drenched face to Nyadnar. "You've got to help her!" she pleaded. "Please!"

"That is not my way."

"Let me go!" Chen drummed impotent fists on the tentacle that held her. Then to the sorceress: "I've heard her talk about you. You were her friend."

"I have no friends. I can afford none. My responsibil-ities are too great."

"You used her! How can you just let her die?"