carried like a sack of potatoes, but every stride of the giantess was four of hers. And she had not expected they would never stop, or pause, or rest, or eat, or drink, hour after hour. Irritated, she had never complained, which was unlike her. But the mystery was easy to solve.
Suka felt the weight of Ughoth s death, caused, she imagined, by her own clumsiness on the borders of Synnoria. And she imagined, in this punishing pace, that Marabaldia was working something out, expressing some profound emotion. Suka didn t blame her for wanting to move quickly, leave the surface of Gwynneth Island, and burrow down deep into the Underdark. She would deny the princess nothing for the sake of her own dignity, so grateful she was that Marabaldia hadn t punished her, or even questioned her about what had happened between her and Captain Rurik and the Marchlord Talos-claere in Synnoria. She could only remember how her friend, and Ughoth too, had backed her without question in the council hall, supported her without hesitation when Lord Askepel had demanded that she stand trial, and answer for what she and Rurik actually had done, the mistakes she actually had made. Even now, even after the price she d paid, Marabaldia did not question her. It was as if the past were gone, and Suka were the only one still carrying its burden.
They had not paused, neither to draw breath nor drink some water from one of the subterranean streams. Long used to human beings, now Suka had grown accustomed to the heavy stamp of the cyclopses, though she could not hope to copy its rhythm. Their single eyes glowed like lanterns. She looked back to see Mindarion and Altaira, similarly carried. Behind them, the tunnel was in darkness.
When the venom wore off and Lukas regained consciousness, he guessed the drow had taken him in through the cave mouth where he d first seen the hierophant, in between the shattered statues where Amaka had first tried to lead them. And in this new cave he found himself bound to a stone pier, perched unsteadily atop a mound of architectural refuse; iron spars, chunks of fallen masonry, loose bricks and coping stones, enormous wooden beams. All of this had been arranged around a hollow well, and the entire circular pile was alive with scurrying vermin, rats and lizards, but especially spiders, who wove their webs in the interstices, or else hung suspended from the pinnacles of stone. The mound of debris rose almost twenty feet from the cave floor, and the interior well descended through a crack or a crevice to a depth he could not guess, as it was choked with garbage and old bones, and layers of moon-white web as thick as mats. Entire bricks were caught in them and did not fall. Light came from the gas vents in the burning rocks, and from the bottom of the well a diffuse pale glow. Light came also from a makeshift altar at the top of the pile, an assortment of marble slabs, and urns and reliquaries that looked to have been looted from some other shrine, all surmounted by a cylinder of black, polished stone, which supported a circle of brass candlesticks, and fat, white, flickering tapers shedding beads of melted wax.
Gaspar-shen lay nearby, trussed as he was in silken, sticky ropes. Lady Amaranth was below the altar, tied down by her wrists and ankles. It occurred to Lukas that he had been in this place before, or else this situation, and then he remembered the lush temple where they had all come to Gwynneth Island, the gate whose other side was in the Breasal Marsh. The druid Eleuthra had been with them, and here she was again. As Lukas watched, a detachment of the drow marched from the cave s mouth, carrying the bodies not just of the druid but of their fallen comrades. Unsteadily they climbed the pile of rubble at its lowest point, and then tumbled the corpses down into the well, through a trap in the webs that looked as if it might have been woven for that purpose. Last of all they flung Eleuthra, dressed in her wolf skin, in her human shape.
She had scarcely known them, but she had given her life for theirs in vain, as it turned out, because here they were, prisoners just the same. Why had she done this? It was for the Savage s sake, he guessed. It was for love.
The drow seemed eager to finish and be gone. One or two glanced anxiously into the bottom of the well before they retreated to the cave s mouth. Lukas waited for the genasi to speak.
In the desert realm of Calim, Gaspar-shen began diffidently after clearing his throat the air was thick and humid and full of dust, there is a town called Calimpest. But they have nothing to eat.
Nothing?
Nothing. They have nothing to eat.
Surely they have bread.
No bread. Only pieces of stone, which they suck until they are smooth.
And is there anything to drink?
Nothing. Only fine white sand.
And the inhabitants of Calim are they happy?
No, they are not happy. They are very sad. All night long they howl and complain.
I don t blame them.
No one blames them. It has been this way for many years.
How many years?
More than six years. Fewer than seven.
Lady Amaranth was too far away to hear this nonsense, but someone else was not. Turning his head, Lukas saw the handmaiden of Lolth sitting above him, hands clasped around her knees. It was Amaka, the girl who had betrayed them and led them to this place. Yet she looked disconsolate, soot in her close-cropped white hair, her face streaked with dirt, her white shift streaked and torn.
Does he speak seriously? she asked.
No one knows.
Yet I, she said, would rather live in Calim than in Winterglen among my own kind. Calim is a paradise to me.
During their battle with the drow, Lukas had seen this girl fighting beside Amaranth, hampering the drow soldiers who attacked her. Why was that?
She could not read minds, he knew. Yet she answered him as if she could. I couldn t bear to see her harried so, like that, like a hart inside a circle of dogs. That s what I felt the truth. But what I told that woman, the guardian of the shrine, I told her I was protecting the blood of the leShay. I didn t want to see it spilled prematurely, see it sink into the dust. That is why I brought you to this place, isn t it?
For a moment she seemed unsure. I wouldn t know, Lukas said. He looked up to see the eyes of his friend tied down, helpless, away from him and to the left watching him. In the mix of light, harsh and soft, dirty and clean, the genasi s skin looked as pale and slick and unhealthy as a fish s belly.
It is the blood of the leShay, confirmed the girl. My father lied to you. He wouldn t send her south to Synnoria. He wanted her brought here, because this is the place this is the place
She paused for a moment, then went on, This is the place where he intends to raise my lady out of the Abyss. Then she laid her cheek upon her knees, hugging her shins within the circle of her black arms.
Araushnee, Lukas murmured.
Araushnee, she repeated. They have tried and failed, tried and failed here for months. The guardian has worn through an entire circuit of the lady s rituals, over and over. But it was her idea she could entice her with the rarest blood in Faer n, and Araushnee would answer to the smell of it, as if she were some predatory creature and not a goddess or a queen.
Silly, Lukas murmured, too softly for the girl to hear.
It s so silly, she continued without irony, as if she knew his thoughts but not his mind. Her spider s nature is the curse Corellon laid on her. She yearns to cast it away, reject it and be free. When we speak of our desire to live again on the surface in the forest of Winterglen, simple wood elves like our ancestors, it is so we also can share in a goddess s aspiration, and be more than creatures fighting in a hole. This is why she did not come, not until now. We should be looking for her in the shrine I built for her you saw it and not here in a pit of corpses and carrion, stinking of sulfur and decay. This is an insult.
Tears were in her eyes, Lukas saw, touched in spite of himself. He had heard different stories of Araushnee s fall and the emergence of Lolth from the Demonweb Pits. He wouldn t think about those stories now.
It is so easy to fall back into old habits, said the girl. How beautiful her voice was he had not noticed until now. Creatures in a hole, hiding and fighting. But if we are to walk among the moon and stars, surely we must change. Come back to what we were, long ago, in the simple time. Captain, she said, surprising Lukas, who had thought she was speaking mostly to herself.
Captain, that is why it hurts me so to see you like this, you and her. Among the drow, our men don t treat our women with affection, as you have treated her.
She meant the princess. Is that what it is? murmured Lukas, too low for her to hear. He was watching the
