bidding, for there was no other reason for it to leave its demon-haunted domain.
She was frightened, for a bebilith, taller than the surrounding trees, is a terrifying thing to behold, but she got to her feet and stood between the spider and Malargoten, spear in hand, ready to defend the infant to the death.
And it will be to your death, a voice inside her head seemed to say.
“There are worse things than death,” she replied with more conviction than she felt, and she planted her feet, ready to meet the bebilith’s charge.
But it didn’t charge. It seemed to know that she held a formidable weapon in her hand… and it was not there for her, but for the infant.
It began slowly circling to her left. She pivoted, always facing it. It moved to the right. She responded.
It charged directly at her, hissing and shrieking, only to stop just beyond the reach of her spear point. She glanced down to make sure Malargoten hadn’t crawled in any direction, and kept her spear at the ready.
The bebilith feinted twice more with pincerlike appendages, and she knew it was studying her, analyzing her responses with more brainpower than any spider should possess. She, too, feinted an attack, then realized she’d made a mistake, for she’d shown the bebilith she was unwilling to move even a few feet away from the infant.
The bebilith approached once more, stopped when it was perhaps seven feet distant, took a quick step to the left, and when she turned to keep her weapon pointed at it, it spat out a jet of sizzling fluid, part fire, part web, that just missed hitting Malargoten.
“What was that?” muttered Charybole.
You have heard of the ties that bind? said the voice in her head, a voice she knew belonged to Zat, though it sounded nothing like her. This is the glue that binds. Once it touches the githyanki, once it binds its hands together, binds it to the rock-hard surface of the ground, nothing will ever unbind it-and it will burn.
Charybole knew she couldn’t wait any longer, couldn’t chance that noxious fluid touching the baby, and with a scream she raced toward the bebilith, prepared to trade her life for his. She didn’t bother to feint, didn’t attempt to protect herself, didn’t waste a single motion or a single second. The bebilith hissed in fury and turned its full attention to her, its razor-sharp pincers reaching out to her, its obscene mouth dripping with vile-smelling venom.
She awoke as Malargoten lay against her shoulder, sleeping contentedly. She gently moved him a few inches away, sat up gingerly, and tried to remember what had happened.
The bebilith was sprawled on the ground three feet away, her wooden spear protruding from its eye, its hairy limbs curled in death, its massive body covered by the horrible liquid that passed for its blood.
She examined her arms, legs, torso, and found no wounds. She was sore, as if she’d been hurled to the ground in the bebilith’s death throes, but beyond that she seemed very little the worse for wear.
Suddenly she remembered the webbing, and turned to examine Malargoten, but he was free of it.
Of course, she thought with a sense of relief. You couldn’t have crawled over to me if you’d been hit with it.
She stood up, tested her limbs, and picked the infant up in her arms, holding him protectively, and turned her head toward distant Threshold.
“You have done your worst, Zat. My child and I are still alive, and your creature is dead. Let it end here.”
And a silent voice was carried to her on the wind that came from Threshold, a voice that said, It will end when the githyanki ends.
If Charybole was sure of anything, it was that Zat did not make empty threats. She didn’t know when the next attempt to kill Malargoten would take place, but she didn’t waste any time before preparing for it. She created a bow, a quiver, and a large supply of arrows. Some she dipped in poison, some in other solutions to use against creatures that were immune to poison. She crafted a dagger and a battle-axe, and was never without them.
And one day, almost a year from when she had found Malargoten, a man appeared on the horizon-tall, tanned, heavily muscled, with a thick mane of wild black hair.
Humans didn’t walk the Witchlight Fens alone, and she knew he must have been sent by Zat. As he began walking toward her, she nocked an arrow on her bow, waited until he was a hundred yards distant, and loosed it, aiming it to hit the ground a few yards ahead of him.
“That’s far enough,” she said.
“You are Charybole?” he asked.
“I am.”
“I mean you no harm,” he said calmly. “My race and the githzerai share no animosities. We make no war upon one another. Put your weapon away.”
“Tell me why you have come, first,” said Charybole.
“I think you know,” he replied. “I have come for the githyanki.”
“Whatever the reward is,” she said, “it is not enough. Turn away or prepare to die.”
“Before you fire your arrow, may I ask a question?”
“One question only,” said Charybole. “And whatever it is, it will not soothe me into lowering my guard.”
“My question is simple,” said the man. “The githyanki are your enemies. Why do you risk your life defending one of them?”
Charybole leaned over, picked Malargoten up and held him above her head, and answered: “Does this look like an enemy?”
The man stared at the infant for a long breath, and finally shook his shaggy head.
“I have been misinformed,” he said. “I am as formidable an assassin as my race has produced. I have defeated sixty-three men in mortal combat. There is no one that I fear, no nightmare creature that I will not slay if the price is right.” He paused. “But I do not kill children, not even for gold. Go in peace, githzerai.”
And it was as if the heavens were rent asunder. A single voice screamed “NO!” louder than the thunder, and suddenly the man was surrounded by not three, not four, but six enormous, lobsterlike chuuls, denizens of fetid waters and murky cesspools, their huge pincers clicking open and shut as they approached him. He fought bravely, never took a backward step, but they methodically began tearing him to ribbons. When he was blood-soaked, one eye gone, a gaping hole where an ear had been, the chuuls stood back, and Zat’s voice said, “Now will you do my bidding?”
The man glared up at the sky with his one remaining eye and bellowed, “No!”-and the chuuls were on him again, and this time they didn’t relent until there was nothing left of him but a few white bones and a damp spot on the ground.
Charybole stood her ground, an arrow in her bow, five more clutched in the fingers of her left hand, one for each of the creatures that smelled as foul and loathsome as their dwelling place, but one by one the chuuls vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.
She put her arrows in a quiver, slipped her bow over her shoulder, and picked Malargoten up in her arms.
“It is no longer safe here,” she said as if the infant could understand her. “We must move every day, never sleep in the same place twice. I am sorry to force such a life upon you, but it is better than what Zat envisions, which is no life at all.”
And so saying, she began walking farther and farther away from Threshold.
You can walk as far as you want, said the voice inside her head, you can go to the heart of the Elemental Chaos, you can even descend to the demon-infested Abyss. It makes no difference. Wherever you go, I will find you.
“Until he is bigger,” replied Charybole aloud. “Then perhaps we will find you.”
But there was no response.
They remained in hiding for four years. Which is not to say that they found one secure place and remained there. Sooner or later Zat sniffed them out and sent her minions. Once it was a githzerai assassin, once another human assassin. Once it was a trio of half-fey, half-insect banshraes, once it was a bear, the most recent time it was a devil-spawned cambion, human in appearance but not in blood or powers, brandishing his hellsword.
Each time it seemed certain that this was the end for young Malargoten-and for Charybole, if she had the temerity to stand between the predators and their chosen prey, and of course she always did-but somehow, when the battle was done and the dust had cleared, it was the githzerai and the foundling who emerged alive, and their
