'Forget about that scrap of mortal flesh. I left him bleeding on your castle floor. When you return home, he'll be waiting. Rather, let's speak of Japheth. Where is he?'
The lord of shadow-mantled Darroch Castle smiled. He fastened the full intensity of his gaze upon the eladrin.
An envelope of shrieking bats flowed from him to her, instantly surrounding the woman. She was buffeted by dozens of leathery wings.
He said, 'If you've broken your alliance with Behroun, why do you still care about the warlock's whereabouts?
Why so interested, Malyanna?'
The woman raised a hand. The flapping creatures surrounding her frosted over and scattered away on their last trajectories, clearing the air around her. 'Don't do that again, or you may anger me.'
The Lord of Bats snorted. 'Perhaps I'd like to see you angry. It would bring color to your ice white cheeks.'
The shadow hound growled, baring teeth the size of Neifion's fingers.
He glanced at the canine. His eyes became pools of night.
The mastiffs growl choked off, becoming a whimper. Like a beaten cur, the dark beast sank to its belly and crawled toward the man. Its demeanor was that of a dog hoping for forgiveness but fearing a cuff.
'Do not,' thundered Malyanna, 'play with the loyalties of my servitors.'
She snapped her fingers. An unseen force struck Neifion. He spun under the blow, but he did not lose his feet.
Instead, his cape flared outward, transforming into great wings. His limbs lengthened, and his pale skin sprouted ratty fur. The Lord of Bats called back to himself his greater shape of old. Energy raced through his expanded stature. He was a hybrid creature whose leathery wings stretched from one end of the balcony to the other. He shrieked, baring teeth far larger than the hound's.
He swept one enormous wing down. Its leading edge struck Malyanna's midsection, and she spun off the balcony, windmilling into the open space beyond the curb. She fell out of sight a moment later without making a single sound of pain or protest.
'Too easy' he rumbled. His massive head scanned the balcony. He huffed, then took a step back toward the tunnel entrance. He regarded the hound as it retreated, its eyes wary.
The mastiff shook its head violently, as if trying to clear its ears of water. The Lord of Bats nodded and said, 'Still ensorcelled-it is only a stupid brute ' He stepped past the canine.
Neifion reached the balcony exit. The trek bell partially blocked the tunnel, making the opening awkward to pass through at his current stature. Well, perhaps he could squeeze-
A cold wind blew on his neck. He turned in time to see an explosion of ice crystals spit an enraged Malyanna onto the balcony.
She reached up to his much larger shape before he was ready and placed her palm on his sternum. Where she touched, winter sprouted.
The Lord of Bats screamed. The pain shocked through him, making him clumsy. His unfurled wings snapped him forward and up, away from the exit and over the eladrin's head. He twisted in midair so that when he lighted on the balcony's edge, he faced her. Icicles draped him, and a rime of frost coated his fur.
He pushed through the frigid torpor and called on the essence of the Fey wild, whose power reached into the world even there on the doorstep of Xxiphu.
Malyanna began to countercast, but before her slashing gestures concluded, thick vines burst from the floor and seized her. The vines were studded with long thorns that wept poison. She shrieked-not in pain, but rather in fullthroated rage.
'You'll regret crossing a priestess of the Sovereignty!' Her voice was the harsh roar of the blizzard. Even as the vines struggled to twine her tighter and puncture her white flesh, she crooned a new series of syllables, more a song than a spell. The eladrin's melody was not a call to winter. It was an obscene mantra whose words were each corruptions of sentient language. The lilting music fell from Malyanna's mouth and stained reality with its mad juxtaposition of pitch, tone, and melody.
Neifion fluttered his massive wings. For all his power, the strange energy rippling from the eladrin ruffled him.
It was utterly alien to his experience. He wondered if she really was an eladrin noble at all, or something that wore the fey flesh as a guise.
Malyanna's song was answered. From the dark entrance that framed her came a flicker of purplish light. A sliding, muddy rush of noise murmured from the opening. The sound suggested to Neifion a stampede of worms, if those worms were the size of bulls.
Neifion took in the iron flinders of the trek bell. He darted a glance down the troubling sides of the edifice on which he perched, then up, looking for other exits. He couldn't immediately detect any. Finally, he looked past the vinewrapped eladrin. Unwholesome shadows swarmed in the tunnel behind her.
Neifion decided to chance another tactic.
He allowed his greater form to lapse. His leathery wings folded away and his bulk deflated. He melted into the suited, caped, pale-skinned version of himself that most creatures found more amenable to conversation.
He raised his hands and said, 'I believe we started off on the wrong foot, Malyanna. What did you say you wished to learn from me? Japheth's whereabouts? Perhaps we can come to an accord. I don't really wish to fight.'
Though his words were calm and measured, the Lord of Bats ground his teeth between each sentence.
He waved a hand, the vines holding Malyanna withered. and became dust.
The woman ceased her sick tune. When the last note died away, the garish light from the corridor failed too, and with it the disquieting shadows the light had thrown. She shook out her garments. Residual dust from the Lord of Bats's clinging vines scattered.
'I would prefer feeding you to those who inhabit this relic of a failed promise,' Malyanna said. 'But I find myself pressed for time, after all these long centuries. So I ask you once again, where is Japheth?'
The Lord of Bats replied, 'Let us throw in together, you and I, Malyanna. What say you? I can lead you to the traitor warlock easily enough. All I ask in return-'
'All you'll get in return,' interrupted the woman, 'is your life.'
Neifion's brow darkened. Did she seek to provoke him? 'You are a formidable creature. I admit you surprised me just now. You have more resources than any eladrin, noble or otherwise, should have claim to. But do not make the mistake of underestimating my power. I doubt you know. its full extent. You might find yourself slain in turn, were I to loose it. Do not forget I am a lord of the Feywild itself. I number among the archfey.'
The woman snorted, but then scowled as she considered the man's words.
Neifion waited.
'You seek one last alliance, Neifion?' she finally said. 'Fine. Let us work together until we find the damned human. I presume he is somewhere in Xxiphu. I could locate him, given time. But if you can lead me directly to him, I am ready to follow. You can kill him, and I… I will take back something he once promised to deliver to me.'
The Lord of Bats grinned widely, as if all their former strife were forgotten. He said, 'The Dreamheart? Of all the lies you told me, that one thing remains true?'
She shrugged.
'Accompany me, then. I sense the pact breaker is this way.' He pointed past the shattered bell into the corridor beyond. The sounds and the strange light the tunnel had emitted were now absent.
He continued, 'You obviously have a way with the natives. Together, we can corral Japheth relatively quickly.
Without my powers to give him teeth, he is like a babe out of his crib.'
Malyanna said, 'I can command some of the lesser creatures that reside here. The greater ones may, against all reason, begrudge my presence. We may have to fight our way forward, if so.'
The Lord of Bats grinned. 'I look forward to slaking my thirst before the main course.'
'Be careful of what you eat here. It may give you indigestion.'
The two passed together into the narrower corridor. Neifion glanced with barely concealed disgust at the layer of slime that coated the rounded tunnel. He noted the deep breaths the eladrin took of the briny odor suffusing
